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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10924 ***
+
+THE LANDS OF THE SARACEN
+
+or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain.
+
+by
+
+Bayard Taylor.
+
+Twentieth Edition.
+
+
+
+1863
+
+
+
+To Washington Irving,
+
+
+This book--the chronicle of my travels through lands once occupied by the
+Saracens--naturally dedicates itself to you, who, more than any other
+American author, have revived the traditions, restored the history, and
+illustrated the character of that brilliant and heroic people. Your
+cordial encouragement confirmed me in my design of visiting the East, and
+making myself familiar with Oriental life; and though I bring you now but
+imperfect returns, I can at least unite with you in admiration of a field
+so rich in romantic interest, and indulge the hope that I may one day
+pluck from it fruit instead of blossoms. In Spain, I came upon your track,
+and I should hesitate to exhibit my own gleanings where you have
+harvested, were it not for the belief that the rapid sketches I have given
+will but enhance, by the contrast, the charm of your finished picture.
+
+Bayard Taylor.
+
+
+
+
+Preface.
+
+
+
+This volume comprises the second portion of a series of travels, of which
+the "Journey to Central Africa," already published, is the first part. I
+left home, intending to spend a winter in Africa, and to return during the
+following summer; but circumstances afterwards occurred, which prolonged
+my wanderings to nearly two years and a half, and led me to visit many
+remote and unexplored portions of the globe. To describe this journey in a
+single work, would embrace too many incongruous elements, to say nothing
+of its great length, and as it falls naturally into three parts, or
+episodes, of very distinct character, I have judged it best to group my
+experiences under three separate heads, merely indicating the links which
+connect them. This work includes my travels in Palestine, Syria, Asia
+Minor, Sicily and Spain, and will be followed by a third and concluding
+volume, containing my adventures in India, China, the Loo-Choo Islands,
+and Japan. Although many of the letters, contained in this volume,
+describe beaten tracks of travel, I have always given my own individual
+impressions, and may claim for them the merit of entire sincerity. The
+journey from Aleppo to Constantinople, through the heart of Asia Minor,
+illustrates regions rarely traversed by tourists, and will, no doubt, be
+new to most of my readers. My aim, throughout the work, has been to give
+correct pictures of Oriental life and scenery, leaving antiquarian
+research and speculation to abler hands. The scholar, or the man of
+science, may complain with reason that I have neglected valuable
+opportunities for adding something to the stock of human knowledge: but if
+a few of the many thousands, who can only travel by their firesides,
+should find my pages answer the purpose of a series of cosmoramic
+views--should in them behold with a clearer inward eye the hills of
+Palestine, the sun-gilded minarets of Damascus, or the lonely pine-forests
+of Phrygia--should feel, by turns, something of the inspiration and the
+indolence of the Orient--I shall have achieved all I designed, and more
+than I can justly hope.
+
+New York, _October_, 1854.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+Life in a Syrian Quarantine.
+
+  Voyage from Alexandria to Beyrout--Landing at Quarantine--The
+  Guardians--Our Quarters--Our Companions--Famine and Feasting--The
+  Morning--The Holy Man of Timbuctoo--Sunday in Quarantine--Islamism--We
+  are Registered--Love through a Grating--Trumpets--The Mystery
+  Explained--Delights of Quarantine--Oriental _vs._ American
+  Exaggeration--A Discussion of Politics--Our
+  Release--Beyrout--Preparations for the Pilgrimage
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+The Coast of Palestine.
+
+  The Pilgrimage Commences--The Muleteers--The Mules--The Donkey--Journey
+  to Sidon--The Foot of Lebanon--Pictures--The Ruins of Tyre--A Wild
+  Morning--The Tyrian Surges--Climbing the Ladder of Tyre--Panorama of the
+  Bay of Acre--The Plain of Esdraelon--Camp in a Garden--Acre--the Shore
+  of the Bay--Haifa--Mount Carmel and its Monastery--A Deserted Coast--The
+  Ruins of Cæsarea--The Scenery of Palestine--We become Robbers--El
+  Haram--Wrecks--the Harbor and Town of Jaffa.
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+From Jaffa to Jerusalem.
+
+  The Garden of Jaffa--Breakfast at a Fountain--The Plain of Sharon--The
+  Ruined Mosque of Ramleh--A Judean Landscape--The Streets Ramleh--Am I in
+  Palestine?--A Heavenly Morning--The Land of Milk and Honey--Entering
+  the Hill Country--The Pilgrim's Breakfast--The Father of Lies--A Church
+  of the Crusaders--The Agriculture of the Hills--The Valley of
+  Elah--Day-Dreams--The Wilderness--The Approach--We See the Holy City
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+The Dead Sea and the River Jordan.
+
+  Bargaining for a Guard---Departure from Jerusalem--The Hill of
+  Offence--Bethany--The Grotto of Lazarus--The Valley of Fire--Scenery of
+  the Wilderness--The Hills of Engaddi--The shore of the Dead Sea--A
+  Bituminous Bath--Gallop to the Jordan--A watch for Robbers--The
+  Jordan--Baptism--The Plains of Jericho--The Fountain of Elisha--The
+  Mount of Temptation--Return to Jerusalem
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+The City of Christ.
+
+  Modern Jerusalem--The Site of the City--Mount Zion--Mount Moriah--The
+  Temple--The Valley of Jehosaphat--The Olives of Gethsemane--The Mount
+  of Olives--Moslem Tradition--Panorama from the Summit--The Interior of
+  the City--The Population--Missions and Missionaries--Christianity in
+  Jerusalem--Intolerance--The Jews of Jerusalem--The Face of Christ--The
+  Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Holy of Holies--The Sacred
+  Localities--Visions of Christ--The Mosque of Omar--The Holy Man of
+  Timbuctoo--Preparations for Departure.
+
+
+Chapter VI.
+
+The Hill-Country of Palestine.
+
+  Leaving Jerusalem--The Tombs of the Kings--El Bireh--The
+  Hill-Country--First View of Mount Hermon--The Tomb of Joseph--Ebal and
+  Gerizim--The Gardens of Nablous--The Samaritans--The Sacred Book--A
+  Scene in the Synagogue--Mentor and Telemachus--Ride to Samaria--The
+  Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
+  Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
+  Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
+  the Annunciation--The Holy Places.
+
+
+Chapter VII.
+
+The Country of Galilee.
+
+  Departure from Nazareth--A Christian Guide--Ascent of Mount
+  Tabor--Wallachian Hermits--The Panorama of Tabor--Ride to Tiberias--A
+  Bath in Genesareth--The Flowers of Galilee--The Mount of
+  Beatitude--Magdala--Joseph's Well--Meeting with a Turk--The Fountain of
+  the Salt-Works--The Upper Valley of the Jordan--Summer Scenery--The
+  Rivers of Lebanon--Tell el-Kadi--An Arcadian Region--The Fountains of
+  Banias
+
+
+Chapter VIII.
+
+Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.
+
+  The Harmless Guard--Cæsarea Philippi--The Valley of the Druses--The
+  Sides of Mount Hermon--An Alarm--Threading a Defile--Distant view of
+  Djebel Hauaran--Another Alarm--Camp at Katana--We Ride into Damascus
+
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+Pictures of Damascus.
+
+  Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
+  Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
+  Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
+  Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
+  of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra
+
+
+Chapter X.
+
+The Visions of Hasheesh.
+
+
+Chapter XI.
+
+A Dissertation on Bathing and Bodies.
+
+
+Chapter XII.
+
+Baalbec and Lebanon.
+
+  Departure from Damascus--The Fountains of the Pharpar--Pass of the
+  Anti-Lebanon--Adventure with the Druses--The Range of Lebanon--The
+  Demon of Hasheesh departs--Impressions of Baalbec--The Temple of the
+  Sun--Titanic Masonry--The Ruined Mosque--Camp on Lebanon--Rascality of
+  the Guide--The Summit of Lebanon--The Sacred Cedars--The Christians of
+  Lebanon--An Afternoon in Eden--Rugged Travel--We Reach the Coast--Return
+  to Beyrout
+
+
+Chapter XIII.
+
+Pipes and Coffee
+
+
+Chapter XIV.
+
+Journey to Antioch and Aleppo.
+
+  Change of Plans--Routes to Baghdad--Asia Minor--We sail from
+  Beyrout--Yachting on the Syrian Coast--Tartus and Latakiyeh--The Coasts
+  of Syria--The Bay of Suediah--The Mouth of the Orontes--Landing--The
+  Garden of Syria--Ride to Antioch--The Modern City--The Plains of the
+  Orontes--Remains of the Greek Empire--The Ancient Road--The Plain of
+  Keftin--Approach to Aleppo.
+
+
+Chapter XV.
+
+Life in Aleppo.
+
+  Our Entry into Aleppo--We are conducted to a House--Our Unexpected
+  Welcome--The Mystery Explained--Aleppo--Its Name--Its Situation--The
+  Trade of Aleppo--The Christians--The Revolt of 1850--Present Appearance
+  of the City--Visit to Osman Pasha--The Citadel--View from the
+  Battlements--Society in Aleppo--Etiquette and Costume--Jewish Marriage
+  Festivities--A Christian Marriage Procession--Ride around the
+  Town--Nightingales--The Aleppo Button--A Hospital for Cats--Ferhat.
+
+
+Chapter XVI.
+
+Through the Syrian Gates.
+
+  An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
+  Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
+  Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
+  Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
+  Town--A Land of Gardens.
+
+
+Chapter XVII.
+
+Adana and Tarsus.
+
+  The Black Gate--The Plain of Cilicia--A Koord Village--Missis--Cilician
+  Scenery--Arrival at Adana--Three days in Quarantine--We receive
+  Pratique--A Landscape--The Plain of Tarsus--The River Cydnus--A Vision
+  of Cleopatra--Tarsus and its Environs--The _Duniktash_--The Moon of
+  Ramazan.
+
+
+Chapter XVIII.
+
+The Pass of Mount Taurus.
+
+  We enter the Taurus--Turcomans--Forest Scenery--the Palace of Pan--Khan
+  Mezarluk--Morning among the Mountains--The Gorge of the Cydnus--The
+  Crag of the Fortress--The Cilician Grate--Deserted Forts--A Sublime
+  Landscape--The Gorge of the Sihoon--The Second Gate--Camp in the
+  Defile--Sunrise--Journey up the Sihoon--A Change of Scenery--A Pastoral
+  Valley--Kolü Kushla--A Deserted Khan--A Guest in Ramazan--Flowers--The
+  Plain of Karamania--Barren Hills--The Town of Eregli--The Hadji again
+
+
+Chapter XIX.
+
+The Plains of Karamania.
+
+  The Plains of Karamania--Afternoon Heat--A Well--Volcanic
+  Phenomena--Karamania--A Grand Ruined Khan--Moonlight Picture--A
+  Landscape of the Plains--Mirages--A Short Interview--The Village of
+  Ismil--Third Day on the Plains--Approach to Konia
+
+
+Chapter XX.
+
+Scenes in Konia.
+
+  Approach to Konia--Tomb of Hazret Mevlana--Lodgings in a Khan--An
+  American Luxury--A Night-Scene in Ramazan--Prayers in the
+  Mosque--Remains of the Ancient City--View from the Mosque--The
+  Interior--A Leaning Minaret--The Diverting History of the Muleteers
+
+
+Chapter XXI.
+
+The Heart of Asia Minor.
+
+  Scenery of the Hills--Ladik, the Ancient Laodicea--The Plague of
+  Gad-Flies--Camp at Ilgün--A Natural Warm Bath--The Gad-Flies Again--A
+  Summer Landscape--Ak-Sheher--The Base of Sultan Dagh--The Fountain of
+  Midas--A Drowsy Journey--The Town of Bolawadün
+
+
+Chapter XXII.
+
+The Forests of Phrygia.
+
+  The Frontier of Phrygia--Ancient Quarries and Tombs--We Enter the Pine
+  Forests--A Guard-House--Encampments of the Turcomans--Pastoral
+  Scenery--A Summer Village--The Valley of the Tombs--Rock Sepulchres of
+  the Phrygian Kings--The Titan's Camp--The Valley of Kümbeh--A Land of
+  Flowers--Turcoman Hospitality--The Exiled Effendis--The Old Turcoman--A
+  Glimpse of Arcadia--A Landscape--Interested Friendship--The Valley of
+  the Pursek--Arrival at Kiutahya
+
+
+Chapter XXIII.
+
+Kiutahya, and the Ruins of OEzani.
+
+  Entrance into Kiutahya--The New Khan--An Unpleasant
+  Discovery--Kiutahya--The Citadel--Panorama from the Walls--The Gorge of
+  the Mountains--Camp in a Meadow--The Valley of the
+  Rhyndacus--Chavdür--The Ruins of OEzani--The Acropolis and
+  Temple--The Theatre and Stadium--Ride down the Valley--Camp at Daghjköi
+
+
+Chapter XXIV.
+
+The Mysian Olympus.
+
+  Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
+  of Taushanlü--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
+  Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
+  Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
+  of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghiöl--A Showery Ride--The
+  Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
+  Furled
+
+
+Chapter XXV.
+
+Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.
+
+  The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
+  Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
+  Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
+  the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
+  Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Caïque--Breakfast with
+  the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
+  View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn
+
+
+Chapter XXVI.
+
+The Night of Predestination.
+
+  Constantinople in Ramazan--The Origin of the Fast--Nightly
+  Illuminations--The Night of Predestination--The Golden Horn at
+  Night--Illumination of the Shores---The Cannon of Constantinople--A
+  Fiery Panorama--The Sultan's Caïque--Close of the Celebration--A Turkish
+  Mob--The Dancing Dervishes
+
+
+Chapter XXVII.
+
+The Solemnities of Bairam.
+
+  The Appearance of the New Moon--The Festival of Bairam--The Interior of
+  the Seraglio--The Pomp of the Sultan's Court--Reschid Pasha--The
+  Sultan's Dwarf--Arabian Stallions--The Imperial Guard--Appearance of the
+  Sultan--The Inner Court--Return of the Procession--The Sultan on his
+  Throne--The Homage of the Pashas--An Oriental Picture--Kissing the
+  Scarf--The Shekh el-Islàm--The Descendant of the Caliphs--Bairam
+  Commences
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII.
+
+The Mosques of Constantinople.
+
+  Sojourn at Constantinople--Semi-European Character of the City--The
+  Mosque--Procuring a Firman--The Seraglio--The Library--The Ancient
+  Throne-Room--Admittance to St. Sophia--Magnificence of the Interior--The
+  Marvellous Dome--The Mosque of Sultan Achmed--The Sulemanye--Great
+  Conflagrations--Political Meaning of the Fires--Turkish Progress--Decay
+  of the Ottoman Power
+
+
+Chapter XXIX.
+
+Farewell to the Orient--Malta.
+
+  Embarcation--Farewell to the Orient--Leaving Constantinople--A
+  Wreck--The Dardanelles--Homeric Scenery--Smyrna Revisited--The Grecian
+  Isles--Voyage to Malta--Detention--La Valetta--The Maltese--The
+  Climate--A Boat for Sicily
+
+
+Chapter XXX.
+
+The Festival of St. Agatha.
+
+  Departure from Malta--The Speronara--Our Fellow-Passengers--The First
+  Night on Board--Sicily--Scarcity of Provisions--Beating in the Calabrian
+  Channel--The Fourth Morning--The Gulf of Catania--A Sicilian
+  Landscape--The Anchorage--The Suspected List--The Streets of
+  Catania--Biography of St. Agatha--The Illuminations--The Procession of
+  the Veil--The Biscari Palace--The Antiquities of Catania--The Convent of
+  St. Nicola
+
+
+Chapter XXXI.
+
+The Eruption of Mount Etna.
+
+  The Mountain Threatens--The Signs Increase--We Leave Catania--Gardens
+  Among the Lava--Etna Labors--Aci Reale--The Groans of Etna--The
+  Eruption--Gigantic Tree of Smoke--Formation of the New Crater--We Lose
+  Sight of the Mountain--Arrival at Messina--Etna is Obscured--Departure
+
+
+Chapter XXXII.
+
+Gibraltar.
+
+  Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
+  Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
+  Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
+  Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII.
+
+Cadiz and Seville.
+
+  Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
+  Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
+  House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
+  Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar--Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
+  House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
+  Evening in Seville
+
+
+Chapter XXXIV.
+
+Journey in a Spanish Diligence.
+
+  Spanish Diligence Lines--Leaving Seville--An Unlucky Start--Alcalà of
+  the Bakers--Dinner at Carmona--A Dehesa--The Mayoral and his
+  Team--Ecija--Night Journey--Cordova--The Cathedral-Mosque--Moorish
+  Architecture--The Sierra Morena--A Rainy Journey--A Chapter of
+  Accidents--Baylen--The Fascination of Spain--Jaen--The Vega of Granada
+
+
+Chapter XXXV.
+
+Granada and the Alhambra.
+
+  Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish
+  Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs
+  of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The
+  Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la
+  Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the
+  Fishpond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the Architecture--
+  Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The Moorish Dynasty
+  in Spain
+
+
+Chapter XXXVI.
+
+The Bridle-Roads of Andalusia.
+
+  Change of Weather--Napoleon and his Horses--Departure from Granada--My
+  Guide, José Garcia--His Domestic Troubles--The Tragedy of the
+  Umbrella--The Vow against Aguardiente--Crossing the Vega--The Sierra
+  Nevada--The Baths of Alhama--"Woe is Me, Alhama!"--The Valley of the
+  River Vélez--Vélez Malaga--The Coast Road--The Fisherman and his
+  Donkey--Malaga--Summer Scenery--The Story of Don Pedro, without Fear and
+  without Care--The Field of Monda--A Lonely Venta
+
+
+Chapter XXXVII.
+
+The Mountains of Fonda.
+
+  Orange Valleys--Climbing the Mountains--José's Hospitality--El
+  Burgo--The Gate of the Wind--The Cliff and Cascades of Ronda--The
+  Mountain Region--Traces of the Moors--Haunts of Robbers--A Stormy
+  Ride--The Inn at Gaucin--Bad News--A Boyish Auxiliary--Descent from the
+  Mountains--The Ford of the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
+  Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with José--Travelling
+  in Spain--Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+The Lands of the Saracen
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+Life in a Syrian Quarantine.
+
+  Voyage from Alexandria to Beyrout--Landing at Quarantine--The
+  Guardiano--Our Quarters--Our Companions--Famine and Feasting--The
+  Morning--The Holy Man of Timbuctoo--Sunday in Quarantine--Islamism--We
+  are Registered--Love through a Grating--Trumpets--The Mystery
+  Explained--Delights of Quarantine--Oriental _vs_. American
+  Exaggeration--A Discussion of Politics--Our
+  Release--Beyrout--Preparations for the Pilgrimage.
+
+
+  "The mountains look on Quarantine,
+  And Quarantine looks on the sea."
+
+  Quarantine MS.
+
+
+In Quarantine, Beyrout, _Saturday, April_ 17, 1852.
+
+Everybody has heard of Quarantine, but in our favored country there are
+many untravelled persons who do not precisely know what it is, and who no
+doubt wonder why it should be such a bugbear to travellers in the Orient.
+I confess I am still somewhat in the same predicament myself, although I
+have already been twenty-four hours in Quarantine. But, as a peculiarity
+of the place is, that one can do nothing, however good a will he has, I
+propose to set down my experiences each day, hoping that I and my readers
+may obtain some insight into the nature of Quarantine, before the term of
+my probation is over.
+
+I left Alexandria on the afternoon of the 14th inst., in company with Mr.
+Carter Harrison, a fellow-countryman, who had joined me in Cairo, for the
+tour through Palestine. We had a head wind, and rough sea, and I remained
+in a torpid state during most of the voyage. There was rain the second
+night; but, when the clouds cleared away yesterday morning, we were
+gladdened by the sight of Lebanon, whose summits glittered with streaks of
+snow. The lower slopes of the mountains were green with fields and
+forests, and Beyrout, when we ran up to it, seemed buried almost out of
+sight, in the foliage of its mulberry groves. The town is built along the
+northern side of a peninsula, which projects about two miles from the main
+line of the coast, forming a road for vessels. In half an hour after our
+arrival, several large boats came alongside, and we were told to get our
+baggage in order and embark for Quarantine. The time necessary to purify a
+traveller arriving from Egypt from suspicion of the plague, is five days,
+but the days of arrival and departure are counted, so that the durance
+amounts to but three full days. The captain of the Osiris mustered the
+passengers together, and informed them that each one would be obliged to
+pay six piastres for the transportation of himself and his baggage. Two
+heavy lighters are now drawn up to the foot of the gangway, but as soon as
+the first box tumbles into them, the men tumble out. They attach the craft
+by cables to two smaller boats, in which they sit, to tow the infected
+loads. We are all sent down together, Jews, Turks, and Christians--a
+confused pile of men, women, children, and goods. A little boat from the
+city, in which there are representatives from the two hotels, hovers
+around us, and cards are thrown to us. The zealous agents wish to supply
+us immediately with tables, beds, and all other household appliances; but
+we decline their help until we arrive at the mysterious spot. At last we
+float off--two lighters full of infected, though respectable, material,
+towed by oarsmen of most scurvy appearance, but free from every suspicion
+of taint.
+
+The sea is still rough, the sun is hot, and a fat Jewess becomes sea-sick.
+An Italian Jew rails at the boatmen ahead, in the Neapolitan patois, for
+the distance is long, the Quarantine being on the land-side of Beyrout. We
+see the rows of little yellow houses on the cliff, and with great apparent
+risk of being swept upon the breakers, are tugged into a small cove, where
+there is a landing-place. Nobody is there to receive us; the boatmen jump
+into the water and push the lighters against the stone stairs, while we
+unload our own baggage. A tin cup filled with sea-water is placed before
+us, and we each drop six piastres into it--for money, strange as it may
+seem, is infectious. By this time, the _guardianos_ have had notice of our
+arrival, and we go up with them to choose our habitations. There are
+several rows of one-story houses overlooking the sea, each containing two
+empty rooms, to be had for a hundred piastres; but a square two-story
+dwelling stands apart from them, and the whole of it may be had for thrice
+that sum. There are seven Frank prisoners, and we take it for ourselves.
+But the rooms are bare, the kitchen empty, and we learn the important
+fact, that Quarantine is durance vile, without even the bread and water.
+The guardiano says the agents of the hotel are at the gate, and we can
+order from them whatever we want. Certainly; but at their own price, for
+we are wholly at their mercy. However, we go down stairs, and the chief
+officer, who accompanies us, gets into a corner as we pass, and holds a
+stick before him to keep us off. He is now clean, but if his garments
+brush against ours, he is lost. The people we meet in the grounds step
+aside with great respect to let us pass, but if we offer them our hands,
+no one would dare to touch a finger's tip.
+
+Here is the gate: a double screen of wire, with an interval between, so
+that contact is impossible. There is a crowd of individuals outside, all
+anxious to execute commissions. Among them is the agent of the hotel, who
+proposes to fill our bare rooms with furniture, send us a servant and
+cook, and charge us the same as if we lodged with him. The bargain is
+closed at once, and he hurries off to make the arrangements. It is now
+four o'clock, and the bracing air of the headland gives a terrible
+appetite to those of us who, like me, have been sea-sick and fasting for
+forty-eight hours. But there is no food within the Quarantine except a
+patch of green wheat, and a well in the limestone rock. We two Americans
+join company with our room-mate, an Alexandrian of Italian parentage, who
+has come to Beyrout to be married, and make the tour of our territory.
+There is a path along the cliffs overhanging the sea, with glorious views
+of Lebanon, up to his snowy top, the pine-forests at his base, and the
+long cape whereon the city lies at full length, reposing beside the waves.
+The Mahommedans and Jews, in companies of ten (to save expense), are
+lodged in the smaller dwellings, where they have already aroused millions
+of fleas from their state of torpid expectancy. We return, and take a
+survey of our companions in the pavilion: a French woman, with two ugly
+and peevish children (one at the breast), in the next room, and three
+French gentlemen in the other--a merchant, a young man with hair of
+extraordinary length, and a _filateur_, or silk-manufacturer, middle-aged
+and cynical. The first is a gentleman in every sense of the word, the
+latter endurable, but the young Absalom is my aversion, I am subject to
+involuntary likings and dislikings, for which I can give no reason, and
+though the man may be in every way amiable, his presence is very
+distasteful to me.
+
+We take a pipe of consolation, but it only whets our appetites. We give up
+our promenade, for exercise is still worse; and at last the sun goes down,
+and yet no sign of dinner. Our pavilion becomes a Tower of Famine, and the
+Italian recites Dante. Finally a strange face appears at the door. By
+Apicius! it is a servant from the hotel, with iron bedsteads, camp-tables,
+and some large chests, which breathe an odor of the Commissary Department.
+We go stealthily down to the kitchen, and watch the unpacking. Our dinner
+is there, sure enough, but alas! it is not yet cooked. Patience is no
+more; my companion manages to filch a raw onion and a crust of bread,
+which we share, and roll under our tongues as a sweet morsel, and it gives
+us strength for another hour. The Greek dragoman and cook, who are sent
+into Quarantine for our sakes, take compassion on us; the fires are
+kindled in the cold furnaces; savory steams creep up the stairs; the
+preparations increase, and finally climax in the rapturous announcement:
+"Messieurs, dinner is ready." The soup is liquified bliss; the _cotelettes
+d'agneau_ are _cotelettes de bonheur_; and as for that broad dish of
+Syrian larks--Heaven forgive us the regret, that more songs had not been
+silenced for our sake! The meal is all nectar and ambrosia, and now,
+filled and contented, we subside into sleep on comfortable couches. So
+closes the first day of our incarceration.
+
+This morning dawned clear and beautiful. Lebanon, except his snowy crest,
+was wrapped in the early shadows, but the Mediterranean gleamed like a
+shield of sapphire, and Beyrout, sculptured against the background of its
+mulberry groves, was glorified beyond all other cities. The turf around
+our pavilion fairly blazed with the splendor of the yellow daisies and
+crimson poppies that stud it. I was satisfied with what I saw, and felt no
+wish to leave Quarantine to-day. Our Italian friend, however, is more
+impatient. His betrothed came early to see him, and we were edified by the
+great alacrity with which he hastened to the grate, to renew his vows at
+two yards' distance from her. In the meantime, I went down to the Turkish
+houses, to cultivate the acquaintance of a singular character I met on
+board the steamer. He is a negro of six feet four, dressed in a long
+scarlet robe. His name is Mahommed Senoosee, and he is a _fakeer_, or holy
+man, from Timbuctoo. He has been two years absent from home, on a
+pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and is now on his way to Jerusalem and
+Damascus. He has travelled extensively in all parts of Central Africa,
+from Dar-Fur to Ashantee, and professes to be on good terms with the
+Sultans of Houssa and Bornou. He has even been in the great kingdom of
+Waday, which has never been explored by Europeans, and as far south as
+Iola, the capital of Adamowa. Of the correctness of his narrations I have
+not the least doubt, as they correspond geographically with all that we
+know of the interior of Africa. In answer to my question whether a
+European might safely make the same tour, he replied that there would be
+no difficulty, provided he was accompanied by a native, and he offered to
+take me even to Timbuctoo, if I would return with him. He was very curious
+to obtain information about America, and made notes of all that I told
+him, in the quaint character used by the Mughrebbins, or Arabs of the
+West, which has considerable resemblance to the ancient Cufic. He wishes
+to join company with me for the journey to Jerusalem, and perhaps I shall
+accept him.
+
+
+_Sunday, April_ 18.
+
+As Quarantine is a sort of limbo, without the pale of civilized society,
+we have no church service to-day. We have done the best we could, however,
+in sending one of the outside dragomen to purchase a Bible, in which we
+succeeded. He brought us a very handsome copy, printed by the American
+Bible Society in New York. I tried vainly in Cairo and Alexandria to find
+a missionary who would supply my heathenish destitution of the Sacred
+Writings; for I had reached the East through Austria, where they are
+prohibited, and to travel through Palestine without them, would be like
+sailing without pilot or compass. It gives a most impressive reality to
+Solomon's "house of the forest of Lebanon," when you can look up from the
+page to those very forests and those grand mountains, "excellent with the
+cedars." Seeing the holy man of Timbuctoo praying with his face towards
+Mecca, I went down to him, and we conversed for a long time on religious
+matters. He is tolerably well informed, having read the Books of Moses and
+the Psalms of David, but, like all Mahommedans, his ideas of religion
+consist mainly of forms, and its reward is a sensual paradise. The more
+intelligent of the Moslems give a spiritual interpretation to the nature
+of the Heaven promised by the Prophet, and I have heard several openly
+confess their disbelief in the seventy houries and the palaces of pearl
+and emerald. Shekh Mahommed Senoosee scarcely ever utters a sentence in
+which is not the word "Allah," and "La illah il' Allah" is repeated at
+least every five minutes. Those of his class consider that there is a
+peculiar merit in the repetition of the names and attributes of God. They
+utterly reject the doctrine of the Trinity, which they believe implies a
+sort of partnership, or God-firm (to use their own words), and declare
+that all who accept it are hopelessly damned. To deny Mahomet's
+prophetship would excite a violent antagonism, and I content myself with
+making them acknowledge that God is greater than all Prophets or Apostles,
+and that there is but one God for all the human race. I have never yet
+encountered that bitter spirit of bigotry which is so frequently ascribed
+to them; but on the contrary, fully as great a tolerance as they would
+find exhibited towards them by most of the Christian sects.
+
+This morning a paper was sent to us, on which we were requested to write
+our names, ages, professions, and places of nativity. We conjectured that
+we were subjected to the suspicion of political as well as physical taint,
+but happily this was not the case. I registered myself as a _voyageur_,
+the French as _negocians_ and when it came to the woman's turn, Absalom,
+who is a partisan of female progress, wished to give her the same
+profession as her husband--a machinist. But she declared that her only
+profession was that of a "married woman," and she was so inscribed. Her
+peevish boy rejoiced in the title of "_pleuricheur_," or "weeper," and the
+infant as "_titeuse_," or "sucker." While this was going on, the
+guardiano of our room came in very mysteriously, and beckoned to my
+companion, saying that "Mademoiselle was at the gate." But it was the
+Italian who was wanted, and again, from the little window of our pavilion,
+we watched his hurried progress over the lawn. No sooner had she departed,
+than he took his pocket telescope, slowly sweeping the circuit of the bay
+as she drew nearer and nearer Beyrout. He has succeeded in distinguishing,
+among the mass of buildings, the top of the house in which she lives, but
+alas! it is one story too low, and his patient espial has only been
+rewarded by the sight of some cats promenading on the roof.
+
+I have succeeded in obtaining some further particulars in relation to
+Quarantine. On the night of our arrival, as we were about getting into our
+beds, a sudden and horrible gush of brimstone vapor came up stairs, and we
+all fell to coughing like patients in a pulmonary hospital. The odor
+increased till we were obliged to open the windows and sit beside them in
+order to breathe comfortably. This was the preparatory fumigation, in
+order to remove the ranker seeds of plague, after which the milder
+symptoms will of themselves vanish in the pure air of the place. Several
+times a day we are stunned and overwhelmed with the cracked brays of three
+discordant trumpets, as grating and doleful as the last gasps of a dying
+donkey. At first I supposed the object of this was to give a greater
+agitation to the air, and separate and shake down the noxious exhalations
+we emit; but since I was informed that the soldiers outside would shoot us
+in case we attempted to escape, I have concluded that the sound is meant
+to alarm us, and prevent our approaching too near the walls. On inquiring
+of our guardiano whether the wheat growing within the grounds was subject
+to Quarantine, he informed me that it did not ecovey infection, and that
+three old geese, who walked out past the guard with impunity, were free to
+go and come, as they had never been known to have the plague. Yesterday
+evening the medical attendant, a Polish physician, came in to inspect us,
+but he made a very hasty review, looking down on us from the top of a high
+horse.
+
+
+_Monday, April_ 19.
+
+Eureka! the whole thing is explained. Talking to day with the guardiano,
+he happened to mention that he had been three years in Quarantine, keeping
+watch over infected travellers. "What!" said I, "you have been sick three
+years." "Oh no," he replied; "I have never been sick at all." "But are not
+people sick in Quarantine?" "_Stafferillah!_" he exclaimed; "they are
+always in better health than the people outside." "What is Quarantine for,
+then?" I persisted. "What is it for?" he repeated, with a pause of blank
+amazement at my ignorance, "why, to get money from the travellers!"
+Indiscreet guardiano! It were better to suppose ourselves under suspicion
+of the plague, than to have such an explanation of the mystery. Yet, in
+spite of the unpalatable knowledge, I almost regret that this is our last
+day in the establishment. The air is so pure and bracing, the views from
+our windows so magnificent, the colonized branch of the Beyrout Hotel so
+comfortable, that I am content to enjoy this pleasant idleness--the more
+pleasant since, being involuntary, it is no weight on the conscience. I
+look up to the Maronite villages, perched on the slopes of Lebanon, with
+scarce a wish to climb to them, or turning to the sparkling Mediterranean,
+view
+
+  "The speronara's sail of snowy hue
+  Whitening and brightening on that field of blue,"
+
+and have none of that unrest which the sight of a vessel in motion
+suggests.
+
+To-day my friend from Timbuctoo came up to have another talk. He was
+curious to know the object of my travels, and as he would not have
+comprehended the exact truth, I was obliged to convey it to him through
+the medium of fiction. I informed him that I had been dispatched by the
+Sultan of my country to obtain information of the countries of Africa;
+that I wrote in a book accounts of everything I saw, and on my return,
+would present this book to the Sultan, who would reward me with a high
+rank--perhaps even that of Grand Vizier. The Orientals deal largely in
+hyperbole, and scatter numbers and values with the most reckless
+profusion. The Arabic, like the Hebrew, its sister tongue, and other old
+original tongues of Man, is a language of roots, and abounds with the
+boldest metaphors. Now, exaggeration is but the imperfect form of
+metaphor. The expression is always a splendid amplification of the simple
+fact. Like skilful archers, in order to hit the mark, they aim above it.
+When you have once learned his standard of truth, you can readily gauge an
+Arab's expressions, and regulate your own accordingly. But whenever I have
+attempted to strike the key-note myself, I generally found that it was
+below, rather than above, the Oriental pitch.
+
+The Shekh had already informed me that the King of Ashantee, whom he had
+visited, possessed twenty-four houses full of gold, and that the Sultan of
+Houssa had seventy thousand horses always standing saddled before his
+palace, in order that he might take his choice, when he wished to ride
+out. By this he did not mean that the facts were precisely so, but only
+that the King was very rich, and the Sultan had a great many horses. In
+order to give the Shekh an idea of the great wealth and power of the
+American Nation, I was obliged to adopt the same plan. I told him,
+therefore, that our country was two years' journey in extent, that the
+Treasury consisted of four thousand houses filled to the roof with gold,
+and that two hundred thousand soldiers on horseback kept continual guard
+around Sultan Fillmore's palace. He received these tremendous statements
+with the utmost serenity and satisfaction, carefully writing them in his
+book, together with the name of Sultan Fillmore, whose fame has ere this
+reached the remote regions of Timbuctoo. The Shekh, moreover, had the
+desire of visiting England, and wished me to give him a letter to the
+English Sultan. This rather exceeded my powers, but I wrote a simple
+certificate explaining who he was, and whence he came, which I sealed with
+an immense display of wax, and gave him. In return, he wrote his name in
+my book, in the Mughrebbin character, adding the sentence: "There is no
+God but God."
+
+This evening the forbidden subject of politics crept into our quiet
+community, and the result was an explosive contention which drowned even
+the braying of the agonizing trumpets outside. The gentlemanly Frenchman
+is a sensible and consistent republican, the old _filateur_ a violent
+monarchist, while Absalom, as I might have foreseen, is a Red, of the
+schools of Proudhon and Considerant. The first predicted a Republic in
+France, the second a Monarchy in America, and the last was in favor of a
+general and total demolition of all existing systems. Of course, with such
+elements, anything like a serious discussion was impossible; and, as in
+most French debates, it ended in a bewildering confusion of cries and
+gesticulations. In the midst of it, I was struck by the cordiality with
+which the Monarchist and the Socialist united in their denunciations of
+England and the English laws. As they sat side by side, pouring out
+anathemas against "perfide Albion," I could not help exclaiming: "_Voilà,
+comme les extrêmes se rencontrent_!" This turned the whole current of
+their wrath against me, and I was glad to make a hasty retreat.
+
+The physician again visited us to-night, to promise a release to-morrow
+morning. He looked us all in the faces, to be certain that there were no
+signs of pestilence, and politely regretted that he could not offer us his
+hand. The husband of the "married woman" also came, and relieved the other
+gentlemen from the charge of the "weeper." He was a stout, ruddy
+Provençal, in a white blouse, and I commiserated him sincerely for having
+such a disagreeable wife.
+
+To-day, being the last of our imprisonment, we have received many tokens
+of attention from dragomen, who have sent their papers through the grate
+to us, to be returned to-morrow after our liberation. They are not very
+prepossessing specimens of their class, with the exception of Yusef Badra,
+who brings a recommendation from my friend, Ross Browne. Yusef is a
+handsome, dashing fellow, with something of the dandy in his dress and
+air, but he has a fine, clear, sparkling eye, with just enough of the
+devil in it to make him attractive. I think, however, that, the Greek
+dragoman, who has been our companion in Quarantine, will carry the day. He
+is by birth a Boeotian, but now a citizen of Athens, and calls himself
+François Vitalis. He speaks French, German, and Italian, besides Arabic
+and Turkish, and as he has been for twelve or fifteen years vibrating
+between Europe and the East, he must by this time have amassed sufficient
+experience to answer the needs of rough-and-tumble travellers like
+ourselves. He has not asked us for the place, which displays so much
+penetration on his part, that we shall end by offering it to him. Perhaps
+he is content to rest his claims upon the memory of our first Quarantine
+dinner. If so, the odors of the cutlets and larks--even of the raw onion,
+which we remember with tears--shall not plead his cause in vain.
+
+
+Beyrout (out of Quarantine), _Wednesday, May_ 21.
+
+The handsome Greek, Diamanti, one of the proprietors of the "Hotel de
+Belle Vue," was on hand bright and early yesterday morning, to welcome us
+out of Quarantine. The gates were thrown wide, and forth we issued between
+two files of soldiers, rejoicing in our purification. We walked through
+mulberry orchards to the town, and through its steep and crooked streets
+to the hotel, which stands beyond, near the extremity of the Cape, or Ras
+Beyrout. The town is small, but has an active population, and a larger
+commerce than any other port in Syria. The anchorage, however, is an open
+road, and in stormy weather it is impossible for a boat to land. There are
+two picturesque old castles on some rocks near the shore, but they were
+almost destroyed by the English bombardment in 1841. I noticed two or
+three granite columns, now used as the lintels of some of the arched ways
+in the streets, and other fragments of old masonry, the only remains of
+the ancient Berytus.
+
+Our time, since our release, has been occupied by preparations for the
+journey to Jerusalem. We have taken François as dragoman, and our
+_mukkairee_, or muleteers, are engaged to be in readiness to-morrow
+morning. I learn that the Druses are in revolt in Djebel Hauaran and parts
+of the Anti-Lebanon, which will prevent my forming any settled plan for
+the tour through Palestine and Syria. Up to this time, the country has
+been considered quite safe, the only robbery this winter having been that
+of the party of Mr. Degen, of New York, which was plundered near Tiberias.
+Dr. Robinson left here two weeks ago for Jerusalem, in company with Dr.
+Eli Smith, of the American Mission at this place.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+The Coast of Palestine.
+
+
+  The Pilgrimage Commences--The Muleteers--The Mules--The Donkey--Journey
+  to Sidon--The Foot of Lebanon--Pictures--The Ruins of Tyre--A Wild
+  Morning--The Tyrian Surges--Climbing the Ladder of Tyre--Panorama of the
+  Bay of Acre--The Plain of Esdraelon--Camp in a Garden--Acre--the Shore
+  of the Bay--Haifa--Mount Carmel and its Monastery--A Deserted Coast--The
+  Ruins of Cæsarea--The Scenery of Palestine--We become Robbers--El
+  Haram--Wrecks--the Harbor and Town of Jaffa.
+
+
+  "Along the line of foam, the jewelled chain,
+  The largesse of the ever-giving main."
+
+  R. H. Stoddard.
+
+
+Ramleh, _April_ 27, 1852.
+
+We left Beyrout on the morning of the 22d. Our caravan consisted of three
+horses, three mules, and a donkey, in charge of two men--Dervish, an
+erect, black-bearded, and most impassive Mussulman, and Mustapha, who is
+the very picture of patience and good-nature. He was born with a smile on
+his face, and has never been able to change the expression. They are both
+masters of their art, and can load a mule with a speed and skill which I
+would defy any Santa Fé trader to excel. The animals are not less
+interesting than their masters. Our horses, to be sure, are slow, plodding
+beasts, with considerable endurance, but little spirit; but the two
+baggage mules deserve gold medals from the Society for the Promotion of
+Industry. I can overlook any amount of waywardness in the creatures, in
+consideration of the steady, persevering energy, the cheerfulness and even
+enthusiasm with which they perform their duties. They seem to be conscious
+that they are doing well, and to take a delight in the consciousness. One
+of them has a band of white shells around his neck, fastened with a tassel
+and two large blue beads; and you need but look at him to see that he is
+aware how becoming it is. He thinks it was given to him for good conduct,
+and is doing his best to merit another. The little donkey is a still more
+original animal. He is a practical humorist, full of perverse tricks, but
+all intended for effect, and without a particle of malice. He generally
+walks behind, running off to one side or the other to crop a mouthful of
+grass, but no sooner does Dervish attempt to mount him, than he sets off
+at full gallop, and takes the lead of the caravan. After having performed
+one of his feats, he turns around with a droll glance at us, as much as to
+say: "Did you see that?" If we had not been present, most assuredly he
+would never have done it. I can imagine him, after his return to Beyrout,
+relating his adventures to a company of fellow-donkeys, who every now and
+then burst into tremendous brays at some of his irresistible dry sayings.
+
+I persuaded Mr. Harrison to adopt the Oriental costume, which, from five
+months' wear in Africa, I greatly preferred to the Frank. We therefore
+rode out of Beyrout as a pair of Syrian Beys, while François, with his
+belt, sabre, and pistols had much the aspect of a Greek brigand. The road
+crosses the hill behind the city, between the Forest of Pines and a long
+tract of red sand-hills next the sea. It was a lovely morning, not too
+bright and hot, for light, fleecy vapors hung along the sides of Lebanon.
+Beyond the mulberry orchards, we entered on wild, half-cultivated tracts,
+covered with a bewildering maze of blossoms. The hill-side and stony
+shelves of soil overhanging the sea fairly blazed with the brilliant dots
+of color which were rained upon them. The pink, the broom, the poppy, the
+speedwell, the lupin, that beautiful variety of the cyclamen, called by
+the Syrians "_deek e-djebel_" (cock o' the mountain), and a number of
+unknown plants dazzled the eye with their profusion, and loaded the air
+with fragrance as rare as it was unfailing. Here and there, clear, swift
+rivulets came down from Lebanon, coursing their way between thickets of
+blooming oleanders. Just before crossing the little river Damoor, François
+pointed out, on one of the distant heights, the residence of the late Lady
+Hester Stanhope. During the afternoon we crossed several offshoots of the
+Lebanon, by paths incredibly steep and stony, and towards evening reached
+Saïda, the ancient Sidon, where we obtained permission to pitch our tent
+in a garden. The town is built on a narrow point of land, jutting out from
+the centre of a bay, or curve in the coast, and contains about five
+thousand inhabitants. It is a quiet, sleepy sort of a place, and contains
+nothing of the old Sidon except a few stones and the fragments of a mole,
+extending into the sea. The fortress in the water, and the Citadel, are
+remnants of Venitian sway. The clouds gathered after nightfall, and
+occasionally there was a dash of rain on our tent. But I heard it with the
+same quiet happiness, as when, in boyhood, sleeping beneath the rafters, I
+have heard the rain beating all night upon the roof. I breathed the sweet
+breath of the grasses whereon my carpet was spread, and old Mother Earth,
+welcoming me back to her bosom, cradled me into calm and refreshing
+sleep. There is no rest more grateful than that which we take on the turf
+or the sand, except the rest below it.
+
+We rose in a dark and cloudy morning, and continued our way between fields
+of barley, completely stained with the bloody hue of the poppy, and
+meadows turned into golden mosaic by a brilliant yellow daisy. Until noon
+our road was over a region of alternate meadow land and gentle though
+stony elevations, making out from Lebanon. We met continually with
+indications of ancient power and prosperity. The ground was strewn with
+hewn blocks, and the foundations of buildings remain in many places.
+Broken sarcophagi lie half-buried in grass, and the gray rocks of the
+hills are pierced with tombs. The soil, though stony, appeared to be
+naturally fertile, and the crops of wheat, barley, and lentils were very
+flourishing. After rounding the promontory which forms the southern
+boundary of the Gulf of Sidon, we rode for an hour or two over a plain
+near the sea, and then came down to a valley which ran up among the hills,
+terminating in a natural amphitheatre. An ancient barrow, or tumulus,
+nobody knows of whom, stands near the sea. During the day I noticed two
+charming little pictures. One, a fountain gushing into a broad square
+basin of masonry, shaded by three branching cypresses. Two Turks sat on
+its edge, eating their bread and curdled milk, while their horses drank
+out of the stone trough below. The other, an old Mahommedan, with a green
+turban and white robe, seated at the foot of a majestic sycamore, over the
+high bank of a stream that tumbled down its bed of white marble rock to
+the sea.
+
+The plain back of the narrow, sandy promontory on which the modern Soor
+is built, is a rich black loam, which a little proper culture would turn
+into a very garden. It helped me to account for the wealth of ancient
+Tyre. The approach to the town, along a beach on which the surf broke with
+a continuous roar, with the wreck of a Greek vessel in the foreground, and
+a stormy sky behind, was very striking. It was a wild, bleak picture, the
+white minarets of the town standing out spectrally against the clouds. We
+rode up the sand-hills, back of the town, and selected a good
+camping-place among the ruins of Tyre. Near us there was an ancient square
+building, now used as a cistern, and filled with excellent fresh water.
+The surf roared tremendously on the rocks, on either hand, and the boom of
+the more distant breakers came to my ear like the wind in a pine forest.
+The remains of the ancient sea-wall are still to be traced for the entire
+circuit of the city, and the heavy surf breaks upon piles of shattered
+granite columns. Along a sort of mole, protecting an inner harbor on the
+north side, are great numbers of these columns. I counted fifteen in one
+group, some of them fine red granite, and some of the marble of Lebanon.
+The remains of the pharos and the fortresses strengthening the sea-wall,
+were pointed out by the Syrian who accompanied us as a guide, but his
+faith was a little stronger than mine. He even showed us the ruins of the
+jetty built by Alexander, by means of which the ancient city, then
+insulated by the sea, was taken. The remains of the causeway gradually
+formed the promontory by which the place is now connected with the main
+land. These are the principal indications of Tyre above ground, but the
+guide informed us that the Arabs, in digging among the sand-hills for the
+stones of the old buildings, which they quarry out and ship to Beyrout,
+come upon chambers, pillars, arches, and other objects. The Tyrian purple
+is still furnished by a muscle found upon the coast, but Tyre is now only
+noted for its tobacco and mill-stones. I saw many of the latter lying in
+the streets of the town, and an Arab was selling a quantity at auction in
+the square, as we passed. They are cut out from a species of dark volcanic
+rock, by the Bedouins of the mountains. There were half a dozen small
+coasting vessels lying in the road, but the old harbors are entirely
+destroyed. Isaiah's prophecy is literally fulfilled: "Howl, ye ships of
+Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering
+in."
+
+On returning from our ramble we passed the house of the Governor, Daood
+Agha, who was dispensing justice in regard to a lawsuit then before him.
+He asked us to stop and take coffee, and received us with much grace and
+dignity. As we rose to leave, a slave brought me a large bunch of choice
+flowers from his garden.
+
+We set out from Tyre at an early hour, and rode along the beach around the
+head of the bay to the Ras-el-Abiad, the ancient Promontorium Album. The
+morning was wild and cloudy, with gleams of sunshine that flashed out over
+the dark violet gloom of the sea. The surf was magnificent, rolling up in
+grand billows, which broke and formed again, till the last of the long,
+falling fringes of snow slid seething up the sand. Something of ancient
+power was in their shock and roar, and every great wave that plunged and
+drew back again, called in its solemn bass: "Where are the ships of Tyre?
+where are the ships of Tyre?" I looked back on the city, which stood
+advanced far into the sea, her feet bathed in thunderous spray. By and by
+the clouds cleared away, the sun came out bold and bright, and our road
+left the beach for a meadowy plain, crossed by fresh streams, and sown
+with an inexhaustible wealth of flowers. Through thickets of myrtle and
+mastic, around which the rue and lavender grew in dense clusters, we
+reached the foot of the mountain, and began ascending the celebrated
+Ladder of Tyre. The road is so steep as to resemble a staircase, and
+climbs along the side of the promontory, hanging over precipices of naked
+white rock, in some places three hundred feet in height. The mountain is a
+mass of magnesian limestone, with occasional beds of marble. The surf has
+worn its foot into hollow caverns, into which the sea rushes with a dull,
+heavy boom, like distant thunder. The sides are covered with thickets of
+broom, myrtle, arbutus, ilex, mastic and laurel, overgrown with woodbine,
+and interspersed with patches of sage, lavender, hyssop, wild thyme, and
+rue. The whole mountain is a heap of balm; a bundle of sweet spices.
+
+Our horses' hoofs clattered up and down the rounds of the ladder, and we
+looked our last on Tyre, fading away behind the white hem of the breakers,
+as we turned the point of the promontory. Another cove of the
+mountain-coast followed, terminated by the Cape of Nakhura, the northern
+point of the Bay of Acre. We rode along a stony way between fields of
+wheat and barley, blotted almost out of sight by showers of scarlet
+poppies and yellow chrysanthemums. There were frequent ruins: fragments of
+sarcophagi, foundations of houses, and about half way between the two
+capes, the mounds of Alexandro-Schoenæ. We stopped at a khan, and
+breakfasted under a magnificent olive tree, while two boys tended our
+horses to see that they ate only the edges of the wheat field. Below the
+house were two large cypresses, and on a little tongue of land the ruins
+of one of those square towers of the corsairs, which line all this coast.
+The intense blue of the sea, seen close at hand over a broad field of
+goldening wheat, formed a dazzling and superb contrast of color. Early in
+the afternoon we climbed the Ras Nakhura, not so bold and grand, though
+quite as flowery a steep as the Promontorium Album. We had been jogging
+half an hour over its uneven summit, when the side suddenly fell away
+below us, and we saw the whole of the great gulf and plain of Acre, backed
+by the long ridge of Mount Carmel. Behind the sea, which makes a deep
+indentation in the line of the coast, extended the plain, bounded on the
+east, at two leagues' distance, by a range of hills covered with luxuriant
+olive groves, and still higher, by the distant mountains of Galilee. The
+fortifications of Acre were visible on a slight promontory near the middle
+of the Gulf. From our feet the line of foamy surf extended for miles along
+the red sand-beach, till it finally became like a chalk-mark on the edge
+of the field of blue.
+
+We rode down the mountain and continued our journey over the plain of
+Esdraelon--a picture of summer luxuriance and bloom. The waves of wheat
+and barley rolled away from our path to the distant olive orchards; here
+the water gushed from a stone fountain and flowed into a turf-girdled
+pool, around which the Syrian women were washing their garments; there, a
+garden of orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees in blossom, was a
+spring of sweet odors, which overflowed the whole land. We rode into some
+of these forests, for they were no less, and finally pitched our tent in
+one of them, belonging to the palace of the former Abdallah Pasha, within
+a mile of Acre. The old Saracen aqueduct, which still conveys water to
+the town, overhung our tent. For an hour before reaching our destination,
+we had seen it on the left, crossing the hollows on light stone arches. In
+one place I counted fifty-eight, and in another one hundred and three of
+these arches, some of which were fifty feet high. Our camp was a charming
+place: a nest of deep herbage, under two enormous fig-trees, and
+surrounded by a balmy grove of orange and citron. It was doubly beautiful
+when the long line of the aqueduct was lit up by the moon, and the orange
+trees became mounds of ambrosial darkness.
+
+In the morning we rode to Acre, the fortifications of which have been
+restored on the land-side. A ponderous double gateway of stone admitted us
+into the city, through what was once, apparently, the court-yard of a
+fortress. The streets of the town are narrow, terribly rough, and very
+dirty, but the bazaars are extensive and well stocked. The principal
+mosque, whose heavy dome is visible at some distance from the city, is
+surrounded with a garden, enclosed by a pillared corridor, paved with
+marble. All the houses of the city are built in the most massive style, of
+hard gray limestone or marble, and this circumstance alone prevented their
+complete destruction during the English bombardment in 1841. The marks of
+the shells are everywhere seen, and the upper parts of the lofty buildings
+are completely riddled with cannon-balls, some of which remain embedded in
+the stone. We made a rapid tour of the town on horseback, followed by the
+curious glances of the people, who were in doubt whether to consider us
+Turks or Franks. There were a dozen vessels in the harbor, which is
+considered the best in Syria.
+
+The baggage-mules had gone on, so we galloped after them along the hard
+beach, around the head of the bay. It was a brilliant morning; a
+delicious south-eastern breeze came to us over the flowery plain of
+Esdraelon; the sea on our right shone blue, and purple, and violet-green,
+and black, as the shadows or sunshine crossed it, and only the long lines
+of roaring foam, for ever changing in form, did not vary in hue. A
+fisherman stood on the beach in a statuesque attitude, his handsome bare
+legs bathed in the frothy swells, a bag of fish hanging from his shoulder,
+and the large square net, with its sinkers of lead in his right hand,
+ready for a cast. He had good luck, for the waves brought up plenty of
+large fish, and cast them at our feet, leaving them to struggle back into
+the treacherous brine. Between Acre and Haifa we passed six or eight
+wrecks, mostly of small trading vessels. Some were half buried in sand,
+some so old and mossy that they were fast rotting away, while a few had
+been recently hurled there. As we rounded the deep curve of the bay, and
+approached the line of palm-trees girding the foot of Mount Carmel, Haifa,
+with its wall and Saracenic town in ruin on the hill above, grew more
+clear and bright in the sun, while Acre dipped into the blue of the
+Mediterranean. The town of Haifa, the ancient Caiapha, is small, dirty,
+and beggarly looking; but it has some commerce, sharing the trade of Acre
+in the productions of Syria. It was Sunday, and all the Consular flags
+were flying. It was an unexpected delight to find the American colors in
+this little Syrian town, flying from one of the tallest poles. The people
+stared at us as we passed, and I noticed among them many bright Frankish
+faces, with eyes too clear and gray for Syria. O ye kind brothers of the
+monastery of Carmel! forgive me if I look to you for an explanation of
+this phenomenon.
+
+We ascended to Mount Carmel. The path led through a grove of carob trees,
+from which the beans, known in Germany as St. John's bread, are produced.
+After this we came into an olive grove at the foot of the mountain, from
+which long fields of wheat, giving forth a ripe summer smell, flowed down
+to the shore of the bay. The olive trees were of immense size, and I can
+well believe, as Fra Carlo informed us, that they were probably planted by
+the Roman colonists, established there by Titus. The gnarled, veteran
+boles still send forth vigorous and blossoming boughs. There were all
+manner of lovely lights and shades chequered over the turf and the winding
+path we rode. At last we reached the foot of an ascent, steeper than the
+Ladder of Tyre. As our horses slowly climbed to the Convent of St. Elijah,
+whence we already saw the French flag floating over the shoulder of the
+mountain, the view opened grandly to the north and east, revealing the bay
+and plain of Acre, and the coast as far as Ras Nakhura, from which we
+first saw Mount Carmel the day previous. The two views are very similar in
+character, one being the obverse of the other. We reached the
+Convent--Dayr Mar Elias, as the Arabs call it--at noon, just in time to
+partake of a bountiful dinner, to which the monks had treated themselves.
+Fra Carlo, the good Franciscan who receives strangers, showed us the
+building, and the Grotto of Elijah, which is under the altar of the
+Convent Church, a small but very handsome structure of Italian marble. The
+sanctity of the Grotto depends on tradition entirely, as there is no
+mention in the Bible of Elijah having resided on Carmel, though it was
+from this mountain that he saw the cloud, "like a man's hand," rising from
+the sea. The Convent, which is quite new--not yet completed, in fact--is a
+large, massive building, and has the aspect of a fortress.
+
+As we were to sleep at Tantura, five hours distant, we were obliged to
+make a short visit, in spite of the invitation of the hospitable Fra Carlo
+to spend the night there. In the afternoon we passed the ruins of Athlit,
+a town of the Middle Ages, and the Castel Pellegrino of the Crusaders. Our
+road now followed the beach, nearly the whole distance to Jaffa, and was
+in many places, for leagues in extent, a solid layer of white, brown,
+purple and rosy shells, which cracked and rattled under our horses' feet.
+Tantura is a poor Arab village, and we had some difficulty in procuring
+provisions. The people lived in small huts of mud and stones, near the
+sea. The place had a thievish look, and we deemed it best to be careful in
+the disposal of our baggage for the night.
+
+In the morning we took the coast again, riding over millions of shells. A
+line of sandy hills, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, shut off
+the view of the plain and meadows between the sea and the hills of
+Samaria. After three hours' ride we saw the ruins of ancient Cæsarea, near
+a small promontory. The road turned away from the sea, and took the wild
+plain behind, which is completely overgrown with camomile, chrysanthemum
+and wild shrubs. The ruins of the town are visible at a considerable
+distance along the coast. The principal remains consist of a massive wall,
+flanked with pyramidal bastions at regular intervals, and with the traces
+of gateways, draw-bridges and towers. It was formerly surrounded by a deep
+moat. Within this space, which may be a quarter of a mile square, are a
+few fragments of buildings, and toward the sea, some high arches and
+masses of masonry. The plain around abounds with traces of houses,
+streets, and court-yards. Cæsarea was one of the Roman colonies, but owed
+its prosperity principally to Herod. St. Paul passed through it on his
+way from Macedon to Jerusalem, by the very road we were travelling.
+
+During the day the path struck inland over a vast rolling plain, covered
+with sage, lavender and other sweet-smelling shrubs, and tenanted by herds
+of gazelles and flocks of large storks. As we advanced further, the
+landscape became singularly beautiful. It was a broad, shallow valley,
+swelling away towards the east into low, rolling hills, far back of which
+rose the blue line of the mountains--the hill-country of Judea. The soil,
+where it was ploughed, was the richest vegetable loam. Where it lay fallow
+it was entirely hidden by a bed of grass and camomile. Here and there
+great herds of sheep and goats browsed on the herbage. There was a quiet
+pastoral air about the landscape, a soft serenity in its forms and colors,
+as if the Hebrew patriarchs still made it their abode. The district is
+famous for robbers, and we kept our arms in readiness, never suffering the
+baggage to be out of our sight.
+
+Towards evening, as Mr. H. and myself, with François, were riding in
+advance of the baggage mules, the former with his gun in his hand, I with
+a pair of pistols thrust through the folds of my shawl, and François with
+his long Turkish sabre, we came suddenly upon a lonely Englishman, whose
+companions were somewhere in the rear. He appeared to be struck with
+terror on seeing us making towards him, and, turning his horse's head,
+made an attempt to fly. The animal, however, was restive, and, after a few
+plunges, refused to move. The traveller gave himself up for lost; his arms
+dropped by his side; he stared wildly at us, with pale face and eyes
+opened wide with a look of helpless fright. Restraining with difficulty a
+shout of laughter, I said to him: "Did you leave Jaffa to-day?" but so
+completely was his ear the fool of his imagination, that he thought I was
+speaking Arabic, and made a faint attempt to get out the only word or two
+of that language which he knew. I then repeated, with as much distinctness
+as I could command: "Did--you--leave--Jaffa--to-day?" He stammered
+mechanically, through his chattering teeth, "Y-y-yes!" and we immediately
+dashed off at a gallop through the bushes. When we last saw him, he was
+standing as we left him, apparently not yet recovered from the shock.
+
+At the little village of El Haram, where we spent the night, I visited the
+tomb of Sultan Ali ebn-Aleym, who is now revered as a saint. It is
+enclosed in a mosque, crowning the top of a hill. I was admitted into the
+court-yard without hesitation, though, from the porter styling me
+"Effendi," he probably took me for a Turk. At the entrance to the inner
+court, I took off my slippers and walked to the tomb of the Sultan--a
+square heap of white marble, in a small marble enclosure. In one of the
+niches in the wall, near the tomb, there is a very old iron box, with a
+slit in the top. The porter informed me that it contained a charm,
+belonging to Sultan Ali, which was of great use in producing rain in times
+of drouth.
+
+In the morning we sent our baggage by a short road across the country to
+this place, and then rode down the beach towards Jaffa. The sun came out
+bright and hot as we paced along the line of spray, our horses' feet
+sinking above the fetlocks in pink and purple shells, while the droll
+sea-crabs scampered away from our path, and the blue gelatinous
+sea-nettles were tossed before us by the surge. Our view was confined to
+the sand-hills--sometimes covered with a flood of scarlet poppies--on one
+hand; and to the blue, surf-fringed sea on the other. The terrible coast
+was still lined with wrecks, and just before reaching the town, we passed
+a vessel of some two hundred tons, recently cast ashore, with her strong
+hull still unbroken. We forded the rapid stream of El Anjeh, which comes
+down from the Plain of Sharon, the water rising to our saddles. The low
+promontory in front now broke into towers and white domes, and great
+masses of heavy walls. The aspect of Jaffa is exceedingly picturesque. It
+is built on a hill, and the land for many miles around it being low and
+flat, its topmost houses overlook all the fields of Sharon. The old
+harbor, protected by a reef of rocks, is on the north side of the town,
+but is now so sanded up that large vessels cannot enter. A number of small
+craft were lying close to the shore. The port presented a different scene
+when the ships of Hiram, King of Tyre, came in with the materials for the
+Temple of Solomon. There is but one gate on the land side, which is rather
+strongly fortified. Outside of this there is an open space, which we found
+filled with venders of oranges and vegetables, camel-men and the like,
+some vociferating in loud dispute, some given up to silence and smoke,
+under the shade of the sycamores.
+
+We rode under the heavily arched and towered gateway, and entered the
+bazaar. The street was crowded, and there was such a confusion of camels,
+donkeys, and men, that we made our way with difficulty along the only
+practicable street in the city, to the sea-side, where François pointed
+out a hole in the wall as the veritable spot where Jonah was cast ashore
+by the whale. This part of the harbor is the receptacle of all the offal
+of the town; and I do not wonder that the whale's stomach should have
+turned on approaching it. The sea-street was filled with merchants and
+traders, and we were obliged to pick our way between bars of iron, skins
+of oil, heaps of oranges, and piles of building timber. At last we reached
+the end, and, as there was no other thoroughfare, returned the same way we
+went, passed out the gate, and took the road to Ramleh and Jerusalem.
+
+But I hear the voice of François, announcing, "_Messieurs, le diner est
+prêt._" We are encamped just beside the pool of Ramleh, and the mongrel
+children of the town are making a great noise in the meadow below it. Our
+horses are enjoying their barley; and Mustapha stands at the tent-door
+tying up his sacks. Dogs are barking and donkeys braying all along the
+borders of the town, whose filth and dilapidation are happily concealed by
+the fig and olive gardens which surround it. I have not curiosity enough
+to visit the Greek and Latin Convents embedded in its foul purlieus, but
+content myself with gazing from my door upon the blue hills of Palestine,
+which we must cross to-morrow, on our way to Jerusalem.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+From Jaffa to Jerusalem.
+
+
+  The Garden of Jaffa--Breakfast at a Fountain--The Plain of Sharon--The
+  Ruined Mosque of Ramleh--A Judean Landscape--The Streets of Ramleh--Am I
+  in Palestine?--A Heavenly Morning--The Land of Milk and Honey--Entering
+  the Hill-Country--The Pilgrim's Breakfast--The Father of Lies--A Church
+  of the Crusaders--The Agriculture of the Hills--The Valley of
+  Elah--Day-Dreams--The Wilderness--The Approach--We see the Holy City.
+
+
+         --"Through the air sublime,
+  Over the wilderness and o'er the plain;
+  Till underneath them fair Jerusalem,
+  The Holy City, lifted high her towers."
+
+  Paradise Regained.
+
+
+Jerusalem, _Thursday, April_ 29, 1852.
+
+Leaving the gate of Jaffa, we rode eastward between delightful gardens of
+fig, citron, orange, pomegranate and palm. The country for several miles
+around the city is a complete level--part of the great plain of
+Sharon--and the gray mass of building crowning the little promontory, is
+the only landmark seen above the green garden-land, on looking towards the
+sea. The road was lined with hedges of giant cactus, now in blossom, and
+shaded occasionally with broad-armed sycamores. The orange trees were in
+bloom, and at the same time laden down with ripe fruit. The oranges of
+Jaffa are the finest in Syria, and great numbers of them are sent to
+Beyrout and other ports further north. The dark foliage of the
+pomegranate fairly blazed with its heavy scarlet blossoms, and here and
+there a cluster of roses made good the Scriptural renown of those of
+Sharon. The road was filled with people, passing to and fro, and several
+families of Jaffa Jews were having a sort of pic-nic in the choice shady
+spots.
+
+Ere long we came to a fountain, at a point where two roads met. It was a
+large square structure of limestone and marble, with a stone trough in
+front, and a delightful open chamber at the side. The space in front was
+shaded with immense sycamore trees, to which we tied our horses, and then
+took our seats in the window above the fountain, where the Greek brought
+us our breakfast. The water was cool and delicious, as were our Jaffa
+oranges. It was a charming spot, for as we sat we could look under the
+boughs of the great trees, and down between the gardens to Jaffa and the
+Mediterranean. After leaving the gardens, we came upon the great plain of
+Sharon, on which we could see the husbandmen at work far and near,
+ploughing and sowing their grain. In some instances, the two operations
+were made simultaneously, by having a sort of funnel attached to the
+plough-handle, running into a tube which entered the earth just behind the
+share. The man held the plough with one hand, while with the other he
+dropped the requisite quantity of seed through the tube into the furrow.
+The people are ploughing now for their summer crops, and the wheat and
+barley which they sowed last winter are already in full head. On other
+parts of the plain, there were large flocks of sheep and goats, with their
+attendant shepherds. So ran the rich landscape, broken only by belts of
+olive trees, to the far hills of Judea.
+
+Riding on over the long, low swells, fragrant with wild thyme and
+camomile, we saw at last the tower of Ramleh, and down the valley, an
+hour's ride to the north-east, the minaret of Ludd, the ancient Lydda.
+Still further, I could see the houses of the village of Sharon, embowered
+in olives. Ramleh is built along the crest and on the eastern slope of a
+low hill, and at a distance appears like a stately place, but this
+impression is immediately dissipated on entering it. West of the town is a
+large square tower, between eighty and ninety feet in height. We rode up
+to it through an orchard of ancient olive trees, and over a field of
+beans. The tower is evidently a minaret, as it is built in the purest
+Saracenic style, and is surrounded by the ruins of a mosque. I have rarely
+seen anything more graceful than the ornamental arches of the upper
+portions. Over the door is a lintel of white marble, with an Arabic
+inscription. The mosque to which the tower is attached is almost entirely
+destroyed, and only part of the arches of a corridor around three sides of
+a court-yard, with the fountain in the centre, still remain. The
+subterranean cisterns, under the court-yard, amazed me with their extent
+and magnitude. They are no less than twenty-four feet deep, and covered by
+twenty-four vaulted ceilings, each twelve feet square, and resting on
+massive pillars. The mosque, when entire, must have been one of the finest
+in Syria.
+
+We clambered over the broken stones cumbering the entrance, and mounted
+the steps to the very summit. The view reached from Jaffa and the sea to
+the mountains near Jerusalem, and southward to the plain of Ascalon--a
+great expanse of grain and grazing land, all blossoming as the rose, and
+dotted, especially near the mountains, with dark, luxuriant olive-groves.
+The landscape had something of the green, pastoral beauty of England,
+except the mountains, which were wholly of Palestine. The shadows of
+fleecy clouds, drifting slowly from east to west, moved across the
+landscape, which became every moment softer and fairer in the light of the
+declining sun.
+
+I did not tarry in Ramleh. The streets are narrow, crooked, and filthy as
+only an Oriental town can be. The houses have either flat roofs or domes,
+out of the crevices in which springs a plentiful crop of weeds. Some
+yellow dogs barked at us as we passed, children in tattered garments
+stared, and old turbaned heads were raised from the pipe, to guess who the
+two brown individuals might be, and why they were attended by such a
+fierce _cawass_. Passing through the eastern gate, we were gladdened by
+the sight of our tents, already pitched in the meadow beside the cistern.
+Dervish had arrived an hour before us, and had everything ready for the
+sweet lounge of an hour, to which we treat ourselves after a day's ride. I
+watched the evening fade away over the blue hills before us, and tried to
+convince myself that I should reach Jerusalem on the morrow. Reason said:
+"You certainly will!"---but to Faith the Holy City was as far off as ever.
+Was it possible that I was in Judea? Was this the Holy Land of the
+Crusades, the soil hallowed by the feet of Christ and his Apostles? I must
+believe it. Yet it seemed once that if I ever trod that earth, then
+beneath my feet, there would be thenceforth a consecration in my life, a
+holy essence, a purer inspiration on the lips, a surer faith in the heart.
+And because I was not other than I had been, I half doubted whether it was
+the Palestine of my dreams.
+
+A number of Arab cameleers, who had come with travellers across the
+Desert from Egypt, were encamped near us. François was suspicious of some
+of them, and therefore divided the night into three watches, which were
+kept by himself and our two men. Mustapha was the last, and kept not only
+himself, but myself, wide awake by his dolorous chants of love and
+religion. I fell sound asleep at dawn, but was roused before sunrise by
+François, who wished to start betimes, on account of the rugged road we
+had to travel. The morning was mild, clear, and balmy, and we were soon
+packed and in motion. Leaving the baggage to follow, we rode ahead over
+the fertile fields. The wheat and poppies were glistening with dew, birds
+sang among the fig-trees, a cool breeze came down from the hollows of the
+hills, and my blood leaped as nimbly and joyously as a young hart on the
+mountains of Bether.
+
+Between Ramleh and the hill-country, a distance of about eight miles, is
+the rolling plain of Arimathea, and this, as well as the greater part of
+the plain of Sharon, is one of the richest districts in the world. The
+soil is a dark-brown loam, and, without manure, produces annually superb
+crops of wheat and barley. We rode for miles through a sea of wheat,
+waving far and wide over the swells of land. The tobacco in the fields
+about Ramleh was the most luxuriant I ever saw, and the olive and fig
+attain a size and lusty strength wholly unknown in Italy. Judea cursed of
+God! what a misconception, not only of God's mercy and beneficence, but of
+the actual fact! Give Palestine into Christian hands, and it will again
+flow with milk and honey. Except some parts of Asia Minor, no portion of
+the Levant is capable of yielding such a harvest of grain, silk, wool,
+fruits, oil, and wine. The great disadvantage under which the country
+labors, is its frequent drouths, but were the soil more generally
+cultivated, and the old orchards replanted, these would neither be so
+frequent nor so severe.
+
+We gradually ascended the hills, passing one or two villages, imbedded in
+groves of olives. In the little valleys, slanting down to the plains, the
+Arabs were still ploughing and sowing, singing the while an old love-song,
+with its chorus of "_ya, ghazalee! ya, ghazalee!_" (oh, gazelle! oh,
+gazelle!) The valley narrowed, the lowlands behind us spread out broader,
+and in half an hour more we were threading a narrow pass, between stony
+hills, overgrown with ilex, myrtle, and dwarf oak. The wild purple rose of
+Palestine blossomed on all sides, and a fragrant white honeysuckle in some
+places hung from the rocks. The path was terribly rough, and barely wide
+enough for two persons on horseback to pass each other. We met a few
+pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, and a straggling company of armed
+Turks, who had such a piratical air, that without the solemn asseveration
+of François that the road was quite safe, I should have felt uneasy about
+our baggage. Most of the persons we passed were Mussulmen, few of whom
+gave the customary "Peace be with you!" but once a Syrian Christian
+saluted me with, "God go with you, O Pilgrim!" For two hours after
+entering the mountains, there was scarcely a sign of cultivation. The rock
+was limestone, or marble, lying in horizontal strata, the broken edges of
+which rose like terraces to the summits. These shelves were so covered
+with wild shrubs--in some places even with rows of olive trees---that to
+me they had not the least appearance of that desolation so generally
+ascribed to them.
+
+In a little dell among the hills there is a small ruined mosque, or
+chapel (I could not decide which), shaded by a group of magnificent
+terebinth trees. Several Arabs were resting in its shade, and we hoped to
+find there the water we were looking for, in order to make breakfast. But
+it was not to be found, and we climbed nearly to the summit of the first
+chain of hills, where in a small olive orchard, there was a cistern,
+filled by the late rains. It belonged to two ragged boys, who brought us
+an earthen vessel of the water, and then asked, "Shall we bring you milk,
+O Pilgrims!" I assented, and received a small jug of thick buttermilk, not
+remarkably clean, but very refreshing. My companion, who had not recovered
+from his horror at finding that the inhabitants of Ramleh washed
+themselves in the pool which supplied us and them, refused to touch it. We
+made but a short rest, for it was now nearly noon, and there were yet many
+rough miles between us and Jerusalem. We crossed the first chain of
+mountains, rode a short distance over a stony upland, and then descended
+into a long cultivated valley, running to the eastward. At the end nearest
+us appeared the village of Aboo 'l Ghosh (the Father of Lies), which takes
+its name from a noted Bedouin shekh, who distinguished himself a few years
+ago by levying contributions on travellers. He obtained a large sum of
+money in this way, but as he added murder to robbery, and fell upon Turks
+as well as Christians, he was finally captured, and is now expiating his
+offences in some mine on the coast of the Black Sea.
+
+Near the bottom of the village there is a large ruined building, now used
+as a stable by the inhabitants. The interior is divided into a nave and
+two side-aisles by rows of square pillars, from which spring pointed
+arches. The door-way is at the side, and is Gothic, with a dash of
+Saracenic in the ornamental mouldings above it. The large window at the
+extremity of the nave is remarkable for having round arches, which
+circumstance, together with the traces of arabesque painted ornaments on
+the columns, led me to think it might have been a mosque; but Dr.
+Robinson, who is now here, considers it a Christian church, of the time of
+the Crusaders. The village of Aboo 'l Ghosh is said to be the site of the
+birth-place of the Prophet Jeremiah, and I can well imagine it to have
+been the case. The aspect of the mountain-country to the east and
+north-east would explain the savage dreariness of his lamentations. The
+whole valley in which the village stands, as well as another which joins
+it on the east, is most assiduously cultivated. The stony mountain sides
+are wrought into terraces, where, in spite of soil which resembles an
+American turnpike, patches of wheat are growing luxuriantly, and olive
+trees, centuries old, hold on to the rocks with a clutch as hard and bony
+as the hand of Death. In the bed of the valley the fig tree thrives, and
+sometimes the vine and fig grow together, forming the patriarchal arbor of
+shade familiar to us all. The shoots of the tree are still young and
+green, but the blossoms of the grape do not yet give forth their goodly
+savor. I did not hear the voice of the turtle, but a nightingale sang in
+the briery thickets by the brook side, as we passed along.
+
+Climbing out of this valley, we descended by a stony staircase, as rugged
+as the Ladder of Tyre, into the Wady Beit-Hanineh. Here were gardens of
+oranges in blossom, with orchards of quince and apple, overgrown with
+vines, and the fragrant hawthorn tree, snowy with its bloom. A stone
+bridge, the only one on the road, crosses the dry bed of a winter stream,
+and, looking up the glen, I saw the Arab village of Kulonieh, at the
+entrance of the valley of Elah, glorious with the memories of the
+shepherd-boy, David. Our road turned off to the right, and commenced
+ascending a long, dry glen between mountains which grew more sterile the
+further we went. It was nearly two hours past noon, the sun fiercely hot,
+and our horses were nigh jaded out with the rough road and our impatient
+spurring. I began to fancy we could see Jerusalem from the top of the
+pass, and tried to think of the ancient days of Judea. But it was in vain.
+A newer picture shut them out, and banished even the diviner images of Our
+Saviour and His Disciples. Heathen that I was, I could only think of
+Godfrey and the Crusaders, toiling up the same path, and the ringing lines
+of Tasso vibrated constantly in my ear:
+
+  "Ecco apparir Gierusalemm' si vede;
+  Ecco additar Gierusalemm' si scorge;
+  Ecco da mille voci unitamente,
+  Gierusalemme salutar si sente!"
+
+The Palestine of the Bible--the Land of Promise to the Israelites, the
+land of Miracle and Sacrifice to the Apostles and their followers--still
+slept in the unattainable distance, under a sky of bluer and more tranquil
+loveliness than that to whose cloudless vault I looked up. It lay as far
+and beautiful as it once seemed to the eye of childhood, and the swords of
+Seraphim kept profane feet from its sacred hills. But these rough rocks
+around me, these dry, fiery hollows, these thickets of ancient oak and
+ilex, had heard the trumpets of the Middle Ages, and the clang and
+clatter of European armor--I could feel and believe that. I entered the
+ranks; I followed the trumpets and the holy hymns, and waited breathlessly
+for the moment when every mailed knee should drop in the dust, and every
+bearded and sunburned cheek be wet with devotional tears.
+
+But when I climbed the last ridge, and looked ahead with a sort of painful
+suspense, Jerusalem did not appear. We were two thousand feet above the
+Mediterranean, whose blue we could dimly see far to the west, through
+notches in the chain of hills. To the north, the mountains were gray,
+desolate, and awful. Not a shrub or a tree relieved their frightful
+barrenness. An upland tract, covered with white volcanic rock, lay before
+us. We met peasants with asses, who looked (to my eyes) as if they had
+just left Jerusalem. Still forward we urged our horses, and reached a
+ruined garden, surrounded with hedges of cactus, over which I saw domes
+and walls in the distance. I drew a long breath and looked at François. He
+was jogging along without turning his head; he could not have been so
+indifferent if that was really the city. Presently, we reached another
+slight rise in the rocky plain. He began to urge his panting horse, and at
+the same instant we both lashed the spirit into ours, dashed on at a
+break-neck gallop, round the corner of an old wall on the top of the hill,
+and lo! the Holy City! Our Greek jerked both pistols from his holsters,
+and fired them into the air, as we reined up on the steep.
+
+From the descriptions of travellers, I had expected to see in Jerusalem an
+ordinary modern Turkish town; but that before me, with its walls,
+fortresses, and domes, was it not still the City of David? I saw the
+Jerusalem of the New Testament, as I had imagined it. Long lines of walls
+crowned with a notched parapet and strengthened by towers; a few domes and
+spires above them; clusters of cypress here and there; this was all that
+was visible of the city. On either side the hill sloped down to the two
+deep valleys over which it hangs. On the east, the Mount of Olives,
+crowned with a chapel and mosque, rose high and steep, but in front, the
+eye passed directly over the city, to rest far away upon the lofty
+mountains of Moab, beyond the Dead Sea. The scene was grand in its
+simplicity. The prominent colors were the purple of those distant
+mountains, and the hoary gray of the nearer hills. The walls were of the
+dull yellow of weather-stained marble, and the only trees, the dark
+cypress and moonlit olive. Now, indeed, for one brief moment, I knew that
+I was in Palestine; that I saw Mount Olivet and Mount Zion; and--I know
+not how it was--my sight grew weak, and all objects trembled and wavered
+in a watery film. Since we arrived, I have looked down upon the city from
+the Mount of Olives, and up to it from the Valley of Jehosaphat; but I
+cannot restore the illusion of that first view.
+
+We allowed our horses to walk slowly down the remaining half-mile to the
+Jaffa gate. An Englishman, with a red silk shawl over his head, was
+sketching the city, while an Arab held an umbrella over him. Inside the
+gate we stumbled upon an Italian shop with an Italian sign, and after
+threading a number of intricate passages under dark archways, and being
+turned off from one hotel, which was full of travellers, reached another,
+kept by a converted German Jew, where we found Dr. Robinson and Dr. Ely
+Smith, who both arrived yesterday. It sounds strange to talk of a hotel
+in Jerusalem, but the world is progressing, and there are already three. I
+leave to-morrow for Jericho, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea, and shall have
+more to say of Jerusalem on my return.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+The Dead Sea and the Jordan River.
+
+
+  Bargaining for a Guard--Departure from Jerusalem--The Hill of
+  Offence--Bethany--The Grotto of Lazarus--The Valley of Fire--Scenery of
+  the Wilderness--The Hills of Engaddi--The shore of the Dead Sea--A
+  Bituminous Bath--Gallop to the Jordan--A watch for Robbers--The
+  Jordan--Baptism--The Plains of Jericho--The Fountain of Elisha--The
+  Mount of Temptation--Return to Jerusalem.
+
+
+  "And the spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape;
+  the valley also shall perish and the plain shall be destroyed, as the
+  Lord hath spoken."
+
+  --Jeremiah, xlviii. 8.
+
+
+Jerusalem, _May_ 1, 1852.
+
+I returned this after noon from an excursion to the Dead Sea, the River
+Jordan, and the site of Jericho. Owing to the approaching heats, an early
+visit was deemed desirable, and the shekhs, who have charge of the road,
+were summoned to meet us on the day after we arrived. There are two of
+these gentlemen, the Shekh el-Aràb (of the Bedouins), and the Shekh
+el-Fellaheen (of the peasants, or husbandmen), to whom each traveller is
+obliged to pay one hundred piastres for an escort. It is, in fact, a sort
+of compromise, by which the shekhs agree not to rob the traveller, and to
+protect him against other shekhs. If the road is not actually safe, the
+Turkish garrison here is a mere farce, but the arrangement is winked at by
+the Pasha, who, of course, gets his share of the 100,000 piastres which
+the two scamps yearly levy upon travellers. The shekhs came to our rooms,
+and after trying to postpone our departure, in order to attach other
+tourists to the same escort, and thus save a little expense, took half the
+pay and agreed to be ready the next morning. Unfortunately for my original
+plan, the Convent of San Saba has been closed within two or three weeks,
+and no stranger is now admitted. This unusual step was caused by the
+disorderly conduct of some Frenchmen who visited San Saba. We sent to the
+Bishop of the Greek Church, asking a simple permission to view the
+interior of the Convent; but without effect.
+
+We left the city yesterday morning by St. Stephen's Gate, descended to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat, rode under the stone wall which encloses the
+supposed Gethsemane, and took a path leading along the Mount of Olives,
+towards the Hill of Offence, which stands over against the southern end of
+the city, opposite the mouth of the Vale of Hinnon. Neither of the shekhs
+made his appearance, but sent in their stead three Arabs, two of whom were
+mounted and armed with sabres and long guns. Our man, Mustapha, had charge
+of the baggage-mule, carrying our tent and the provisions for the trip. It
+was a dull, sultry morning; a dark, leaden haze hung over Jerusalem, and
+the _khamseen_, or sirocco-wind, came from the south-west, out of the
+Arabian Desert. We had again resumed the Oriental costume, but in spite of
+an ample turban, my face soon began to scorch in the dry heat. From the
+crest of the Hill of Offence there is a wide view over the heights on both
+sides of the valley of the Brook Kedron. Their sides are worked into
+terraces, now green with springing grain, and near the bottom planted with
+olive and fig trees. The upland ridge or watershed of Palestine is
+cultivated for a considerable distance around Jerusalem. The soil is light
+and stony, yet appears to yield a good return for the little labor
+bestowed upon it.
+
+Crossing the southern flank of Mount Olivet, in half an hour we reached
+the village of Bethany, hanging on the side of the hill. It is a miserable
+cluster of Arab huts, with not a building which appears to be more than a
+century old. The Grotto of Lazarus is here shown, and, of course, we
+stopped to see it. It belongs to an old Mussulman, who came out of his
+house with a piece of waxed rope, to light us down. An aperture opens from
+the roadside into the hill, and there is barely room enough for a person
+to enter. Descending about twenty steps at a sharp angle, we landed in a
+small, damp vault, with an opening in the floor, communicating with a
+short passage below. The vault was undoubtedly excavated for sepulchral
+purposes, and the bodies were probably deposited (as in many Egyptian
+tombs) in the pit under it. Our guide, however, pointed to a square mass
+of masonry in one corner as the tomb of Lazarus, whose body, he informed
+us, was still walled up there. There was an arch in the side of the vault,
+once leading to other chambers, but now closed up, and the guide stated
+that seventy-four Prophets were interred therein. There seems to be no
+doubt that the present Arab village occupies the site of Bethany; and if
+it could be proved that this pit existed at the beginning of the Christian
+Era, and there never had been any other, we might accept it as the tomb of
+Lazarus. On the crest of a high hill, over against Bethany, is an Arab
+village on the site of Bethpage.
+
+We descended into the valley of a winter stream, now filled with patches
+of sparse wheat, just beginning to ripen. The mountains grew more bleak
+and desolate as we advanced, and as there is a regular descent in the
+several ranges over which one must pass, the distant hills of the lands of
+Moab and Ammon were always in sight, rising like a high, blue wall against
+the sky. The Dead Sea is 4,000 feet below Jerusalem, but the general slope
+of the intervening district is so regular that from the spires of the
+city, and the Mount of Olives, one can look down directly upon its waters.
+This deceived me as to the actual distance, and I could scarcely credit
+the assertion of our Arab escort, that it would require six hours to reach
+it. After we had ridden nearly two hours, we left the Jericho road,
+sending Mustapha and a staunch old Arab direct to our resting-place for
+the night, in the Valley of the Jordan. The two mounted Bedouins
+accompanied us across the rugged mountains lying between us and the Dead
+Sea.
+
+At first, we took the way to the Convent of Mar Saba, following the course
+of the Brook Kedron down the Wady en-Nar (Valley of Fire). In half an hour
+more we reached two large tanks, hewn out under the base of a limestone
+cliff, and nearly filled with rain. The surface was covered with a
+greenish vegetable scum, and three wild and dirty Arabs of the hills were
+washing themselves in the principal one. Our Bedouins immediately
+dismounted and followed their example, and after we had taken some
+refreshment, we had the satisfaction of filling our water-jug from the
+same sweet pool. After this, we left the San Saba road, and mounted the
+height east of the valley. From that point, all signs of cultivation and
+habitation disappeared. The mountains were grim, bare, and frightfully
+rugged. The scanty grass, coaxed into life by the winter rains, was
+already scorched out of all greenness; some bunches of wild sage,
+gnaphalium, and other hardy aromatic herbs spotted the yellow soil, and in
+sheltered places the scarlet poppies burned like coals of fire among the
+rifts of the gray limestone rock. Our track kept along the higher ridges
+and crests of the hills, between the glens and gorges which sank on either
+hand to a dizzy depth below, and were so steep as to be almost
+inaccessible. The region is so scarred, gashed and torn, that no work of
+man's hand can save it from perpetual desolation. It is a wilderness more
+hopeless than the Desert. If I were left alone in the midst of it, I
+should lie down and await death, without thought or hope of rescue.
+
+The character of the day was peculiarly suited to enhance the impression
+of such scenery. Though there were no clouds, the sun was invisible: as
+far as we could see, beyond the Jordan, and away southward to the
+mountains of Moab and the cliffs of Engaddi, the whole country was covered
+as with the smoke of a furnace; and the furious sirocco, that threatened
+to topple us down the gulfs yawning on either hand, had no coolness on its
+wings. The horses were sure-footed, but now and then a gust would come
+that made them and us strain against it, to avoid being dashed against the
+rock on one side, or hurled off the brink on the other. The atmosphere was
+painfully oppressive, and by and by a dogged silence took possession of
+our party. After passing a lofty peak which François called Djebel Nuttar,
+the Mountain of Rain, we came to a large Moslem building, situated on a
+bleak eminence, overlooking part of the valley of the Jordan. This is the
+tomb called Nebbee Moussa by the Arabs, and believed by them to stand
+upon the spot where Moses died. We halted at the gate, but no one came to
+admit us, though my companion thought he saw a man's head at one of the
+apertures in the wall. Arab tradition here is as much at fault as
+Christian tradition in many other places. The true Nebo is somewhere in
+the chain of Pisgah; and though, probably, I saw it, and all see it who go
+down to the Jordan, yet "no man knoweth its place unto this day."
+
+Beyond Nebbee Moussa, we came out upon the last heights overlooking the
+Dead Sea, though several miles of low hills remained to be passed. The
+head of the sea was visible as far as the Ras-el-Feshka on the west; and
+the hot fountains of Callirhoë on the eastern shore. Farther than this,
+all was vapor and darkness. The water was a soft, deep purple hue,
+brightening into blue. Our road led down what seemed a vast sloping
+causeway from the mountains, between two ravines, walled by cliffs several
+hundred feet in height. It gradually flattened into a plain, covered with
+a white, saline incrustation, and grown with clumps of sour willow,
+tamarisk, and other shrubs, among which I looked in vain for the osher, or
+Dead Sea apple. The plants appeared as if smitten with leprosy; but there
+were some flowers growing almost to the margin of the sea. We reached the
+shore about 2 P.M. The heat by this time was most severe, and the air so
+dense as to occasion pains in my ears. The Dead Sea is 1,300 feet below
+the Mediterranean, and without doubt the lowest part of the earth's
+surface. I attribute the oppression I felt to this fact and to the
+sultriness of the day, rather than to any exhalation from the sea itself.
+François remarked, however, that had the wind--which by this time was
+veering round to the north-east--blown from the south, we could scarcely
+have endured it. The sea resembles a great cauldron, sunk between
+mountains from three to four thousand feet in height; and probably we did
+not experience more than a tithe of the summer heat.
+
+I proposed a bath, for the sake of experiment, but François endeavored to
+dissuade us. He had tried it, and nothing could be more disagreeable; we
+risked getting a fever, and, besides, there were four hours of dangerous
+travel yet before us. But by this time we were half undressed, and soon
+were floating on the clear bituminous waves. The beach was fine gravel and
+shelved gradually down. I kept my turban on my head, and was careful to
+avoid touching the water with my face. The sea was moderately warm and
+gratefully soft and soothing to the skin. It was impossible to sink; and
+even while swimming, the body rose half out of the water. I should think
+it possible to dive for a short distance, but prefer that some one else
+would try the experiment. With a log of wood for a pillow, one might sleep
+as on one of the patent mattresses. The taste of the water is salty and
+pungent, and stings the tongue like saltpetre. We were obliged to dress in
+all haste, without even wiping off the detestable liquid; yet I
+experienced very little of that discomfort which most travellers have
+remarked. Where the skin had been previously bruised, there was a slight
+smarting sensation, and my body felt clammy and glutinous, but the bath
+was rather refreshing than otherwise.
+
+We turned our horses' heads towards the Jordan, and rode on over a dry,
+barren plain. The two Bedouins at first dashed ahead at full gallop,
+uttering cries, and whirling their long guns in the air. The dust they
+raised was blown in our faces, and contained so much salt that my eyes
+began to smart painfully. Thereupon I followed them at an equal rate of
+speed, and we left a long cloud of the accursed soil whirling behind us.
+Presently, however, they fell to the rear, and continued to keep at some
+distance from us. The reason of this was soon explained. The path turned
+eastward, and we already saw a line of dusky green winding through the
+wilderness. This was the Jordan, and the mountains beyond, the home of
+robber Arabs, were close at hand. Those robbers frequently cross the river
+and conceal themselves behind the sand-hills on this side. Our brave
+escort was, therefore, inclined to put us forward as a forlorn-hope, and
+secure their own retreat in case of an attack. But as we were all well
+armed, and had never considered their attendance as anything more than a
+genteel way of buying them off from robbing us, we allowed them to lag as
+much as they chose. Finally, as we approached the Pilgrims' Ford, one of
+them took his station at some distance from the river, on the top of a
+mound, while the other got behind some trees near at hand; in order, as
+they said, to watch the opposite hills, and alarm us whenever they should
+see any of the Beni Sukrs, or the Beni Adwams, or the Tyakh, coming down
+upon us.
+
+The Jordan at this point will not average more than ten yards in breadth.
+It flows at the bottom of a gully about fifteen feet deep, which traverses
+the broad valley in a most tortuous course. The water has a white, clayey
+hue, and is very swift. The changes of the current have formed islands and
+beds of soil here and there, which are covered with a dense growth of ash,
+poplar, willow, and tamarisk trees. The banks of the river are bordered
+with thickets, now overgrown with wild vines, and fragrant with flowering
+plants. Birds sing continually in the cool, dark coverts of the trees. I
+found a singular charm in the wild, lonely, luxuriant banks, the tangled
+undergrowth, and the rapid, brawling course of the sacred stream, as it
+slipped in sight and out of sight among the trees. It is almost impossible
+to reach the water at any other point than the Ford of the Pilgrims, the
+supposed locality of the passage of the Israelites and the baptism of
+Christ. The plain near it is still blackened by the camp-fires of the ten
+thousand pilgrims who went down from Jerusalem three weeks ago, to bathe.
+We tied our horses to the trees, and prepared to follow their example,
+which was necessary, if only to wash off the iniquitous slime of the Dead
+Sea. François, in the meantime, filled two tin flasks from the stream and
+stowed them in the saddle-bags. The current was so swift, that one could
+not venture far without the risk of being carried away; but I succeeded in
+obtaining a complete and most refreshing immersion. The taint of Gomorrah
+was not entirely washed away, but I rode off with as great a sense of
+relief as if the baptism had been a moral one, as well, and had purified
+me from sin.
+
+We rode for nearly two hours, in a north-west direction, to the Bedouin
+village of Rihah, near the site of ancient Jericho. Before reaching it,
+the gray salt waste vanishes, and the soil is covered with grass and
+herbs. The barren character of the first region is evidently owing to
+deposits from the vapors of the Dead Sea, as they are blown over the plain
+by the south wind. The channels of streams around Jericho are filled with
+nebbuk trees, the fruit of which is just ripening. It is apparently
+indigenous, and grows more luxuriantly than on the White Nile. It is a
+variety of the _rhamnus_, and is set down by botanists as the Spina
+Christi, of which the Saviour's mock crown of thorns was made. I see no
+reason to doubt this, as the twigs are long and pliant, and armed with
+small, though most cruel, thorns. I had to pay for gathering some of the
+fruit, with a torn dress and bleeding fingers. The little apples which it
+bears are slightly acid and excellent for alleviating thirst. I also
+noticed on the plain a variety of the nightshade with large berries of a
+golden color. The spring flowers, so plentiful now in all other parts of
+Palestine, have already disappeared from the Valley of the Jordan.
+
+Rihah is a vile little village of tents and mud-huts, and the only relic
+of antiquity near it is a square tower, which may possibly be of the time
+of Herod. There are a few gardens in the place, and a grove of superb
+fig-trees. We found our tent already pitched beside a rill which issues
+from the Fountain of Elisha. The evening was very sultry, and the
+musquitoes gave us no rest. We purchased some milk from an old man who
+came to the tent, but such was his mistrust of us that he refused to let
+us keep the earthen vessel containing it until morning. As we had already
+paid the money to his son, we would not let him take the milk away until
+he had brought the money back. He then took a dagger from his waist and
+threw it before us as security, while he carried off the vessel and
+returned the price. I have frequently seen the same mistrustful spirit
+exhibited in Egypt. Our two Bedouins, to whom I gave some tobacco in the
+evening, manifested their gratitude by stealing the remainder of our stock
+during the night.
+
+This morning we followed the stream to its source, the Fountain of
+Elisha, so called as being probably that healed by the Prophet. If so, the
+healing was scarcely complete. The water, which gushes up strong and free
+at the foot of a rocky mound, is warm and slightly brackish. It spreads
+into a shallow pool, shaded by a fine sycamore tree. Just below, there are
+some remains of old walls on both sides, and the stream goes roaring away
+through a rank jungle of canes fifteen feet in height. The precise site of
+Jericho, I believe, has not been fixed, but "the city of the palm trees,"
+as it was called, was probably on the plain, near some mounds which rise
+behind the Fountain. Here there are occasional traces of foundation walls,
+but so ruined as to give no clue to the date of their erection. Further
+towards the mountain there are some arches, which appear to be Saracenic.
+As we ascended again into the hill-country, I observed several traces of
+cisterns in the bottoms of ravines, which collect the rains. Herod, as is
+well known, built many such cisterns near Jericho, where he had a palace.
+On the first crest, to which we climbed, there is part of a Roman tower
+yet standing. The view, looking back over the valley of Jordan, is
+magnificent, extending from the Dead Sea to the mountains of Gilead,
+beyond the country of Ammon. I thought I could trace the point where the
+River Yabbok comes down from Mizpeh of Gilead to join the Jordan.
+
+The wilderness we now entered was fully as barren, but less rugged than
+that through which we passed yesterday. The path ascended along the brink
+of a deep gorge, at the bottom of which a little stream foamed over the
+rocks. The high, bleak summits towards which we were climbing, are
+considered by some Biblical geographers to be Mount Quarantana, the scene
+of Christ's fasting and temptation. After two hours we reached the ruins
+of a large khan or hostlery, under one of the peaks, which François stated
+to be the veritable "high mountain" whence the Devil pointed out all the
+kingdoms of the earth. There is a cave in the rock beside the road, which
+the superstitious look upon as the orifice out of which his Satanic
+Majesty issued. We met large numbers of Arab families, with their flocks,
+descending from the mountains to take up their summer residence near the
+Jordan. They were all on foot, except the young children and goats, which
+were stowed together on the backs of donkeys. The men were armed, and
+appeared to be of the same tribe as our escort, with whom they had a good
+understanding.
+
+The morning was cold and cloudy, and we hurried on over the hills to a
+fountain in the valley of the Brook Kedron, where we breakfasted. Before
+we had reached Bethany a rain came down, and the sky hung dark and
+lowering over Jerusalem, as we passed the crest of Mount Olivet. It still
+rains, and the filthy condition of the city exceeds anything I have seen,
+even in the Orient.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+The City of Christ.
+
+
+  Modern Jerusalem--The Site of the City--Mount Zion--Mount Moriah--The
+  Temple--the Valley of Jehosaphat--The Olives of Gethsemane--The Mount of
+  Olives--Moslem Tradition--Panorama from the Summit--The Interior of the
+  City--The Population--Missions and Missionaries--Christianity in
+  Jerusalem--Intolerance--The Jews of Jerusalem--The Face of Christ--The
+  Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Holy of Holies--The Sacred
+  Localities--Visions of Christ--The Mosque of Omar--The Holy Man of
+  Timbuctoo--Preparations for Departure.
+
+
+  "Cut off thy hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a
+  lamentation in high places; for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the
+  generation of his wrath."--Jeremiah vii. 29.
+
+
+  "Here pilgrims roam, that strayed so far to seek
+  In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heaven."
+
+  Milton.
+
+
+Jerusalem, _Monday, May_ 3, 1852.
+
+Since travel is becoming a necessary part of education, and a journey
+through the East is no longer attended with personal risk, Jerusalem will
+soon be as familiar a station on the grand tour as Paris or Naples. The
+task of describing it is already next to superfluous, so thoroughly has
+the topography of the city been laid down by the surveys of Robinson and
+the drawings of Roberts. There is little more left for Biblical research.
+The few places which can be authenticated are now generally accepted, and
+the many doubtful ones must always be the subjects of speculation and
+conjecture. There is no new light which can remove the cloud of
+uncertainties wherein one continually wanders. Yet, even rejecting all
+these with the most skeptical spirit, there still remains enough to make
+the place sacred in the eyes of every follower of Christ. The city stands
+on the ancient site; the Mount of Olives looks down upon it; the
+foundations of the Temple of Solomon are on Mount Moriah; the Pool of
+Siloam has still a cup of water for those who at noontide go down to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat; the ancient gate yet looketh towards Damascus, and
+of the Palace of Herod, there is a tower which Time and Turk and Crusader
+have spared.
+
+Jerusalem is built on the summit ridge of the hill-country of Palestine,
+just where it begins to slope eastward. Not half a mile from the Jaffa
+Gate, the waters run towards the Mediterranean. It is about 2,700 feet
+above the latter, and 4,000 feet above the Dead Sea, to which the descent
+is much more abrupt. The hill, or rather group of small mounts, on which
+Jerusalem stands, slants eastward to the brink of the Valley of
+Jehosaphat, and the Mount of Olives rises opposite, from the sides and
+summit of which, one sees the entire city spread out like a map before
+him. The Valley of Hinnon, the bed of which is on a much higher level than
+that of Jehosaphat, skirts the south-western and southern part of the
+walls, and drops into the latter valley at the foot of Mount Zion, the
+most southern of the mounts. The steep slope at the junction of the two
+valleys is the site of the city of the Jebusites, the most ancient part of
+Jerusalem. It is now covered with garden-terraces, the present wall
+crossing from Mount Zion on the south to Mount Moriah on the east. A
+little glen, anciently called the Tyropeon, divides the mounts, and winds
+through to the Damascus Gate, on the north, though from the height of the
+walls and the position of the city, the depression which it causes in the
+mass of buildings is not very perceptible, except from the latter point,
+Moriah is the lowest of the mounts, and hangs directly over the Valley of
+Jehosaphat. Its summit was built up by Solomon so as to form a
+quadrangular terrace, five hundred by three hundred yards in dimension.
+The lower courses of the grand wall, composed of huge blocks of gray
+conglomerate limestone, still remain, and there seems to be no doubt that
+they are of the time of Solomon. Some of the stones are of enormous size;
+I noticed several which were fifteen, and one twenty-two feet in length.
+The upper part of the wall was restored by Sultan Selim, the conqueror of
+Egypt, and the level of the terrace now supports the great Mosque of Omar,
+which stands on the very site of the temple. Except these foundation
+walls, the Damascus Gate and the Tower of Hippicus, there is nothing left
+of the ancient city. The length of the present wall of circumference is
+about two miles, but the circuit of Jerusalem, in the time of Herod, was
+probably double that distance.
+
+The best views of the city are from the Mount of Olives, and the hill
+north of it, whence Titus directed the siege which resulted in its total
+destruction. The Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon encamped on the same
+hill. My first walk after reaching here, was to the summit of the Mount of
+Olives. Not far from the hotel we came upon the Via Dolorosa, up which,
+according to Catholic tradition, Christ toiled with the cross upon his
+shoulders. I found it utterly impossible to imagine that I was walking in
+the same path, and preferred doubting the tradition. An arch is built
+across the street at the spot where they say he was shown to the populace.
+(_Ecce Homo_.) The passage is steep and rough, descending to St. Stephen's
+Gate by the Governor's Palace, which stands on the site of the house of
+Pontius Pilate. Here, in the wall forming the northern part of the
+foundation of the temple, there are some very fine remains of ancient
+workmanship. From the city wall, the ground descends abruptly to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat. The Turkish residents have their tombs on the city
+side, just under the terrace of the mosque, while thousands of Jews find a
+peculiar beatitude in having themselves interred on the opposite slope of
+the Mount of Olives, which is in some places quite covered with their
+crumbling tombstones. The bed of the Brook Kedron is now dry and stony. A
+sort of chapel, built in the bottom of the valley, is supposed by the
+Greeks to cover the tomb of the Virgin--a claim which the Latins consider
+absurd. Near this, at the very foot of the Mount of Olives, the latter
+sect have lately built a high stone wall around the Garden of Gethsemane,
+for the purpose, apparently, of protecting the five aged olives. I am
+ignorant of the grounds wherefore Gethsemane is placed here. Most
+travellers have given their faith to the spot, but Dr. Robinson, who is
+more reliable than any amount of mere tradition, does not coincide with
+them. The trees do not appear as ancient as some of those at the foot of
+Mount Carmel, which are supposed to date from the Roman colony established
+by Titus. Moreover, it is well known that at the time of the taking of
+Jerusalem by that Emperor, all the trees, for many miles around, were
+destroyed. The olive-trees, therefore, cannot be those under which Christ
+rested, even supposing this to be the true site of Gethseniane.
+
+The Mount of Olives is a steep and rugged hill, dominating over the city
+and the surrounding heights. It is still covered with olive orchards, and
+planted with patches of grain, which do not thrive well on the stony soil.
+On the summit is a mosque, with a minaret attached, which affords a grand
+panoramic view. As we reached it, the Chief of the College of Dervishes,
+in the court of the Mosque of Omar, came out with a number of attendants.
+He saluted us courteously, which would not have been the case had he been
+the Superior of the Latin Convent, and we Greek Monks. There were some
+Turkish ladies in the interior of the mosque, so that we could not gain
+admittance, and therefore did not see the rock containing the foot-prints
+of Christ, who, according to Moslem tradition, ascended to heaven from
+this spot. The Mohammedans, it may not be generally known, accept the
+history of Christ, except his crucifixion, believing that he passed to
+heaven without death, another person being crucified in his stead. They
+call him the _Roh-Allah,_ or Spirit of God, and consider him, after
+Mahomet, as the holiest of the Prophets.
+
+We ascended to the gallery of the minaret. The city lay opposite, so
+fairly spread out to our view that almost every house might be separately
+distinguished. It is a mass of gray buildings, with dome-roofs, and but
+for the mosques of Omar and El Aksa, with the courts and galleries around
+them, would be exceedingly tame in appearance. The only other prominent
+points are the towers of the Holy Sepulchre, the citadel, enclosing
+Herod's Tower, and the mosque on mount Zion. The Turkish wall, with its
+sharp angles, its square bastions, and the long, embrasured lines of its
+parapet, is the most striking feature of the view. Stony hills stretch
+away from the city on all sides, at present cheered with tracts of
+springing wheat, but later in the season, brown and desolate. In the
+south, the convent of St. Elias is visible, and part of the little town of
+Bethlehem. I passed to the eastern side of the gallery, and looking
+thence, deep down among the sterile mountains, beheld a long sheet of blue
+water, its southern extremity vanishing in a hot, sulphury haze. The
+mountains of Ammon and Moab, which formed the background of my first view
+of Jerusalem, leaned like a vast wall against the sky, beyond the
+mysterious sea and the broad valley of the Jordan. The great depression of
+this valley below the level of the Mediterranean gives it a most
+remarkable character. It appears even deeper than is actually the case,
+and resembles an enormous chasm or moat, separating two different regions
+of the earth. The _khamseen_ was blowing from the south, from out the
+deserts of Edom, and threw its veil of fiery vapor over the landscape. The
+muezzin pointed out to me the location of Jericho, of Kerak in Moab, and
+Es-Salt in the country of Ammon. Ere long the shadow of the minaret
+denoted noon, and, placing his hands on both sides of his mouth, he cried
+out, first on the South side, towards Mecca, and then to the West, and
+North, and East: "God is great: there is no God but God, and Mohammed is
+His Prophet! Let us prostrate ourselves before Him: and to Him alone be
+the glory!"
+
+Jerusalem, internally, gives no impression but that of filth, ruin,
+poverty, and degradation. There are two or three streets in the western or
+higher portion of the city which are tolerably clean, but all the others,
+to the very gates of the Holy Sepulchre, are channels of pestilence. The
+Jewish Quarter, which is the largest, so sickened and disgusted me, that I
+should rather go the whole round of the city walls than pass through it a
+second time. The bazaars are poor, compared with those of other Oriental
+cities of the same size, and the principal trade seems to be in rosaries,
+both Turkish and Christian, crosses, seals, amulets, and pieces of the
+Holy Sepulchre. The population, which may possibly reach 20,000, is
+apparently Jewish, for the most part; at least, I have been principally
+struck with the Hebrew face, in my walks. The number of Jews has increased
+considerably within a few years, and there is also quite a number who,
+having been converted to Protestantism, were brought hither at the expense
+of English missionary societies for the purpose of forming a Protestant
+community. Two of the hotels are kept by families of this class. It is
+estimated that each member of the community has cost the Mission about
+£4,500: a sum which would have Christianized tenfold the number of English
+heathen. The Mission, however, is kept up by its patrons, as a sort of
+religious luxury. The English have lately built a very handsome church
+within the walls, and the Rev. Dr. Gobat, well known by his missionary
+labors in Abyssinia, now has the title of Bishop of Jerusalem. A friend of
+his in Central Africa gave me a letter of introduction for him, and I am
+quite disappointed in finding him absent. Dr. Barclay, of Virginia, a most
+worthy man in every respect, is at the head of the American Mission here.
+There is, besides, what is called the "American Colony," at the village of
+Artos, near Bethlehem: a little community of religious enthusiasts, whose
+experiments in cultivation have met with remarkable success, and are much
+spoken of at present.
+
+Whatever good the various missions here may, in time, accomplish (at
+present, it does not amount to much), Jerusalem is the last place in the
+world where an intelligent heathen would be converted to Christianity.
+Were I cast here, ignorant of any religion, and were I to compare the
+lives and practices of the different sects as the means of making my
+choice--in short, to judge of each faith by the conduct of its
+professors--I should at once turn Mussulman. When you consider that in the
+Holy Sepulchre there are _nineteen_ chapels, each belonging to a different
+sect, calling itself Christian, and that a Turkish police is always
+stationed there to prevent the bloody quarrels which often ensue between
+them, you may judge how those who call themselves followers of the Prince
+of Peace practice the pure faith he sought to establish. Between the Greek
+and Latin churches, especially, there is a deadly feud, and their
+contentions are a scandal, not only to the few Christians here, but to the
+Moslems themselves. I believe there is a sort of truce at present, owing
+to the settlement of some of the disputes--as, for instance, the
+restoration of the silver star, which the Greeks stole from the shrine of
+the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The Latins, however, not long since,
+demolished, _vi et armis_, a chapel which the Greeks commenced building on
+Mount Zion. But, if the employment of material weapons has been abandoned
+for the time, there is none the less a war of words and of sounds still
+going on. Go into the Holy Sepulchre, when mass is being celebrated, and
+you can scarcely endure the din. No sooner does the Greek choir begin its
+shrill chant, than the Latins fly to the assault. They have an organ, and
+terribly does that organ strain its bellows and labor its pipes to drown
+the rival singing. You think the Latins will carry the day, when suddenly
+the cymbals of the Abyssinians strike in with harsh brazen clang, and, for
+the moment, triumph. Then there are Copts, and Maronites, and Armenians,
+and I know not how many other sects, who must have their share; and the
+service that should be a many-toned harmony pervaded by one grand spirit
+of devotion, becomes a discordant orgie, befitting the rites of Belial.
+
+A long time ago--I do not know the precise number of years--the Sultan
+granted a firman, in answer to the application of both Jews and
+Christians, allowing the members of each sect to put to death any person
+belonging to the other sect, who should be found inside of their churches
+or synagogues. The firman has never been recalled, though in every place
+but Jerusalem it remains a dead letter. Here, although the Jews freely
+permit Christians to enter their synagogue, a Jew who should enter the
+Holy Sepulchre would be lucky if he escaped with his life. Not long since,
+an English gentleman, who was taken by the monks for a Jew, was so
+severely beaten that he was confined to his bed for two months. What worse
+than scandal, what abomination, that the spot looked upon by so many
+Christians as the most awfully sacred on earth, should be the scene of
+such brutish intolerance! I never pass the group of Turkish officers,
+quietly smoking their long pipes and sipping their coffee within the
+vestibule of the Church, without a feeling of humiliation. Worse than the
+money-changers whom Christ scourged out of the Temple, the guardians of
+this edifice make use of His crucifixion and resurrection as a means of
+gain. You may buy a piece of the stone covering the Holy Sepulchre, duly
+certified by the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, for about $7. At Bethlehem,
+which I visited this morning, the Latin monk who showed us the manger, the
+pit where 12,000 innocents were buried, and other things, had much less to
+say of the sacredness or authenticity of the place, than of the injustice
+of allowing the Greeks a share in its possession.
+
+The native Jewish families in Jerusalem, as well as those in other parts
+of Palestine, present a marked difference to the Jews of Europe and
+America. They possess the same physical characteristics--the dark, oblong
+eye, the prominent nose, the strongly-marked cheek and jaw--but in the
+latter, these traits have become harsh and coarse. Centuries devoted to
+the lowest and most debasing forms of traffic, with the endurance of
+persecution and contumely, have greatly changed and vulgarized the
+appearance of the race. But the Jews of the Holy City still retain a noble
+beauty, which proved to my mind their descent from the ancient princely
+houses of Israel The forehead is loftier, the eye larger and more frank in
+its expression, the nose more delicate in its prominence, and the face a
+purer oval. I have remarked the same distinction in the countenances of
+those Jewish families of Europe, whose members have devoted themselves to
+Art or Literature. Mendelssohn's was a face that might have belonged to
+the House of David.
+
+On the evening of my arrival in the city, as I set out to walk through the
+bazaars, I encountered a native Jew, whose face will haunt me for the rest
+of my life. I was sauntering slowly along, asking myself "Is this
+Jerusalem?" when, lifting my eyes, they met those of Christ! It was the
+very face which Raphael has painted--the traditional features of the
+Saviour, as they are recognised and accepted by all Christendom. The
+waving brown hair, partly hidden by a Jewish cap, fell clustering about
+the ears; the face was the most perfect oval, and almost feminine in the
+purity of its outline; the serene, child-like mouth was shaded with a
+light moustache, and a silky brown beard clothed the chin; but the
+eyes--shall I ever look into such orbs again? Large, dark, unfathomable,
+they beamed with an expression of divine love and divine sorrow, such as I
+never before saw in human face. The man had just emerged from a dark
+archway, and the golden glow of the sunset, reflected from a white wall
+above, fell upon his face. Perhaps it was this transfiguration which made
+his beauty so unearthly; but, during the moment that I saw him, he was to
+me a revelation of the Saviour. There are still miracles in the Land of
+Judah. As the dusk gathered in the deep streets, I could see nothing but
+the ineffable sweetness and benignity of that countenance, and my friend
+was not a little astonished, if not shocked, when I said to him, with the
+earnestness of belief, on my return: "I have just seen Christ."
+
+I made the round of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday, while the monks were
+celebrating the festival of the Invention of the Cross, in the chapel of
+the Empress Helena. As the finding of the cross by the Empress is almost
+the only authority for the places inclosed within the Holy Sepulchre, I
+went there inclined to doubt their authenticity, and came away with my
+doubt vastly strengthened. The building is a confused labyrinth of
+chapels, choirs, shrines, staircases, and vaults--without any definite
+plan or any architectural beauty, though very rich in parts and full of
+picturesque effects. Golden lamps continually burn before the sacred
+places, and you rarely visit the church without seeing some procession of
+monks, with crosses, censers, and tapers, threading the shadowy passages,
+from shrine to shrine It is astonishing how many localities are assembled
+under one roof. At first, you are shown, the stone on which Christ rested
+from the burden of the cross; then, the place where the soldiers cast lots
+for His garments, both of them adjoining the Sepulchre. After seeing this,
+you are taken to the Pillar of Flagellation; the stocks; the place of
+crowning with thorns; the spot where He met His mother; the cave where the
+Empress Helena found the cross; and, lastly, the summit of Mount Calvary.
+The Sepulchre is a small marble building in the centre of the church. We
+removed our shoes at the entrance, and were taken by a Greek monk, first
+into a sort of ante-chamber, lighted with golden lamps, and having in the
+centre, inclosed in a case of marble, the stone on which the angel sat.
+Stooping through a low door, we entered the Sepulchre itself. Forty lamps
+of gold burn unceasingly above the white marble slab, which, as the monks
+say, protects the stone whereon the body of Christ was laid. As we again
+emerged, our guide led us up a flight of steps to a second story, in which
+stood a shrine, literally blazing with gold. Kneeling on the marble floor,
+he removed a golden shield, and showed us the hole in the rock of Calvary,
+where the cross was planted. Close beside it was the fissure produced by
+the earthquake which followed the Crucifixion. But, to my eyes, aided by
+the light of the dim wax taper, it was no violent rupture, such as an
+earthquake would produce, and the rock did not appear to be the same as
+that of which Jerusalem is built. As we turned to leave, a monk appeared
+with a bowl of sacred rose-water, which he sprinkled on our hands,
+bestowing a double portion on a rosary of sandal-wood which I carried But
+it was a Mohammedan rosary, brought from Mecca, and containing the sacred
+number of ninety-nine beads.
+
+I have not space here to state all the arguments for and against the
+localities in the Holy Sepulchre, I came to the conclusion that none of
+them were authentic, and am glad to have the concurrence of such
+distinguished authority as Dr. Robinson. So far from this being a matter
+of regret, I, for one, rejoice that those sacred spots are lost to the
+world. Christianity does not need them, and they are spared a daily
+profanation in the name of religion. We know that Christ has walked on the
+Mount of Olives, and gone down to the Pool of Siloam, and tarried in
+Bethany; we know that here, within the circuit of our vision, He has
+suffered agony and death, and that from this little point went out all the
+light that has made the world greater and happier and better in its later
+than in its earlier days.
+
+Yet, I must frankly confess, in wandering through this city--revered
+alike by Christians, Jews and Turks as one of the holiest in the world--I
+have been reminded of Christ, the Man, rather, than of Christ, the God. In
+the glory which overhangs Palestine afar off, we imagine emotions which
+never come, when we tread the soil and walk over the hallowed sites. As I
+toiled up the Mount of Olives, in the very footsteps of Christ, panting
+with the heat and the difficult ascent, I found it utterly impossible to
+conceive that the Deity, in human form, had walked there before me. And
+even at night, as I walk on the terraced roof, while the moon, "the balmy
+moon of blessed Israel," restores the Jerusalem of olden days to my
+imagination, the Saviour who then haunts my thoughts is the Man Jesus, in
+those moments of trial when He felt the weaknesses of our common humanity;
+in that agony of struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, in that still more
+bitter cry of human doubt and human appeal from the cross: "My God, my
+God, why hast Thou forsaken me!" Yet there is no reproach for this
+conception of the character of Christ. Better the divinely-inspired Man,
+the purest and most perfect of His race, the pattern and type of all that
+is good and holy in Humanity, than the Deity for whose intercession we
+pray, while we trample His teachings under our feet. It would be well for
+many Christian sects, did they keep more constantly before their eyes the
+sublime humanity of Christ. How much bitter intolerance and persecution
+might be spared the world, if, instead of simply adoring Him as a Divine
+Mediator, they would strive to walk the ways He trod on earth. But
+Christianity is still undeveloped, and there is yet no sect which
+represents its fall and perfect spirit.
+
+It is my misfortune if I give offence by these remarks. I cannot assume
+emotions I do not feel, and must describe Jerusalem as I found it. Since
+being here, I have read the accounts of several travellers, and in many
+cases the devotional rhapsodies--the ecstacies of awe and reverence--in
+which they indulge, strike me as forced and affected. The pious writers
+have described what was expected of them, not what they found. It was
+partly from reading such accounts that my anticipations were raised too
+high, for the view of the city from the Jaffa road and the panorama from
+the Mount of Olives are the only things wherein I have been pleasantly
+disappointed.
+
+By far the most interesting relic left to the city is the foundation wall
+of Solomon's Temple. The Mosque of Omar, according to the accounts of the
+Turks, and Mr. Gather wood's examination, rests on immense vaults, which
+are believed to be the substructions of the Temple itself. Under the dome
+of the mosque there is a large mass of natural rock, revered by the
+Moslems as that from which Mahomet mounted the beast Borak when he visited
+the Seven Heavens, and believed by Mr. Catherwood to have served as part
+of the foundation of the Holy of Holies. No Christian is allowed to enter
+the mosque, or even its enclosure, on penalty of death, and even the
+firman of the Sultan has failed to obtain admission for a Frank. I have
+been strongly tempted to make the attempt in my Egyptian dress, which
+happens to resemble that of a mollah or Moslem priest, but the Dervishes
+in the adjoining college have sharp eyes, and my pronunciation of Arabic
+would betray me in case I was accosted. I even went so far as to buy a
+string of the large beads usually carried by a mollah, but unluckily I do
+not know the Moslem form of prayer, or I might carry out the plan under
+the guise of religious abstraction. This morning we succeeded in getting a
+nearer view of the mosque from the roof of the Governor's palace.
+François, by assuming the character of a Turkish _cawass,_ gained us
+admission. The roof overlooks the entire enclosure of the Haram, and gives
+a complete view of the exterior of the mosque and the paved court
+surrounding it. There is no regularity in the style of the buildings in
+the enclosure, but the general effect is highly picturesque. The great
+dome of the mosque is the grandest in all the Orient, but the body of the
+edifice, made to resemble an octagonal tent, and covered with blue and
+white tiles, is not high enough to do it justice. The first court is paved
+with marble, and has four porticoes, each of five light Saracenic arches,
+opening into the green park, which occupies the rest of the terrace. This
+park is studded with cypress and fig trees, and dotted all over with the
+tombs of shekhs. As we were looking down on the spacious area, behold! who
+should come along but Shekh Mohammed Senoosee, the holy man of Timbuctoo,
+who had laid off his scarlet robe and donned a green one. I called down to
+him, whereupon he looked up and recognised us. For this reason I regret
+our departure from Jerusalem, as I am sure a little persuasion would
+induce the holy man to accompany me within the mosque.
+
+We leave to-morrow for Damascus, by way of Nazareth and Tiberius. My
+original plan was to have gone to Djerash, the ancient Geraza, in the land
+of Gilead, and thence to Bozrah, in Djebel Hauaran. But Djebel Adjeloun,
+as the country about Djerash is called, is under a powerful Bedouin shekh,
+named Abd-el Azeez, and without an escort from him, which involves
+considerable delay and a fee of $150, it would be impossible to make the
+journey. We are therefore restricted to the ordinary route, and in case we
+should meet with any difficulty by the way, Mr. Smith, the American
+Consul, who is now here, has kindly procured us a firman from the Pasha of
+Jerusalem. All the travellers here are making preparations to leave, but
+there are still two parties in the Desert.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI.
+
+The Hill-Country of Palestine.
+
+
+  Leaving Jerusalem--The Tombs of the Kings--El Bireh--The
+  Hill-Country--First View of Mount Hermon--The Tomb of Joseph--Ebal and
+  Gerizim--The Gardens of Nablous--The Samaritans--The Sacred Book--A
+  Scene in the Synagogue--Mentoi and Telemachus--Ride to Samaria--The
+  Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
+  Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
+  Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
+  the Annunciation--The Holy Places.
+
+
+  "Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song,
+  Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng:
+  In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,
+  On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee!"
+
+  J. G. Whittier.
+
+
+Latin Convent, Nazareth, _Friday May_ 7, 1852.
+
+We left Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate, because within a few months neither
+travellers nor baggage are allowed to pass the Damascus Gate, on account
+of smuggling operations having been carried on there. Not far from the
+city wall there is a superb terebinth tree, now in the full glory of its
+shining green leaves. It appears to be bathed in a perpetual dew; the
+rounded masses of foliage sparkle and glitter in the light, and the great
+spreading boughs flood the turf below with a deluge of delicious shade. A
+number of persons were reclining on the grass under it, and one of them, a
+very handsome Christian boy, spoke to us in Italian and English. I
+scarcely remember a brighter and purer day than that of our departure.
+The sky was a sheet of spotless blue; every rift and scar of the distant
+hills was retouched with a firmer pencil, and all the outlines, blurred
+away by the haze of the previous few days, were restored with wonderful
+distinctness. The temperature was hot, but not sultry, and the air we
+breathed was an elixir of immortality.
+
+Through a luxuriant olive grove we reached the Tombs of the Kings,
+situated in a small valley to the north of the city. Part of the valley,
+if not the whole of it, has been formed by quarrying away the crags of
+marble and conglomerate limestone for building the city. Near the edge of
+the low cliffs overhanging it, there are some illustrations of the ancient
+mode of cutting stone, which, as well as the custom of excavating tombs in
+the rock, was evidently borrowed from Egypt. The upper surface of the
+rocks, was first made smooth, after which the blocks were mapped out and
+cut apart by grooves chiselled between them. I visited four or five tombs,
+each of which had a sort of vestibule or open portico in front. The door
+was low, and the chambers which I entered, small and black, without
+sculptures of any kind. The tombs bear some resemblance in their general
+plan to those of Thebes, except that they are without ornaments, either
+sculptured or painted. There are fragments of sarcophagi in some of them.
+On the southern side of the valley is a large quarry, evidently worked for
+marble, as the blocks have been cut out from below, leaving a large
+overhanging mass, part of which has broken off and fallen down. Some
+pieces which I picked up were of a very fine white marble, somewhat
+resembling that of Carrara. The opening of the quarry made a striking
+picture, the soft pink hue of the weather-stained rock contrasting
+exquisitely with the vivid green of the vines festooning the entrance.
+
+From the long hill beyond the Tombs, we took our last view of Jerusalem,
+far beyond whose walls I saw the Church of the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The
+Jewish synagogue on the top of the mountain called Nebbee Samwil, the
+highest peak in Palestine, was visible at some distance to the west.
+Notwithstanding its sanctity, I felt little regret at leaving Jerusalem,
+and cheerfully took the rough road northward, over the stony hills. There
+were few habitations in sight, yet the hill-sides were cultivated,
+wherever it was possible for anything to grow. The wheat was just coming
+into head, and the people were at work, planting maize. After four hours'
+ride, we reached El Bireh, a little village on a hill, with the ruins of a
+convent and a large khan. The place takes its name from a fountain of
+excellent water, beside which we found our tents already pitched. In the
+evening, two Englishmen, an ancient Mentor, with a wild young Telemachus
+in charge, arrived, and camped near us. The night was calm and cool, and
+the full moon poured a flood of light over the bare and silent hills.
+
+We rose long before sunrise, and rode off in the brilliant morning--the
+sky unstained by a speck of vapor. In the valley, beyond El Bireh, the
+husbandmen were already at their ploughs, and the village boys were on
+their way to the uncultured parts of the hills, with their flocks of sheep
+and goats. The valley terminated in a deep gorge, with perpendicular walls
+of rock on either side. Our road mounted the hill on the eastern side, and
+followed the brink of the precipice through the pass, where an enchanting
+landscape opened upon us. The village of Yebrood crowned a hill which rose
+opposite, and the mountain slopes leaning towards it on all sides were
+covered with orchards of fig trees; and either rustling with wheat or
+cleanly ploughed for maize. The soil was a dark brown loam, and very rich.
+The stones have been laboriously built into terraces; and, even where
+heavy rocky boulders almost hid the soil, young fig and olive trees were
+planted in the crevices between them. I have never seen more thorough and
+patient cultivation. In the crystal of the morning air, the very hills
+laughed with plenty, and the whole landscape beamed with the signs of
+gladness on its countenance.
+
+The site of ancient Bethel was not far to the right of our road. Over
+hills laden with the olive, fig, and vine, we passed to Ain el-Haramiyeh,
+or the Fountain of the Bobbers. Here there are tombs cut in the rock on
+both sides of the valley. Over another ridge, we descended to a large,
+bowl-shaped valley, entirely covered with wheat, and opening eastward
+towards the Jordan. Thence to Nablous (the Shechem of the Old and Sychar
+of the New Testament) is four hours through a winding dell of the richest
+harvest land; On the way, we first caught sight of the snowy top of Mount
+Hermon, distant at least eighty miles in a straight line. Before reaching
+Nablous, I stopped to drink at a fountain of clear and sweet water, beside
+a square pile of masonry, upon which sat two Moslem dervishes. This, we
+were told, was the Tomb of Joseph, whose body, after having accompanied
+the Israelites in all their wanderings, was at last deposited near
+Shechem. There is less reason to doubt this spot than most of the sacred
+places of Palestine, for the reason that it rests, not on Christian, but
+on Jewish tradition. The wonderful tenacity with which the Jews cling to
+every record or memento of their early history, and the fact that from
+the time of Joseph a portion of them have always lingered near the spot,
+render it highly probable that the locality of a spot so sacred should
+have been preserved from generation to generation to the present time. It
+has been recently proposed to open this tomb, by digging under it from the
+side. If the body of Joseph was actually deposited here, there are, no
+doubt, some traces of it remaining. It must have been embalmed, according
+to the Egyptian custom, and placed in a coffin of the Indian sycamore, the
+wood of which is so nearly incorruptible, that thirty-five centuries would
+not suffice for its decomposition. The singular interest of such a
+discovery would certainly justify the experiment. Not far from the tomb is
+Jacob's Well, where Christ met the Woman of Samaria. This place is also
+considered as authentic, for the same reasons. If not wholly convincing to
+all, there is, at least, so much probability in them that one is freed
+from that painful coldness and incredulity with which he beholds the
+sacred shows of Jerusalem.
+
+Leaving the Tomb of Joseph, the road turned to the west, and entered the
+narrow pass between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. The former is a steep, barren
+peak, clothed with terraces of cactus, standing on the northern side of
+the pass. Mount Gerizim is cultivated nearly to the top, and is truly a
+mountain of blessing, compared with its neighbor. Through an orchard of
+grand old olive-trees, we reached Nablous, which presented a charming
+picture, with its long mass of white, dome-topped stone houses, stretching
+along the foot of Gerizim through a sea of bowery orchards. The bottom of
+the valley resembles some old garden run to waste. Abundant streams,
+poured from the generous heart of the Mount of Blessing, leap and gurgle
+with pleasant noises through thickets of orange, fig, and pomegranate,
+through bowers of roses and tangled masses of briars and wild vines. We
+halted in a grove of olives, and, after our tent was pitched, walked
+upward through the orchards to the Ras-el-Ain (Promontory of the
+Fountain), on the side of Mount Gerizim. A multitude of beggars sat at the
+city gate; and, as they continued to clamor after I had given sufficient
+alms, I paid them with "_Allah deelek_!"--(God give it to you!)--the
+Moslem's reply to such importunity--and they ceased in an instant. This
+exclamation, it seems, takes away from them the power of demanding a
+second time.
+
+From under the Ras-el-Ain gushes forth the Fountain of Honey, so called
+from the sweetness and purity of the water. We drank of it, and I found
+the taste very agreeable, but my companion declared that it had an
+unpleasant woolly flavor. When we climbed a little higher, we found that
+the true source from which the fountain is supplied was above, and that an
+Arab was washing a flock of sheep in it! We continued our walk along the
+side of the mountain to the other end of the city, through gardens of
+almond, apricot, prune, and walnut-trees, bound each to each by great
+vines, whose heavy arms they seemed barely able to support. The interior
+of the town is dark and filthy; but it has a long, busy bazaar extending
+its whole length, and a café, where we procured the best coffee in Syria.
+
+Nablous is noted for the existence of a small remnant of the ancient
+Samaritans. The stock has gradually dwindled away, and amounts to only
+forty families, containing little more than a hundred and fifty
+individuals. They live in a particular quarter of the city, and are
+easily distinguished from the other inhabitants by the cast of their
+features. After our guide, a native of Nablous, had pointed out three or
+four, I had no difficulty in recognising all the others we met. They have
+long, but not prominent noses, like the Jews; small, oblong eyes, narrow
+lips, and fair complexions, most of them having brown hair. They appear to
+be held in considerable obloquy by the Moslems. Our attendant, who was of
+the low class of Arabs, took the boys we met very unceremoniously by the
+head, calling out: "Here is another Samaritan!" He then conducted us to
+their synagogue, to see the celebrated Pentateuch, which is there
+preserved. We were taken to a small, open court, shaded by an
+apricot-tree, where the priest, an old man in a green robe and white
+turban, was seated in meditation. He had a long grey beard, and black
+eyes, that lighted up with a sudden expression of eager greed when we
+promised him backsheesh for a sight of the sacred book. He arose and took
+us into a sort of chapel, followed by a number of Samaritan boys. Kneeling
+down at a niche in the wall, he produced from behind a wooden case a piece
+of ragged parchment, written with Hebrew characters. But the guide was
+familiar with this deception, and rated him so soundly that, after a
+little hesitation, he laid the fragment away, and produced a large tin
+cylinder, covered with a piece of green satin embroidered in gold. The
+boys stooped down and reverently kissed the blazoned cover, before it was
+removed. The cylinder, sliding open by two rows of hinges, opened at the
+same time the parchment scroll, which was rolled at both ends. It was,
+indeed, a very ancient manuscript, and in remarkable preservation. The
+rents have been carefully repaired and the scroll neatly stitched upon
+another piece of parchment, covered on the outside with violet satin. The
+priest informed me that it was written by the son of Aaron; but this does
+not coincide with the fact that the Samaritan Pentateuch is different from
+that of the Jews. It is, however, no doubt one of the oldest parchment
+records in the world, and the Samaritans look upon it with unbounded faith
+and reverence. The Pentateuch, according to their version, contains their
+only form of religion. They reject everything else which the Old Testament
+contains. Three or four days ago was their grand feast of sacrifice, when
+they made a burnt offering of a lamb, on the top of Mount Gerizim. Within
+a short time, it is said they have shown some curiosity to become
+acquainted with the New Testament, and the High Priest sent to Jerusalem
+to procure Arabic copies.
+
+I asked one of the wild-eyed boys whether he could read the sacred book.
+"Oh, yes," said the priest, "all these boys can read it;" and the one I
+addressed immediately pulled a volume from his breast, and commenced
+reading in fluent Hebrew. It appeared to be a part of their church
+service, for both the priest and _boab_, or door-keeper, kept up a running
+series of responses, and occasionally the whole crowd shouted out some
+deep-mouthed word in chorus. The old man leaned forward with an expression
+as fixed and intense as if the text had become incarnate in him, following
+with his lips the sound of the boy's voice. It was a strange picture of
+religious enthusiasm, and was of itself sufficient to convince me of the
+legitimacy of the Samaritan's descent. When I rose to leave I gave him the
+promised fee, and a smaller one to the boy who read the service. This was
+the signal for a general attack from the door-keeper and all the boys who
+were present. They surrounded me with eyes sparkling with the desire of
+gain, kissed the border of my jacket, stroked my beard coaxingly with
+their hands, which they then kissed, and, crowding up with a boisterous
+show of affection, were about to fall on my neck in a heap, after the old
+Hebrew fashion. The priest, clamorous for more, followed with glowing
+face, and the whole group had a riotous and bacchanalian character, which
+I should never have imagined could spring from such a passion as avarice.
+
+On returning to our camp, we found Mentor and Telemachus arrived, but not
+on such friendly terms as their Greek prototypes. We were kept awake for a
+long time that night by their high words, and the first sound I heard the
+next morning came from their tent. Telemachus, I suspect, had found some
+island of Calypso, and did not relish the cold shock of the plunge into
+the sea, by which Mentor had forced him away. He insisted on returning to
+Jerusalem, but as Mentor would not allow him a horse, he had not the
+courage to try it on foot. After a series of altercations, in which he
+took a pistol to shoot the dragoman, and applied very profane terms to
+everybody in the company, his wrath dissolved into tears, and when we
+left, Mentor had decided to rest a day at Nablous, and let him recover
+from the effects of the storm.
+
+We rode down the beautiful valley, taking the road to Sebaste (Samaria),
+while our luggage-mules kept directly over the mountains to Jenin. Our
+path at first followed the course of the stream, between turfy banks and
+through luxuriant orchards. The whole country we overlooked was planted
+with olive-trees, and, except the very summits of the mountains, covered
+with grain-fields. For two hours our course was north-east, leading over
+the hills, and now and then dipping into beautiful dells. In one of these
+a large stream gushes from the earth in a full fountain, at the foot of a
+great olive-tree. The hill-side above it was a complete mass of foliage,
+crowned with the white walls of a Syrian village. Descending the valley,
+which is very deep, we came in sight of Samaria, situated on the summit of
+an isolated hill. The sanctuary of the ancient Christian church of St.
+John towers high above the mud walls of the modern village. Riding between
+olive-orchards and wheat-fields of glorious richness and beauty, we passed
+the remains of an acqueduct, and ascended the hill The ruins of the church
+occupy the eastern summit. Part of them have been converted into a mosque,
+which the Christian foot is not allowed to profane. The church, which is
+in the Byzantine style, is apparently of the time of the Crusaders. It had
+originally a central and two side-aisles, covered with groined Gothic
+vaults. The sanctuary is semi-circular, with a row of small arches,
+supported by double pillars. The church rests on the foundations of some
+much more ancient building--probably a temple belonging to the Roman
+city.
+
+Behind the modern village, the hill terminates in a long, elliptical
+mound, about one-third of a mile in length. We made the tour of it, and
+were surprised at finding a large number of columns, each of a single
+piece of marble. They had once formed a double colonnade, extending from
+the church to a gate on the western side of the summit. Our native guide
+said they had been covered with an arch, and constituted a long market or
+bazaar--a supposition in which he may be correct. From the gate, which is
+still distinctly marked, we overlooked several deep valleys to the west,
+and over them all, the blue horizon of the Mediterranean, south of
+Cæsarea. On the northern side of the hill there are upwards of twenty more
+pillars standing, besides a number hurled down, and the remains of a
+quadrangular colonnade, on the side of the hill below. The total number of
+pillars on the summit cannot be less than one hundred, from twelve to
+eighteen feet in height. The hill is strewn, even to its base, with large
+hewn blocks and fragments of sculptured stone. The present name of the
+city was given to it by Herod, and it must have been at that time a most
+stately and beautiful place.
+
+We descended to a valley on the east, climbed a long ascent, and after
+crossing the broad shoulder of a mountain beyond, saw below us a landscape
+even more magnificent than that of Nablous. It was a great winding valley,
+its bottom rolling in waves of wheat and barley, while every hill-side, up
+to the bare rock, was mantled with groves of olive. The very summits which
+looked into this garden of Israel, were green with fragrant plants--wild
+thyme and sage, gnaphalium and camomile. Away to the west was the sea, and
+in the north-west the mountain chain of Carmel. We went down to the
+gardens and pasture-land, and stopped to rest at the Village of Geba,
+which hangs on the side of the mountain. A spring of whitish but delicious
+water gushed out of the soil, in the midst of a fig orchard. The women
+passed us, going back and forth with tall water-jars on their heads. Some
+herd-boys brought down a flock of black goats, and they were all given
+drink in a large wooden bowl. They were beautiful animals, with thick
+curved horns, white eyes, and ears a foot long. It was a truly Biblical
+picture in every feature.
+
+Beyond this valley we passed a circular basin, which has no outlet, so
+that in winter the bottom of it must be a lake. After winding among the
+hills an hour more, we came out upon the town of Jenin, a Turkish village,
+with a tall white minaret, at the head of the great plain of Esdraelon. It
+is supposed to be the ancient Jezreel, where the termagant Jezebel was
+thrown out of the window. We pitched our tent in a garden near the town,
+under a beautiful mulberry tree, and, as the place is in very bad repute,
+engaged a man to keep guard at night. An English family was robbed there
+two or three weeks ago. Our guard did his duty well, pacing back and
+forth, and occasionally grounding his musket to keep up his courage by the
+sound. In the evening, François caught a chameleon, a droll-looking little
+creature, which changed color in a marvellous manner.
+
+Our road, next day, lay directly across the Plain of Esdraelon, one of the
+richest districts in the world. It is now a green sea, covered with fields
+of wheat and barley, or great grazing tracts, on which multitudes of sheep
+and goats are wandering. In some respects it reminded me of the Valley of
+San José, and if I were to liken Palestine to any other country I have
+seen, it would be California. The climate and succession of the seasons
+are the same, the soil is very similar in quality, and the landscapes
+present the same general features. Here, in spring, the plains are covered
+with that deluge of floral bloom, which makes California seem a paradise.
+Here there are the same picturesque groves, the same rank fields of wild
+oats clothing the mountain-sides, the same aromatic herbs impregnating the
+air with balm, and above all, the same blue, cloudless days and dewless
+nights. While travelling here, I am constantly reminded of our new Syria
+on the Pacific.
+
+Towards noon, Mount Tabor separated itself from the chain of hills before
+us, and stood out singly, at the extremity of the plain. We watered our
+horses at a spring in a swamp, were some women were collected, beating
+with sticks the rushes they had gathered to make mats. After reaching the
+mountains on the northern side of the plain, an ascent of an hour and
+a-half, through a narrow glen, brought us to Nazareth, which is situated
+in a cul-de-sac, under the highest peaks of the range. As we were passing
+a rocky part of the road, Mr. Harrison's horse fell with him and severely
+injured his leg. We were fortunately near our destination, and on reaching
+the Latin Convent, Fra Joachim, to whose surgical abilities the
+traveller's book bore witness, took him in charge. Many others besides
+ourselves have had reason to be thankful for the good offices of the Latin
+monks in Palestine. I have never met with a class more kind, cordial, and
+genial. All the convents are bound to take in and entertain all
+applicants--of whatever creed or nation--for the space of three days.
+
+In the afternoon, Fra Joachim accompanied me to the Church of the Virgin,
+which is inclosed within the walls of the convent. It is built over the
+supposed site of the house in which the mother of Christ was living, at
+the time of the angelic annunciation. Under the high altar, a flight of
+steps leads down to the shrine of the Virgin, on the threshold of the
+house, where the Angel Gabriel's foot rested, as he stood, with a lily in
+his hand, announcing the miraculous conception. The shrine, of white
+marble and gold, gleaming in the light of golden lamps, stands under a
+rough arch of the natural rock, from the side of which hangs a heavy
+fragment of a granite pillar, suspended, as the devout believe, by divine
+power. Fra Joachim informed me that, when the Moslems attempted to
+obliterate all tokens of the holy place, this pillar was preserved by a
+miracle, that the locality might not be lost to the Christians. At the
+same time, he said, the angels of God carried away the wooden house which
+stood at the entrance of the grotto; and, after letting it drop in
+Marseilles, while they rested, picked it up again and set it down in
+Loretto, where it still remains. As he said this, there was such entire,
+absolute belief in the good monk's eyes, and such happiness in that
+belief, that not for ten times the gold on the shrine would I have
+expressed a doubt of the story. He then bade me kneel, that I might see
+the spot where the angel stood, and devoutly repeated a paternoster while
+I contemplated the pure plate of snowy marble, surrounded with vases of
+fragrant flowers, between which hung cressets of gold, wherein perfumed
+oils were burning. All the decorations of the place conveyed the idea of
+transcendent purity and sweetness; and, for the first time in Palestine, I
+wished for perfect faith in the spot. Behind the shrine, there are two or
+three chambers in the rock, which served as habitations for the family of
+the Virgin.
+
+A young Christian Nazarene afterwards conducted me to the House of Joseph,
+the Carpenter, which is now inclosed in a little chapel. It is merely a
+fragment of wall, undoubtedly as old as the time of Christ, and I felt
+willing to consider it a genuine relic. There was an honest roughness
+about the large stones, inclosing a small room called the carpenter's
+shop, which I could not find it in my heart to doubt. Besides, in a quiet
+country town like Nazareth, which has never knows such vicissitudes as
+Jerusalem, much more dependence can be placed on popular tradition. For
+the same reason, I looked with reverence on the Table of Christ, also
+inclosed within a chapel. This is a large, natural rock, about nine feet
+by twelve, nearly square, and quite flat on the top. It is said that it
+once served as a table for Christ and his Disciples. The building called
+the School of Christ, where he went with other children of his age, is now
+a church of the Syrian Christians, who were performing a doleful mass, in
+Arabic, at the time of my visit. It is a vaulted apartment, about forty
+feet long, and only the lower part of the wall is ancient. At each of
+these places, the Nazarene put into my hand a piece of pasteboard, on
+which was printed a prayer in Latin, Italian, and Arabic, with the
+information that whoever visited the place, and made the prayer, would be
+entitled to seven years' indulgence. I duly read all the prayers, and,
+accordingly, my conscience ought to be at rest for twenty-one years.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII.
+
+The Country of Galilee.
+
+
+  Departure from Nazareth--A Christian Guide--Ascent of Mount
+  Tabor--Wallachian Hermits--The Panorama of Tabor--Ride to Tiberias--A
+  Bath in Genesareth--The Flowers of Galilee--The Mount of
+  Beatitude--Magdala--Joseph's Well--Meeting with a Turk--The Fountain of
+  the Salt-Works--The Upper Valley of the Jordan--Summer Scenery--The
+  Rivers of Lebanon--Tell el-Kadi--An Arcadian Region--The Fountains of
+  Banias.
+
+  "Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,
+  And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene;
+  And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see
+  The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee!"--Whittier.
+
+
+Banias (Cæsarea Philippi), _May_ 10, 1852.
+
+We left Nazareth on the morning of the 8th inst. My companion had done so
+well under the care of Fra Joachim that he was able to ride, and our
+journey was not delayed by his accident. The benedictions of the good
+Franciscans accompanied us as we rode away from the Convent, past the
+Fountain of the Virgin, and out of the pleasant little valley where the
+boy Jesus wandered for many peaceful years. The Christian guide we engaged
+for Mount Tabor had gone ahead, and we did not find him until we had
+travelled for more than two hours among the hills. As we approached the
+sacred mountain, we came upon the region of oaks--the first oak I had seen
+since leaving Europe last autumn. There are three or four varieties, some
+with evergreen foliage, and in their wild luxuriance and the
+picturesqueness of their forms and groupings, they resemble those of
+California. The sea of grass and flowers in which they stood was sprinkled
+with thick tufts of wild oats--another point of resemblance to the latter
+country. But here, there is no gold; there, no sacred memories.
+
+The guide was waiting for us beside a spring, among the trees. He was a
+tall youth of about twenty, with a mild, submissive face, and wore the
+dark-blue turban, which appears to be the badge of a native Syrian
+Christian. I found myself involuntarily pitying him for belonging to a
+despised sect. There is no disguising the fact that one feels much more
+respect for the Mussulman rulers of the East, than for their oppressed
+subjects who profess his own faith. The surest way to make a man
+contemptible is to treat him contemptuously, and the Oriental Christians,
+who have been despised for centuries, are, with some few exceptions,
+despicable enough. Now, however, since the East has become a favorite
+field of travel, and the Frank possesses an equal dignity with the Moslem,
+the native Christians are beginning to hold up their heads, and the return
+of self-respect will, in the course of time, make them respectable.
+
+Mount Tabor stands a little in advance of the hill-country, with which it
+is connected only by a low spur or shoulder, its base being the Plain of
+Esdraelon. This is probably the reason why it has been fixed upon as the
+place of the Transfiguration, as it is not mentioned by name in the New
+Testament. The words are: "an high mountain apart," which some suppose to
+refer to the position of the mountain, and not to the remoteness of Christ
+and the three Disciples from men. The sides of the mountain are covered
+with clumps of oak, hawthorn and other trees, in many places overrun with
+the white honeysuckle, its fingers dropping with odor of nutmeg and
+cloves. The ascent, by a steep and winding path, occupied an hour. The
+summit is nearly level, and resembles some overgrown American field, or
+"oak opening." The grass is more than knee-deep; the trees grow high and
+strong, and there are tangled thickets and bowers of vines without end.
+The eastern and highest end of the mountain is covered with the remains of
+an old fortress-convent, once a place of great strength, from the
+thickness of its walls. In a sort of cell formed among the ruins we found
+two monk-hermits. I addressed them in all languages of which I know a
+salutation, without effect, but at last made out that they were
+Wallachians. They were men of thirty-five, with stupid faces, dirty
+garments, beards run to waste, and fur caps. Their cell was a mere hovel,
+without furniture, except a horrid caricature of the Virgin and Child, and
+four books of prayers in the Bulgarian character. One of them walked about
+knitting a stocking, and paid no attention to us; but the other, after
+giving us some deliciously cold water, got upon a pile of rubbish, and
+stood regarding us with open mouth while we took breakfast. So far from
+this being a cause of annoyance, I felt really glad that our presence had
+agitated the stagnant waters of his mind.
+
+The day was hazy and sultry, but the panoramic view from Mount Tabor was
+still very fine. The great Plain of Esdraelon lay below us like a vast
+mosaic of green and brown--jasper and verd-antique. On the west, Mount
+Carmel lifted his head above the blue horizon line of the Mediterranean.
+Turning to the other side, a strip of the Sea of Galilee glimmered deep
+down among the hills, and the Ghor, or the Valley of the Jordan,
+stretched like a broad gash through them. Beyond them, the country of
+Djebel Adjeloun, the ancient Decapolis, which still holds the walls of
+Gadara and the temples and theatres of Djerash, faded away into vapor,
+and, still further to the south, the desolate hills of Gilead, the home of
+Jephthah. Mount Hermon is visible when the atmosphere is clear but we were
+not able to see it.
+
+From the top of Mount Tabor to Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, is a
+journey of five hours, through a wild country, with but one single
+miserable village on the road. At first we rode through lonely dells,
+grown with oak and brilliant with flowers, especially the large purple
+mallow, and then over broad, treeless tracts of rolling land, but
+partially cultivated. The heat was very great; I had no thermometer, but
+should judge the temperature to have been at least 95° in the shade. From
+the edge of the upland tract, we looked down on the Sea of Galilee--a
+beautiful sheet of water sunk among the mountains, and more than 300 feet
+below the level of the Mediterranean. It lay unruffled in the bottom of
+the basin, reflecting the peaks of the bare red mountains beyond it.
+Tiberias was at our very feet, a few palm trees alone relieving the
+nakedness of its dull walls. After taking a welcome drink at the Fountain
+of Fig-trees, we descended to the town, which has a desolate and forlorn
+air. Its walls have been partly thrown down by earthquakes, and never
+repaired. We found our tents already pitched on the bank above the lake,
+and under one of the tottering towers.
+
+Not a breath of air was stirring; the red hills smouldered in the heat,
+and the waters of Genesareth at our feet glimmered with an oily
+smoothness, unbroken by a ripple. We untwisted our turbans, kicked off our
+baggy trowsers, and speedily releasing ourselves from the barbarous
+restraints of dress, dipped into the tepid sea and floated lazily out
+until we could feel the exquisite coldness of the living springs which
+sent up their jets from the bottom. I was lying on my back, moving my fins
+just sufficiently to keep afloat, and gazing dreamily through half-closed
+eyes on the forlorn palms of Tiberias, when a shrill voice hailed me with:
+"O Howadji, get out of our way!" There, at the old stone gateway below our
+tent, stood two Galilean damsels, with heavy earthen jars upon their
+heads. "Go away yourselves, O maidens!" I answered, "if you want us to
+come out of the water." "But we must fill our pitchers," one of them
+replied. "Then fill them at once, and be not afraid; or leave them, and we
+will fill them for you." Thereupon they put the pitchers down, but
+remained watching us very complacently while we sank the vessels to the
+bottom of the lake, and let them fill from the colder and purer tide of
+the springs. In bringing them back through the water to the gate, the one
+I propelled before me happened to strike against a stone, and its fair
+owner, on receiving it, immediately pointed to a crack in the side, which
+she declared I had made, and went off lamenting. After we had resumed our
+garments, and were enjoying the pipe of indolence and the coffee of
+contentment, she returned and made such an outcry, that I was fain to
+purchase peace by the price of a new pitcher. I passed the first hours
+of-the night in looking out of my tent-door, as I lay, on the stars
+sparkling in the bosom of Galilee, like the sheen of Assyrian spears, and
+the glare of the great fires kindled on the opposite shore.
+
+The next day, we travelled northward along the lake, passing through
+continuous thickets of oleander, fragrant with its heavy pink blossoms.
+The thistles were more abundant and beautiful than ever. I noticed, in
+particular, one with a superb globular flower of a bright blue color,
+which would make a choice ornament for our gardens at home. At the
+north-western head of the lake, the mountains fall back and leave a large
+tract of the richest meadow-land, which narrows away into a deep dell,
+overhung by high mountain headlands, faced with naked cliffs of red rock.
+The features of the landscape are magnificent. Up the dell, I saw plainly
+the Mount of Beatitude, beyond which lies the village of Cana of Galilee.
+In coming up the meadow, we passed a miserable little village of thatched
+mud huts, almost hidden by the rank weeds which grew around them. A
+withered old crone sat at one of the doors, sunning herself. "What is the
+name of this village?" I asked. "It is Mejdel," was her reply. This was
+the ancient Magdala, the home of that beautiful but sinful Magdalene,
+whose repentance has made her one of the brightest of the Saints. The
+crystal waters of the lake here lave a shore of the cleanest pebbles. The
+path goes winding through oleanders, nebbuks, patches of hollyhock,
+anise-seed, fennel, and other spicy plants, while, on the west, great
+fields of barley stand ripe for the cutting. In some places, the Fellahs,
+men and women, were at work, reaping and binding the sheaves. After
+crossing this tract, we came to the hill, at the foot of which was a
+ruined khan, and on the summit, other undistinguishable ruins, supposed by
+some to be those of Capernaum. The site of that exalted town, however, is
+still a matter of discussion.
+
+We journeyed on in a most sweltering atmosphere over the ascending hills,
+the valley of the Upper Jordan lying deep on our right. In a shallow
+hollow, under one of the highest peaks, there stands a large deserted
+khan; over a well of very cold; sweet water, called _Bir Youssuf_ by the
+Arabs. Somewhere near it, according to tradition, is the field where
+Joseph was sold by his brethren; and the well is, no doubt, looked upon by
+many as the identical pit into which he was thrown. A stately Turk of
+Damascus, with four servants behind him, came riding up as we were resting
+in the gateway of the khan, and, in answer to my question, informed me
+that the well was so named from Nebbee Youssuf (the Prophet Joseph), and
+not from Sultan Joseph Saladin. He took us for his countrymen, accosting
+me first in Turkish, and, even after I had talked with him some time in
+bad Arabic, asked me whether I had been making a pilgrimage to the tombs
+of certain holy Moslem saints, in the neighborhood of Jaffa. He joined
+company with us, however, and shared his pipe with me, as we continued our
+journey. We rode for two hours more over hills bare of trees, but covered
+thick with grass and herbs, and finally lost our way. François went ahead,
+dashing through the fields of barley and lentils, and we reached the path
+again, as the Waters of Merom came in sight. We then descended into the
+Valley of the Upper Jordan, and encamped opposite the lake, at Ain
+el-Mellaha (the Fountain of the Salt-Works), the first source of the
+sacred river. A stream of water, sufficient to turn half-a-dozen mills,
+gushes and gurgles up at the foot of the mountain. There are the remains
+of an ancient dam, by which a large pool was formed for the irrigation of
+the valley. It still supplies a little Arab mill below the fountain. This
+is a frontier post, between the jurisdictions of the Pashas of Jerusalem
+and Damascus, and the _mukkairee_ of the Greek Caloyer, who left us at
+Tiberias, was obliged to pay a duty of seven and a half piastres on
+fifteen mats, which he had bought at Jerusalem for one and a half piastres
+each. The poor man will perhaps make a dozen piastres (about half a
+dollar) on these mats at Damascus, after carrying them on his mule for
+more than two hundred miles.
+
+We pitched our tents on the grassy meadow below the mill--a charming spot,
+with Tell el-Khanzir (the hill of wild boars) just in front, over the
+Waters of Merom, and the snow-streaked summit of Djebel esh-Shekh--the
+great Mount Hermon--towering high above the valley. This is the loftiest
+peak of the Anti-Lebanon, and is 10,000 feet above the sea. The next
+morning, we rode for three hours before reaching the second spring of the
+Jordan, at a place which François called Tell el-Kadi, but which did not
+at all answer with the description given me by Dr. Robinson, at Jerusalem.
+The upper part of the broad valley, whence the Jordan draws his waters, is
+flat, moist, and but little cultivated. There are immense herds of sheep,
+goats, and buffaloes wandering over it. The people are a dark Arab tribe,
+and live in tents and miserable clay huts. Where the valley begins to
+slope upward towards the hills, they plant wheat, barley, and lentils. The
+soil is the fattest brown loam, and the harvests are wonderfully rich. I
+saw many tracts of wheat, from half a mile to a mile in extent, which
+would average forty bushels to the acre. Yet the ground is never manured,
+and the Arab plough scratches up but a few inches of the surface. What a
+paradise might be made of this country, were it in better hands!
+
+The second spring is not quite so large as Ain el-Mellaha but, like it,
+pours out a strong stream from a single source The pool was filled with
+women, washing the heavy fleeces of their sheep, and beating the dirt out
+of their striped camel's hair abas with long poles. We left it, and
+entered on a slope of stony ground, forming the head of the valley. The
+view extended southward, to the mountains closing the northern cove of the
+Sea of Galilee. It was a grand, rich landscape--so rich that its
+desolation seems forced and unnatural. High on the summit of a mountain to
+the west, the ruins of a large Crusader fortress looked down upon us. The
+soil, which slowly climbs upward through a long valley between Lebanon and
+Anti-Lebanon, is cut with deep ravines. The path is very difficult to
+find; and while we were riding forward at random, looking in all
+directions for our baggage mules, we started up a beautiful gazelle. At
+last, about noon, hot, hungry, and thirsty, we reached a swift stream,
+roaring at the bottom of a deep ravine, through a bed of gorgeous foliage.
+The odor of the wild grape-blossoms, which came up to us, as we rode along
+the edge, was overpowering in its sweetness. An old bridge of two arches
+crossed the stream. There was a pile of rocks against the central pier,
+and there we sat and took breakfast in the shade of the maples, while the
+cold green waters foamed at our feet. By all the Naiads and Tritons, what
+a joy there is in beholding a running stream! The rivers of Lebanon are
+miracles to me, after my knowledge of the Desert. A company of Arabs,
+seven in all, were gathered under the bridge; and, from a flute which one
+of them blew, I judged they were taking a pastoral holiday. We kept our
+pistols beside us; for we did not like their looks. Before leaving, they
+told us that the country was full of robbers, and advised us to be on the
+lookout. We rode more carefully, after this, and kept with our baggage on
+reaching it, An hour after leaving the bridge, we came to a large
+circular, or rather annular mound, overgrown with knee-deep grass and
+clumps of oak-trees. A large stream, of a bright blue color, gushed down
+the north side, and after half embracing the mound swept off across the
+meadows to the Waters of Merom. There could be no doubt that this was Tell
+el-Kadi, the site of Dan, the most northern town of ancient Israel. The
+mound on which it was built is the crater of an extinct volcano. The
+Hebrew word _Dan_ signifies "judge," and Tell el-Kadi, in Arabic, is "The
+Hill of the Judge."
+
+The Anti-Lebanon now rose near us, its northern and western slopes green
+with trees and grass. The first range, perhaps 5,000 feet in height, shut
+out the snowy head of Hermon; but still the view was sublime in its large
+and harmonious outlines. Our road was through a country resembling
+Arcadia--the earth hidden by a dense bed of grass and flowers; thickets of
+blossoming shrubs; old, old oaks, with the most gnarled of trunks, the
+most picturesque of boughs, and the glossiest of green leaves; olive-trees
+of amazing antiquity; and, threading and enlivening all, the clear-cold
+floods of Lebanon. This was the true haunt of Pan, whose altars are now
+before me, graven on the marble crags of Hermon. Looking on those altars,
+and on the landscape, lovely as a Grecian dream, I forget that the lament
+has long been sung:
+
+  "Pan, Pan is dead!"
+
+In another hour, we reached this place, the ancient Cæsarea Philippi, now
+a poor village, embowered in magnificent trees, and washed by glorious
+waters. There are abundant remains of the old city: fragments of immense
+walls; broken granite columns; traces of pavements; great blocks of hewn
+stone; marble pedestals, and the like. In the rock at the foot of the
+mountain, there are several elegant niches, with Greek inscriptions,
+besides a large natural grotto. Below them, the water gushes up through
+the stones, in a hundred streams, forming a flood of considerable size. We
+have made our camp in an olive grove near the end of the village, beside
+an immense terebinth tree, which is inclosed in an open court, paved with
+stone. This is the town-hall of Banias, where the Shekh dispenses justice,
+and at the same time, the resort of all the idlers of the place. We went
+up among them, soon after our arrival, and were given seats of honor near
+the Shekh, who talked with me a long time about America. The people
+exhibit a very sensible curiosity, desiring to know the extent of our
+country, the number of inhabitants, the amount of taxation, the price of
+grain, and other solid information.
+
+The Shekh and the men of the place inform us that the Druses are infesting
+the road to Damascus. This tribe is in rebellion in Djebel Hauaran, on
+account of the conscription, and some of them, it appears, have taken
+refuge in the fastnesses of Hermon, where they are beginning to plunder
+travellers. While I was talking with the Shekh, a Druse came down from the
+mountains, and sat for half an hour among the villagers, under the
+terebinth, and we have just heard that he has gone back the way he came.
+This fact has given us some anxiety, as he may have been a spy sent down
+to gather news and, if so, we are almost certain to be waylaid. If we were
+well armed, we should not fear a dozen, but all our weapons consist of a
+sword and four pistols. After consulting together, we decided to apply to
+the Shekh for two armed men, to accompany us. I accordingly went to him
+again, and exhibited the firman of the Pasha of Jerusalem, which he read,
+stating that, even without it, he would have felt it his duty to grant our
+request. This is the graceful way in which the Orientals submit to a
+peremptory order. He thinks that one man will be sufficient, as we shall
+probably not meet with any large party.
+
+The day has been, and still is, excessively hot. The atmosphere is
+sweltering, and all around us, over the thick patches of mallow and wild
+mustard, the bees are humming with a continuous sultry sound. The Shekh,
+with a number of lazy villagers, is still seated under the terebinth, in a
+tent of shade, impervious to the sun. I can hear the rush of the fountains
+of Banias--the holy springs of Hermon, whence Jordan is born. But what is
+this? The odor of the velvety weed of Shiraz meets my nostrils; a
+dark-eyed son of Pan places the narghileh at my feet; and, bubbling more
+sweetly than the streams of Jordan, the incense most dear to the god dims
+the crystal censer, and floats from my lips in rhythmic ejaculations. I,
+too, am in Arcadia!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII.
+
+Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.
+
+
+  The Harmless Guard--Cæsarea Philippi--The Valley of the Druses--The
+  Sides of Mount Hermon--An Alarm--Threading a Defile--Distant view of
+  Djebel Hauaran--Another Alarm--Camp at Katana--We Ride into Damascus.
+
+
+Damascus, _May_ 12, 1852.
+
+We rose early, so as to be ready for a long march. The guard came--a
+mild-looking Arab--without arms; but on our refusing to take him thus, he
+brought a Turkish musket, terrible to behold, but quite guiltless of any
+murderous intent. We gave ourselves up to fate, with true
+Arab-resignation, and began ascending the Anti-Lebanon. Up and up, by
+stony paths, under the oaks, beside the streams, and between the
+wheat-fields, we climbed for two hours, and at last reached a comb or
+dividing ridge, whence we could look into a valley on the other side, or
+rather inclosed between the main chain and the offshoot named Djebel
+Heish, which stretches away towards the south-east. About half-way up the
+ascent, we passed the ruined acropolis of Cæsarea Philippi, crowning the
+summit of a lower peak. The walls and bastions cover a great extent of
+ground, and were evidently used as a stronghold in the Middle Ages.
+
+The valley into which we descended lay directly under one of the peaks of
+Hermon and the rills that watered it were fed from his snow-fields. It was
+inhabited by Druses, but no men were to be seen, except a few poor
+husbandmen, ploughing on the mountain-sides. The women, wearing those
+enormous horns on their heads which distinguish them from the Mohammedan
+females, were washing at a pool below. We crossed the valley, and slowly
+ascended the height on the opposite side, taking care to keep with the
+baggage-mules. Up to this time, we met very few persons; and we forgot the
+anticipated perils in contemplating the rugged scenery of the
+Anti-Lebanon. The mountain-sides were brilliant with flowers, and many new
+and beautiful specimens arrested our attention. The asphodel grew in
+bunches beside the streams, and the large scarlet anemone outshone even
+the poppy, whose color here is the quintessence of flame. Five hours after
+leaving Banias, we reached the highest part of the pass--a dreary volcanic
+region, covered with fragments of lava. Just at this place, an old Arab
+met us, and, after scanning us closely, stopped and accosted Dervish. The
+latter immediately came running ahead, quite excited with the news that
+the old man had seen a company of about fifty Druses descend from the
+sides of Mount Hermon, towards the road we were to travel. We immediately
+ordered the baggage to halt, and Mr. Harrison, François, and myself rode
+on to reconnoitre. Our guard, the valiant man of Banias, whose teeth
+already chattered with fear, prudently kept with the baggage. We crossed
+the ridge and watched the stony mountain-sides for some time; but no spear
+or glittering gun-barrel could we see. The caravan was then set in motion;
+and we had not proceeded far before we met a second company of Arabs, who
+informed us that the road was free.
+
+Leaving the heights, we descended cautiously into a ravine with walls of
+rough volcanic rock on each side. It was a pass where three men might have
+stood their ground against a hundred; and we did not feel thoroughly
+convinced of our safety till we had threaded its many windings and emerged
+upon a narrow valley. A village called Beit Jenn nestled under the rocks;
+and below it, a grove of poplar-trees shaded the banks of a rapid stream.
+We had now fairly crossed the Anti-Lebanon. The dazzling snows of Mount
+Hermon overhung us on the west; and, from the opening of the valley, we
+looked across a wild, waste country, to the distant range of Djebel
+Hauaran, the seat of the present rebellion, and one of the most
+interesting regions of Syria. I regretted more than ever not being able to
+reach it. The ruins of Bozrah, Ezra, and other ancient cities, would well
+repay the arduous character of the journey, while the traveller might
+succeed in getting some insight into the life and habits of that singular
+people, the Druses. But now, and perhaps for some time to come, there is
+no chance of entering the Hauaran.
+
+Towards the middle of the afternoon, we reached a large village, which is
+usually the end of the first day's journey from Banias. Our men wanted to
+stop here, but we considered that to halt then would be to increase the
+risk, and decided to push on to Katana, four hours' journey from Damascus.
+They yielded with a bad grace; and we jogged on over the stony road,
+crossing the long hills which form the eastern base of the Anti-Lebanon.
+Before long, another Arab met us with the news that there was an
+encampment of Druses on the plain between us and Katana. At this, our
+guard, who had recovered sufficient spirit to ride a few paces in advance,
+fell back, and the impassive Dervish became greatly agitated. Where there
+is an uncertain danger, it is always better to go ahead than to turn back;
+and we did so. But the guard reined up on the top of the first ridge,
+trembling as he pointed to a distant hill, and cried out: _"Ahò, ahò
+henàk!"_ (There they are!) There were, in fact, the shadows of some rocks,
+which bore a faint resemblance to tents. Before sunset, we reached the
+last declivity of the mountains, and saw far in the dusky plain, the long
+green belt of the gardens of Damascus, and here and there the indistinct
+glimmer of a minaret. Katana, our resting-place for the night, lay below
+us, buried in orchards of olive and orange. We pitched our tents on the
+banks of a beautiful stream, enjoyed the pipe of tranquillity, after our
+long march, and soon forgot the Druses, in a slumber that lasted unbroken
+till dawn.
+
+In the morning we sent back the man of Banias, left the baggage to take
+care of itself, and rode on to Damascus, as fast as our tired horses could
+carry us. The plain, at first barren and stony, became enlivened with
+vineyards and fields of wheat, as we advanced. Arabs were everywhere at
+work, ploughing and directing the water-courses. The belt of living green,
+the bower in which the great city, the Queen of the Orient, hides her
+beauty, drew nearer and nearer, stretching out a crescent of foliage for
+miles on either hand, that gradually narrowed and received us into its
+cool and fragrant heart. We sank into a sea of olive, pomegranate, orange,
+plum, apricot, walnut, and plane trees, and were lost. The sun sparkled in
+the rolling surface above; but we swam through the green depths, below
+his reach, and thus, drifted on through miles of shade, entered the city.
+
+Since our arrival, I find that two other parties of travellers, one of
+which crossed the Anti-Lebanon on the northern side of Mount Hermon, were
+obliged to take guards, and saw several Druse spies posted on the heights,
+as they passed. A Russian gentleman travelling from here to Tiberias, was
+stopped three times on the road, and only escaped being plundered from the
+fact of his having a Druse dragoman. The disturbances are more serious
+than I had anticipated. Four regiments left here yesterday, sent to the
+aid of a company of cavalry, which is surrounded by the rebels in a valley
+of Dejebel Hauaran, and unable to get out.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+Pictures of Damascus.
+
+
+  Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
+  Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
+  Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
+  Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
+  of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra.
+
+  "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the
+  waters of Israel?"--2 Kings, v. 12.
+
+
+Damascus, _Wednesday, May_ 19, 1852.
+
+Damascus is considered by many travellers as the best remaining type of an
+Oriental city. Constantinople is semi-European; Cairo is fast becoming so;
+but Damascus, away from the highways of commerce, seated alone between the
+Lebanon and the Syrian Desert, still retains, in its outward aspect and in
+the character of its inhabitants, all the pride and fancy and fanaticism
+of the times of the Caliphs. With this judgment, in general terms, I
+agree; but not to its ascendancy, in every respect, over Cairo. True, when
+you behold Damascus from the Salahiyeh, the last slope of the
+Anti-Lebanon, it is the realization of all that you have dreamed of
+Oriental splendor; the world has no picture more dazzling. It is Beauty
+carried to the Sublime, as I have felt when overlooking some boundless
+forest of palms within the tropics. From the hill, whose ridges heave
+behind you until in the south they rise to the snowy head of Mount Hermon,
+the great Syrian plain stretches away to the Euphrates, broken at
+distances of ten and fifteen miles, by two detached mountain chains. In a
+terrible gorge at your side, the river Barrada, the ancient Pharpar,
+forces its way to the plain, and its waters, divided into twelve different
+channels, make all between you and those blue island-hills of the desert,
+one great garden, the boundaries of which your vision can barely
+distinguish. Its longest diameter cannot be less than twenty miles. You
+look down on a world of foliage, and fruit, and blossoms, whose hue, by
+contrast with the barren mountains and the yellow rim of the desert which
+incloses it, seems brighter than all other gardens in the world. Through
+its centre, following the course of the river, lies Damascus; a line of
+white walls, topped with domes and towers and tall minarets, winding away
+for miles through the green sea. Nothing less than a city of palaces,
+whose walls are marble and whose doors are ivory and pearl, could keep up
+the enchantment of that distant view.
+
+We rode for an hour through the gardens before entering the gate. The
+fruit-trees, of whatever variety---walnut, olive, apricot, or fig--were
+the noblest of their kind. Roses and pomegranates in bloom starred the
+dark foliage, and the scented jasmine overhung the walls. But as we
+approached the city, the view was obscured by high mud walls on either
+side of the road, and we only caught glimpses now and then of the fragrant
+wilderness. The first street we entered was low and mean, the houses of
+clay. Following this, we came to an uncovered bazaar, with rude shops on
+either side, protected by mats stretched in front and supported by poles.
+Here all sorts of common stuns and utensils were sold, and the street was
+filled with crowds of Fellahs and Desert Arabs. Two large sycamores shaded
+it, and the Seraglio of the Pasha of Damascus, a plain two-story building,
+faced the entrance of the main bazaar, which branched off into the city.
+We turned into this, and after passing through several small bazaars
+stocked with dried fruits, pipes and pipe-bowls, groceries, and all the
+primitive wares of the East, reached a large passage, covered with a steep
+wooden roof, and entirely occupied by venders of silk stuffs. Out of this
+we passed through another, devoted to saddles and bridles; then another,
+full of spices, and at last reached the grand bazaar, where all the
+richest stuffs of Europe and the East were displayed in the shops. We rode
+slowly along through the cool twilight, crossed here and there by long
+pencils of white light, falling through apertures in the roof, and
+illuminating the gay turbans and silk caftans of the lazy merchants. But
+out of this bazaar, at intervals, opened the grand gate of a khan, giving
+us a view of its marble court, its fountains, and the dark arches of its
+storerooms; or the door of a mosque, with its mosaic floor and pillared
+corridor. The interminable lines of bazaars, with their atmospheres of
+spice and fruit and fragrant tobacco, the hushed tread of the slippered
+crowds; the plash of falling fountains and the bubbling of innumerable
+narghilehs; the picturesque merchants and their customers, no longer in
+the big trowsers of Egypt, but the long caftans and abas of Syria; the
+absence of Frank faces and dresses--in all these there was the true spirit
+of the Orient, and so far, we were charmed with Damascus.
+
+At the hotel in the Soog el-Haràb, or Frank quarter, the illusion was not
+dissipated. It had once been the house of some rich merchant. The court
+into which we were ushered is paved with marble, with a great stone basin,
+surrounded with vases of flowering plants, in the centre. Two large lemon
+trees shade the entrance, and a vine, climbing to the top of the house,
+makes a leafy arbor over the flat roof. The walls of the house are painted
+in horizontal bars of blue, white, orange and white--a gay grotesqueness
+of style which does not offend the eye under an eastern sun. On the
+southern side of the court is the _liwan_, an arrangement for which the
+houses of Damascus are noted. It is a vaulted apartment, twenty feet high,
+entirely open towards the court, except a fine pointed arch at the top,
+decorated with encaustic ornaments of the most brilliant colors. In front,
+a tesselated pavement of marble leads to the doors of the chambers on each
+side. Beyond this is a raised floor covered with matting, and along the
+farther end a divan, whose piled cushions are the most tempting trap ever
+set to catch a lazy man. Although not naturally indolent, I find it
+impossible to resist the fascination of this lounge. Leaning back,
+cross-legged, against the cushions, with the inseparable pipe in one's
+hand, the view of the court, the water-basin, the flowers and lemon trees,
+the servants and dragomen going back and forth, or smoking their
+narghilehs in the shade--all framed in the beautiful arched entrance, is
+so perfectly Oriental, so true a tableau from the times of good old Haroun
+Al-Raschid, that one is surprised to find how many hours have slipped away
+while he has been silently enjoying it.
+
+Opposite the _liwan_ is a large room paved with marble, with a handsome
+fountain in the centre. It is the finest in the hotel, and now occupied
+by Lord Dalkeith and his friends. Our own room is on the upper floor, and
+is so rich in decorations that I have not yet finished the study of them.
+Along the side, looking down on the court, we have a mosaic floor of
+white, red, black and yellow marble. Above this is raised a second floor,
+carpeted and furnished in European style. The walls, for a height of ten
+feet, are covered with wooden panelling, painted with arabesque devices in
+the gayest colors, and along the top there is a series of Arabic
+inscriptions in gold. There are a number of niches or open closets in the
+walls, whose arched tops are adorned with pendent wooden ornaments,
+resembling stalactites, and at the corners of the room the heavy gilded
+and painted cornice drops into similar grotesque incrustations. A space of
+bare white wall intervenes between this cornice and the ceiling, which is
+formed of slim poplar logs, laid side by side, and so covered with paint
+and with scales and stripes and network devices in gold and silver, that
+one would take them to be clothed with the skins of the magic serpents
+that guard the Valley of Diamonds. My most satisfactory remembrance of
+Damascus will be this room.
+
+My walks through the city have been almost wholly confined to the bazaars,
+which are of immense extent. One can walk for many miles, without going
+beyond the cover of their peaked wooden roofs, and in all this round will
+find no two precisely alike. One is devoted entirely to soap; another to
+tobacco, through which you cough and sneeze your way to the bazaar of
+spices, and delightedly inhale its perfumed air. Then there is the bazaar
+of sweetmeats; of vegetables; of red slippers; of shawls; of caftans; of
+bakers and ovens; of wooden ware; of jewelry---a great stone building,
+covered with vaulted passages; of Aleppo silks; of Baghdad carpets; of
+Indian stuffs; of coffee; and so on, through a seemingly endless variety.
+As I have already remarked, along the line of the bazaars are many khans,
+the resort of merchants from all parts of Turkey and Persia, and even
+India. They are large, stately buildings, and some of them have superb
+gateways of sculptured marble. The interior courts are paved with stone,
+with fountains in the centre, and many of them are covered with domes
+resting on massive pillars. The largest has a roof of nine domes,
+supported by four grand pillars, which inclose a fountain. The mosques,
+into which no Christian is allowed to enter, are in general inferior to
+those of Cairo, but their outer courts are always paved with marble,
+adorned with fountains, and surrounded by light and elegant corridors. The
+grand mosque is an imposing edifice, and is said to occupy the site of a
+former Christian church.
+
+Another pleasant feature of the city is its coffee shops, which abound in
+the bazaars and on the outskirts of the gardens, beside the running
+streams. Those in the bazaars are spacious rooms with vaulted ceilings,
+divans running around the four walls, and fountains in the centre. During
+the afternoon they are nearly always filled with Turks, Armenians and
+Persians, smoking the narghileh, or water-pipe, which is the universal
+custom in Damascus. The Persian tobacco, brought here by the caravans from
+Baghdad, is renowned for this kind of smoking. The most popular
+coffee-shop is near the citadel, on the banks and over the surface of the
+Pharpar. It is a rough wooden building, with a roof of straw mats, but the
+sight and sound of the rushing waters, as they shoot away with arrowy
+swiftness under your feet, the shade of the trees that line the banks,
+and the cool breeze that always visits the spot, beguile you into a second
+pipe ere you are aware. _"El mà, wa el khòdra, wa el widj el
+hassàn_--water, verdure and a beautiful face," says an old Arab proverb,
+"are three things which delight the heart," and the Syrians avow that all
+three are to be found in Damascus. Not only on the three Sundays of each
+week, but every day, in the gardens about the city, you may see whole
+families (and if Jews or Christians, many groups of families) spending the
+day in the shade, beside the beautiful waters. There are several gardens
+fitted up purposely for these picnics, with kiosks, fountains and pleasant
+seats under the trees. You bring your pipes, your provisions and the like
+with you, but servants are in attendance to furnish fire and water and
+coffee, for which, on leaving, you give them a small gratuity. Of all the
+Damascenes I have yet seen, there is not one but declares his city to be
+the Garden of the World, the Pearl of the Orient, and thanks God and the
+Prophet for having permitted him to be born and to live in it. But, except
+the bazaars, the khans and the baths, of which there are several most
+luxurious establishments, the city itself is neither so rich nor so purely
+Saracenic in its architecture as Cairo. The streets are narrow and dirty,
+and the houses, which are never more than two low stories in height, are
+built of sun-dried bricks, coated with plaster. I miss the solid piles of
+stone, the elegant doorways, and, above all, the exquisite hanging
+balconies of carved wood, which meet one in the old streets of Cairo.
+Damascus is the representative of all that is gay, brilliant, and
+picturesque, in Oriental life; but for stately magnificence, Cairo, and, I
+suspect, Baghdad, is its superior.
+
+We visited the other day the houses of some of the richest Jews and
+Christians. Old Abou-Ibrahim, the Jewish servant of the hotel, accompanied
+and introduced us. It is customary for travellers to make these visits,
+and the families, far from being annoyed, are flattered by it. The
+exteriors of the houses are mean; but after threading a narrow passage, we
+emerged into a court, rivalling in profusion of ornament and rich contrast
+of colors one's early idea of the Palace of Aladdin. The floors and
+fountains are all of marble mosaic; the arches of the _liwan_ glitter with
+gold, and the walls bewilder the eye with the intricacy of their
+adornments. In the first house, we were received by the family in a room
+of precious marbles, with niches in the walls, resembling grottoes of
+silver stalactites. The cushions of the divan were of the richest silk,
+and a chandelier of Bohemian crystal hung from the ceiling. Silver
+narghilehs were brought to us, and coffee was served in heavy silver
+_zerfs_. The lady of the house was a rather corpulent lady of about
+thirty-five, and wore a semi-European robe of embroidered silk and lace,
+with full trowsers gathered at the ankles, and yellow slippers. Her black
+hair was braided, and fastened at the end with golden ornaments, and the
+light scarf twisted around her head blazed with diamonds. The lids of her
+large eyes were stained with _kohl_, and her eyebrows were plucked out and
+shaved away so as to leave only a thin, arched line, as if drawn with a
+pencil, above each eye. Her daughter, a girl of fifteen, who bore the
+genuine Hebrew name of Rachel, had even bigger and blacker eyes than her
+mother; but her forehead was low, her mouth large, and the expression of
+her face exceedingly stupid. The father of the family was a middle-aged
+man, with a well-bred air, and talked with an Oriental politeness which
+was very refreshing. An English lady, who was of our party, said to him,
+through me, that if she possessed such a house she should be willing to
+remain in Damascus. "Why does she leave, then?" he immediately answered:
+"this is her house, and everything that is in it." Speaking of visiting
+Jerusalem, he asked me whether it was not a more beautiful city than
+Damascus. "It is not more beautiful," I said, "but it is more holy," an
+expression which the whole company received with great satisfaction.
+
+The second house we visited was even larger and richer than the first, but
+had an air of neglect and decay. The slabs of rich marble were loose and
+broken, about the edges of the fountains; the rich painting of the
+wood-work was beginning to fade; and the balustrades leading to the upper
+chambers were broken off in places. We were ushered into a room, the walls
+and ceilings of which were composed entirely of gilded arabesque
+frame-work, set with small mirrors. When new, it must have had a gorgeous
+effect; but the gold is now tarnished, and the glasses dim. The mistress
+of the house was seated on the cushions, dividing her time between her
+pipe and her needle-work. She merely made a slight inclination of her head
+as we entered, and went on with her occupation. Presently her two
+daughters and an Abyssinian slave appeared, and took their places on the
+cushions at her feet, the whole forming a charming group, which I
+regretted some of my artist friends at home could not see. The mistress
+was so exceedingly dignified, that she bestowed but few words on us. She
+seemed to resent our admiration of the slave, who was a most graceful
+creature; yet her jealousy, it afterwards appeared, had reference to her
+own husband, for we had scarcely left, when a servant followed to inform
+the English lady that if she was willing to buy the Abyssinian, the
+mistress would sell her at once for two thousand piastres.
+
+The last visit we paid was to the dwelling of a Maronite, the richest
+Christian in Damascus. The house resembled those we had already seen,
+except that, having been recently built, it was in better condition, and
+exhibited better taste in the ornaments. No one but the lady was allowed
+to enter the female apartments, the rest of us being entertained by the
+proprietor, a man of fifty, and without exception the handsomest and most
+dignified person of that age I have ever seen. He was a king without a
+throne, and fascinated me completely by the noble elegance of his manner.
+In any country but the Orient, I should have pronounced him incapable of
+an unworthy thought: here, he may be exactly the reverse.
+
+Although Damascus is considered the oldest city in the world, the date of
+its foundation going beyond tradition, there are very few relics of
+antiquity in or near it. In the bazaar are three large pillars, supporting
+half the pediment, which are said to have belonged to the Christian Church
+of St. John, but, if so, that church must have been originally a Roman
+temple. Part of the Roman walls and one of the city gates remain; and we
+saw the spot where, according to tradition, Saul was let down from the
+wall in a basket. There are two localities pointed out as the scene of his
+conversion, which, from his own account, occurred near the city. I visited
+a subterranean chapel claimed by the Latin monks to be the cellar of the
+house of Ananias, in which the Apostle was concealed. The cellar is,
+undoubtedly, of great antiquity; but as the whole quarter was for many
+centuries inhabited wholly by Turks, it would be curious to know how the
+monks ascertained which was the house of Ananias. As for the "street
+called Straight," it would be difficult at present to find any in Damascus
+corresponding to that epithet.
+
+The famous Damascus blades, so renowned in the time of the Crusaders, are
+made here no longer. The art has been lost for three or four centuries.
+Yet genuine old swords, of the true steel, are occasionally to be found.
+They are readily distinguished from modern imitations by their clear and
+silvery ring when struck, and by the finely watered appearance of the
+blade, produced by its having been first made of woven wire, and then
+worked over and over again until it attained the requisite temper. A droll
+Turk, who is the _shekh ed-dellàl,_ or Chief of the Auctioneers, and is
+nicknamed Abou-Anteeka (the Father of the Antiques), has a large
+collection of sabres, daggers, pieces of mail, shields, pipes, rings,
+seals, and other ancient articles. He demands enormous prices, but
+generally takes about one-third of what he first asks. I have spent
+several hours in his curiosity shop, bargaining for turquoise rings,
+carbuncles, Persian amulets, and Circassian daggers. While looking over
+some old swords the other day, I noticed one of exquisite temper, but with
+a shorter blade than usual. The point had apparently been snapped off in
+fight, but owing to the excellence of the sword, or the owner's affection
+for it, the steel had been carefully shaped into a new point. Abou-Anteeka
+asked five hundred piastres, and I, who had taken a particular fancy to
+possess it, offered him two hundred in an indifferent way, and then laid
+it aside to examine other articles. After his refusal to accept my offer,
+I said nothing more, and was leaving the shop, when the old fellow called
+me back, saying: "You have forgotten your sword,"--which I thereupon took
+at my own price. I have shown it to Mr. Wood, the British Consul, who
+pronounced it an extremely fine specimen of Damascus steel; and, on
+reading the inscription enamelled upon the blade, ascertains that it was
+made in the year of the Hegira, 181, which corresponds to A.D. 798. This
+was during the Caliphate of Haroun Al-Raschid, and who knows but the sword
+may have once flashed in the presence of that great and glorious
+sovereign--nay, been drawn by his own hand! Who knows but that the Milan
+armor of the Crusaders may have shivered its point, on the field of
+Askalon! I kiss the veined azure of thy blade, O Sword of Haroun! I hang
+the crimson cords of thy scabbard upon my shoulder, and thou shalt
+henceforth clank in silver music at my side, singing to my ear, and mine
+alone, thy chants of battle, thy rejoicing songs of slaughter!
+
+Yesterday evening, three gentlemen of Lord Dalkeith's party arrived from a
+trip to Palmyra. The road thither lies through a part of the Syrian Desert
+belonging to the Aneyzeh tribe, who are now supposed to be in league with
+the Druses, against the Government. Including this party, only six persons
+have succeeded in reaching Palmyra within a year, and two of them, Messrs.
+Noel and Cathcart, were imprisoned four days by the Arabs, and only
+escaped by the accidental departure of a caravan for Damascus. The present
+party was obliged to travel almost wholly by night, running the gauntlet
+of a dozen Arab encampments, and was only allowed a day's stay at Palmyra.
+They were all disguised as Bedouins, and took nothing with them but the
+necessary provisions. They made their appearance here last evening, in
+long, white abas, with the Bedouin _keffie_ bound over their heads, their
+faces burnt, their eyes inflamed, and their frames feverish with seven
+days and nights of travel. The shekh who conducted them was not an
+Aneyzeh, and would have lost his life had they fallen in with any of that
+tribe.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X.
+
+The Visions of Hasheesh.
+
+
+  "Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
+  Possessed beyond the Muse's painting."
+
+  Collins.
+
+
+During my stay in Damascus, that insatiable curiosity which leads me to
+prefer the acquisition of all lawful knowledge through the channels of my
+own personal experience, rather than in less satisfactory and less
+laborious ways, induced me to make a trial of the celebrated
+_Hasheesh_--that remarkable drug which supplies the luxurious Syrian with
+dreams more alluring and more gorgeous than the Chinese extracts from his
+darling opium pipe. The use of Hasheesh--which is a preparation of the
+dried leaves of the _cannabis indica_--has been familiar to the East for
+many centuries. During the Crusades, it was frequently used by the Saracen
+warriors to stimulate them to the work of slaughter, and from the Arabic
+term of "_Hashasheën,"_ or Eaters of Hasheesh, as applied to them, the
+word "assassin" has been naturally derived. An infusion of the same plant
+gives to the drink called "_bhang_," which is in common use throughout
+India and Malaysia, its peculiar properties. Thus prepared, it is a more
+fierce and fatal stimulant than the paste of sugar and spices to which the
+Turk resorts, as the food of his voluptuous evening reveries. While its
+immediate effects seem to be more potent than those of opium, its
+habitual use, though attended with ultimate and permanent injury to the
+system, rarely results in such utter wreck of mind and body as that to
+which the votaries of the latter drug inevitably condemn themselves.
+
+A previous experience of the effects of hasheesh--which I took once, and
+in a very mild form, while in Egypt--was so peculiar in its character,
+that my curiosity, instead of being satisfied, only prompted me the more
+to throw myself, for once, wholly under its influence. The sensations it
+then produced were those, physically, of exquisite lightness and
+airiness--of a wonderfully keen perception of the ludicrous, in the most
+simple and familiar objects. During the half hour in which it lasted, I
+was at no time so far under its control, that I could not, with the
+clearest perception, study the changes through which I passed. I noted,
+with careful attention, the fine sensations which spread throughout the
+whole tissue of my nervous fibre, each thrill helping to divest my frame
+of its earthy and material nature, until my substance appeared to me no
+grosser than the vapors of the atmosphere, and while sitting in the calm
+of the Egyptian twilight, I expected to be lifted up and carried away by
+the first breeze that should ruffle the Nile. While this process was going
+on, the objects by which I was surrounded assumed a strange and whimsical
+expression. My pipe, the oars which my boatmen plied, the turban worn by
+the captain, the water-jars and culinary implements, became in themselves
+so inexpressibly absurd and comical, that I was provoked into a long fit
+of laughter. The hallucination died away as gradually as it came, leaving
+me overcome with a soft and pleasant drowsiness, from which I sank into a
+deep, refreshing sleep.
+
+My companion and an English gentleman, who, with his wife, was also
+residing in Antonio's pleasant caravanserai--agreed to join me in the
+experiment. The dragoman of the latter was deputed to procure a sufficient
+quantity of the drug. He was a dark Egyptian, speaking only the _lingua
+franca_ of the East, and asked me, as he took the money and departed on
+his mission, whether he should get hasheesh "_per ridere, a per dormire?_"
+"Oh, _per ridere_, of course," I answered; "and see that it be strong and
+fresh." It is customary with the Syrians to take a small portion
+immediately before the evening meal, as it is thus diffused through the
+stomach and acts more gradually, as well as more gently, upon the system.
+As our dinner-hour was at sunset, I proposed taking hasheesh at that time,
+but my friends, fearing that its operation might be more speedy upon fresh
+subjects, and thus betray them into some absurdity in the presence of the
+other travellers, preferred waiting until after the meal. It was then
+agreed that we should retire to our room, which, as it rose like a tower
+one story higher than the rest of the building, was in a manner isolated,
+and would screen us from observation.
+
+We commenced by taking a tea-spoonful each of the mixture which Abdallah
+had procured. This was about the quantity I had taken in Egypt, and as the
+effect then had been so slight, I judged that we ran no risk of taking an
+over-dose. The strength of the drug, however, must have been far greater
+in this instance, for whereas I could in the former case distinguish no
+flavor but that of sugar and rose leaves, I now found the taste intensely
+bitter and repulsive to the palate. We allowed the paste to dissolve
+slowly on our tongues, and sat some time, quietly waiting the result. But,
+having been taken upon a full stomach, its operation was hindered, and
+after the lapse of nearly an hour, we could not detect the least change in
+our feelings. My friends loudly expressed their conviction of the humbug
+of hasheesh, but I, unwilling to give up the experiment at this point,
+proposed that we should take an additional half spoonful, and follow it
+with a cup of hot tea, which, if there were really any virtue in the
+preparation, could not fail to call it into action. This was done, though
+not without some misgivings, as we were all ignorant of the precise
+quantity which constituted a dose, and the limits within which the drug
+could be taken with safety. It was now ten o'clock; the streets of
+Damascus were gradually becoming silent, and the fair city was bathed in
+the yellow lustre of the Syrian moon. Only in the marble court-yard below
+us, a few dragomen and _mukkairee_ lingered under the lemon-trees, and
+beside the fountain in the centre.
+
+I was seated alone, nearly in the middle of the room, talking with my
+friends, who were lounging upon a sofa placed in a sort of alcove, at the
+farther end, when the same fine nervous thrill, of which I have spoken,
+suddenly shot through me. But this time it was accompanied with a burning
+sensation at the pit of the stomach; and, instead of growing upon me with
+the gradual pace of healthy slumber, and resolving me, as before, into
+air, it came with the intensity of a pang, and shot throbbing along the
+nerves to the extremities of my body. The sense of limitation---of the
+confinement of our senses within the bounds of our own flesh and
+blood--instantly fell away. The walls of my frame were burst outward and
+tumbled into ruin; and, without thinking what form I wore--losing sight
+even of all idea of form--I felt that I existed throughout a vast extent
+of space. The blood, pulsed from my heart, sped through uncounted leagues
+before it reached my extremities; the air drawn into my lungs expanded
+into seas of limpid ether, and the arch of my skull was broader than the
+vault of heaven. Within the concave that held my brain, were the
+fathomless deeps of blue; clouds floated there, and the winds of heaven
+rolled them together, and there shone the orb of the sun. It was--though I
+thought not of that at the time--like a revelation of the mystery of
+omnipresence. It is difficult to describe this sensation, or the rapidity
+with which it mastered me. In the state of mental exaltation in which I
+was then plunged, all sensations, as they rose, suggested more or less
+coherent images. They presented themselves to me in a double form: one
+physical, and therefore to a certain extent tangible; the other spiritual,
+and revealing itself in a succession of splendid metaphors. The physical
+feeling of extended being was accompanied by the image of an exploding
+meteor, not subsiding into darkness, but continuing to shoot from its
+centre or nucleus--which corresponded to the burning spot at the pit of my
+stomach--incessant adumbrations of light that finally lost themselves in
+the infinity of space. To my mind, even now, this image is still the best
+illustration of my sensations, as I recall them; but I greatly doubt
+whether the reader will find it equally clear.
+
+My curiosity was now in a way of being satisfied; the Spirit (demon, shall
+I not rather say?) of Hasheesh had entire possession of me. I was cast
+upon the flood of his illusions, and drifted helplessly whithersoever they
+might choose to bear me. The thrills which ran through my nervous system
+became more rapid and fierce, accompanied with sensations that steeped my
+whole being in unutterable rapture. I was encompassed by a sea of light,
+through which played the pure, harmonious colors that are born of light.
+While endeavoring, in broken expressions, to describe my feelings to my
+friends, who sat looking upon me incredulously--not yet having been
+affected by the drug--I suddenly found myself at the foot of the great
+Pyramid of Cheops. The tapering courses of yellow limestone gleamed like
+gold in the sun, and the pile rose so high that it seemed to lean for
+support upon the blue arch of the sky. I wished to ascend it, and the wish
+alone placed me immediately upon its apex, lifted thousands of feet above
+the wheat-fields and palm-groves of Egypt. I cast my eyes downward, and,
+to my astonishment, saw that it was built, not of limestone, but of huge
+square plugs of Cavendish tobacco! Words cannot paint the overwhelming
+sense of the ludicrous which I then experienced. I writhed on my chair in
+an agony of laughter, which was only relieved by the vision melting away
+like a dissolving view; till, out of my confusion of indistinct images and
+fragments of images, another and more wonderful vision arose.
+
+The more vividly I recall the scene which followed, the more carefully I
+restore its different features, and separate the many threads of sensation
+which it wove into one gorgeous web, the more I despair of representing
+its exceeding glory. I was moving over the Desert, not upon the rocking
+dromedary, but seated in a barque made of mother-of-pearl, and studded
+with jewels of surpassing lustre. The sand was of grains of gold, and my
+keel slid through them without jar or sound. The air was radiant with
+excess of light, though no sun was to be seen. I inhaled the most
+delicious perfumes; and harmonies, such as Beethoven may have heard in
+dreams, but never wrote, floated around me. The atmosphere itself was
+light, odor, music; and each and all sublimated beyond anything the sober
+senses are capable of receiving. Before me--for a thousand leagues, as it
+seemed--stretched a vista of rainbows, whose colors gleamed with the
+splendor of gems--arches of living amethyst, sapphire, emerald, topaz, and
+ruby. By thousands and tens of thousands, they flew past me, as my
+dazzling barge sped down the magnificent arcade; yet the vista still
+stretched as far as ever before me. I revelled in a sensuous elysium,
+which was perfect, because no sense was left ungratified. But beyond all,
+my mind was filled with a boundless feeling of triumph. My journey was
+that of a conqueror--not of a conqueror who subdues his race, either by
+Love or by Will, for I forgot that Man existed--but one victorious over
+the grandest as well as the subtlest forces of Nature. The spirits of
+Light, Color, Odor, Sound, and Motion were my slaves; and, having these, I
+was master of the universe.
+
+Those who are endowed to any extent with the imaginative faculty, must
+have at least once in their lives experienced feelings which may give them
+a clue to the exalted sensuous raptures of my triumphal march. The view of
+a sublime mountain landscape, the hearing of a grand orchestral symphony,
+or of a choral upborne by the "full-voiced organ," or even the beauty and
+luxury of a cloudless summer day, suggests emotions similar in kind, if
+less intense. They took a warmth and glow from that pure animal joy which
+degrades not, but spiritualizes and ennobles our material part, and which
+differs from cold, abstract, intellectual enjoyment, as the flaming
+diamond of the Orient differs from the icicle of the North. Those finer
+senses, which occupy a middle ground between our animal and intellectual
+appetites, were suddenly developed to a pitch beyond what I had ever
+dreamed, and being thus at one and the same time gratified to the fullest
+extent of their preternatural capacity, the result was a single harmonious
+sensation, to describe which human language has no epithet. Mahomet's
+Paradise, with its palaces of ruby and emerald, its airs of musk and
+cassia, and its rivers colder than snow and sweeter than honey, would have
+been a poor and mean terminus for my arcade of rainbows. Yet in the
+character of this paradise, in the gorgeous fancies of the Arabian Nights,
+in the glow and luxury of all Oriental poetry, I now recognize more or
+less of the agency of hasheesh.
+
+The fulness of my rapture expanded the sense of time; and though the whole
+vision was probably not more than five minutes in passing through my mind,
+years seemed to have elapsed while I shot under the dazzling myriads of
+rainbow arches. By and by, the rainbows, the barque of pearl and jewels,
+and the desert of golden sand, vanished; and, still bathed in light and
+perfume, I found myself in a land of green and flowery lawns, divided by
+hills of gently undulating outline. But, although the vegetation was the
+richest of earth, there were neither streams nor fountains to be seen; and
+the people who came from the hills, with brilliant garments that shone in
+the sun, besought me to give them the blessing of water. Their hands were
+full of branches of the coral honeysuckle, in bloom. These I took; and,
+breaking off the flowers one by one, set them in the earth. The slender,
+trumpet-like tubes immediately became shafts of masonry, and sank deep
+into the earth; the lip of the flower changed into a circular mouth of
+rose-colored marble, and the people, leaning over its brink, lowered their
+pitchers to the bottom with cords, and drew them up again, filled to the
+brim, and dripping with honey.
+
+The most remarkable feature of these illusions was, that at the time when
+I was most completely under their influence, I knew myself to be seated in
+the tower of Antonio's hotel in Damascus, knew that I had taken hasheesh,
+and that the strange, gorgeous and ludicrous fancies which possessed me,
+were the effect of it. At the very same instant that I looked upon the
+Valley of the Nile from the pyramid, slid over the Desert, or created my
+marvellous wells in that beautiful pastoral country, I saw the furniture
+of my room, its mosaic pavement, the quaint Saracenic niches in the walls,
+the painted and gilded beams of the ceiling, and the couch in the recess
+before me, with my two companions watching me. Both sensations were
+simultaneous, and equally palpable. While I was most given up to the
+magnificent delusion, I saw its cause and felt its absurdity most clearly.
+Metaphysicians say that the mind is incapable of performing two operations
+at the same time, and may attempt to explain this phenomenon by supposing
+a rapid and incessant vibration of the perceptions between the two states.
+This explanation, however, is not satisfactory to me; for not more clearly
+does a skilful musician with the same breath blow two distinct musical
+notes from a bugle, than I was conscious of two distinct conditions of
+being in the same moment. Yet, singular as it may seem, neither conflicted
+with the other. My enjoyment of the visions was complete and absolute,
+undisturbed by the faintest doubt of their reality, while, in some other
+chamber of my brain, Reason sat coolly watching them, and heaping the
+liveliest ridicule on their fantastic features. One set of nerves was
+thrilled with the bliss of the gods, while another was convulsed with
+unquenchable laughter at that very bliss. My highest ecstacies could not
+bear down and silence the weight of my ridicule, which, in its turn, was
+powerless to prevent me from running into other and more gorgeous
+absurdities. I was double, not "swan and shadow," but rather, Sphinx-like,
+human and beast. A true Sphinx, I was a riddle and a mystery to myself.
+
+The drug, which had been retarded in its operation on account of having
+been taken after a meal, now began to make itself more powerfully felt.
+The visions were more grotesque than ever, but less agreeable; and there
+was a painful tension throughout my nervous system--the effect of
+over-stimulus. I was a mass of transparent jelly, and a confectioner
+poured me into a twisted mould. I threw my chair aside, and writhed and
+tortured myself for some time to force my loose substance into the mould.
+At last, when I had so far succeeded that only one foot remained outside,
+it was lifted off, and another mould, of still more crooked and intricate
+shape, substituted. I have no doubt that the contortions through which I
+went, to accomplish the end of my gelatinous destiny, would have been
+extremely ludicrous to a spectator, but to me they were painful and
+disagreeable. The sober half of me went into fits of laughter over them,
+and through that laughter, my vision shifted into another scene. I had
+laughed until my eyes overflowed profusely. Every drop that fell,
+immediately became a large loaf of bread, and tumbled upon the shop-board
+of a baker in the bazaar at Damascus. The more I laughed, the faster the
+loaves fell, until such a pile was raised about the baker, that I could
+hardly see the top of his head. "The man will be suffocated," I cried,
+"but if he were to die, I cannot stop!"
+
+My perceptions now became more dim and confused. I felt that I was in the
+grasp of some giant force; and, in the glimmering of my fading reason,
+grew earnestly alarmed, for the terrible stress under which my frame
+labored increased every moment. A fierce and furious heat radiated from my
+stomach throughout my system; my mouth and throat were as dry and hard as
+if made of brass, and my tongue, it seemed to me, was a bar of rusty iron.
+I seized a pitcher of water, and drank long and deeply; but I might as
+well have drunk so much air, for not only did it impart no moisture, but
+my palate and throat gave me no intelligence of having drunk at all. I
+stood in the centre of the room, brandishing my arms convulsively, an
+heaving sighs that seemed to shatter my whole being. "Will no one," I
+cried in distress, "cast out this devil that has possession of me?" I no
+longer saw the room nor my friends, but I heard one of them saying, "It
+must be real; he could not counterfeit such an expression as that. But it
+don't look much like pleasure." Immediately afterwards there was a scream
+of the wildest laughter, and my countryman sprang upon the floor,
+exclaiming, "O, ye gods! I am a locomotive!" This was his ruling
+hallucination; and, for the space of two or three hours, he continued to
+pace to and fro with a measured stride, exhaling his breath in violent
+jets, and when he spoke, dividing his words into syllables, each of which
+he brought out with a jerk, at the same time turning his hands at his
+sides, as if they were the cranks of imaginary wheels, The Englishman, as
+soon as he felt the dose beginning to take effect, prudently retreated to
+his own room, and what the nature of his visions was, we never learned,
+for he refused to tell, and, moreover, enjoined the strictest silence on
+his wife.
+
+By this time it was nearly midnight. I had passed through the Paradise of
+Hasheesh, and was plunged at once into its fiercest Hell. In my ignorance
+I had taken what, I have since learned, would have been a sufficient
+portion for six men, and was now paying a frightful penalty for my
+curiosity. The excited blood rushed through my frame with a sound like the
+roaring of mighty waters. It was projected into my eyes until I could no
+longer see; it beat thickly in my ears, and so throbbed in my heart, that
+I feared the ribs would give way under its blows. I tore open my vest,
+placed my hand over the spot, and tried to count the pulsations; but there
+were two hearts, one beating at the rate of a thousand beats a minute, and
+the other with a slow, dull motion. My throat, I thought, was filled to
+the brim with blood, and streams of blood were pouring from my ears. I
+felt them gushing warm down my cheeks and neck. With a maddened, desperate
+feeling, I fled from the room, and walked over the flat, terraced roof of
+the house. My body seemed to shrink and grow rigid as I wrestled with the
+demon, and my face to become wild, lean and haggard. Some lines which had
+struck me, years before, in reading Mrs. Browning's "Rhyme of the Duchess
+May," flashed into my mind:--
+
+  "And the horse, in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air,
+    On the last verge, rears amain;
+  And he hangs, he rocks between--and his nostrils curdle in--
+  And he shivers, head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off;
+    And his face grows fierce and thin."
+
+That picture of animal terror and agony was mine. I was the horse,
+hanging poised on the verge of the giddy tower, the next moment to be
+borne sheer down to destruction. Involuntarily, I raised my hand to feel
+the leanness and sharpness of my face. Oh horror! the flesh had fallen
+from my bones, and it was a skeleton head that I carried on my shoulders!
+With one bound I sprang to the parapet, and looked down into the silent
+courtyard, then filled with the shadows thrown into it by the sinking
+moon. Shall I cast myself down headlong? was the question I proposed to
+myself; but though the horror of that skeleton delusion was greater than
+my fear of death, there was an invisible hand at my breast which pushed me
+away from the brink.
+
+I made my way back to the room, in a state of the keenest suffering. My
+companion was still a locomotive, rushing to and fro, and jerking out his
+syllables with the disjointed accent peculiar to a steam-engine. His mouth
+had turned to brass, like mine, and he raised the pitcher to his lips in
+the attempt to moisten it, but before he had taken a mouthful, set the
+pitcher down again with a yell of laughter, crying out: "How can I take
+water into my boiler, while I am letting off steam?"
+
+But I was now too far gone to feel the absurdity of this, or his other
+exclamations. I was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of unutterable
+agony and despair. For, although I was not conscious of real pain in any
+part of my body, the cruel tension to which my nerves had been subjected
+filled me through and through with a sensation of distress which was far
+more severe than pain itself. In addition to this, the remnant of will
+with which I struggled against the demon, became gradually weaker, and I
+felt that I should soon be powerless in his hands. Every effort to
+preserve my reason was accompanied by a pang of mortal fear, lest what I
+now experienced was insanity, and would hold mastery over me for ever. The
+thought of death, which also haunted me, was far less bitter than this
+dread. I knew that in the struggle which was going on in my frame, I was
+borne fearfully near the dark gulf, and the thought that, at such a time,
+both reason and will were leaving my brain, filled me with an agony, the
+depth and blackness of which I should vainly attempt to portray. I threw
+myself on my bed, with the excited blood still roaring wildly in my ears,
+my heart throbbing with a force that seemed to be rapidly wearing away my
+life, my throat dry as a pot-sherd, and my stiffened tongue cleaving to
+the roof of my mouth--resisting no longer, but awaiting my fate with the
+apathy of despair.
+
+My companion was now approaching the same condition, but as the effect of
+the drug on him had been less violent, so his stage of suffering was more
+clamorous. He cried out to me that he was dying, implored me to help him,
+and reproached me vehemently, because I lay there silent, motionless, and
+apparently careless of his danger. "Why will he disturb me?" I thought;
+"he thinks he is dying, but what is death to madness? Let him die; a
+thousand deaths were more easily borne than the pangs I suffer." While I
+was sufficiently conscious to hear his exclamations, they only provoked my
+keen anger; but after a time, my senses became clouded, and I sank into a
+stupor. As near as I can judge, this must have been three o'clock in the
+morning, rather more than five hours after the hasheesh began to take
+effect. I lay thus all the following day and night, in a state of gray,
+blank oblivion, broken only by a single wandering gleam of consciousness.
+I recollect hearing François' voice. He told me afterwards that I arose,
+attempted to dress myself, drank two cups of coffee, and then fell back
+into the same death-like stupor; but of all this, I did not retain the
+least knowledge. On the morning of the second day, after a sleep of thirty
+hours, I awoke again to the world, with a system utterly prostrate and
+unstrung, and a brain clouded with the lingering images of my visions. I
+knew where I was, and what had happened to me, but all that I saw still
+remained unreal and shadowy. There was no taste in what I ate, no
+refreshment in what I drank, and it required a painful effort to
+comprehend what was said to me and return a coherent answer. Will and
+Reason had come back, but they still sat unsteadily upon their thrones.
+
+My friend, who was much further advanced in his recovery, accompanied me
+to the adjoining bath, which I hoped would assist in restoring me. It was
+with great difficulty that I preserved the outward appearance of
+consciousness. In spite of myself, a veil now and then fell over my mind,
+and after wandering for years, as it seemed, in some distant world, I
+awoke with a shock, to find myself in the steamy halls of the bath, with a
+brown Syrian polishing my limbs. I suspect that my language must have been
+rambling and incoherent, and that the menials who had me in charge
+understood my condition, for as soon as I had stretched myself upon the
+couch which follows the bath, a glass of very acid sherbet was presented
+to me, and after drinking it I experienced instant relief. Still the spell
+was not wholly broken, and for two or three days I continued subject to
+frequent involuntary fits of absence, which made me insensible, for the
+time, to all that was passing around me. I walked the streets of Damascus
+with a strange consciousness that I was in some other place at the same
+time, and with a constant effort to reunite my divided perceptions.
+
+Previous to the experiment, we had decided on making a bargain with the
+shekh for the journey to Palmyra. The state, however, in which we now
+found ourselves, obliged us to relinquish the plan. Perhaps the excitement
+of a forced march across the desert, and a conflict with the hostile
+Arabs, which was quite likely to happen, might have assisted us in
+throwing off the baneful effects of the drug; but all the charm which lay
+in the name of Palmyra and the romantic interest of the trip, was gone. I
+was without courage and without energy, and nothing remained for me but to
+leave Damascus.
+
+Yet, fearful as my rash experiment proved to me, I did not regret having
+made it. It revealed to me deeps of rapture and of suffering which my
+natural faculties never could have sounded. It has taught me the majesty
+of human reason and of human will, even in the weakest, and the awful
+peril of tampering with that which assails their integrity. I have here
+faithfully and fully written out my experience, on account of the lesson
+which it may convey to others. If I have unfortunately failed in my
+design, and have but awakened that restless curiosity which I have
+endeavored to forestall, let me beg all who are thereby led to repeat the
+experiment upon themselves, that they be content to take the portion of
+hasheesh which is considered sufficient for one man, and not, like me,
+swallow enough for six.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI.
+
+A Dissertation on Bathing and Bodies.
+
+
+  "No swan-soft woman, rubbed with lucid oils,
+  The gift of an enamored god, more fair."
+
+  Browning.
+
+
+We shall not set out from Damascus--we shall not leave the Pearl of the
+Orient to glimmer through the seas of foliage wherein it lies
+buried--without consecrating a day to the Bath, that material agent of
+peace and good-will unto men. We have bathed in the Jordan, like Naaman,
+and been made clean; let us now see whether Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
+Damascus, are better than the waters of Israel.
+
+The Bath is the "peculiar institution" of the East. Coffee has become
+colonized in France and America; the Pipe is a cosmopolite, and his blue,
+joyous breath congeals under the Arctic Circle, or melts languidly into
+the soft airs of the Polynesian Isles; but the Bath, that sensuous elysium
+which cradled the dreams of Plato, and the visions of Zoroaster, and the
+solemn meditations of Mahomet, is only to be found under an Oriental sky.
+The naked natives of the Torrid Zone are amphibious; they do not bathe,
+they live in the water. The European and Anglo-American wash themselves
+and think they have bathed; they shudder under cold showers and perform
+laborious antics with coarse towels. As for the Hydropathist, the Genius
+of the Bath, whose dwelling is in Damascus, would be convulsed with
+scornful laughter, could he behold that aqueous Diogenes sitting in his
+tub, or stretched out in his wet wrappings, like a sodden mummy, in a
+catacomb of blankets and feather beds. As the rose in the East has a rarer
+perfume than in other lands, so does the Bath bestow a superior
+purification and impart a more profound enjoyment.
+
+Listen not unto the lamentations of travellers, who complain of the heat,
+and the steam, and the dislocations of their joints. They belong to the
+stiff-necked generation, who resist the processes, whereunto the Oriental
+yields himself body and soul. He who is bathed in Damascus, must be as
+clay in the hands of a potter. The Syrians marvel how the Franks can walk,
+so difficult is it to bend their joints. Moreover, they know the
+difference between him who comes to the Bath out of a mere idle curiosity,
+and him who has tasted its delight and holds it in due honor. Only the
+latter is permitted to know all its mysteries. The former is carelessly
+hurried through the ordinary forms of bathing, and, if any trace of the
+cockney remain in him, is quite as likely to be disgusted as pleased.
+Again, there are many second and third-rate baths, whither cheating
+dragomen conduct their victims, in consideration of a division of spoils
+with the bath-keeper. Hence it is, that the Bath has received but partial
+justice at the hands of tourists in the East. If any one doubts this, let
+him clothe himself with Oriental passiveness and resignation, go to the
+Hamman el-Khyateën, at Damascus, or the Bath of Mahmoud Pasha, at
+Constantinople, and demand that he be perfectly bathed.
+
+Come with me, and I will show you the mysteries of the perfect bath. Here
+is the entrance, a heavy Saracenic arch, opening upon the crowded bazaar.
+We descend a few steps to the marble pavement of a lofty octagonal hall,
+lighted by a dome. There is a jet of sparkling water in the centre,
+falling into a heavy stone basin. A platform about five feet in height
+runs around the hall, and on this are ranged a number of narrow couches,
+with their heads to the wall, like the pallets in a hospital ward. The
+platform is covered with straw matting, and from the wooden gallery which
+rises above it are suspended towels, with blue and crimson borders. The
+master of the bath receives us courteously, and conducts us to one of the
+vacant couches. We kick off our red slippers below, and mount the steps to
+the platform. Yonder traveller, in Frank dress, who has just entered, goes
+up with his boots on, and we know, from that fact, what sort of a bath he
+will get.
+
+As the work of disrobing proceeds, a dark-eyed boy appears with a napkin,
+which he holds before us, ready to bind it about the waist, as soon as we
+regain our primitive form. Another attendant throws a napkin over our
+shoulders and wraps a third around our head, turban-wise. He then thrusts
+a pair of wooden clogs upon our feet, and, taking us by the arm, steadies
+our tottering and clattering steps, as we pass through a low door and a
+warm ante-chamber into the first hall of the bath. The light, falling
+dimly through a cluster of bull's-eyes in the domed ceiling, shows, first,
+a silver thread of water, playing in a steamy atmosphere; next, some dark
+motionless objects, stretched out on a low central platform of marble. The
+attendant spreads a linen sheet in one of the vacant places, places a
+pillow at one end, takes off our clogs, deposits us gently on our back,
+and leaves us. The pavement is warm beneath us, and the first breath we
+draw gives us a sense of suffocation. But a bit of burning aloe-wood has
+just been carried through the hall, and the steam is permeated with
+fragrance. The dark-eyed boy appears with a narghileh, which he places
+beside us, offering the amber mouth-piece to our submissive lips. The
+smoke we inhale has an odor of roses; and as the pipe bubbles with our
+breathing, we feel that the dews of sweat gather heavily upon us. The
+attendant now reappears, kneels beside us, and gently kneads us with
+dexterous hands. Although no anatomist, he knows every muscle and sinew
+whose suppleness gives ease to the body, and so moulds and manipulates
+them that we lose the rigidity of our mechanism, and become plastic in his
+hands. He turns us upon our face, repeats the same process upon the back,
+and leaves us a little longer to lie there passively, glistening in our
+own dew.
+
+We are aroused from a reverie about nothing by a dark-brown shape, who
+replaces the clogs, puts his arm around our waist and leads us into an
+inner hall, with a steaming tank in the centre. Here he slips us off the
+brink, and we collapse over head and ears in the fiery fluid.
+Once--twice--we dip into the delicious heat, and then are led into a
+marble alcove, and seated flat upon the floor. The attendant stands behind
+us, and we now perceive that his hands are encased in dark hair-gloves. He
+pounces upon an arm, which he rubs until, like a serpent, we slough the
+worn-out skin, and resume our infantile smoothness and fairness. No man
+can be called clean until he has bathed in the East. Let him walk directly
+from his accustomed bath and self-friction with towels, to the Hammam
+el-Khyateën, and the attendant will exclaim, as he shakes out his
+hair-gloves: "O Frank! it is a long time since you have bathed." The other
+arm follows, the back, the breast, the legs, until the work is complete,
+and we know precisely how a horse feels after he has been curried.
+
+Now the attendant turns two cocks at the back of the alcove, and holding a
+basin alternately under the cold and hot streams, floods us at first with
+a fiery dash, that sends a delicious warm shiver through every nerve;
+then, with milder applications, lessening the temperature of the water by
+semi-tones, until, from the highest key of heat which we can bear, we
+glide rapturously down the gamut until we reach the lowest bass of
+coolness. The skin has by this time attained an exquisite sensibility, and
+answers to these changes of temperature with thrills of the purest
+physical pleasure. In fact, the whole frame seems purged of its earthy
+nature and transformed into something of a finer and more delicate
+texture.
+
+After a pause, the attendant makes his appearance with a large wooden
+bowl, a piece of soap, and a bunch of palm-fibres. He squats down beside
+the bowl, and speedily creates a mass of snowy lather, which grows up to a
+pyramid and topples over the edge. Seizing us by the crown-tuft of hair
+upon our shaven head, he plants the foamy bunch of fibres full in our
+face. The world vanishes; sight, hearing, smell, taste (unless we open our
+mouth), and breathing, are cut off; we have become nebulous. Although our
+eyes are shut, we seem to see a blank whiteness; and, feeling nothing but
+a soft fleeciness, we doubt whether we be not the Olympian cloud which
+visited lo. But the cloud clears away before strangulation begins, and the
+velvety mass descends upon the body. Twice we are thus "slushed" from head
+to foot, and made more slippery than the anointed wrestlers of the Greek
+games. Then the basin comes again into play, and we glide once more
+musically through the scale of temperature.
+
+The brown sculptor has now nearly completed his task. The figure of clay
+which entered the bath is transformed into polished marble. He turns the
+body from side to side, and lifts the limbs to see whether the workmanship
+is adequate to his conception. His satisfied gaze proclaims his success. A
+skilful bath-attendant has a certain aesthetic pleasure in his occupation.
+The bodies he polishes become to some extent his own workmanship, and he
+feels responsible for their symmetry or deformity. He experiences a degree
+of triumph in contemplating a beautiful form, which has grown more airily
+light and beautiful under his hands. He is a great connoisseur of bodies,
+and could pick you out the finest specimens with as ready an eye as an
+artist.
+
+I envy those old Greek bathers, into whose hands were delivered Pericles,
+and Alcibiades, and the perfect models of Phidias. They had daily before
+their eyes the highest types of Beauty which the world has ever produced;
+for of all things that are beautiful, the human body is the crown. Now,
+since the delusion of artists has been overthrown, and we know that
+Grecian Art is but the simple reflex of Nature--that the old masterpieces
+of sculpture were no miraculous embodiments of a _beau ideal_, but copies
+of living forms--we must admit that in no other age of the world has the
+physical Man been so perfectly developed. The nearest approach I have ever
+seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of
+Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo.
+
+Oriental life is too full of repose, and the Ottoman race has become too
+degenerate through indulgence, to exhibit many striking specimens of
+physical beauty. The face is generally fine, but the body is apt to be
+lank, and with imperfect muscular development. The best forms I saw in the
+baths were those of laborers, who, with a good deal of rugged strength,
+showed some grace and harmony of proportion. It may be received as a
+general rule, that the physical development of the European is superior to
+that of the Oriental, with the exception of the Circassians and Georgians,
+whose beauty well entitles them to the distinction of giving their name to
+our race.
+
+So far as female beauty is concerned, the Circassian women have no
+superiors. They have preserved in their mountain home the purity of the
+Grecian models, and still display the perfect physical loveliness, whose
+type has descended to us in the Venus de Medici. The Frank who is addicted
+to wandering about the streets of Oriental cities can hardly fail to be
+favored with a sight of the faces of these beauties. More than once it has
+happened to me, in meeting a veiled lady, sailing along in her
+balloon-like feridjee, that she has allowed the veil to drop by a skilful
+accident, as she passed, and has startled me with the vision of her
+beauty, recalling the line of the Persian poet: "Astonishment! is this the
+dawn of the glorious sun, or is it the full moon?" The Circassian face is
+a pure oval; the forehead is low and fair, "an excellent thing in woman,"
+and the skin of an ivory whiteness, except the faint pink of the cheeks
+and the ripe, roseate stain of the lips. The hair is dark, glossy, and
+luxuriant, exquisitely outlined on the temples; the eyebrows slightly
+arched, and drawn with a delicate pencil; while lashes like "rays of
+darkness" shade the large, dark, humid orbs below them. The alabaster of
+the face, so pure as scarcely to show the blue branching of the veins on
+the temples, is lighted by those superb eyes--
+
+  "Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone,"
+
+--whose wells are so dark and deep, that you are cheated into the belief
+that a glorious soul looks out of them.
+
+Once, by an unforeseen chance, I beheld the Circassian form, in its most
+perfect development. I was on board an Austrian steamer in the harbor of
+Smyrna, when the harem of a Turkish pasha came out in a boat to embark for
+Alexandria. The sea was rather rough, and nearly all the officers of the
+steamer were ashore. There were six veiled and swaddled women, with a
+black eunuch as guard, in the boat, which lay tossing for some time at the
+foot of the gangway ladder, before the frightened passengers could summon
+courage to step out. At last the youngest of them--a Circassian girl of
+not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age--ventured upon the ladder,
+clasping the hand-rail with one hand, while with the other she held
+together the folds of her cumbrous feridjee. I was standing in the
+gangway, watching her, when a slight lurch of the steamer caused her to
+loose her hold of the garment, which, fastened at the neck, was blown back
+from her shoulders, leaving her body screened but by a single robe
+of-light, gauzy silk. Through this, the marble whiteness of her skin, the
+roundness, the glorious symmetry of her form, flashed upon me, as a vision
+of Aphrodite, seen
+
+  "Through leagues of shimmering water, like a star."
+
+It was but a momentary glimpse; yet that moment convinced me that forms
+of Phidian perfection are still nurtured in the vales of Caucasus.
+
+The necessary disguise of dress hides from us much of the beauty and
+dignity of Humanity, I have seen men who appeared heroic in the freedom of
+nakedness, shrink almost into absolute vulgarity, when clothed. The soul
+not only sits at the windows of the eyes, and hangs upon the gateway of
+the lips; she speaks as well in the intricate, yet harmonious lines of the
+body, and the ever-varying play of the limbs. Look at the torso of
+Ilioneus, the son of Niobe, and see what an agony of terror and
+supplication cries out from that headless and limbless trunk! Decapitate
+Laocoön, and his knotted muscles will still express the same dreadful
+suffering and resistance. None knew this better than the ancient
+sculptors; and hence it was that we find many of their statues of
+distinguished men wholly or partly undraped. Such a view of Art would be
+considered transcendental now-a-days, when our dress, our costumes, and
+our modes of speech either ignore the existence of our bodies, or treat
+them with little of that reverence which is their due.
+
+But, while we have been thinking these thoughts, the attendant has been
+waiting to give us a final plunge into the seething tank. Again we slide
+down to the eyes in the fluid heat, which wraps us closely about until we
+tingle with exquisite hot shiverings. Now comes the graceful boy, with
+clean, cool, lavendered napkins, which he folds around our waist and wraps
+softly about the head. The pattens are put upon our feet, and the brown
+arm steadies us gently through the sweating-room and ante-chamber into the
+outer hall, where we mount to our couch. We sink gently upon the cool
+linen, and the boy covers us with a perfumed sheet. Then, kneeling beside
+the couch, he presses the folds of the sheet around us, that it may absorb
+the lingering moisture and the limpid perspiration shed by the departing
+heat. As fast as the linen becomes damp, he replaces it with fresh,
+pressing the folds about us as tenderly as a mother arranges the drapery
+of her sleeping babe; for we, though of the stature of a man, are now
+infantile in our helpless happiness. Then he takes our passive hand and
+warms its palm by the soft friction of his own; after which, moving to the
+end of the couch, he lifts our feet upon his lap, and repeats the friction
+upon their soles, until the blood comes back to the surface of the body
+with a misty glow, like that which steeps the clouds of a summer
+afternoon.
+
+We have but one more process to undergo, and the attendant already stands
+at the head of our couch. This is the course of passive gymnastics, which
+excites so much alarm and resistance in the ignorant Franks. It is only
+resistance that is dangerous, completely neutralizing the enjoyment of the
+process. Give yourself with a blind submission into the arms of the brown
+Fate, and he will lead you to new chambers of delight. He lifts us to a
+sitting posture, places himself behind us, and folds his arms around our
+body, alternately tightening and relaxing his clasp, as if to test the
+elasticity of the ribs. Then seizing one arm, he draws it across the
+opposite shoulder, until the joint cracks like a percussion-cap. The
+shoulder-blades, the elbows, the wrists, and the finger-joints are all
+made to fire off their muffled volleys; and then, placing one knee between
+our shoulders, and clasping both hands upon our forehead, he draws our
+head back until we feel a great snap of the vertebral column. Now he
+descends to the hip-joints, knees, ankles, and feet, forcing each and all
+to discharge a salvo _de joie_. The slight languor left from the bath is
+gone, and an airy, delicate exhilaration, befitting the winged Mercury,
+takes its place.
+
+The boy, kneeling, presents us with _finjan_ of foamy coffee, followed by
+a glass of sherbet cooled with the snows of Lebanon. He presently returns
+with a narghileh, which we smoke by the effortless inhalation of the
+lungs. Thus we lie in perfect repose, soothed by the fragrant weed, and
+idly watching the silent Orientals, who are undressing for the bath or
+reposing like ourselves. Through the arched entrance, we see a picture of
+the bazaars: a shadowy painting of merchants seated amid their silks and
+spices, dotted here and there with golden drops and splashes of sunshine,
+which have trickled through the roof. The scene paints itself upon our
+eyes, yet wakes no slightest stir of thought. The brain is a becalmed sea,
+without a ripple on its shores. Mind and body are drowned in delicious
+rest; and we no longer remember what we are. We only know that there is an
+Existence somewhere in the air, and that wherever it is, and whatever it
+may be, it is happy.
+
+More and more dim grows the picture. The colors fade and blend into each
+other, and finally merge into a bed of rosy clouds, flooded with the
+radiance of some unseen sun. Gentlier than "tired eyelids upon tired
+eyes," sleep lies upon our senses: a half-conscious sleep, wherein we know
+that we behold light and inhale fragrance. As gently, the clouds dissipate
+into air, and we are born again into the world. The Bath is at an end. We
+arise and put on our garments, and walk forth into the sunny streets of
+Damascus. But as we go homewards, we involuntarily look down to see
+whether we are really treading upon the earth, wondering, perhaps, that we
+should be content to do so, when it would be so easy to soar above the
+house-tops.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII.
+
+Baalbec and Lebanon.
+
+
+  Departure from Damascus--The Fountains of the Pharpar--Pass of the
+  Anti-Lebanon--Adventure with the Druses--The Range of Lebanon--The Demon
+  of Hasheesh departs--Impressions of Baalbec--The Temple of the
+  Sun--Titanic Masonry--The Ruined Mosque--Camp on Lebanon--Rascality of
+  the Guide--The Summit of Lebanon--The Sacred Cedars--The Christians of
+  Lebanon--An Afternoon in Eden--Rugged Travel--We Reach the Coast--Return
+  to Beyrout.
+
+
+  "Peor and Baälim
+  Forsake their temples dim."
+
+  Milton.
+
+
+  "The cedars wave on Lebanon,
+  But Judah's statelier maids are gone."
+
+  Byron.
+
+
+Beyrout, _Thursday, May_ 27, 1852.
+
+After a stay of eight days in Damascus, we called our men, Dervish and
+Mustapha, again into requisition, loaded our enthusiastic mules, and
+mounted our despairing horses. There were two other parties on the way to
+Baalbec--an English gentleman and lady, and a solitary Englishman, so that
+our united forces made an imposing caravan. There is always a custom-house
+examination, not on entering, but on issuing from an Oriental city, but
+travellers can avoid it by procuring the company of a Consular Janissary
+as far as the gate. Mr. Wood, the British Consul, lent us one of his
+officers for the occasion, whom we found waiting, outside of the wall, to
+receive his private fee for the service. We mounted the long, barren hill
+west of the plain, and at the summit, near the tomb of a Moslem shekh,
+turned to take a last long look at the bowery plain, and the minarets of
+the city, glittering through the blue morning vapor.
+
+A few paces further on the rocky road, a different scene presented itself
+to us. There lay, to the westward, a long stretch of naked yellow
+mountains, basking in the hot glare of the sun, and through the centre,
+deep down in the heart of the arid landscape, a winding line of living
+green showed the course of the Barrada. We followed the river, until the
+path reached an impassable gorge, which occasioned a detour of two or
+three hours. We then descended to the bed of the dell, where the
+vegetation, owing to the radiated heat from the mountains and the
+fertilizing stimulus of the water below, was even richer than on the plain
+of Damascus. The trees were plethoric with an overplus of life. The boughs
+of the mulberries were weighed down with the burden of the leaves;
+pomegranates were in a violent eruption of blossoms; and the foliage of
+the fig and poplar was of so deep a hue that it shone black in the sun.
+
+Passing through a gateway of rock, so narrow that we were often obliged to
+ride in the bed of the stream, we reached a little meadow, beyond which
+was a small hamlet, almost hidden in the leaves. Here the mountains again
+approached each other, and from the side of that on the right hand, the
+main body of the Barrada, or Pharpar, gushed forth in one full stream. The
+fountain is nearly double the volume of that of the Jordan at Banias, and
+much more beautiful. The foundations of an ancient building, probably a
+temple, overhang it, and tall poplars and sycamores cover it with
+impenetrable shade. From the low aperture, where it bursts into the light,
+its waters, white with foam, bound away flashing in the chance rays of
+sunshine, until they are lost to sight in the dense, dark foliage. We sat
+an hour on the ruined walls, listening to the roar and rush of the flood,
+and enjoying the shade of the walnuts and sycamores. Soon after leaving,
+our path crossed a small stream, which comes down to the Barrada from the
+upper valleys of the Anti-Lebanon, and entered a wild pass, faced with
+cliffs of perpendicular rock. An old bridge, of one arch, spanned the
+chasm, out of which we climbed to a tract of high meadow land. In the pass
+there were some fragments of ancient columns, traces of an aqueduct, and
+inscriptions on the rocks, among which Mr. H. found the name of Antoninus.
+The place is not mentioned in any book of travel I have seen, as it is not
+on the usual road from Damascus to Baalbec.
+
+As we were emerging from the pass, we saw a company of twelve armed men
+seated in the grass, near the roadside. They were wild-looking characters,
+and eyed us somewhat sharply as we passed. We greeted them with the usual
+"salaam aleikoom!" which they did not return. The same evening, as we
+encamped at the village of Zebdeni, about three hours further up the
+valley, we were startled by a great noise and outcry, with the firing of
+pistols. It happened, as we learned on inquiring the cause of all this
+confusion, that the men we saw in the pass were rebel Druses, who were
+then lying in wait for the Shekh of Zebdeni, whom, with his son, they had
+taken captive soon after we passed. The news had by some means been
+conveyed to the village, and a company of about two hundred persons was
+then marching out to the rescue. The noise they made was probably to give
+the Druses intimation of their coming, and thus avoid a fight. I do not
+believe that any of the mountaineers of Lebanon would willingly take part
+against the Druses, who, in fact, are not fighting so much against the
+institution of the conscription law, as its abuse. The law ordains that
+the conscript shall serve for five years; but since its establishment, as
+I have been informed, there has not been a single instance of discharge.
+It amounts, therefore, to lifelong servitude, and there is little wonder
+that these independent sons of the mountains, as well as the tribes
+inhabiting the Syrian Desert, should rebel rather than submit.
+
+The next day, we crossed a pass in the Anti-Lebanon beyond Zebdeni,
+descended a beautiful valley on the western side, under a ridge which was
+still dotted with patches of snow, and after travelling for some hours
+over a wide, barren height, the last of the range, saw below us the plain
+of Baalbec. The grand ridge of Lebanon opposite, crowned with glittering
+fields of snow, shone out clearly through the pure air, and the hoary head
+of Hermon, far in the south, lost something of its grandeur by the
+comparison. Though there is a "divide," or watershed, between Husbeiya, at
+the foot of Mount Hermon, and Baalbec, whose springs join the Orontes,
+which flows northward to Antioch, the great natural separation of the two
+chains continues unbroken to the Gulf of Akaba, in the Red Sea. A little
+beyond Baalbec, the Anti-Lebanon terminates, sinking into the Syrian
+plain, while the Lebanon, though its name and general features are lost,
+about twenty miles further to the north is succeeded by other ranges,
+which, though broken at intervals, form a regular series, connecting with
+the Taurus, in Asia Minor.
+
+On leaving Damascus, the Demon of Hasheesh still maintained a partial
+control over me. I was weak in body and at times confused in my
+perceptions, wandering away from the scenes about me to some unknown
+sphere beyond the moon. But the healing balm of my sleep at Zebdeni, and
+the purity of the morning air among the mountains, completed my cure. As I
+rode along the valley, with the towering, snow-sprinkled ridge of the
+Anti-Lebanon on my right, a cloudless heaven above my head, and meads
+enamelled with the asphodel and scarlet anemone stretching before me, I
+felt that the last shadow had rolled away from my brain. My mind was now
+as clear as that sky--my heart as free and joyful as the elastic morning
+air. The sun never shone so brightly to my eyes; the fair forms of Nature
+were never penetrated with so perfect a spirit of beauty. I was again
+master of myself, and the world glowed as if new-created in the light of
+my joy and gratitude. I thanked God, who had led me out of a darkness more
+terrible than that of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and while my feet
+strayed among the flowery meadows of Lebanon, my heart walked on the
+Delectable Hills of His Mercy.
+
+By the middle of the afternoon, we reached Baalbec. The distant view of
+the temple, on descending the last slope of the Anti-Lebanon, is not
+calculated to raise one's expectations. On the green plain at the foot of
+the mountain, you see a large square platform of masonry, upon which stand
+six columns, the body of the temple, and a quantity of ruined walls. As a
+feature in the landscape, it has a fine effect, but you find yourself
+pronouncing the speedy judgment, that "Baalbec, without Lebanon, would be
+rather a poor show." Having come to this conclusion, you ride down the
+hill with comfortable feelings of indifference. There are a number of
+quarries on the left hand; you glance at them with an expression which
+merely says: "Ah! I suppose they got the stones here," and so you saunter
+on, cross a little stream that flows down from the modern village, pass a
+mill, return the stare of the quaint Arab miller who comes to the door to
+see you, and your horse is climbing a difficult path among the broken
+columns and friezes, before you think it worth while to lift your eyes to
+the pile above you. Now re-assert your judgment, if you dare! This is
+Baalbec: what have you to say? Nothing; but you amazedly measure the
+torsos of great columns which lie piled across one another in magnificent
+wreck; vast pieces which have dropped from the entablature, beautiful
+Corinthian capitals, bereft of the last graceful curves of their acanthus
+leaves, and blocks whose edges are so worn away that they resemble
+enormous natural boulders left by the Deluge, till at last you look up to
+the six glorious pillars, towering nigh a hundred feet above your head,
+and there is a sensation in your brain which would be a shout, if you
+could give it utterance, of faultless symmetry and majesty, such as no
+conception of yours and no other creation of art, can surpass.
+
+I know of nothing so beautiful in all remains of ancient Art as these six
+columns, except the colonnade of the Memnonium, at Thebes, which is of
+much smaller proportions. From every position, and with all lights of the
+day or night, they are equally perfect, and carry your eyes continually
+away from the peristyle of the smaller temple, which is better preserved,
+and from the exquisite architecture of the outer courts and pavilions.
+The two temples of Baalbec stand on an artificial platform of masonry, a
+thousand feet in length, and from fifteen to thirty feet (according to the
+depression of the soil) in height, The larger one, which is supposed to
+have been a Pantheon, occupies the whole length of this platform. The
+entrance was at the north, by a grand flight of steps, now broken away,
+between two lofty and elegant pavilions which are still nearly entire.
+Then followed a spacious hexagonal court, and three grand halls, parts of
+which, with niches for statues, adorned with cornices and pediments of
+elaborate design, still remain entire to the roof. This magnificent series
+of chambers was terminated at the southern extremity of the platform by
+the main temple, which had originally twenty columns on a side, similar to
+the six now standing.
+
+The Temple of the Sun stands on a smaller and lower platform, which
+appears to have been subsequently added to the greater one. The cella, or
+body of the temple, is complete except the roof, and of the colonnade
+surrounding it, nearly one-half of its pillars are still standing,
+upholding the frieze, entablature, and cornice, which altogether form
+probably the most ornate specimen of the Corinthian order of architecture
+now extant. Only four pillars of the superb portico remain, and the
+Saracens have nearly ruined these by building a sort of watch-tower upon
+the architrave. The same unscrupulous race completely shut up the portal
+of the temple with a blank wall, formed of the fragments they had hurled
+down, and one is obliged to creep through a narrow hole in order to reach
+the interior. Here the original doorway faces you--and I know not how to
+describe the wonderful design of its elaborate sculptured mouldings and
+cornices. The genius of Greek art seems to have exhausted itself in
+inventing ornaments, which, while they should heighten the gorgeous effect
+of the work, must yet harmonize with the grand design of the temple. The
+enormous keystone over the entrance has slipped down, no doubt from the
+shock of an earthquake, and hangs within six inches of the bottom of the
+two blocks which uphold it on either side. When it falls, the whole
+entablature of the portal will be destroyed. On its lower side is an eagle
+with outspread wings, and on the side-stones a genius with garlands of
+flowers, exquisitely sculptured in bas relief. Hidden among the wreaths of
+vines which adorn the jambs are the laughing heads of fauns. This portal
+was a continual study to me, every visit revealing new refinements of
+ornament, which I had not before observed. The interior of the temple,
+with its rich Corinthian pilasters, its niches for statues, surmounted by
+pediments of elegant design, and its elaborate cornice, needs little aid
+of the imagination to restore it to its original perfection. Like that of
+Dendera, in Egypt, the Temple of the Sun leaves upon the mind an
+impression of completeness which makes you forget far grander remains.
+
+But the most wonderful thing at Baalbec is the foundation platform upon
+which the temples stand. Even the colossal fabrics of Ancient Egypt
+dwindle before this superhuman masonry. The platform itself, 1,000 feet
+long, and averaging twenty feet in height, suggests a vast mass of stones,
+but when you come to examine the single blocks of which it is composed,
+you are crushed with their incredible bulk. On the western side is a row
+of eleven foundation stones, each of which is thirty-two feet in length,
+twelve in height, and ten in thickness, forming a wall three hundred and
+fifty-two feet long! But while you are walking on, thinking of the art
+which cut and raised these enormous blocks, you turn the southern corner
+and come upon _three_ stones, the united length of which is _one hundred
+and eighty-seven feet_--two of them being sixty-two and the other
+sixty-three feet in length! There they are, cut with faultless exactness,
+and so smoothly joined to each other, that you cannot force a cambric
+needle into the crevice. There is one joint so perfect that it can only be
+discerned by the minutest search; it is not even so perceptible as the
+junction of two pieces of paper which have been pasted together. In the
+quarry, there still lies a finished block, ready for transportation, which
+is sixty-seven feet in length. The weight of one of these masses has been
+reckoned at near 9,000 tons, yet they do not form the base of the
+foundation, but are raised upon other courses, fifteen feet from the
+ground. It is considered by some antiquarians that they are of a date
+greatly anterior to that of the temples, and were intended as the basement
+of a different edifice.
+
+In the village of Baalbec there is a small circular Corinthian temple of
+very elegant design. It is not more than thirty feet in diameter, and may
+have been intended as a tomb. A spacious mosque, now roofless and
+deserted, was constructed almost entirely out of the remains of the
+temples. Adjoining the court-yard and fountain are five rows of ancient
+pillars, forty (the sacred number) in all, supporting light Saracenic
+arches. Some of them are marble, with Corinthian capitals, and eighteen
+are single shafts of red Egyptian granite. Beside the fountain lies a
+small broken pillar of porphyry, of a dark violet hue, and of so fine a
+grain that the stone has the soft rich lustre of velvet. This fragment is
+the only thing I would carry away if I had the power.
+
+After a day's sojourn, we left Baalbec at noon, and took the road for the
+Cedars, which lie on the other side of Lebanon, in the direction of
+Tripoli. Our English fellow-travellers chose the direct road to Beyrout.
+We crossed the plain in three hours; to the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, and
+then commenced ascending the lowest slopes of the great range, whose
+topmost ridge, a dazzling parapet of snow, rose high above us. For several
+hours, our path led up and down stony ridges, covered with thickets of oak
+and holly, and with wild cherry, pear, and olive-trees. Just as the sun
+threw the shadows of the highest Lebanon over us, we came upon a narrow,
+rocky glen at his very base. Streams that still kept the color and the
+coolness of the snow-fields from which they oozed, foamed over the stones
+into the chasm at the bottom. The glen descended into a mountain basin, in
+which lay the lake of Yemouni, cold and green under the evening shadows.
+But just opposite us, on a little shelf of soil, there was a rude mill,
+and a group of superb walnut-trees, overhanging the brink of the largest
+torrent. We had sent our baggage before us, and the men, with an eye to
+the picturesque which I should not have suspected in Arabs, had pitched
+our tents under those trees, where the stream poured its snow-cold beakers
+beside us, and the tent-door looked down on the plain of Baalbec and
+across to the Anti-Lebanon. The miller and two or three peasants, who were
+living in this lonely spot, were Christians.
+
+The next morning we commenced ascending the Lebanon. We had slept just
+below the snow-line, for the long hollows with which the ridge is cloven
+were filled up to within a short distance of the glen, out of which we
+came. The path was very steep, continually ascending, now around the
+barren shoulder of the mountain, now up some ravine, where the holly and
+olive still flourished, and the wild rhubarb-plant spread its large,
+succulent leaves over the soil. We had taken a guide, the day before, at
+the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, but as the way was plain before us, and he
+demanded an exorbitant sum, we dismissed him, We had not climbed far,
+however, before he returned, professing to be content with whatever we
+might give him, and took us into another road, the first, he said, being
+impracticable. Up and up we toiled, and the long hollows of snow lay below
+us, and the wind came cold from the topmost peaks, which began to show
+near at hand. But now the road, as we had surmised, turned towards that we
+had first taken, and on reaching the next height we saw the latter at a
+short distance from us. It was not only a better, but a shorter road, the
+rascal of a guide having led us out of it in order to give the greater
+effect to his services. In order to return to it, as was necessary, there
+were several dangerous snow-fields to be passed. The angle of their
+descent was so great that a single false step would have hurled our
+animals, baggage and all, many hundred feet below. The snow was melting,
+and the crust frozen over the streams below was so thin in places that the
+animals broke through and sank to their bellies.
+
+It were needless to state the number and character of the anathemas
+bestowed upon the guide. The impassive Dervish raved; Mustapha stormed;
+François broke out in a frightful eruption of Greek and Turkish oaths, and
+the two travellers, though not (as I hope and believe) profanely inclined,
+could not avoid using a few terse Saxon expressions. When the general
+indignation had found vent, the men went to work, and by taking each
+animal separately, succeeded, at imminent hazard, in getting them all
+over the snow. We then dismissed the guide, who, far from being abashed by
+the discovery of his trickery, had the impudence to follow us for some
+time, claiming his pay. A few more steep pulls, over deep beds of snow and
+patches of barren stone, and at length the summit ridge--a sharp, white
+wall, shining against the intense black-blue of the zenith--stood before
+us. We climbed a toilsome zig-zag through the snow, hurried over the
+stones cumbering the top, and all at once the mountains fell away, ridge
+below ridge, gashed with tremendous chasms, whose bottoms were lost in
+blue vapor, till the last heights, crowned with white Maronite convents,
+hung above the sea, whose misty round bounded the vision. I have seen many
+grander mountain views, but few so sublimely rugged and broken in their
+features. The sides of the ridges dropped off in all directions into sheer
+precipices, and the few villages we could see were built like eagles'
+nests on the brinks. In a little hollow at our feet was the sacred Forest
+of Cedars, appearing like a patch of stunted junipers. It is the highest
+speck of vegetation on Lebanon, and in winter cannot be visited, on
+account of the snow. The summit on which we stood was about nine thousand
+feet above the sea, but there were peaks on each side at least a thousand
+feet higher.
+
+We descended by a very steep path, over occasional beds of snow, and
+reached the Cedars in an hour and a half. Not until we were within a
+hundred yards of the trees, and below their level, was I at all impressed
+with their size and venerable aspect. But, once entered into the heart of
+the little wood, walking over its miniature hills and valleys, and
+breathing the pure, balsamic exhalations of the trees, all the
+disappointment rising to my mind was charmed away in an instant There are
+about three hundred trees, in all, many of which are of the last century's
+growth, but at least fifty of them would be considered grand in any
+forest. The patriarchs are five in number, and are undoubtedly as old as
+the Christian Era, if not the Age of Solomon. The cypresses in the Garden
+of Montezuma, at Chapultepec, are even older and grander trees, but they
+are as entire and shapely as ever, whereas these are gnarled and twisted
+into wonderful forms by the storms of twenty centuries, and shivered in
+some places by lightning. The hoary father of them all, nine feet in
+diameter, stands in the centre of the grove, on a little knoll, and
+spreads his ponderous arms, each a tree in itself, over the heads of the
+many generations that have grown up below, as if giving his last
+benediction before decay. He is scarred less with storm and lightning,
+than with the knives of travellers, and the marble crags of Lebanon do not
+more firmly retain their inscriptions than his stony trunk. Dates of the
+last century are abundant, and I recollect a tablet inscribed: "Souard,
+1670," around which the newer wood has grown to the height of three or
+four inches. The seclusion of the grove, shut in by peaks of barren snow,
+is complete. Only the voice of the nightingale, singing here by daylight
+in the solemn shadows, breaks the silence. The Maronite monk, who has
+charge of a little stone chapel standing in the midst, moves about like a
+shade, and, not before you are ready to leave, brings his book for you to
+register your name therein, I was surprised to find how few of the crowd
+that annually overrun Syria reach the Cedars, which, after Baalbec, are
+the finest remains of antiquity in the whole country.
+
+After a stay of three hours, we rode on to Eden, whither our men had
+already gone with the baggage. Our road led along the brink of a
+tremendous gorge, a thousand feet deep, the bottom of which was only
+accessible here and there by hazardous foot-paths. On either side, a long
+shelf of cultivated land sloped down to the top, and the mountain streams,
+after watering a multitude of orchards and grain-fields, tumbled over the
+cliffs in long, sparkling cascades, to join the roaring flood below. This
+is the Christian region of Lebanon, inhabited almost wholly by Maronites,
+who still retain a portion of their former independence, and are the most
+thrifty, industrious, honest, and happy people in Syria. Their villages
+are not concrete masses of picturesque filth, as are those of the Moslems,
+but are loosely scattered among orchards of mulberry, poplar, and vine,
+washed by fresh rills, and have an air of comparative neatness and
+comfort. Each has its two or three chapels, with their little belfries,
+which toll the hours of prayer. Sad and poetic as is the call from the
+minaret, it never touched me as when I heard the sweet tongues of those
+Christian bells, chiming vespers far and near on the sides of Lebanon.
+
+Eden merits its name. It is a mountain paradise, inhabited by people so
+kind and simple-hearted, that assuredly no vengeful angel will ever drive
+them out with his flaming sword. It hangs above the gorge, which is here
+nearly two thousand feet deep, and overlooks a grand wilderness of
+mountain-piles, crowded on and over each other, from the sea that gleams
+below, to the topmost heights that keep off the morning sun. The houses
+are all built of hewn stone, and grouped in clusters under the shade of
+large walnut-trees. In walking among them, we received kind greetings
+everywhere, and every one who was seated rose and remained standing as we
+passed. The women are beautiful, with sprightly, intelligent faces, quite
+different from the stupid Mahometan females.
+
+The children were charming creatures, and some of the girls of ten or
+twelve years were lovely as angels. They came timidly to our tent (which
+the men had pitched as before, under two superb trees, beside a fountain),
+and offered us roses and branches of fragrant white jasmine. They expected
+some return, of course, but did not ask it, and the delicate grace with
+which the offering was made was beyond all pay. It was Sunday, and the men
+and boys, having nothing better to do, all came to see and talk with us. I
+shall not soon forget the circle of gay and laughing villagers, in which
+we sat that evening, while the dark purple shadows gradually filled up the
+gorges, and broad golden lights poured over the shoulders of the hills.
+The men had much sport in inducing the smaller boys to come up and salute
+us. There was one whom they called "the Consul," who eluded them for some
+time, but was finally caught and placed in the ring before us. "Peace be
+with you, O Consul," I said, making him a profound inclination, "may your
+days be propitious! may your shadow be increased!" but I then saw, from
+the vacant expression on the boy's face, that he was one of those
+harmless, witless creatures, whom yet one cannot quite call idiots. "He is
+an unfortunate; he knows nothing; he has no protector but God," said the
+men, crossing themselves devoutly. The boy took off his cap, crept up and
+kissed my hand, as I gave him some money, which he no sooner grasped, than
+he sprang up like a startled gazelle, and was out of sight in an instant.
+
+In descending from Eden to the sea-coast, we were obliged to cross the
+great gorge of which I spoke. Further down, its sides are less steep, and
+clothed even to the very bottom with magnificent orchards of mulberry,
+fig, olive, orange, and pomegranate trees. We were three hours in reaching
+the opposite side, although the breadth across the top is not more than a
+mile. The path was exceedingly perilous; we walked down, leading our
+horses, and once were obliged to unload our mules to get them past a tree,
+which would have forced them off the brink of a chasm several hundred feet
+deep. The view from the bottom was wonderful. We were shut in by steeps of
+foliage and blossoms from two to three thousand feet high, broken by crags
+of white marble, and towering almost precipitously to the very clouds. I
+doubt if Melville saw anything grander in the tropical gorges of Typee.
+After reaching the other side, we had still a journey of eight hours to
+the sea, through a wild and broken, yet highly cultivated country.
+
+Beyrout was now thirteen hours distant, but by making a forced march we
+reached it in a day, travelling along the shore, past the towns of Jebeil,
+the ancient Byblus, and Joonieh. The hills about Jebeil produce the
+celebrated tobacco known in Egypt as the _Jebelee_, or "mountain" tobacco,
+which is even superior to the Latakiyeh.
+
+Near Beyrout, the mulberry and olive are in the ascendant. The latter tree
+bears the finest fruit in all the Levant, and might drive all other oils
+out of the market, if any one had enterprise enough to erect proper
+manufactories. Instead of this the oil of the country is badly prepared,
+rancid from the skins in which it is kept, and the wealthy natives import
+from France and Italy in preference to using it. In the bottoms near the
+sea, I saw several fields of the taro-plant, the cultivation of which I
+had supposed was exclusively confined to the Islands of the Pacific. There
+would be no end to the wealth of Syria were the country in proper hands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII.
+
+Pipes and Coffee.
+
+
+  --"the kind nymph to Bacchus born
+  By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems
+  Gifted upon her natal morn
+  By him with fire, by her with dreams--
+  Nicotia, dearer to the Muse
+  Than all the grape's bewildering juice." Lowell.
+
+
+In painting the picture of an Oriental, the pipe and the coffee-cup are
+indispensable accessories. There is scarce a Turk, or Arab, or
+Persian--unless he be a Dervish of peculiar sanctity--but breathes his
+daily incense to the milder Bacchus of the moderns. The custom has become
+so thoroughly naturalized in the East, that we are apt to forget its
+comparatively recent introduction, and to wonder that no mention is made
+of the pipe in the Arabian Nights. The practice of smoking harmonizes so
+thoroughly with the character of Oriental life, that it is difficult for
+us to imagine a time when it never existed. It has become a part of that
+supreme patience, that wonderful repose, which forms so strong a contrast
+to the over-active life of the New World--the enjoyment of which no one
+can taste, to whom the pipe is not familiar. Howl, ye Reformers! but I
+solemnly declare unto you, that he who travels through the East without
+smoking, does not know the East.
+
+It is strange that our Continent, where the meaning of Rest is unknown,
+should have given to the world this great agent of Rest. There is nothing
+more remarkable in history than the colonization of Tobacco over the whole
+Earth. Not three centuries have elapsed since knightly Raleigh puffed its
+fumes into the astonished eyes of Spenser and Shakspeare; and now, find me
+any corner of the world, from Nova Zembla to the Mountains of the Moon,
+where the use of the plant is unknown! Tarshish (if India was Tarshish) is
+less distinguished by its "apes, ivory, and peacocks," than by its
+hookahs; the valleys of Luzon, beyond Ternate and Tidore, send us more
+cheroots than spices; the Gardens of Shiraz produce more velvety _toombek_
+than roses, and the only fountains which bubble in Samarcand are those of
+the narghilehs: Lebanon is no longer "excellent with the Cedars," as in
+the days of Solomon, but most excellent with its fields of Jebelee and
+Latakiyeh. On the unvisited plains of Central Africa, the table-lands of
+Tartary, and in the valleys of Japan, the wonderful plant has found a
+home. The naked negro, "panting at the Line," inhales it under the palms,
+and the Lapp and Samoyed on the shores of the Frozen Sea.
+
+It is idle for those who object to the use of Tobacco to attribute these
+phenomena wholly to a perverted taste. The fact that the custom was at
+once adopted by all the races of men, whatever their geographical position
+and degree of civilization, proves that there must be a reason for it in
+the physical constitution of man. Its effect, when habitually used, is
+slightly narcotic and sedative, not stimulating--or if so, at times, it
+stimulates only the imagination and the social faculties. It lulls to
+sleep the combative and destructive propensities, and hence--so far as a
+material agent may operate--it exercises a humanizing and refining
+influence. A profound student of Man, whose name is well known to the
+world, once informed me that he saw in the eagerness with which savage
+tribes adopt the use of Tobacco, a spontaneous movement of Nature towards
+Civilization.
+
+I will not pursue these speculations further, for the narghileh (bubbling
+softly at my elbow, as I write) is the promoter of repose and the begetter
+of agreeable reverie. As I inhale its cool, fragrant breath, and partly
+yield myself to the sensation of healthy rest which wraps my limbs as with
+a velvet mantle, I marvel how the poets and artists and scholars of olden
+times nursed those dreams which the world calls indolence, but which are
+the seeds that germinate into great achievements. How did Plato
+philosophize without the pipe? How did gray Homer, sitting on the
+temple-steps in the Grecian twilights, drive from his heart the bitterness
+of beggary and blindness? How did Phidias charm the Cerberus of his animal
+nature to sleep, while his soul entered the Elysian Fields and beheld the
+forms of heroes? For, in the higher world of Art, Body and Soul are sworn
+enemies, and the pipe holds an opiate more potent than all the drowsy
+syrups of the East, to drug the former into submission. Milton knew this,
+as he smoked his evening pipe at Chalfont, wandering, the while, among the
+palms of Paradise.
+
+But it is also our loss, that Tobacco was unknown to the Greeks. They
+would else have given us, in verse and in marble, another divinity in
+their glorious Pantheon--a god less drowsy than Morpheus and Somnus, less
+riotous than Bacchus, less radiant than Apollo, but with something of the
+spirit of each: a figure, beautiful with youth, every muscle in perfect
+repose, and the vague expression of dreams in his half-closed eyes. His
+temple would have been built in a grove of Southern pines, on the borders
+of a land-locked gulf, sheltered from the surges that buffet without,
+where service would have been rendered him in the late hours of the
+afternoon, or in the evening twilight. From his oracular tripod words of
+wisdom would have been spoken, and the fanes of Delphi and Dodona would
+have been deserted for his.
+
+Oh, non-smoking friends, who read these lines with pain and
+incredulity--and you, ladies, who turn pale at the thought of a pipe--let
+me tell you that you are familiar only with the vulgar form of tobacco,
+and have never passed between the wind and its gentility. The word conveys
+no idea to you but that of "long nines," and pig-tail, and cavendish.
+Forget these for a moment, and look upon this dark-brown cake of dried
+leaves and blossoms, which exhales an odor of pressed flowers. These are
+the tender tops of the _Jebelee_, plucked as the buds begin to expand, and
+carefully dried in the shade. In order to be used, it is moistened with
+rose-scented water, and cut to the necessary degree of fineness. The test
+of true Jebelee is, that it burns with a slow, hidden fire, like tinder,
+and causes no irritation to the eye when held under it. The smoke, drawn
+through a long cherry-stick pipe and amber mouth-piece, is pure, cool, and
+sweet, with an aromatic flavor, which is very pleasant in the mouth. It
+excites no salivation, and leaves behind it no unpleasant, stale odor.
+
+The narghileh (still bubbling beside me) is an institution known only in
+the East. It requires a peculiar kind of tobacco, which grows to
+perfection in the southern provinces of Persia. The smoke, after passing
+through water (rose-flavored, if you choose), is inhaled through a long,
+flexible tube directly into the lungs. It occasions not the slightest
+irritation or oppression, but in a few minutes produces a delicious sense
+of rest, which is felt even in the finger-ends. The pure physical
+sensation of rest is one of strength also, and of perfect contentment.
+Many an impatient thought, many an angry word, have I avoided by a resort
+to the pipe. Among our aborigines the pipe was the emblem of Peace, and I
+strongly recommend the Peace Society to print their tracts upon papers of
+smoking tobacco (Turkish, if possible), and distribute pipes with them.
+
+I know of nothing more refreshing, after the fatigue of a long day's
+journey, than a well-prepared narghileh. That slight feverish and
+excitable feeling which is the result of fatigue yields at once to its
+potency. The blood loses its heat and the pulse its rapidity; the muscles
+relax, the nerves are soothed into quiet, and the frame passes into a
+condition similar to sleep, except that the mind is awake and active. By
+the time one has finished his pipe, he is refreshed for the remainder of
+the day, and his nightly sleep is sound and healthy. Such are some of the
+physical effects of the pipe, in Eastern lands. Morally and
+psychologically, it works still greater transformations; but to describe
+them now, with the mouth-piece at my lips, would require an active
+self-consciousness which the habit does not allow.
+
+A servant enters with a steamy cup of coffee, seated in a silver _zerf_,
+or cup-holder. His thumb and fore-finger are clasped firmly upon the
+bottom of the zerf, which I inclose near the top with my own thumb and
+finger, so that the transfer is accomplished without his hand having
+touched mine.
+
+After draining the thick brown liquid, which must be done with due
+deliberation and a pause of satisfaction between each sip, I return the
+zerf, holding it in the middle, while the attendant places a palm of each
+hand upon the top and bottom and carries it off without contact. The
+beverage is made of the berries of Mocha, slightly roasted, pulverized in
+a mortar, and heated to a foam, without the addition of cream or sugar.
+Sometimes, however, it is flavored with the extract of roses or violets.
+When skilfully made, each cup is prepared separately, and the quantity of
+water and coffee carefully measured.
+
+Coffee is a true child of the East, and its original home was among the
+hills of Yemen, the Arabia Felix of the ancients. Fortunately for
+Mussulmen, its use was unknown in the days of Mahomet, or it would
+probably have fallen under the same prohibition as wine. The word _Kahweh_
+(whence _café_) is an old Arabic term for wine. The discovery of the
+properties of coffee is attributed to a dervish, who, for some
+misdemeanor, was carried into the mountains of Yemen by his brethren and
+there left to perish by starvation. In order to appease the pangs of
+hunger he gathered the ripe berries from the wild coffee-trees, roasted
+and ate them. The nourishment they contained, with water from the springs,
+sustained his life, and after two or three months he returned in good
+condition to his brethren, who considered his preservation as a miracle,
+and ever afterwards looked upon him as a pattern of holiness. He taught
+the use of the miraculous fruit, and the demand for it soon became so
+great as to render the cultivation of the tree necessary. It was a long
+time, however, before coffee was introduced into Europe. As late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century, Sandys, the quaint old traveller,
+describes the appearance and taste of the beverage, which he calls
+"Coffa," and sagely asks: "Why not that black broth which the
+Lacedemonians used?"
+
+On account of the excellence of the material, and the skilful manner of
+its preparation, the Coffee of the East is the finest in the world. I have
+found it so grateful and refreshing a drink, that I can readily pardon the
+pleasant exaggeration of the Arabic poet, Abd-el Kader Anazari Djezeri
+Hanbali, the son of Mahomet, who thus celebrates its virtues. After such
+an exalted eulogy, my own praises would sound dull and tame; and I
+therefore resume my pipe, commending Abd-el Kader to the reader.
+
+"O Coffee! thou dispellest the cares of the great; thou bringest back
+those who wander from the paths of knowledge. Coffee is the beverage of
+the people of God, and the cordial of his servants who thirst for wisdom.
+When coffee is infused into the bowl, it exhales the odor of musk, and is
+of the color of ink. The truth is not known except to the wise, who drink
+it from the foaming coffee-cup. God has deprived fools of coffee, who,
+with invincible obstinacy, condemn it as injurious.
+
+"Coffee is our gold; and in the place of its libations we are in the
+enjoyment of the best and noblest society. Coffee is even as innocent a
+drink as the purest milk, from which it is distinguished only by its
+color. Tarry with thy coffee in the place of its preparation, and the good
+God will hover over thee and participate in his feast. There the graces of
+the saloon, the luxury of life, the society of friends, all furnish a
+picture of the abode of happiness.
+
+"Every care vanishes when the cup-bearer presents the delicious chalice.
+It will circulate fleetly through thy veins, and will not rankle there:
+if thou doubtest this, contemplate the youth and beauty of those who drink
+it. Grief cannot exist where it grows; sorrow humbles itself in obedience
+before its powers.
+
+"Coffee is the drink of God's people; in it is health. Let this be the
+answer to those who doubt its qualities. In it we will drown our
+adversities, and in its fire consume our sorrows. Whoever has once seen
+the blissful chalice, will scorn the wine-cup. Glorious drink! thy color
+is the seal of purity, and reason proclaims it genuine. Drink with
+confidence, and regard not the prattle of fools, who condemn without
+foundation."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV.
+
+Journey to Antioch and Aleppo.
+
+
+  Change of Plans--Routes to Baghdad--Asia Minor--We sail from
+  Beyrout--Yachting on the Syrian Coast--Tartus and Latakiyeh--The Coasts
+  of Syria--The Bay of Suediah--The Mouth of the Orontes--Landing--The
+  Garden of Syria--Ride to Antioch--The Modern City--The Plains of the
+  Orontes--Remains of the Greek Empire--The Ancient Road--The Plain of
+  Keftin--Approach to Aleppo.
+
+
+  "The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,
+     The living breath is fresh behind,
+  As, with dews and sunrise fed,
+     Comes the laughing morning wind."
+
+  Shelley.
+
+
+Aleppo, _Friday, June_ 4, 1852.
+
+A Traveller in the East, who has not unbounded time and an extensive
+fortune at his disposal, is never certain where and how far he shall go,
+until his journey is finished. With but a limited portion of both these
+necessaries, I have so far carried out my original plan with scarcely a
+variation; but at present I am obliged to make a material change of route.
+My farthest East is here at Aleppo. At Damascus, I was told by everybody
+that it was too late in the season to visit either Baghdad or Mosul, and
+that, on account of the terrible summer heats and the fevers which prevail
+along the Tigris, it would be imprudent to undertake it. Notwithstanding
+this, I should probably have gone (being now so thoroughly acclimated that
+I have nothing to fear from the heat), had I not met with a friend of
+Col. Rawlinson, the companion of Layard, and the sharer in his discoveries
+at Nineveh. This gentleman, who met Col. R. not long since in
+Constantinople, on his way to Baghdad (where he resides as British
+Consul), informed me that since the departure of Mr. Layard from Mosul,
+the most interesting excavations have been filled up, in order to preserve
+the sculptures. Unless one was able to make a new exhumation, he would be
+by no means repaid for so long and arduous a journey. The ruins of Nineveh
+are all below the surface of the earth, and the little of them that is now
+left exposed, is less complete and interesting than the specimens in the
+British Museum.
+
+There is a route from Damascus to Baghdad, across the Desert, by way of
+Palmyra, but it is rarely travelled, even by the natives, except when the
+caravans are sufficiently strong to withstand the attacks of the Bedouins.
+The traveller is obliged to go in Arab costume, to leave his baggage
+behind, except a meagre scrip for the journey, and to pay from $300 to
+$500 for the camels and escort. The more usual route is to come northward
+to this city, then cross to Mosul and descend the Tigris--a journey of
+four or five weeks. After weighing all the advantages and disadvantages of
+undertaking a tour of such length as it would be necessary to make before
+reaching Constantinople, I decided at Beyrout to give up the fascinating
+fields of travel in Media, Assyria and Armenia, and take a rather shorter
+and-perhaps equally interesting route from Aleppo to Constantinople, by
+way of Tarsus, Konia (Iconium), and the ancient countries of Phrygia,
+Bithynia, and Mysia. The interior of Asia Minor is even less known to us
+than the Persian side of Asiatic Turkey, which has of late received more
+attention from travellers; and, as I shall traverse it in its whole
+length, from Syria to the Bosphorus, I may find it replete with "green
+fields and pastures new," which shall repay me for relinquishing the first
+and more ambitious undertaking. At least, I have so much reason to be
+grateful for the uninterrupted good health and good luck I have enjoyed
+during seven months in Africa and the Orient, that I cannot be otherwise
+than content with the prospect before me.
+
+I left Beyrout on the night of the 28th of May, with Mr. Harrison, who has
+decided to keep me company as far as Constantinople. François, our classic
+dragoman, whose great delight is to recite Homer by the sea-side, is
+retained for the whole tour, as we have found no reason to doubt his
+honesty or ability. Our first thought was to proceed to Aleppo by land, by
+way of Homs and Hamah, whence there might be a chance of reaching Palmyra;
+but as we found an opportunity of engaging an American yacht for the
+voyage up the coast, it was thought preferable to take her, and save time.
+She was a neat little craft, called the "American Eagle," brought out by
+Mr. Smith, our Consul at Beyrout. So, one fine moonlit night, we slowly
+crept out of the harbor, and after returning a volley of salutes from our
+friends at Demetri's Hotel, ran into the heart of a thunder-storm, which
+poured down more rain than all I had seen for eight months before. But our
+raïs, Assad (the Lion), was worthy of his name, and had two good Christian
+sailors at his command, so we lay in the cramped little cabin, and heard
+the floods washing our deck, without fear.
+
+In the morning, we were off Tripoli, which is even more deeply buried than
+Beyrout in its orange and mulberry groves, and slowly wafted along the
+bold mountain-coast, in the afternoon reached Tartus, the Ancient Tortosa.
+A mile from shore is the rocky island of Aradus, entirely covered by a
+town. There were a dozen vessels lying in the harbor. The remains of a
+large fortress and ancient mole prove it to have been a place of
+considerable importance. Tartus is a small old place on the sea-shore--not
+so large nor so important in appearance as its island-port. The country
+behind is green and hilly, though but partially cultivated, and rises into
+Djebel Ansairiyeh, which divides the valley of the Orontes from the sea.
+It is a lovely coast, especially under the flying lights and shadows of
+such a breezy day as we had. The wind fell at sunset; but by the next
+morning, we had passed the tobacco-fields of Latakiyeh, and were in sight
+of the southern cape of the Bay of Suediah. The mountains forming this
+cape culminate in a grand conical peak, about 5,000 feet in height, called
+Djebel Okrab. At ten o'clock, wafted along by a slow wind, we turned the
+point and entered the Bay of Suediah, formed by the embouchure of the
+River Orontes. The mountain headland of Akma Dagh, forming the portal of
+the Gulf of Scanderoon, loomed grandly in front of us across the bay; and
+far beyond it, we could just distinguish the coast of Karamania, the
+snow-capped range of Taurus.
+
+The Coasts of Syria might be divided, like those of Guinea, according to
+the nature of their productions. The northern division is bold and bare,
+yet flocks of sheep graze on the slopes of its mountains; and the inland
+plains behind them are covered with orchards of pistachio-trees. Silk is
+cultivated in the neighborhood of Suediah, but forms only a small portion
+of the exports. This region may be called the Wool and Pistachio Coast.
+Southward, from Latakiyeh to Tartus and the northern limit of Lebanon,
+extends the Tobacco Coast, whose undulating hills are now clothed with the
+pale-green leaves of the renowned plant. From Tripoli to Tyre, embracing
+all the western slope of Lebanon, and the deep, rich valleys lying between
+his knees, the mulberry predominates, and the land is covered with the
+houses of thatch and matting which shelter the busy worms. This is the
+Silk Coast. The palmy plains of Jaffa, and beyond, until Syria meets the
+African sands between Gaza and El-Arish, constitute the Orange Coast. The
+vine, the olive, and the fig flourish everywhere.
+
+We were all day getting up the bay, and it seemed as if we should never
+pass Djebel Okrab, whose pointed top rose high above a long belt of fleecy
+clouds that girdled his waist. At sunset we made the mouth of the Orontes.
+Our lion of a Captain tried to run into the river, but the channel was
+very narrow, and when within three hundred yards of the shore the yacht
+struck. We had all sail set, and had the wind been a little stronger, we
+should have capsized in an instant. The lion went manfully to work, and by
+dint of hard poling, shoved us off, and came to anchor in deep water. Not
+until the danger was past did he open his batteries on the unlucky
+helmsman, and then the explosion of Arabic oaths was equal to a broadside
+of twenty-four pounders. We lay all night rocking on the swells, and the
+next morning, by firing a number of signal guns, brought out a boat, which
+took us off. We entered the mouth of the Orontes, and sailed nearly a mile
+between rich wheat meadows before reaching the landing-place of
+Suediah--two or three uninhabited stone huts, with three or four small
+Turkish craft, and a health officer. The town lies a mile or two inland,
+scattered along the hill-side amid gardens so luxuriant as almost to
+conceal it from view.
+
+This part of the coast is ignorant of travellers, and we were obliged to
+wait half a day before we could find a sufficient number of horses to take
+us to Antioch, twenty miles distant. When they came, they were solid
+farmers' horses, with the rudest gear imaginable. I was obliged to mount
+astride of a broad pack-saddle, with my legs suspended in coils of rope.
+Leaving the meadows, we entered a lane of the wildest, richest and
+loveliest bloom and foliage. Our way was overhung with hedges of
+pomegranate, myrtle, oleander, and white rose, in blossom, and
+occasionally with quince, fig, and carob trees, laced together with grape
+vines in fragrant bloom. Sometimes this wilderness of color and odor met
+above our heads and made a twilight; then it opened into long, dazzling,
+sun-bright vistas, where the hues of the oleander, pomegranate and white
+rose made the eye wink with their gorgeous profusion. The mountains we
+crossed were covered with thickets of myrtle, mastic, daphne, and arbutus,
+and all the valleys and sloping meads waved with fig, mulberry, and olive
+trees. Looking towards the sea, the valley broadened out between mountain
+ranges whose summits were lost in the clouds. Though the soil was not so
+rich as in Palestine, the general aspect of the country was much wilder
+and more luxuriant.
+
+So, by this glorious lane, over the myrtled hills and down into valleys,
+whose bed was one hue of rose from the blossoming oleanders, we travelled
+for five hours, crossing the low ranges of hills through which the Orontes
+forces his way to the sea. At last we reached a height overlooking the
+valley of the river, and saw in the east, at the foot of the mountain
+chain, the long lines of barracks built by Ibrahim Pasha for the defence
+of Antioch. Behind them the ancient wall of the city clomb the mountains,
+whose crest it followed to the last peak of the chain, From the next hill
+we saw the city--a large extent of one-story houses with tiled roofs,
+surrounded with gardens, and half buried in the foliage of sycamores. It
+extends from the River Orontes, which washes its walls, up the slope of
+the mountain to the crags of gray rock which overhang it. We crossed the
+river by a massive old bridge, and entered the town. Riding along the
+rills of filth which traverse the streets, forming their central avenues,
+we passed through several lines of bazaars to a large and dreary-looking
+khan, the keeper of which gave us the best vacant chamber--a narrow place,
+full of fleas.
+
+Antioch presents not even a shadow of its former splendor. Except the
+great walls, ten to fifteen miles in circuit, which the Turks have done
+their best to destroy, every vestige of the old city has disappeared. The
+houses are all of one story, on account of earthquakes, from which Antioch
+has suffered more than any other city in the world. At one time, during
+the Middle Ages, it lost 120,000 inhabitants in one day. Its situation is
+magnificent, and the modern town, notwithstanding its filth, wears a
+bright and busy aspect. Situated at the base of a lofty mountain, it
+overlooks, towards the east, a plain thirty or forty miles in length,
+producing the most abundant harvests. A great number of the inhabitants
+are workers in wood and leather, and very thrifty and cheerful people they
+appear to be.
+
+We remained until the next day at noon, by which time a gray-bearded
+scamp, the chief of the _mukkairees_, or muleteers, succeeded in getting
+us five miserable beasts for the journey to Aleppo. On leaving the city,
+we travelled along a former street of Antioch, part of the ancient
+pavement still remaining, and after two miles came to the old wall of
+circuit, which we passed by a massive gateway, of Roman time. It is now
+called _Bab Boulos_, or St. Paul's Gate. Christianity, it will be
+remembered, was planted in Antioch by Paul and Barnabas, and the Apostle
+Peter was the first bishop of the city. We now entered the great plain of
+the Orontes--a level sea, rioting in the wealth of its ripening harvests.
+The river, lined with luxuriant thickets, meandered through the centre of
+this glorious picture. We crossed it during the afternoon, and keeping on
+our eastward course, encamped at night in a meadow near the tents of some
+wandering Turcomans, who furnished us with butter and milk from their
+herds.
+
+Leaving the plain the next morning, we travelled due east all day, over
+long stony ranges of mountains, inclosing only one valley, which bore
+evidence of great fertility. It was circular, about ten miles in its
+greater diameter, and bounded on the north by the broad peak of Djebel
+Saman, or Mount St. Simon. In the morning we passed a ruined castle,
+standing in a dry, treeless dell, among the hot hills. The muleteers
+called it the Maiden's Palace, and said that it was built long ago by a
+powerful Sultan, as a prison for his daughter. For several hours
+thereafter, our road was lined with remains of buildings, apparently
+dating from the time of the Greek Empire. There were tombs, temples of
+massive masonry, though in a bad style of architecture, and long rows of
+arched chambers, which resembled store-houses. They were all more or less
+shattered by earthquakes, but in one place I noticed twenty such arches,
+each of at least twenty feet span. All-the hills, on either hand, as far
+as we could see, were covered with the remains of buildings. In the plain
+of St. Simon, I saw two superb pillars, apparently part of a portico, or
+gateway, and the village of Dana is formed almost entirely of churches and
+convents, of the Lower Empire. There were but few inscriptions, and these
+I could not read; but the whole of this region would, no doubt, richly
+repay an antiquarian research. I am told here that the entire chain of
+hills, which extends southward for more than a hundred miles, abounds with
+similar remains, and that, in many places, whole cities stand almost
+entire, as if recently deserted by their inhabitants.
+
+During the afternoon, we came upon a portion of the ancient road from
+Antioch to Aleppo, which is still as perfect as when first constructed. It
+crossed a very stony ridge, and is much the finest specimen of road-making
+I ever saw, quite putting to shame the Appian and Flaminian Ways at Rome.
+It is twenty feet wide, and laid with blocks of white marble, from two to
+four feet square. It was apparently raised upon a more ancient road, which
+diverges here and there from the line, showing the deeply-cut traces of
+the Roman chariot-wheels. In the barren depths of the mountains we found
+every hour cisterns cut in the rock and filled with water left by the
+winter rains. Many of them, however, are fast drying up, and a month later
+this will be a desert road.
+
+Towards night we descended from the hills upon the Plain of Keftin, which
+stretches south-westward from Aleppo, till the mountain-streams which
+fertilize it are dried up, when it is merged into the Syrian Desert. Its
+northern edge, along which we travelled, is covered with fields of wheat,
+cotton, and castor-beans. We stopped all night at a village called Taireb,
+planted at the foot of a tumulus, older than tradition. The people were
+in great dread of the Aneyzeh Arabs, who come in from the Desert to
+destroy their harvests and carry off their cattle. They wanted us to take
+a guard, but after our experience on the Anti-Lebanon, we felt safer
+without one.
+
+Yesterday we travelled for seven hours over a wide, rolling country, now
+waste and barren, but formerly covered with wealth and supporting an
+abundant population, evidences of which are found in the buildings
+everywhere scattered over the hills. On and on we toiled in the heat, over
+this inhospitable wilderness, and though we knew Aleppo must be very near,
+yet we could see neither sign of cultivation nor inhabitants. Finally,
+about three o'clock, the top of a line of shattered wall and the points of
+some minarets issued out of the earth, several miles in front of us, and
+on climbing a glaring chalky ridge, the renowned city burst at once upon
+our view. It filled a wide hollow or basin among the white hills, against
+which its whiter houses and domes glimmered for miles, in the dead, dreary
+heat of the afternoon, scarcely relieved by the narrow belt of gardens on
+the nearer side, or the orchards of pistachio trees beyond. In the centre
+of the city rose a steep, abrupt mound, crowned with the remains of the
+ancient citadel, and shining minarets shot up, singly or in clusters,
+around its base. The prevailing hue of the landscape was a whitish-gray,
+and the long, stately city and long, monotonous hills, gleamed with equal
+brilliancy under a sky of cloudless and intense blue. This singular
+monotony of coloring gave a wonderful effect to the view, which is one of
+the most remarkable in all the Orient.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV.
+
+Life in Aleppo.
+
+
+  Our Entry into Aleppo--We are conducted to a House--Our Unexpected
+  Welcome--The Mystery Explained--Aleppo--Its Name--Its Situation--The
+  Trade of Aleppo--The Christians--The Revolt of 1850--Present Appearance
+  of the City--Visit to Osman Pasha--The Citadel--View from the
+  Battlements--Society in Aleppo--Etiquette and Costume--Jewish Marriage
+  Festivities--A Christian Marriage Procession--Ride around the
+  Town--Nightingales--The Aleppo Button--A Hospital for Cats--Ferhat
+  Pasha.
+
+
+Aleppo, _Tuesday, June_ 8, 1852.
+
+Our entry into Aleppo was a fitting preliminary to our experiences during
+the five days we have spent here. After passing a blackamoor, who acted as
+an advanced guard of the Custom House, at a ragged tent outside of the
+city, and bribing him with two piastres, we crossed the narrow line of
+gardens on the western side, and entered the streets. There were many
+coffee-houses, filled with smokers, nearly all of whom accosted us in
+Turkish, though Arabic is the prevailing language here. Ignorance made us
+discourteous, and we slighted every attempt to open a conversation. Out of
+the narrow streets of the suburbs, we advanced to the bazaars, in order to
+find a khan where we could obtain lodgings. All the best khans, however,
+were filled, and we were about to take a very inferior room, when a
+respectable individual came up to François and said: "The house is ready
+for the travellers, and I will show you the way." We were a little
+surprised at this address, but followed him to a neat, quiet and pleasant
+street near the bazaars, where we were ushered into a spacious court-yard,
+with a row of apartments opening upon it, and told to make ourselves at
+home.
+
+The place had evidently been recently inhabited, for the rooms were well
+furnished, with not only divans, but beds in the Frank style. A lean
+kitten was scratching at one of the windows, to the great danger of
+overturning a pair of narghilehs, a tame sea-gull was walking about the
+court, and two sheep bleated in a stable at the further end. In the
+kitchen we not only found a variety of utensils, but eggs, salt, pepper,
+and other condiments. Our guide had left, and the only information we
+could get, from a dyeing establishment next door, was that the occupants
+had gone into the country. "Take the good the gods provide thee," is my
+rule in such cases, and as we were very hungry, we set François to work at
+preparing dinner. We arranged a divan in the open air, had a table brought
+out, and by the aid of the bakers in the bazaar, and the stores which the
+kitchen supplied, soon rejoiced over a very palatable meal. The romantic
+character of our reception made the dinner a merry one. It was a chapter
+out of the Arabian Nights, and be he genie or afrite, caliph or merchant
+of Bassora, into whose hands we had fallen, we resolved to let the
+adventure take its course. We were just finishing a nondescript pastry
+which François found at a baker's, and which, for want of a better name,
+he called _méringues à la Khorassan,_ when there was a loud knock at the
+street door. We felt at first some little trepidation, but determined to
+maintain our places, and gravely invite the real master to join us.
+
+It was a female servant, however, who, to our great amazement, made a
+profound salutation, and seemed delighted to see us. "My master did not
+expect your Excellencies to-day; he has gone into the gardens, but will
+soon return. Will your Excellencies take coffee after your dinner?" and
+coffee was forthwith served. The old woman was unremitting in her
+attentions; and her son, a boy of eight years, and the most venerable
+child I ever saw, entertained us with the description of a horse which his
+master had just bought--a horse which had cost two thousand piastres, and
+was ninety years old. Well, this Aleppo is an extraordinary place, was my
+first impression, and the inhabitants are remarkable people; but I waited
+the master's arrival, as the only means of solving the mystery. About
+dusk, there was another rap at the door. A lady dressed in white, with an
+Indian handkerchief bound over her black hair, arrived. "Pray excuse us,"
+said she; "we thought you would not reach here before to-morrow; but my
+brother will come directly." In fact, the brother did come soon
+afterwards, and greeted us with a still warmer welcome. "Before leaving
+the gardens," he said, "I heard of your arrival, and have come in a full
+gallop the whole way." In order to put an end to this comedy of errors, I
+declared at once that he was mistaken; nobody in Aleppo could possibly
+know of our coming, and we were, perhaps, transgressing on his
+hospitality. But no: he would not be convinced. He was a dragoman to the
+English Consulate; his master had told him we would be here the next day,
+and he must be prepared to receive us. Besides, the janissary of the
+Consulate had showed us the way to his house. We, therefore, let the
+matter rest until next morning, when we called on Mr. Very, the Consul,
+who informed us that the janissary had mistaken us for two gentlemen we
+had met in Damascus, the travelling companions of Lord Dalkeith. As they
+had not arrived, he begged us to remain in the quarters which had been
+prepared for them. We have every reason to be glad of this mistake, as it
+has made us acquainted with one of the most courteous and hospitable
+gentlemen in the East.
+
+Aleppo lies so far out of the usual routes of travel, that it is rarely
+visited by Europeans. One is not, therefore, as in the case of Damascus,
+prepared beforehand by volumes of description, which preclude all
+possibility of mistake or surprise. For my part, I only knew that Aleppo
+had once been the greatest commercial city of the Orient, though its power
+had long since passed into other hands. But there were certain stately
+associations lingering around the name, which drew me towards it, and
+obliged me to include it, at all hazards, in my Asiatic tour. The scanty
+description of Captains Irby and Mangles, the only one I had read, gave me
+no distinct idea of its position or appearance; and when, the other day, I
+first saw it looming grand and gray among the gray hills, more like a vast
+natural crystallization than the product of human art, I revelled in the
+novelty of that startling first impression.
+
+The tradition of the city's name is curious, and worth relating. It is
+called, in Arabic, _Haleb el-Shahba_--Aleppo, the Gray--which most persons
+suppose to refer to the prevailing color of the soil. The legend, however,
+goes much farther. _Haleb_, which the Venetians and Genoese softened into
+Aleppo, means literally: "has milked," According to Arab tradition, the
+patriarch Abraham once lived here: his tent being pitched near the mound
+now occupied by the citadel. He had a certain gray cow (_el-shahba_)
+which was milked every morning for the benefit of the poor. When,
+therefore, it was proclaimed: "_Ibrahim haleb el-shahba_" (Abraham has
+milked the gray cow), all the poor of the tribe came up to receive their
+share. The repetition of this morning call attached itself to the spot,
+and became the name of the city which was afterwards founded.
+
+Aleppo is built on the eastern slope of a shallow upland basin, through
+which flows the little River Koweik. There are low hills to the north and
+south, between which the country falls into a wide, monotonous plain,
+extending unbroken to the Euphrates. The city is from eight to ten miles
+in circuit, and, though not so thickly populated, covers a greater extent
+of space than Damascus. The population is estimated at 100,000. In the
+excellence (not the elegance) of its architecture, it surpasses any
+Oriental city I have yet seen. The houses are all of hewn stone,
+frequently three and even four stories in height, and built in a most
+massive and durable style, on account of the frequency of earthquakes. The
+streets are well paved, clean, with narrow sidewalks, and less tortuous
+and intricate than the bewildering alleys of Damascus. A large part of the
+town is occupied with bazaars, attesting the splendor of its former
+commerce. These establishments are covered with lofty vaults of stone,
+lighted from the top; and one may walk for miles beneath the spacious
+roofs. The shops exhibit all the stuffs of the East, especially of Persia
+and India. There is also an extensive display of European fabrics, as the
+eastern provinces of Asiatic Turkey, as far as Baghdad, are supplied
+entirely from Aleppo and Trebizond.
+
+Within ten years--in fact, since the Allied Powers drove Ibrahim Pasha
+out of Syria--the trade of Aleppo has increased, at the expense of
+Damascus. The tribes of the Desert, who were held in check during the
+Egyptian occupancy, are now so unruly that much of the commerce between
+the latter place and Baghdad goes northward to Mosul, and thence by a
+safer road to this city. The khans, of which there are a great number,
+built on a scale according with the former magnificence of Aleppo, are
+nearly all filled, and Persian, Georgian, and Armenian merchants again
+make their appearance in the bazaars. The principal manufactures carried
+on are the making of shoes (which, indeed, is a prominent branch in every
+Turkish city), and the weaving of silk and golden tissues. Two long
+bazaars are entirely occupied with shoe-shops, and there is nearly a
+quarter of a mile of confectionery, embracing more varieties than I ever
+saw, or imagined possible. I saw yesterday the operation of weaving silk
+and gold, which is a very slow process. The warp and the body of the woof
+were of purple silk. The loom only differed from the old hand-looms in
+general use in having some thirty or forty contrivances for lifting the
+threads of the warp, so as to form, by variation, certain patterns. The
+gold threads by which the pattern was worked were contained in twenty
+small shuttles, thrust by hand under the different parcels of the warp, as
+they were raised by a boy trained for that purpose, who sat on the top of
+the loom. The fabric was very brilliant in its appearance, and sells, as
+the weavers informed me, at 100 piastres per _pik_--about $7 per yard.
+
+We had letters to Mr. Ford, an American Missionary established here, and
+Signor di Picciotto, who acts as American Vice-Consul. Both gentlemen have
+been very cordial in their offers of service, and by their aid we have
+been enabled to see something of Aleppo life and society. Mr. Ford, who
+has been here four years, has a pleasant residence at Jedaida, a Christian
+suburb of the city. His congregation numbers some fifty or sixty
+proselytes, who are mostly from the schismatic sects of the Armenians. Dr.
+Smith, who established the mission at Ain-tab (two days' journey north of
+this), where he died last year, was very successful among these sects, and
+the congregation there amounts to nine hundred. The Sultan, a year ago,
+issued a firman, permitting his Christian subjects to erect houses of
+worship; but, although this was proclaimed in Constantinople and much
+lauded in Europe as an act of great generosity and tolerance, there has
+been no official promulgation of it here. So of the aid which the Turkish
+Government was said to have afforded to its destitute Christian subjects,
+whose houses were sacked during the fanatical rebellion of 1850. The world
+praised the Sultan's charity and love of justice, while the sufferers, to
+this day, lack the first experience of it. But for the spontaneous relief
+contributed in Europe and among the Christian communities of the Levant,
+the amount of misery would have been frightful.
+
+To Feridj Pasha, who is at present the commander of the forces here, is
+mainly due the credit of having put down the rebels with a strong hand.
+There were but few troops in the city at the time of the outbreak, and as
+the insurgents, who were composed of the Turkish and Arab population, were
+in league with the Aneyzehs of the Desert, the least faltering or delay
+would have led to a universal massacre of the Christians. Fortunately, the
+troops were divided into two portions, one occupying the barracks on a
+hill north of the city, and the other, a mere corporal's guard of a dozen
+men, posted in the citadel. The leaders of the outbreak went to the latter
+and offered him a large sum of money (the spoils of Christian houses) to
+give up the fortress. With a loyalty to his duty truly miraculous among
+the Turks, he ordered his men to fire upon them, and they beat a hasty
+retreat. The quarter of the insurgents lay precisely between the barracks
+and the citadel, and by order of Feridj Pasha a cannonade was immediately
+opened on it from both points. It was not, however, until many houses had
+been battered down, and a still larger number destroyed by fire, that the
+rebels were brought to submission. Their allies, the Aneyzehs, appeared on
+the hill east of Aleppo, to the number of five or six thousand, but a few
+well-directed cannon-balls told them what they might expect, and they
+speedily retreated. Two or three hundred Christian families lost nearly
+all of their property during the sack, and many were left entirely
+destitute. The house in which Mr. Ford lives was plundered of jewels and
+furniture to the amount of 400,000 piastres ($20,000). The robbers, it is
+said, were amazed at the amount of spoil they found. The Government made
+some feeble efforts to recover it, but the greater part was already sold
+and scattered through a thousand hands, and the unfortunate Christians
+have only received about seven per cent. of their loss.
+
+The burnt quarter has since been rebuilt, and I noticed several Christians
+occupying shops in various parts of it. But many families, who fled at the
+time, still remain in various parts of Syria, afraid to return to their
+homes. The Aneyzehs and other Desert tribes have latterly become more
+daring than ever. Even in the immediate neighborhood of the city, the
+inhabitants are so fearful of them that all the grain is brought up to
+the very walls to be threshed. The burying-grounds on both sides are now
+turned into threshing-floors, and all day long the Turkish peasants drive
+their heavy sleds around among the tomb-stones.
+
+On the second day after our arrival, we paid a visit to Osman Pasha,
+Governor of the City and Province of Aleppo. We went in state, accompanied
+by the Consul, with two janissaries in front, bearing silver maces, and a
+dragoman behind. The _seraï_, or palace, is a large, plain wooden
+building, and a group of soldiers about the door, with a shabby carriage
+in the court, were the only tokens of its character. We were ushered at
+once into the presence of the Pasha, who is a man of about seventy years,
+with a good-humored, though shrewd face. He was quite cordial in his
+manners, complimenting us on our Turkish costume, and vaunting his skill
+in physiognomy, which at once revealed to him that we belonged to the
+highest class of American nobility. In fact, in the firman which he has
+since sent us, we are mentioned as "nobles." He invited us to pass a day
+or two with him, saying that he should derive much benefit from our
+superior knowledge. We replied that such an intercourse could only benefit
+ourselves, as his greater experience, and the distinguished wisdom which
+had made his name long since familiar to our ears, precluded the hope of
+our being of any service to him. After half an hour's stay, during which
+we were regaled with jewelled pipes, exquisite Mocha coffee, and sherbet
+breathing of the gardens of Gülistan, we took our leave.
+
+The Pasha sent an officer to show us the citadel. We passed around the
+moat to the entrance on the western side, consisting of a bridge and
+double gateway. The fortress, as I have already stated, occupies the crest
+of an elliptical mound, about one thousand feet by six hundred, and two
+hundred feet in height. It is entirely encompassed by the city and forms a
+prominent and picturesque feature in the distant view thereof. Formerly,
+it was thickly inhabited, and at the time of the great earthquake of 1822,
+there were three hundred families living within the walls, nearly all of
+whom perished. The outer walls were very much shattered on that occasion,
+but the enormous towers and the gateway, the grandest specimen of
+Saracenic architecture in the East, still remain entire. This gateway, by
+which we entered, is colossal in its proportions. The outer entrance,
+through walls ten feet thick, admitted us into a lofty vestibule lined
+with marble, and containing many ancient inscriptions in mosaic. Over the
+main portal, which is adorned with sculptured lions' heads, there is a
+tablet stating that the fortress was built by El Melek el Ashraf (the
+Holiest of Kings), after which follows: "Prosperity to the True
+Believers--Death to the Infidels!" A second tablet shows that it was
+afterwards repaired by Mohammed ebn-Berkook, who, I believe, was one of
+the Fatimite Caliphs. The shekh of the citadel, who accompanied us, stated
+the age of the structure at nine hundred years, which, as nearly as I can
+recollect the Saracenic chronology, is correct. He called our attention to
+numbers of iron arrow-heads sticking in the solid masonry--the marks of
+ancient sieges. Before leaving, we were presented with a bundle of arrows
+from the armory--undoubted relics of Saracen warfare.
+
+The citadel is now a mass of ruins, having been deserted since the
+earthquake. Grass is growing on the ramparts, and the caper plant, with
+its white-and-purple blossoms, flourishes among the piles of rubbish.
+Since the late rebellion, however, a small military barrack has been
+built, and two companies of soldiers are stationed there, We walked around
+the walls, which command a magnificent view of the city and the wide
+plains to the south and east. It well deserves to rank with the panorama
+of Cairo from the citadel, and that of Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon, in
+extent, picturesqueness and rich oriental character. Out of the gray ring
+of the city, which incloses the mound, rise the great white domes and the
+whiter minarets of its numerous mosques, many of which are grand and
+imposing structures. The course of the river through the centre of the
+picture is marked by a belt of the greenest verdure, beyond which, to the
+west, rises a chain of naked red hills, and still further, fading on the
+horizon, the blue summit of Mt. St. Simon, and the coast range of Akma
+Dagh. Eastward, over vast orchards of pistachio trees, the barren plain of
+the Euphrates fades away to a glimmering, hot horizon. Looking downwards
+on the heart of the city, I was surprised to see a number of open, grassy
+tracts, out of which, here and there, small trees were growing. But,
+perceiving what appeared to be subterranean entrances at various points, I
+found that these tracts were upon the roofs of the houses and bazaars,
+verifying what I had frequently heard, that in Aleppo the inhabitants
+visit their friends in different parts of the city, by passing over the
+roofs of the houses. Previous to the earthquake of 1822, these vast
+roof-plains were cultivated as gardens, and presented an extent of airy
+bowers as large, if not as magnificent, as the renowned Hanging Gardens of
+ancient Babylon.
+
+Accompanied by Signor di Picciotto, we spent two or three days in
+visiting the houses of the principal Jewish and Christian families in
+Aleppo. We found, it is true, no such splendor as in Damascus, but more
+solid and durable architecture, and a more chastened elegance of taste.
+The buildings are all of hewn stone, the court-yards paved with marble,
+and the walls rich with gilding and carved wood. Some of the larger
+dwellings have small but beautiful gardens attached to them. We were
+everywhere received with the greatest hospitality, and the visits were
+considered as a favor rather than an intrusion. Indeed, I was frequently
+obliged to run the risk of giving offence, by declining the refreshments
+which were offered us. Each round of visits was a feat of strength, and we
+were obliged to desist from sheer inability to support more coffee,
+rose-water, pipes, and aromatic sweetmeats. The character of society in
+Aleppo is singular; its very life and essence is etiquette. The laws which
+govern it are more inviolable than those of the Medes and Persians. The
+question of precedence among the different families is adjusted by the
+most delicate scale, and rigorously adhered to in the most trifling
+matters. Even we, humble voyagers as we are, have been obliged to regulate
+our conduct according to it. After our having visited certain families,
+certain others would have been deeply mortified had we neglected to call
+upon them. Formerly, when a traveller arrived here, he was expected to
+call upon the different Consuls, in the order of their established
+precedence: the Austrian first, English second, French third, &c. After
+this, he was obliged to stay at home several days, to give the Consuls an
+opportunity of returning the visits, which they made in the same order.
+There was a diplomatic importance about all his movements, and the least
+violation of etiquette, through ignorance or neglect, was the town talk
+for days.
+
+This peculiarity in society is evidently a relic of the formal times, when
+Aleppo was a semi-Venetian city, and the opulent seat of Eastern commerce.
+Many of the inhabitants are descended from the traders of those times, and
+they all speak the _lingua franca_, or Levantine Italian. The women wear a
+costume partly Turkish and partly European, combining the graces of both;
+it is, in my eyes, the most beautiful dress in the world. They wear a rich
+scarf of some dark color on the head, which, on festive occasions, is
+almost concealed by their jewels, and the heavy scarlet pomegranate
+blossoms which adorn their dark hair. A Turkish vest and sleeves of
+embroidered silk, open in front, and a skirt of white or some light color,
+completes the costume. The Jewesses wear in addition a short Turkish
+_caftan_, and full trousers gathered at the ankles. At a ball given by Mr.
+Very, the English Consul, which we attended, all the Christian beauties of
+Aleppo were present. There was a fine display of diamonds, many of the
+ladies wearing several thousand dollars' worth on their heads. The
+peculiar etiquette of the place was again illustrated on this occasion.
+The custom is, that the music must be heard for at least one hour before
+the guests come. The hour appointed was eight, but when we went there, at
+nine, nobody had arrived. As it was generally supposed that the ball was
+given on our account, several of the families had servants in the
+neighborhood to watch our arrival; and, accordingly, we had not been there
+five minutes before the guests crowded through the door in large numbers.
+When the first dance (an Arab dance, performed by two ladies at a time)
+was proposed, the wives of the French and Spanish Consuls were first led,
+or rather dragged, out. When a lady is asked to dance, she invariably
+refuses. She is asked a second and a third time; and if the gentleman does
+not solicit most earnestly, and use some gentle force in getting her upon
+the floor, she never forgives him.
+
+At one of the Jewish houses which we visited, the wedding festivities of
+one of the daughters were being celebrated. We were welcomed with great
+cordiality, and immediately ushered into the room of state, an elegant
+apartment, overlooking the gardens below the city wall. Half the room was
+occupied by a raised platform, with a divan of blue silk cushions. Here
+the ladies reclined, in superb dresses of blue, pink, and gold, while the
+gentlemen were ranged on the floor below. They all rose at our entrance,
+and we were conducted to seats among the ladies. Pipes and perfumed drinks
+were served, and the bridal cake, made of twenty-six different fruits, was
+presented on a golden salver. Our fair neighbors, some of whom literally
+blazed with jewels, were strikingly beautiful. Presently the bride
+appeared at the door, and we all rose and remained standing, as she
+advanced, supported on each side by the two _shebeeniyeh_, or bridesmaids.
+She was about sixteen, slight and graceful in appearance, though not
+decidedly beautiful, and was attired with the utmost elegance. Her dress
+was a pale blue silk, heavy with gold embroidery; and over her long dark
+hair, her neck, bosom, and wrists, played a thousand rainbow gleams from
+the jewels which covered them. The Jewish musicians, seated at the bottom
+of the hall, struck up a loud, rejoicing harmony on their violins,
+guitars, and dulcimers, and the women servants, grouped at the door,
+uttered in chorus that wild, shrill cry, which accompanies all such
+festivals in the East. The bride was careful to preserve the decorum
+expected of her, by speaking no word, nor losing the sad, resigned
+expression of her countenance. She ascended to the divan, bowed to each of
+us with a low, reverential inclination, and seated herself on the
+cushions. The music and dances lasted some time, accompanied by the
+_zughàreet_, or cry of the women, which was repeated with double force
+when we rose to take leave. The whole company waited on us to the street
+door, and one of the servants, stationed in the court, shouted some long,
+sing-song phrases after us as we passed out. I could not learn the words,
+but was told that it was an invocation of prosperity upon us, in return
+for the honor which our visit had conferred.
+
+In the evening I went to view a Christian marriage procession, which,
+about midnight, conveyed the bride to the house of the bridegroom. The
+house, it appeared, was too small to receive all the friends of the
+family, and I joined a large number of them, who repaired to the terrace
+of the English Consulate, to greet the procession as it passed. The first
+persons who appeared were a company of buffoons; after them four
+janissaries, carrying silver maces; then the male friends, bearing colored
+lanterns and perfumed torches, raised on gilded poles; then the females,
+among whom I saw some beautiful Madonna faces in the torchlight; and
+finally the bride herself, covered from head to foot with a veil of cloth
+of gold, and urged along by two maidens: for it is the etiquette of such
+occasions that the bride should resist being taken, and must be forced
+every step of the way, so that she is frequently three hours in going the
+distance of a mile. We watched the procession a long time, winding away
+through the streets--a line of torches, and songs, and incense, and noisy
+jubilee--under the sweet starlit heaven.
+
+The other evening, Signor di Picciotto mounted us from his fine Arabian
+stud, and we rode around the city, outside of the suburbs. The sun was
+low, and a pale yellow lustre touched the clusters of minarets that rose
+out of the stately masses of buildings, and the bare, chalky hills to the
+north. After leaving the gardens on the banks of the Koweik, we came upon
+a dreary waste of ruins, among which the antiquarian finds traces of the
+ancient Aleppo of the Greeks, the Mongolian conquerors of the Middle Ages,
+and the Saracens who succeeded them. There are many mosques and tombs,
+which were once imposing specimens of Saracenic art; but now, split and
+shivered by wars and earthquakes, are slowly tumbling into utter decay. On
+the south-eastern side of the city, its chalk foundations have been
+hollowed into vast, arched caverns, which extend deep into the earth.
+Pillars have been left at regular intervals, to support the masses above,
+and their huge, dim labyrinths resemble the crypts of some great
+cathedral. They are now used as rope-walks, and filled with cheerful
+workmen.
+
+Our last excursion was to a country-house of Signor di Picciotto, in the
+Gardens of Babala, about four miles from Aleppo. We set out in the
+afternoon on our Arabians, with our host's son on a large white donkey of
+the Baghdad breed. Passing the Turkish cemetery, where we stopped to view
+the tomb of General Bem, we loosened rein and sped away at full gallop
+over the hot, white hills. In dashing down a stony rise, the ambitious
+donkey, who was doing his best to keep up with the horses, fell, hurling
+Master Picciotto over his head. The boy was bruised a little, but set his
+teeth together and showed no sign of pain, mounted again, and followed
+us. The Gardens of Babala are a wilderness of fruit-trees, like those of
+Damascus. Signor P.'s country-house is buried in a wild grove of apricot,
+fig, orange, and pomegranate-trees. A large marble tank, in front of the
+open, arched _liwan_, supplies it with water. We mounted to the flat roof,
+and watched the sunset fade from the beautiful landscape. Beyond the
+bowers of dazzling greenness which surrounded us, stretched the wide, gray
+hills; the minarets of Aleppo, and the walls of its castled mount shone
+rosily in the last rays of the sun; an old palace of the Pashas, with the
+long, low barracks of the soldiery, crowned the top of a hill to the
+north; dark, spiry cypresses betrayed the place of tombs; and, to the
+west, beyond the bare red peak of Mount St. Simon, rose the faint blue
+outline of Giaour Dagh, whose mural chain divides Syria from the plains of
+Cilicia. As the twilight deepened over the scene, there came a long,
+melodious cry of passion and of sorrow from the heart of a starry-flowered
+pomegranate tree in the garden. Other voices answered it from the gardens
+around, until not one, but fifty nightingales charmed the repose of the
+hour. They vied with each other in their bursts of passionate music. Each
+strain soared over the last, or united with others, near and far, in a
+chorus of the divinest pathos--an expression of sweet, unutterable,
+unquenchable longing. It was an ecstasy, yet a pain, to listen. "Away!"
+said Jean Paul to Music: "thou tellest me of that which I have not, and
+never can have--which I forever seek, and never find!"
+
+But space fails me to describe half the incidents of our stay in Aleppo.
+There are two things peculiar to the city, however, which I must not omit
+mentioning. One is the Aleppo Button, a singular ulcer, which attacks
+every person born in the city, and every stranger who spends more than a
+month there. It can neither be prevented nor cured, and always lasts for a
+year. The inhabitants almost invariably have it on the face--either on the
+cheek, forehead, or tip of the nose--where it often leaves an indelible
+and disfiguring scar. Strangers, on the contrary, have it on one of the
+joints; either the elbow, wrist, knee, or ankle. So strictly is its
+visitation confined to the city proper, that in none of the neighboring
+villages, nor even in a distant suburb, is it known. Physicians have
+vainly attempted to prevent it by inoculation, and are at a loss to what
+cause to ascribe it. We are liable to have it, even after five days' stay;
+but I hope it will postpone its appearance until after I reach home.
+
+The other remarkable thing here is the Hospital for Cats. This was founded
+long ago by a rich, cat-loving Mussulman, and is one of the best endowed
+institutions in the city. An old mosque is appropriated to the purpose,
+under the charge of several directors; and here sick cats are nursed,
+homeless cats find shelter, and decrepit cats gratefully purr away their
+declining years. The whole category embraces several hundreds, and it is
+quite a sight to behold the court, the corridors, and terraces of the
+mosque swarming with them. Here, one with a bruised limb is receiving a
+cataplasm; there, a cataleptic patient is tenderly cared for; and so on,
+through the long concatenation of feline diseases. Aleppo, moreover,
+rejoices in a greater number of cats than even Jerusalem. At a rough
+guess, I should thus state the population of the city: Turks and Arabs,
+70,000; Christians of all denominations, 15,000; Jews, 10,000; dogs,
+12,000; and cats, 8,000.
+
+Among other persons whom I have met here, is Ferhat Pasha, formerly
+General Stein, Hungarian Minister of War, and Governor of Transylvania. He
+accepted Moslemism with Bem and others, and now rejoices in his
+circumcision and 7,000 piastres a month. He is a fat, companionable sort
+of man; who, by his own confession, never labored very zealously for the
+independence of Hungary, being an Austrian by birth. He conversed with me
+for several hours on the scenes in which he had participated, and
+attributed the failure of the Hungarians to the want of material means.
+General Bem, who died here, is spoken of with the utmost respect, both by
+Turks and Christians. The former have honored him with a large tomb, or
+mausoleum, covered with a dome.
+
+But I must close, leaving half unsaid. Suffice it to say that no Oriental
+city has interested me so profoundly as Aleppo, and in none have I
+received such universal and cordial hospitality. We leave to-morrow for
+Asia Minor, having engaged men and horses for the whole route to
+Constantinople.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI.
+
+Through the Syrian Gates.
+
+
+  An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
+  Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
+  Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
+  Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
+  Town--A Land of Gardens.
+
+
+  "Mountains, on whose barren breast
+  The lab'ring clouds do often rest."
+
+  Milton.
+
+
+In Quarantine (Adana, Asia Minor), _Tuesday, June_ 15, 1852.
+
+We left Aleppo on the morning of the 9th, under circumstances not the most
+promising for the harmony of our journey. We had engaged horses and
+baggage-mules from the _capidji_, or chief of the muleteers, and in order
+to be certain of having animals that would not break down on the way, made
+a particular selection from a number that were brought us. When about
+leaving the city, however, we discovered that one of the horses had been
+changed. Signor di Picciotto, who accompanied us past the Custom-House
+barriers, immediately dispatched the delinquent muleteer to bring back the
+true horse, and the latter made a farce of trying to find him, leading the
+Consul and the capidji (who, I believe, was at the bottom of the cheat) a
+wild-goose chase over the hills around Aleppo, where of course, the animal
+was not to be seen. When, at length, we had waited three hours, and had
+wandered about four miles from the city, we gave up the search, took leave
+of the Consul and went on with the new horse. Our proper plan would have
+been to pitch the tent and refuse to move till the matter was settled. The
+animal, as we discovered during the first day's journey, was hopelessly
+lame, and we only added to the difficulty by taking him.
+
+We rode westward all day over barren and stony hills, meeting with
+abundant traces of the power and prosperity of this region during the
+times of the Greek Emperors. The nevastation wrought by earthquakes has
+been terrible; there is scarcely a wall or arch standing, which does not
+bear marks of having been violently shaken. The walls inclosing the
+fig-orchards near the villages contain many stones with Greek
+inscriptions, and fragments of cornices. We encamped the first night on
+the plain at the foot of Mount St. Simon, and not far from the ruins of
+the celebrated Church of the same name. The building stands in a stony
+wilderness at the foot of the mountain. It is about a hundred feet long
+and thirty in height, with two lofty square towers in front. The pavement
+of the interior is entirely concealed by the masses of pillars, capitals,
+and hewn blocks that lie heaped upon it. The windows, which are of the
+tall, narrow, arched form, common in Byzantine Churches, have a common
+moulding which falls like a mantle over and between them. The general
+effect of the Church is very fine, though there is much inelegance in the
+sculptured details. At the extremity is a half-dome of massive stone, over
+the place of the altar, and just in front of this formerly stood the
+pedestal whereon, according to tradition, St. Simeon Stylites commenced
+his pillar-life. I found a recent excavation at the spot, but no
+pedestal, which has probably been carried off by the Greek monks. Beside
+the Church stands a large building, with an upper and lower balcony,
+supported by square stone pillars, around three sides. There is also a
+paved court-yard, a large cistern cut in the rock and numerous
+out-buildings, all going to confirm the supposition of its having been a
+monastery. The main building is three stories high, with pointed gables,
+and bears a strong resemblance to an American summer hotel, with verandas.
+Several ancient fig and walnut trees are growing among the ruins, and add
+to their picturesque appearance.
+
+The next day we crossed a broad chain of hills to the Plain of Antioch,
+which we reached near its northern extremity. In one of the valleys
+through which the road lay, we saw a number of hot sulphur springs, some
+of them of a considerable volume of water. Not far from them was a
+beautiful fountain of fresh and cold water gushing from the foot of a high
+rock. Soon after reaching the plain, we crossed the stream of Kara Su,
+which feeds the Lake of Antioch. This part of the plain is low and swampy,
+and the streams are literally alive with fish. While passing over the
+bridge I saw many hundreds, from one to two feet in length. We wandered
+through the marshy meadows for two or three hours, and towards sunset
+reached a Turcoman encampment, where the ground was dry enough to pitch
+our tents. The rude tribe received us hospitably, and sent us milk and
+cheese in abundance. I visited the tent of the Shekh, who was very
+courteous, but as he knew no language but Turkish, our conversation was
+restricted to signs. The tent was of camel's-hair cloth, spacious, and
+open at the sides. A rug was spread for me, and the Shekh's wife brought
+me a pipe of tolerable tobacco. The household were seated upon the
+ground, chatting pleasantly with one another, and apparently not in the
+least disturbed by my presence. One of the Shekh's sons, who was deaf and
+dumb, came and sat before me, and described by very expressive signs the
+character of the road to Scanderoon. He gave me to understand that there
+were robbers in the mountains, with many grim gestures descriptive of
+stabbing and firing muskets.
+
+The mosquitoes were so thick during the night that we were obliged to fill
+the tent with smoke in order to sleep. When morning came, we fancied there
+would be a relief for us, but it only brought a worse pest, in the shape
+of swarms of black gnats, similar to those which so tormented me in Nubia.
+I know of no infliction so terrible as these gnats, which you cannot drive
+away, and which assail ears, eyes, and nostrils in such quantities that
+you become mad and desperate in your efforts to eject them. Through glens
+filled with oleander, we ascended the first slopes of Akma Dagh, the
+mountain range which divides the Gulf of Scanderoon from the Plain of
+Antioch. Then, passing a natural terrace, covered with groves of oak, our
+road took the mountain side, climbing upwards in the shadow of pine and
+wild olive trees, and between banks of blooming lavender and myrtle. We
+saw two or three companies of armed guards, stationed by the road-side,
+for the mountain is infested with robbers, and a caravan had been
+plundered only three days before. The view, looking backward, took in the
+whole plain, with the Lake of Antioch glittering in the centre, the valley
+of the Orontes in the south, and the lofty cone of Djebel-Okrab far to the
+west. As we approached the summit, violent gusts of wind blew through the
+pass with such force as almost to overturn our horses. Here the road from
+Antioch joins that from Aleppo, and both for some distance retain the
+ancient pavement.
+
+From the western side we saw the sea once more, and went down through the
+_Pylæ Syriæ_, or Syrian Gates, as this defile was called by the Romans. It
+is very narrow and rugged, with an abrupt descent. In an hour from the
+summit we came upon an aqueduct of a triple row of arches, crossing the
+gorge. It is still used to carry water to the town of Beilan, which hangs
+over the mouth of the pass, half a mile below. This is one of the most
+picturesque spots in Syria. The houses cling to the sides and cluster on
+the summits of precipitous crags, and every shelf of soil, every crevice
+where a tree can thrust its roots, upholds a mass of brilliant vegetation.
+Water is the life of the place. It gushes into the street from exhaustless
+fountains; it trickles from the terraces in showers of misty drops; it
+tumbles into the gorge in sparkling streams; and everywhere it nourishes a
+life as bright and beautiful as its own. The fruit trees are of enormous
+size, and the crags are curtained with a magnificent drapery of vines.
+This green gateway opens suddenly upon another, cut through a glittering
+mass of micaceous rock, whence one looks down on the town and Gulf of
+Scanderoon, the coast of Karamania beyond, and the distant snows of the
+Taurus. We descended through groves of pine and oak, and in three hours
+more reached the shore.
+
+Scanderoon is the most unhealthy place on the Syrian Coast, owing to the
+malaria from a marsh behind it. The inhabitants are a wretched pallid set,
+who are visited every year with devastating fevers. The marsh was partly
+drained some forty years ago by the Turkish government, and a few
+thousand dollars would be sufficient to remove it entirely, and make the
+place--which is of some importance as the seaport of Aleppo--healthy and
+habitable. At present, there are not five hundred inhabitants, and half of
+these consist of the Turkish garrison and the persons attached to the
+different Vice-Consulates. The streets are depositories of filth, and
+pools of stagnant water, on all sides, exhale the most fetid odors. Near
+the town are the ruins of a castle built by Godfrey of Bouillon. We
+marched directly down to the sea-shore, and pitched our tent close beside
+the waves, as the place most free from malaria. There were a dozen vessels
+at anchor in the road, and one of them proved to be the American bark
+Columbia, Capt. Taylor. We took a skiff and went on board, where we were
+cordially welcomed by the mate. In the evening, the captain came to our
+tent, quite surprised to find two wandering Americans in such a lonely
+corner of the world. Soon afterwards, with true seaman-like generosity, he
+returned, bringing a jar of fine Spanish olives and a large bottle of
+pickles, which he insisted on adding to our supplies. The olives have the
+choicest Andalusian flavor, and the pickles lose none of their relish from
+having been put up in New York.
+
+The road from Scanderoon to this place lies mostly along the shore of the
+gulf, at the foot of Akma Dagh, and is reckoned dangerous on account of
+the marauding bands of Koords who infest the mountains. These people, like
+the Druses, have rebelled against the conscription, and will probably hold
+their ground with equal success, though the Turks talk loudly of invading
+their strongholds. Two weeks ago, the post was robbed, about ten miles
+from Scanderoon, and a government vessel, now lying at anchor in the bay,
+opened a cannonade on the plunderers, before they could be secured. In
+consequence of the warnings of danger in everybody's mouth, we decided to
+take an escort, and therefore waited upon the commander of the forces,
+with the firman of the Pasha of Aleppo. A convoy of two soldiers was at
+once promised us; and at sunrise, next morning, they took the lead of our
+caravan.
+
+In order to appear more formidable, in case we should meet with robbers,
+we put on our Frank pantaloons, which had no other effect than to make the
+heat more intolerable. But we formed rather a fierce cavalcade, six armed
+men in all. Our road followed the shore of the bay, having a narrow,
+uninhabited flat, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, between us
+and the mountains. The two soldiers, more valiant than the guard of
+Banias, rode in advance, and showed no signs of fear as we approached the
+suspicious places. The morning was delightfully clear, and the
+snow-crowned range of Taurus shone through the soft vapors hanging over
+the gulf. In one place, we skirted the shore for some distance, under a
+bank twenty feet in height, and so completely mantled with shrubbery, that
+a small army might have hidden in it. There were gulleys at intervals,
+opening suddenly on our path, and we looked up them, expecting every
+moment to see the gleam of a Koordish gun-barrel, or a Turcoman spear,
+above the tops of the myrtles.
+
+Crossing a promontory which makes out from the mountains, we came upon the
+renowned plain of Issus, where Darius lost his kingdom to Alexander. On a
+low cliff overhanging the sea, there are the remains of a single tower of
+gray stone. The people in Scanderoon call it "Jonah's Pillar," and say
+that it marks the spot where the Ninevite was cast ashore by the whale.
+[This makes three places on the Syrian coast where Jonah was vomited
+forth.] The plain of Issus is from two to three miles long, but not more
+than half a mile wide, It is traversed by a little river, supposed to be
+the Pinarus, which comes down through a tremendous cleft in the Akma Dagh.
+The ground seems too small for the battle-field of such armies as were
+engaged on the occasion. It is bounded on the north by a low hill,
+separating it from the plain of Baïas, and it is possible that Alexander
+may have made choice of this position, leaving the unwieldy forces of
+Darius to attack him from the plain. His advantage would be greater, on
+account of the long, narrow form of the ground, which would prevent him
+from being engaged with more than a small portion of the Persian army, at
+one time. The plain is now roseate with blooming oleanders, but almost
+entirely uncultivated. About midway there are the remains of an ancient
+quay jutting into the sea.
+
+Soon after leaving the field of Issus, we reached the town of Baïas, which
+is pleasantly situated on the shore, at the mouth of a river whose course
+through the plain is marked with rows of tall poplar trees. The walls of
+the town, and the white dome and minaret of its mosque, rose dazzlingly
+against the dark blue of the sea, and the purple stretch of the mountains
+of Karamania. A single palm lifted its crest in the foreground. We
+dismounted for breakfast under the shade of an old bridge which crosses
+the river. It was a charming spot, the banks above and below being
+overhung with oleander, white rose, honeysuckle and clematis. The two
+guardsmen finished the remaining half of our Turcoman cheese, and almost
+exhausted our supply of bread. I gave one of them a cigar, which he was at
+a loss how to smoke, until our muleteer showed him.
+
+Baïas was celebrated fifty years ago, as the residence of the robber
+chief, Kutchuk Ali, who, for a long time, braved the authority of the
+Porte itself. He was in the habit of levying a yearly tribute on the
+caravan to Mecca, and the better to enforce his claims, often suspended
+two or three of his captives at the gates of the town, a day or two before
+the caravan arrived. Several expeditions were sent against him, but he
+always succeeded in bribing the commanders, who, on their return to
+Constantinople, made such representations that Kutchuk Ali, instead of
+being punished, received one dignity after another, until finally he
+attained the rank of a Pasha of two tails. This emboldened him to commit
+enormities too great to be overlooked, and in 1812 Baïas was taken, and
+the atrocious nest of land-pirates broken up.
+
+I knew that the town had been sacked on this occasion, but was not
+prepared to find such a complete picture of desolation. The place is
+surrounded with a substantial wall, with two gateways, on the north and
+south. A bazaar, covered with a lofty vaulted roof of stone, runs directly
+through from gate to gate; and there was still a smell of spices in the
+air, on entering. The massive shops on either hand, with their open doors,
+invited possession, and might readily be made habitable again. The great
+iron gates leading from the bazaar into the khans and courts, still swing
+on their rusty hinges. We rode into the court of the mosque, which is
+surrounded with a light and elegant corridor, supported by pillars. The
+grass has as yet but partially invaded the marble pavement, and a stone
+drinking-trough still stands in the centre. I urged my horse up the steps
+and into the door of the mosque. It is in the form of a Greek cross, with
+a dome in the centre, resting on four very elegant pointed arches. There
+is an elaborately gilded and painted gallery of wood over the entrance,
+and the pulpit opposite is as well preserved as if the _mollah_ had just
+left it. Out of the mosque we passed into a second court, and then over a
+narrow bridge into the fortress. The moat is perfect, and the walls as
+complete as if just erected. Only the bottom is dry, and now covered with
+a thicket of wild pomegranate trees. The heavy iron doors of the fortress
+swung half open, as we entered unchallenged. The interior is almost
+entire, and some of the cannon still lie buried in the springing grass.
+The plan of the little town, which appears to have been all built at one
+time, is most admirable. The walls of circuit, including the fortress,
+cannot be more than 300 yards square, and yet none of the characteristics
+of a large Oriental city are omitted.
+
+Leaving Baïas, we travelled northward, over a waste, though fertile plain.
+The mountains on our right made a grand appearance, with their feet
+mantled in myrtle, and their tops plumed with pine. They rise from the sea
+with a long, bold sweep, but each peak falls off in a precipice on the
+opposite side, as if the chain were the barrier of the world and there was
+nothing but space beyond. In the afternoon we left the plain for a belt of
+glorious garden land, made by streams that came down from the mountains.
+We entered a lane embowered in pomegranate, white rose, clematis, and
+other flowering vines and shrubs, and overarched by superb plane, lime,
+and beech trees, chained together with giant grape vines. On either side
+were fields of ripe wheat and barley, mulberry orchards and groves of
+fruit trees, under the shade of which the Turkish families sat or slept
+during the hot hours of the day. Birds sang in the boughs, and the
+gurgling of water made a cool undertone to their music. Out of fairyland
+where shall I see again such lovely bowers? We were glad when the soldiers
+announced that it was necessary to encamp there; as we should find no
+other habitations for more than twenty miles.
+
+Our tent was pitched under a grand sycamore, beside a swift mountain
+stream which almost made the circuit of our camp. Beyond the tops of the
+elm, beech, and fig groves, we saw the picturesque green summits of the
+lower ranges of Giaour Dagh, in the north-east, while over the southern
+meadows a golden gleam of sunshine lay upon the Gulf of Scanderoon. The
+village near us was Chaya, where there is a military station. The guards
+we had brought from Scanderoon here left us; but the commanding officer
+advised us to take others on the morrow, as the road was still considered
+unsafe.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII.
+
+Adana and Tarsus.
+
+
+  The Black Gate--The Plain of Cilicia--A Koord Village--Missis--Cilician
+  Scenery--Arrival at Adana--Three days in Quarantine--We receive
+  Pratique--A Landscape--The Plain of Tarsus--The River Cydnus--A Vision
+  of Cleopatra--Tarsus and its Environs--The _Duniktash_--The Moon of
+  Ramazan.
+
+
+  "Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a
+  citizen of no mean city."--Acts, xxi. 89.
+
+
+Khan on Mt. Taurus, _Saturday, June_ 19, 1852.
+
+We left our camp at Chaya at dawn, with an escort of three soldiers, which
+we borrowed from the guard stationed at that place. The path led along the
+shore, through clumps of myrtle beaten inland by the wind, and rounded as
+smoothly as if they had been clipped by a gardener's shears. As we
+approached the head of the gulf, the peaked summits of Giaour Dagh, 10,000
+feet in height, appeared in the north-east. The streams we forded swarmed
+with immense trout. A brown hedgehog ran across our road, but when I
+touched him with the end of my pipe, rolled himself into an impervious
+ball of prickles. Soon after turning the head of the gulf, the road
+swerved off to the west, and entered a narrow pass, between hills covered
+with thick copse-wood. Here we came upon an ancient gateway of black lava
+stone, which bears marks of great antiquity It is now called _Kara Kapu,_
+the "Black Gate," and some suppose it to have been one of the ancient
+gates of Cilicia.
+
+Beyond this, our road led over high, grassy hills, without a sign of human
+habitation, to the ruined khan of Koord Koolak, We dismounted and unloaded
+our baggage in the spacious stone archway, and drove our beasts into the
+dark, vaulted halls behind. The building was originally intended for a
+magazine of supplies, and from the ruined mosque near it, I suspect it was
+formerly one of the caravan stations for the pilgrims from Constantinople
+to Mecca. The weather was intensely hot and sultry, and our animals were
+almost crazy from the attacks of a large yellow gad-fly. After the noonday
+heat was over we descended to the first Cilician plain, which is bounded
+on the west by the range of Durdun Dagh. As we had now passed the most
+dangerous part of the road, we dismissed the three soldiers and took but a
+single man with us. The entire plain is covered with wild fennel, six to
+eight feet in height, and literally blazing with its bloomy yellow tops.
+Riding through it, I could barely look over them, and far and wide, on all
+sides, spread a golden sea, out of which the long violet hills rose with
+the liveliest effect. Brown, shining serpents, from four to six feet in
+length, frequently slid across our path. The plain, which must be sixty
+miles in circumference, is wholly uncultivated, though no land could
+possibly be richer.
+
+Out of the region of fennel we passed into one of red and white clover,
+timothy grass and wild oats. The thistles were so large as to resemble
+young palm-trees, and the salsify of our gardens grew rank and wild. At
+length we dipped into the evening shadow of Durdun Dagh, and reached the
+village of Koord Keui, on his lower slope. As there was no place for our
+tent on the rank grass of the plain or the steep side of the hill, we took
+forcible possession of the winnowing-floor, a flat terrace built up under
+two sycamores, and still covered with the chaff of the last threshing. The
+Koords took the whole thing as a matter of course, and even brought us a
+felt carpet to rest upon. They came and seated themselves around us,
+chatting sociably, while we lay in the tent-door, smoking the pipe of
+refreshment. The view over the wide golden plain, and the hills beyond, to
+the distant, snow-tipped peaks of Akma Dagh, was superb, as the shadow of
+the mountain behind us slowly lengthened over it, blotting out the mellow
+lights of sunset. There were many fragments of pillars and capitals of
+white marble built up in the houses, showing that they occupied the site
+of some ancient village or temple.
+
+The next morning, we crossed Durdun Dagh, and entered the great plain of
+Cilicia. The range, after we had passed it, presented a grand, bold,
+broken outline, blue in the morning vapor, and wreathed with shifting
+belts of cloud. A stately castle, called the Palace of Serpents, on the
+summit of an isolated peak to the north, stood out clear and high, in the
+midst of a circle of fog, like a phantom picture of the air. The River
+Jyhoon, the ancient Pyramus, which rises on the borders of Armenia, sweeps
+the western base of the mountains. It is a larger stream than the Orontes,
+with a deep, rapid current, flowing at the bottom of a bed lower than the
+level of the plain. In three hours, we reached Missis, the ancient
+Mopsuestia, on the right bank of the river. There are extensive ruins on
+the left bank, which were probably those of the former city. The soil for
+some distance around is scattered with broken pillars, capitals, and hewn
+stones. The ancient bridge still crosses the river, but the central arch
+having been broken away, is replaced with a wooden platform. The modern
+town is a forlorn place, and all the glorious plain around it is
+uncultivated. The view over this plain was magnificent: unbounded towards
+the sea, but on the north girdled by the sublime range of Taurus, whose
+great snow-fields gleamed in the sun. In the afternoon, we reached the old
+bridge over the Jyhoon, at Adana. The eastern bank is occupied with the
+graves of the former inhabitants, and there are at least fifteen acres of
+tombstones, as thickly planted as the graves can be dug. The fields of
+wheat and barley along the river are very rich, and at present the natives
+are busily occupied in drawing the sheaves on large sleds to the open
+threshing-floors.
+
+The city is built over a low eminence, and its four tall minarets, with a
+number of palm-trees rising from the mass of brown brick walls, reminded
+me of Egypt. At the end of the bridge, we were met by one of the
+Quarantine officers, who preceded us, taking care that we touched nobody
+in the streets, to the Quarantine building. This land quarantine, between
+Syria and Asia Minor, when the former country is free from any epidemic,
+seems a most absurd thing. We were detained at Adana three days and a
+half, to be purified, before proceeding further. Lately, the whole town
+was placed in quarantine for five days, because a Turkish Bey, who lives
+near Baïas, entered the gates without being noticed, and was found in the
+bazaars. The Quarantine building was once a palace of the Pashas of Adana,
+but is now in a half-ruined condition. The rooms are large and airy, and
+there is a spacious open divan which affords ample shade and a cool
+breeze throughout the whole day. Fortunately for us, there were only three
+persons in Quarantine, who occupied a room distant from ours. The
+Inspector was a very obliging person, and procured us a table and two
+chairs. The only table to be had in the whole place--a town of 15,000
+inhabitants--belonged to an Italian merchant, who kindly gave it for our
+use. We employed a messenger to purchase provisions in the bazaars; and
+our days passed quietly in writing, smoking, and gazing indolently from
+our windows upon the flowery plains beyond the town. Our nights, however,
+were tormented by small white gnats, which stung us unmercifully. The
+physician of Quarantine, Dr. Spagnolo, is a Venetian refugee, and formerly
+editor of _La Lega Italiana_, a paper published in Venice during the
+revolution. He informed us that, except the Princess Belgioioso, who
+passed through Adana on her way to Jerusalem, we were the only travellers
+he had seen for eleven months.
+
+After three days and four nights of grateful, because involuntary,
+indolence, Dr. Spagnolo gave us _pratique_, and we lost no time in getting
+under weigh again. We were the only occupants of Quarantine; and as we
+moved out of the portal of the old seraï, at sunrise, no one was guarding
+it. The Inspector and Mustapha, the messenger, took their back-sheeshes
+with silent gratitude. The plain on the west side of the town is well
+cultivated; and as we rode along towards Tarsus, I was charmed with the
+rich pastoral air of the scenery. It was like one of the midland
+landscapes of England, bathed in Southern sunshine. The beautiful level,
+stretching away to the mountains, stood golden with the fields of wheat
+which the reapers were cutting. It was no longer bare, but dotted with
+orange groves, clumps of holly, and a number of magnificent
+terebinth-trees, whose dark, rounded masses of foliage remind one of the
+Northern oak. Cattle were grazing in the stubble, and horses, almost
+buried under loads of fresh grass, met us as they passed to the city. The
+sheaves were drawn to the threshing-floor on sleds, and we could see the
+husbandmen in the distance treading out and winnowing the grain. Over
+these bright, busy scenes, rose the lesser heights of the Taurus, and
+beyond them, mingled in white clouds, the snows of the crowning range.
+
+The road to Tarsus, which is eight hours distant, lies over an unbroken
+plain. Towards the sea, there are two tumuli, resembling those on the
+plains east of Antioch. Stone wells, with troughs for watering horses,
+occur at intervals of three or four miles; but there is little cultivation
+after leaving the vicinity of Adana. The sun poured down an intense summer
+heat, and hundreds of large gad-flies, swarming around us, drove the
+horses wild with their stings. Towards noon, we stopped at a little
+village for breakfast. We took possession of a shop, which the
+good-natured merchant offered us, and were about to spread our provisions
+upon the counter, when the gnats and mosquitoes fairly drove us away. We
+at once went forward in search of a better place, which gave occasion to
+our chief mukkairee, Hadji Youssuf, for a violent remonstrance. The terms
+of the agreement at Aleppo gave the entire control of the journey into our
+own hands, and the Hadji now sought to violate it. He protested against
+our travelling more than six hours a day, and conducted himself so
+insolently, that we threatened to take him before the Pasha of Tarsus.
+This silenced him for the time; but we hate him so cordially since then,
+that I foresee we shall have more trouble. In the afternoon, a gust,
+sweeping along the sides of Taurus, cooled the air and afforded us a
+little relief.
+
+By three o'clock we reached the River Cydnus, which is bare of trees on
+its eastern side, but flows between banks covered with grass and shrubs.
+It is still spanned by the ancient bridge, and the mules now step in the
+hollow ruts worn long ago by Roman and Byzantine chariot wheels. The
+stream is not more than thirty yards broad, but has a very full and rapid
+current of a bluish-white color, from the snows which feed it. I rode down
+to the brink and drank a cup of the water. It was exceedingly cold, and I
+do not wonder that a bath in it should have killed the Emperor Barbarossa.
+From the top of the bridge, there is a lovely view, down the stream, where
+it washes a fringe of willows and heavy fruit-trees on its western bank,
+and then winds away through the grassy plain, to the sea. For once, my
+fancy ran parallel with the inspiration of the scene. I could think of
+nothing but the galley of Cleopatra slowly stemming the current of the
+stream, its silken sails filled with the sea-breeze, its gilded oars
+keeping time to the flutes, whose voluptuous melodies floated far out over
+the vernal meadows. Tarsus was probably almost hidden then, as now, by its
+gardens, except just where it touched the river; and the dazzling vision
+of the Egyptian Queen, as she came up conquering and to conquer, must have
+been all the more bewildering, from the lovely bowers through which she
+sailed.
+
+From the bridge an ancient road still leads to the old Byzantine gate of
+Tarsus. Part of the town is encompassed by a wall, built by the Caliph
+Haroun Al-Raschid, and there is a ruined fortress, which is attributed to
+Sultan Bajazet Small streams, brought from the Cydnus, traverse the
+environs, and, with such a fertile soil, the luxuriance of the gardens in
+which the city lies buried is almost incredible. In our rambles in search
+of a place to pitch the tent, we entered a superb orange-orchard, the
+foliage of which made a perpetual twilight. Many of the trunks were two
+feet in diameter. The houses are mostly of one story, and the materials
+are almost wholly borrowed from the ancient city. Pillars, capitals,
+fragments of cornices and entablatures abound. I noticed here, as in
+Adana, a high wooden frame on the top of every house, raised a few steps
+above the roof, and covered with light muslin, like a portable
+bathing-house. Here the people put up their beds in the evening, sleep,
+and come down to the roofs in the morning--an excellent plan for getting
+better air in these malarious plains and escaping from fleas and
+mosquitoes. In our search for the Armenian Church, which is said to have
+been founded by St. Paul ("Saul of Tarsus"), we came upon a mosque, which
+had been originally a Christian Church, of Greek times.
+
+From the top of a mound, whereupon stand the remains of an ancient
+circular edifice, we obtained a fine view of the city and plain of Tarsus.
+A few houses or clusters of houses stood here and there like reefs amid
+the billowy green, and the minarets--one of them with a nest of young
+storks on its very summit--rose like the masts of sunken ships. Some palms
+lifted their tufted heads from the gardens, beyond which the great plain
+extended from the mountains to the sea. The tumulus near Mersyn, the port
+of Tarsus, was plainly visible. Two hours from Mersyn are the ruins of
+Pompeiopolis, the name given by Pompey to the town of Soli, after his
+conquest of the Cilician pirates. From Soli, on account of the bad Greek
+spoken by its inhabitants, came the term "solecism." The ruins of
+Pompeiopolis consist of a theatre, temples, and a number of houses, still
+in good preservation. The whole coast, as far as Aleya, three hundred
+miles west of this, is said to abound with ruined cities, and I regret
+exceedingly that time will not permit me to explore it.
+
+While searching for the antiquities about Tarsus, I accosted a man in a
+Frank dress, who proved to be the Neapolitan Consul. He told us that the
+most remarkable relic was the _Duniktash_ (the Round Stone), and procured
+us a guide. It lies in a garden near the city, and is certainly one of the
+most remarkable monuments in the East. It consists of a square inclosure
+of solid masonry, 350 feet long by 150 feet wide, the walls of which are
+eighteen feet in thickness and twenty feet high. It appears to have been
+originally a solid mass, without entrance, but a passage has been broken
+in one place, and in another there is a split or fissure, evidently
+produced by an earthquake. The material is rough stone, brick and mortar.
+Inside of the inclosure are two detached square masses of masonry, of
+equal height, and probably eighty feet on a side, without opening of any
+kind. One of them has been pierced at the bottom, a steep passage leading
+to a pit or well, but the sides of the passage thus broken indicate that
+the whole structure is one solid mass. It is generally supposed that they
+were intended as tombs: but of whom? There is no sign by which they may be
+recognized, and, what is more singular, no tradition concerning them.
+
+The day we reached Tarsus was the first of the Turkish fast-month of
+Ramazan, the inhabitants having seen the new moon the night before. At
+Adana, where they did not keep such a close look-out, the fast had not
+commenced. During its continuance, which is from twenty-eight to
+twenty-nine days, no Mussulman dares eat, drink, or smoke, from an hour
+before sunrise till half an hour after sunset. The Mohammedan months are
+lunar, and each month makes the whole round of the seasons, once in
+thirty-three years. When, therefore, the Ramazan comes in midsummer, as at
+present, the fulfilment of this fast is a great trial, even to the
+strongest and most devout. Eighteen hours without meat or drink, and what
+is still worse to a genuine Turk, without a pipe, is a rigid test of
+faith. The rich do the best they can to avoid it, by feasting all night
+and sleeping all day, but the poor, who must perform their daily
+avocations, as usual, suffer exceedingly. In walking through Tarsus I saw
+many wretched faces in the bazaars, and the guide who accompanied us had a
+painfully famished air. Fortunately the Koran expressly permits invalids,
+children, and travellers to disregard the fast, so that although we eat
+and drink when we like, we are none the less looked upon as good
+Mussulmans. About dark a gun is fired and a rocket sent up from the
+mosque, announcing the termination of the day's fast. The meals are
+already prepared, the pipes filled, the coffee smokes in the _finjans_,
+and the echoes have not died away nor the last sparks of the rocket become
+extinct, before half the inhabitants are satisfying their hunger, thirst
+and smoke-lust.
+
+We left Tarsus this morning, and are now encamped among the pines of Mount
+Taurus. The last flush of sunset is fading from his eternal snows, and I
+drop my pen to enjoy the silence of twilight in this mountain solitude.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII.
+
+The Pass of Mount Taurus.
+
+  We enter the Taurus--Turcomans--Forest Scenery--the Palace of Pan--Khan
+  Mezarluk--Morning among the Mountains--The Gorge of the Cydnus--The Crag
+  of the Fortress--The Cilician Gate--Deserted Forts--A Sublime
+  Landscape--The Gorge of the Sihoon--The Second Gate--Camp in the
+  Defile--Sunrise--Journey up the Sihoon--A Change of Scenery--A Pastoral
+  Valley--Kolü Kushla--A Deserted Khan--A Guest in Ramazan--Flowers--The
+  Plain of Karamania--Barren Hills--The Town of Eregli--The Hadji again.
+
+
+        "Lo! where the pass expands
+  Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,
+  And seems, with its accumulated crags,
+  To overhang the world." Shelley.
+
+
+Eregli, _in Karamania, June_ 22, 1852.
+
+Striking our tent in the gardens of Tarsus, we again crossed the Cydnus,
+and took a northern course across the plain. The long line of Taurus rose
+before us, seemingly divided into four successive ranges, the highest of
+which was folded in clouds; only the long streaks of snow, filling the
+ravines, being visible. The outlines of these ranges were very fine, the
+waving line of the summits cut here and there by precipitous gorges--the
+gateways of rivers that came down to the plain. In about two hours, we
+entered the lower hills. They are barren and stony, with a white, chalky
+soil; but the valleys were filled with myrtle, oleander, and lauristinus
+in bloom, and lavender grew in great profusion on the hill-sides. The
+flowers of the oleander gave out a delicate, almond-like fragrance, and
+grew in such dense clusters as frequently to hide the foliage. I amused
+myself with finding a derivation of the name of this beautiful plant,
+which may answer until somebody discovers a better one. Hero, when the
+corpse of her lover was cast ashore by the waves, buried him under an
+oleander bush, where she was accustomed to sit daily, and lament over his
+untimely fate. Now, a foreign horticulturist, happening to pass by when
+the shrub was in blossom, was much struck with its beauty, and asked Hero
+what it was called. But she, absorbed in grief, and thinking only of her
+lover, clasped her hands, and sighed out: "O Leander! O Leander!" which
+the horticulturist immediately entered in his note-book as the name of the
+shrub; and by that name it is known, to the present time.
+
+For two or three hours, the scenery was rather tame, the higher summits
+being obscured with a thunder-cloud. Towards noon, however, we passed the
+first chain, and saw, across a strip of rolling land intervening, the
+grand ramparts of the second, looming dark and large under the clouds. A
+circular watch-tower of white stone, standing on the summit of a
+promontory at the mouth of a gorge on our right, flashed out boldly
+against the storm. We stopped under an oak-tree to take breakfast; but
+there was no water; and two Turks, who were resting while their horses
+grazed in the meadow, told us we should find a good spring half a mile
+further. We ascended a long slope, covered with wheat-fields, where
+numbers of Turcoman reapers were busy at work, passed their black tents,
+surrounded with droves of sheep and goats, and reached a rude stone
+fountain of good water, where two companies of these people had stopped
+to rest, on their way to the mountains. It was the time of noon prayer,
+and they went through their devotions with great solemnity. We nestled
+deep in a bed of myrtles, while we breakfasted; for the sky was clouded,
+and the wind blew cool and fresh from the region of rain above us. Some of
+the Turcomans asked us for bread, and were very grateful when we gave it
+to them.
+
+In the afternoon, we came into a higher and wilder region, where the road
+led through thickets of wild olive, holly, oak, and lauristinus, with
+occasional groves of pine. What a joy I felt in hearing, once more, the
+grand song of my favorite tree! Our way was a woodland road; a storm had
+passed over the region in the morning; the earth was still fresh and
+moist, and there was an aromatic smell of leaves in the air. We turned
+westward into the entrance of a deep valley, over which hung a
+perpendicular cliff of gray and red rock, fashioned by nature so as to
+resemble a vast fortress, with windows, portals and projecting bastions.
+François displayed his knowledge of mythology, by declaring it to be the
+Palace of Pan. While we were carrying out the idea, by making chambers for
+the Fauns and Nymphs in the basement story of the precipice, the path
+wound around the shoulder of the mountain, and the glen spread away before
+us, branching up into loftier ranges, disclosing through its gateway of
+cliffs, rising out of the steeps of pine forest, a sublime vista of blue
+mountain peaks, climbing to the topmost snows. It was a magnificent Alpine
+landscape, more glowing and rich than Switzerland, yet equalling it in all
+the loftier characteristics of mountain scenery. Another and greater
+precipice towered over us on the right, and the black eagles which had
+made their eyries in its niched and caverned vaults, were wheeling around
+its crest. A branch of the Cydnus foamed along the bottom of the gorge,
+and soma Turcoman boys were tending their herds on its banks.
+
+Further up the glen, we found a fountain of delicious water, beside the
+deserted Khan of Mezarluk, and there encamped for the night. Our tent was
+pitched on the mountain side, near a fountain of the coolest, clearest and
+sweetest water I have seen in all the East. There was perfect silence
+among the mountains, and the place was as lonely as it was sublime. The
+night was cool and fresh; but I could not sleep until towards morning.
+When I opened my belated eyes, the tall peaks on the opposite side of the
+glen were girdled below their waists with the flood of a sparkling
+sunrise. The sky was pure as crystal, except a soft white fleece that
+veiled the snowy pinnacles of Taurus, folding and unfolding, rising and
+sinking, as if to make their beauty still more attractive by the partial
+concealment. The morning air was almost cold, but so pure and bracing--so
+aromatic with the healthy breath of the pines--that I took it down in the
+fullest possible draughts.
+
+We rode up the glen, following the course of the Cydnus, through scenery
+of the wildest and most romantic character. The bases of the mountains
+were completely enveloped in forests of pine, but their summits rose in
+precipitous crags, many hundreds of feet in height, hanging above our very
+heads. Even after the sun was five hours high, their shadows fell upon us
+from the opposite side of the glen. Mixed with the pine were occasional
+oaks, an undergrowth of hawthorn in bloom, and shrubs covered with yellow
+and white flowers. Over these the wild grape threw its rich festoons,
+filling the air with exquisite fragrance.
+
+Out of this glen, we passed into another, still narrower and wilder. The
+road was the old Roman way, and in tolerable condition, though it had
+evidently not been mended for many centuries. In half an hour, the pass
+opened, disclosing an enormous peak in front of us, crowned with the ruins
+of an ancient fortress of considerable extent. The position was almost
+impregnable, the mountain dropping on one side into a precipice five
+hundred feet in perpendicular height. Under the cliffs of the loftiest
+ridge, there was a terrace planted with walnut-trees: a charming little
+hamlet in the wilderness. Wild sycamore-trees, with white trunks and
+bright green foliage, shaded the foamy twists of the Cydnus, as it plunged
+down its difficult bed. The pine thrust its roots into the naked
+precipices, and from their summits hung out over the great abysses below.
+I thought of OEnone's
+
+  --"tall, dark pines, that fringed the craggy ledge
+  High over the blue gorge, and all between
+  The snowy peak and snow-white cataract
+  Fostered the callow eaglet;"
+
+and certainly she had on Mount Ida no more beautiful trees than these.
+
+We had doubled the Crag of the Fortress, when the pass closed before us,
+shut in by two immense precipices of sheer, barren rock, more than a
+thousand feet in height. Vast fragments, fallen from above, choked up the
+entrance, whence the Cydnus, spouting forth in foam, leaped into the
+defile. The ancient road was completely destroyed, but traces of it were
+to be seen on the rocks, ten feet above the present bed of the stream, and
+on the broken masses which had been hurled below. The path wound with
+difficulty among these wrecks, and then merged into the stream itself, as
+we entered the gateway. A violent wind blew in our faces as we rode
+through the strait, which is not ten yards in breadth, while its walls
+rise to the region of the clouds. In a few minutes we had traversed it,
+and stood looking back on the enormous gap. There were several Greek
+tablets cut in the rock above the old road, but so defaced as to be
+illegible. This is undoubtedly the principal gate of the Taurus, and the
+pass through which the armies of Cyrus and Alexander entered Cilicia.
+
+Beyond the gate the mountains retreated, and we climbed up a little dell,
+past two or three Turcoman houses, to the top of a hill, whence opened a
+view of the principal range, now close at hand. The mountains in front
+were clothed with dark cedars to their very tops, and the snow-fields
+behind them seemed dazzlingly bright and near. Our course for several
+miles now lay through a more open valley, drained by the upper waters of
+the Cydnus. On two opposing terraces of the mountain chains are two
+fortresses, built by Ibraham Pasha, but now wholly deserted. They are
+large and well-constructed works of stone, and surrounded by ruins of
+stables, ovens, and the rude houses of the soldiery. Passing between
+these, we ascended to the shelf dividing the waters of the Cydnus and the
+Sihoon. From the point where the slope descends to the latter river, there
+opened before me one of the most glorious landscapes I ever beheld. I
+stood at the extremity of a long hollow or depression between the two
+ranges of the Taurus--not a valley, for it was divided by deep cloven
+chasms, hemmed in by steeps overgrown with cedars. On my right rose a
+sublime chain, soaring far out of the region of trees, and lifting its
+peaked summits of gray rock into toe sky. Another chain, nearly as lofty,
+but not so broken, nor with such large, imposing features, overhung me on
+the left; and far in front, filling up the magnificent vista--filling up
+all between the lower steeps, crowned with pine, and the round white
+clouds hanging on the verge of heaven--were the shining snows of the
+Taurus. Great God, how shall I describe the grandeur of that view! How
+draw the wonderful outlines of those mountains! How paint the airy hue of
+violet-gray, the soft white lights, the thousandfold pencillings of mellow
+shadow, the height, the depth, the far-reaching vastness of the landscape!
+
+In the middle distance, a great blue gorge passed transversely across the
+two ranges and the region between. This, as I rightly conjectured, was the
+bed of the Sihoon. Our road led downward through groves of fragrant
+cedars, and we travelled thus for two hours before reaching the river.
+Taking a northward course up his banks, we reached the second of the _Pylæ
+Ciliciæ_ before sunset. It is on a grander scale than the first gate,
+though not so startling and violent in its features. The bare walls on
+either side fall sheer to the water, and the road, crossing the Sihoon by
+a lofty bridge of a single arch, is cut along the face of the rock. Near
+the bridge a subterranean stream, almost as large as the river, bursts
+forth from the solid heart of the mountain. On either side gigantic masses
+of rock, with here and there a pine to adorn their sterility, tower to the
+height of 6,000 feet, in some places almost perpendicular from summit to
+base. They are worn and broken into all fantastic forms. There are
+pyramids, towers, bastions, minarets, and long, sharp spires, splintered
+and jagged as the turrets of an iceberg. I have seen higher mountains,
+but I have never seen any which looked so high as these. We camped on a
+narrow plot of ground, in the very heart of the tremendous gorge. A
+soldier, passing along at dusk, told us that a merchant and his servant
+were murdered in the same place last winter, and advised us to keep watch.
+But we slept safely all night, while the stars sparkled over the chasm,
+and slips of misty cloud hung low on the thousand pinnacles of rock.
+
+When I awoke, the gorge lay in deep shadow; but high up on the western
+mountain, above the enormous black pyramids that arose from the river, the
+topmost pinnacles of rock sparkled like molten silver, in the full gush of
+sunrise. The great mountain, blocking up the gorge behind us, was bathed
+almost to its foot in the rays, and, seen through such a dark vista, was
+glorified beyond all other mountains of Earth. The air was piercingly cold
+and keen, and I could scarcely bear the water of the Sihoon on my
+sun-inflamed face. There was a little spring not far off, from which we
+obtained sufficient water to drink, the river being too muddy. The spring
+was but a thread oozing from the soil; but the Hadji collected it in
+handfuls, which he emptied into his water-skin, and then brought to us.
+
+The morning light gave a still finer effect to the manifold forms of the
+mountains than that of the afternoon sun. The soft gray hue of the rocks
+shone clearly against the cloudless sky, fretted all over with the shadows
+thrown by their innumerable spires and jutting points, and by the natural
+arches scooped out under the cliffs. After travelling less than an hour,
+we passed the riven walls of the mighty gateway, and rode again under the
+shade of pine forests. The height of the mountains now gradually
+diminished, and their sides, covered with pine and cedar, became less
+broken and abrupt. The summits, nevertheless, still retained the same
+rocky spine, shooting up into tall, single towers, or long lines of even
+parapets Occasionally, through gaps between, we caught glimpses of the
+snow-fields, dazzlingly high and white.
+
+After travelling eight or nine miles, we emerged from the pass, and left
+the Sihoon at a place called Chiftlik Khan--a stone building, with a small
+fort adjoining, wherein fifteen splendid bronze cannon lay neglected on
+their broken and rotting carriages. As we crossed the stone bridge over
+the river, a valley opened suddenly on the left, disclosing the whole
+range of the Taurus, which we now saw on its northern side, a vast stretch
+of rocky spires, with sparkling snow-fields between, and long ravines
+filled with snow, extending far down between the dark blue cliffs and the
+dark green plumage of the cedars.
+
+Immediately after passing the central chain of the Taurus, the character
+of the scenery changed. The heights were rounded, the rocky strata only
+appearing on the higher peaks, and the slopes of loose soil were deeply
+cut and scarred by the rains of ages. Both in appearance, especially in
+the scattered growth of trees dotted over the dark red soil, and in their
+formation, these mountains strongly resemble the middle ranges of the
+Californian Sierra Nevada. We climbed a long, winding glen, until we had
+attained a considerable height, when the road reached a dividing ridge,
+giving us a view of a deep valley, beyond which a chain of barren
+mountains rose to the height of some five thousand feet. As we descended
+the rocky path, a little caravan of asses and mules clambered up to meet
+us, along the brinks of steep gulfs. The narrow strip of bottom land
+along the stream was planted with rye, now in head, and rolling in silvery
+waves before the wind.
+
+After our noonday halt, we went over the hills to another stream, which
+came from the north-west. Its valley was broader and greener than that we
+had left, and the hills inclosing it had soft and undulating outlines.
+They were bare of trees, but colored a pale green by their thin clothing
+of grass and herbs. In this valley the season was so late, owing to its
+height above the sea, that the early spring-flowers were yet in bloom.
+Poppies flamed among the wheat, and the banks of the stream were brilliant
+with patches of a creeping plant, with a bright purple blossom. The
+asphodel grew in great profusion, and an ivy-leaved shrub, covered with
+flakes of white bloom, made the air faint with its fragrance. Still
+further up, we came to orchards of walnut and plum trees, and vineyards
+There were no houses, but the innabitants, who were mostly Turcomans, live
+in villages during the winter, and in summer pitch their tents on the
+mountains where they pasture their flocks. Directly over this quiet
+pastoral, vale towered the Taurus, and I looked at once on its secluded
+loveliness and on the wintry heights, whose bleak and sublime heads were
+mantled in clouds. From no point is there a more imposing view of the
+whole snowy range. Near the head of the valley we passed a large Turcoman
+encampment, surrounded with herds of sheep and cattle.
+
+We halted for the evening at a place called Kolü-Kushla---an immense
+fortress-village, resembling Baïas, and like it, wholly deserted. Near it
+there is a small town of very neat houses, which is also deserted, the
+inhabitants having gone into the mountains with their flocks. I walked
+through the fortress, which is a massive building of stone, about 500
+feet square, erected by Sultan Murad as a resting-place for the caravans
+to Mecca. It has two spacious portals, in which the iron doors are still
+hanging, connected by a vaulted passage, twenty feet high and forty wide,
+with bazaars on each side. Side gateways open into large courts,
+surrounded with arched chambers. There is a mosque entire, with its pulpit
+and galleries, and the gilded crescent still glittering over its dome.
+Behind it is a bath, containing an entrance hall and half a dozen
+chambers, in which the water-pipes and stone tanks still remain. With a
+little alteration, the building would make a capital Phalanstery, where
+the Fourierites might try their experiment without contact with Society.
+There is no field for them equal to Asia Minor--a glorious region,
+abounding in natural wealth, almost depopulated, and containing a great
+number of Phalansteries ready built.
+
+We succeeded in getting some eggs, fowls, and milk from an old Turcoman
+who had charge of the village. A man who rode by on a donkey sold us a bag
+of _yaourt_ (sour milk-curds), which was delicious, notwithstanding the
+suspicious appearance of the bag. It was made before the cream had been
+removed, and was very rich and nourishing. The old Turcoman sat down and
+watched us while we ate, but would not join us, as these wandering tribes
+are very strict in keeping Ramazan. When we had reached our dessert--a
+plate of fine cherries--another white-bearded and dignified gentleman
+visited us. We handed him the cherries, expecting that he would take a few
+and politely return the dish: but no such thing. He coolly produced his
+handkerchief, emptied everything into it, and marched off. He also did not
+venture to eat, although we pointed to the Taurus, on whose upper snows
+the last gleam of daylight was just melting away.
+
+We arose this morning in a dark, cloudy dawn. There was a heavy black
+storm hanging low in the west, and another was gathering its forces along
+the mountains behind us. A cold wind blew down the valley, and long peals
+of thunder rolled grandly among the gorges of Taurus. An isolated hill,
+crowned with a shattered crag which bore a striking resemblance to a
+ruined fortress, stood out black and sharp against the far, misty, sunlit
+peaks. As far as the springs were yet undried, the land was covered with
+flowers. In one place I saw a large square plot of the most brilliant
+crimson hue, burning amid the green wheat-fields, as if some Tyrian mantle
+had been flung there. The long, harmonious slopes and rounded summits of
+the hills were covered with drifts of a beautiful purple clover, and a
+diminutive variety of the _achillea_, or yarrow, with glowing yellow
+blossoms. The leaves had a pleasant aromatic odor, and filled the air with
+their refreshing breath, as they were crushed under the hoofs of our
+horses.
+
+We had now reached the highest ridge of the hilly country along the
+northern base of Taurus, and saw, far and wide before us, the great
+central plain of Karamania. Two isolated mountains, at forty or fifty
+miles distance, broke the monotony of the desert-like level: Kara Dagh in
+the west, and the snow-capped summits of Hassan Dagh in the north-east.
+Beyond the latter, we tried to catch a glimpse of the famous Mons Argseus,
+at the base of which is Kaisariyeh, the ancient Cæsarea of Cappadocia.
+This mountain, which is 13,000 feet high, is the loftiest peak of Asia
+Minor. The clouds hung low on the horizon, and the rains were falling,
+veiling it from our sight.
+
+Our road, for the remainder of the day, was over barren hills, covered
+with scanty herbage. The sun shone out intensely hot, and the glare of the
+white soil was exceedingly painful to my eyes. The locality of Eregli was
+betrayed, some time before we reached it, by its dark-green belt of fruit
+trees. It stands in the mouth of a narrow valley which winds down from the
+Taurus, and is watered by a large rapid stream that finally loses itself
+in the lakes and morasses of the plain. There had been a heavy black
+thunder-cloud gathering, and as we reached our camping-ground, under some
+fine walnut-trees near the stream, a sudden blast of cold wind swept over
+the town, filling the air with dust. We pitched the tent in all haste,
+expecting a storm, but the rain finally passed to the northward. We then
+took a walk through the town, which is a forlorn place. A spacious khan,
+built apparently for the Mecca pilgrims, is in ruins, but the mosque has
+an exquisite minaret, eighty feet high, and still bearing traces of the
+devices, in blue tiles, which once covered it. The shops were mostly
+closed, and in those which were still open the owners lay at full length
+on their bellies, their faces gaunt with fasting. They seemed annoyed at
+our troubling them, even with purchases. One would have thought that some
+fearful pestilence had fallen upon the town. The cobblers only, who
+somewhat languidly plied their implements, seemed to retain a little life.
+The few Jews and Armenians smoked their pipes in a tantalizing manner, in
+the very faces of the poor Mussulmans. We bought an oka of excellent
+cherries, which we were cruel enough to taste in the streets, before the
+hungry eyes of the suffering merchants.
+
+This evening the asses belonging to the place were driven in from
+pasture--four or five hundred in all; and such a show of curious asinine
+specimens as I never before beheld. A Dervish, who was with us in
+Quarantine, at Adana, has just arrived. He had lost his _teskeré_
+(passport), and on issuing forth purified, was cast into prison. Finally
+he found some one who knew him, and procured his release. He had come on
+foot to this place in five days, suffering many privations, having been
+forty-eight hours without food. He is bound to Konia, on a pilgrimage to
+the tomb of Hazret Mevlana, the founder of the sect of dancing Dervishes.
+We gave him food, in return for which he taught me the formula of his
+prayers. He tells me I should always pronounce the name of Allah when my
+horse stumbles, or I see a man in danger of his life, as the word has a
+saving power. Hadji Youssuf, who has just been begging for an advance of
+twenty piastres to buy grain for his horses, swore "by the pardon of God"
+that he would sell the lame horse at Konia and get a better one. We have
+lost all confidence in the old villain's promises, but the poor beasts
+shall not suffer for his delinquencies.
+
+Our tent is in a charming spot, and, from without, makes a picture to be
+remembered. The yellow illumination from within strikes on the under sides
+of the walnut boughs, while the moonlight silvers them from above. Beyond
+gardens where the nightingales are singing, the tall minaret of Eregli
+stands revealed in the vapory glow. The night is too sweet and balmy for
+sleep, and yet I must close my eyes upon it, for the hot plains of
+Karamania await us to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX.
+
+The Plains of Karamania.
+
+
+  The Plains of Karamania--Afternoon Heat--A Well--Volcanic
+  Phenomena--Kara-bounar--A Grand Ruined Khan--Moonlight Picture--A
+  Landscape of the Plains-Mirages--A Short Interview--The Village of
+  Ismil---Third Day on the Plains--Approach to Konia.
+
+
+  "A weary waste, expanding to the skies."--Goldsmith.
+
+
+Konia, Capital of Karamania, _Friday, June_ 25, 1854.
+
+François awoke us at the break of day, at Eregli, as we had a journey of
+twelve hours before us. Passing through the town, we traversed a narrow
+belt of garden and orchard land, and entered the great plain of Karamania.
+Our road led at first northward towards a range called Karadja Dagh, and
+then skirted its base westward. After three hours' travel we passed a
+village of neat, whitewashed houses, which were entirely deserted, all the
+inhabitants having gone off to the mountains. There were some herds
+scattered over the plain, near the village. As the day wore on, the wind,
+which had been chill in the morning, ceased, and the air became hot and
+sultry. The glare from the white soil was so painful that I was obliged to
+close my eyes, and so ran a continual risk of falling asleep and tumbling
+from my horse. Thus, drowsy and half unconscious of my whereabouts, I rode
+on in the heat and arid silence of the plain until noon, when we reached
+a well. It was a shaft, sunk about thirty feet deep, with a long, sloping
+gallery slanting off to the surface. The well was nearly dry, but by
+descending the gallery we obtained a sufficient supply of cold, pure
+water. We breakfasted in the shaded doorway, sharing our provisions with a
+Turcoman boy, who was accompanying his father to Eregli with a load of
+salt.
+
+Our road now crossed a long, barren pass, between two parts of Karadja
+Dagh. Near the northern side there was a salt lake of one hundred yards in
+diameter, sunk in a deep natural basin. The water was intensely saline. On
+the other side of the road, and a quarter of a mile distant, is an extinct
+volcano, the crater of which, near two hundred feet deep, is a salt lake,
+with a trachytic cone three hundred feet high rising from the centre. From
+the slope of the mountain we overlooked another and somewhat deeper plain,
+extending to the north and west. It was bounded by broken peaks, all of
+which betrayed a volcanic origin. Far before us we saw the tower on the
+hill of Kara-bounar, our resting-place for the night. The road thither was
+over a barren plain, cheered here and there by patches of a cushion-like
+plant, which was covered with pink blossoms. Mr. Harrison scared up some
+coveys of the frankolin, a large bird resembling the pheasant, and
+enriched our larder with a dozen starlings.
+
+Kara-bounar is built on the slope of a mound, at the foot of which stands
+a spacious mosque, visible far over the plain. It has a dome, and two
+tall, pencil-like towers, similar to those of the Citadel-mosque of Cairo.
+Near it are the remains of a magnificent khan-fortress, said to have been
+built by the eunuch of one of the former Sultans. As there was no water in
+the wells outside of the town, we entered the khan and pitched the tent
+in its grass-grown court. Six square pillars of hewn stone made an aisle
+to our door, and the lofty, roofless walls of the court, 100 by 150 feet,
+inclosed us. Another court, of similar size, communicated with it by a
+broad portal, and the remains of baths and bazaars lay beyond. A handsome
+stone fountain, with two streams of running water, stood in front of the
+khan. We were royally lodged, but almost starved in our splendor, as only
+two or three Turcomans remained out of two thousand (who had gone off with
+their herds to the mountains), and they were unable to furnish us with
+provisions. But for our frankolins and starlings we should have gone
+fasting.
+
+The mosque was a beautiful structure of white limestone, and the galleries
+of its minarets were adorned with rich arabesque ornaments. While the
+muezzin was crying his sunset-call to prayer, I entered the portico and
+looked into the interior, which was so bare as to appear incomplete. As we
+sat in our palace-court, after dinner, the moon arose, lighting up the
+niches in the walls, the clusters of windows in the immense eastern gable,
+and the rows of massive columns. The large dimensions of the building gave
+it a truly grand effect, and but for the whine of a distant jackal I could
+have believed that we were sitting in the aisles of a roofless Gothic
+cathedral, in the heart of Europe. François was somewhat fearful of
+thieves, but the peace and repose of the place we've so perfect that I
+would not allow any such apprehensions to disturb me. In two minutes after
+I touched my bed I was insensible, and I did not move a limb until
+sunrise.
+
+Beyond Kara-bounar, there is a low, barren ridge, climbing which, we
+overlooked an immense plain, uncultivated, apparently unfertile, and
+without a sign of life as far as the eye could reach. Kara Dagh, in the
+south, lifted nearer us its cluster of dark summits; to the north, the
+long ridge of Ãœsedjik Dagh (the Pigmy Mountain) stretched like a cape into
+the plain; Hassan Dagh; wrapped in a soft white cloud, receded behind us,
+and the snows of Taurus seemed almost as distant as when we first beheld
+them from the Syrian Gates. We rode for four hours over the dead level,
+the only objects that met our eyes being an occasional herd of camels in
+the distance. About noon, we reached a well, similar to that of the
+previous day, but of recent construction. A long, steep gallery led down
+to the water, which was very cold, but had a villainous taste of lime,
+salt, and sulphur.
+
+After an hour's halt, we started again. The sun was intensely hot, and for
+hours we jogged on over the dead level, the bare white soil blinding our
+eyes with its glare. The distant hills were lifted above the horizon by a
+mirage. Long sheets of blue water were spread along their bases, islanding
+the isolated peaks, and turning into ships and boats the black specks of
+camels far away. But the phenomena were by no means on so grand a scale as
+I had seen in the Nubian Desert. On the south-western horizon, we
+discerned the summits of the Karaman range of Taurus, covered with snow.
+In the middle of the afternoon, we saw a solitary tent upon the plain,
+from which an individual advanced to meet us. As he drew nearer, we
+noticed that he wore white Frank pantaloons, similar to the Turkish
+soldiery, with a jacket of brown cloth, and a heavy sabre. When he was
+within convenient speaking distance, he cried out: "Stop! why are you
+running away from me?" "What do you call running away?" rejoined François;
+"we are going on our journey." "Where do you come from?" he then asked.
+"From there," said François, pointing behind us "Where are you going?"
+"There!" and the provoking Greek simply pointed forwards. "You have
+neither faith nor religion!" said the man, indignantly; then, turning upon
+his heel, he strode back across the plain.
+
+About four o'clock, we saw a long line of objects rising before us, but so
+distorted by the mirage that it was impossible to know what they were.
+After a while, however, we decided that they were houses interspersed with
+trees; but the trees proved to be stacks of hay and lentils, heaped on the
+flat roofs. This was Ismil, our halting-place. The houses were miserable
+mud huts; but the village was large, and, unlike most of those we have
+seen this side of Taurus, inhabited. The people are Turcomans, and their
+possessions appear to be almost entirely in their herds. Immense numbers
+of sheep and goats were pasturing on the plain. There were several wells
+in the place, provided with buckets attached to long swing-poles; the
+water was very cold, but brackish. Our tent was pitched on the plain, on a
+hard, gravelly strip of soil. A crowd of wild-haired Turcoman boys
+gathered in front, to stare at us, and the shepherds quarrelled at the
+wells, as to which should take his turn at watering his flocks. In the
+evening a handsome old Turk visited us, and, finding that we were bound to
+Constantinople, requested François to take a letter to his son, who was
+settled there.
+
+François aroused us this morning before the dawn, as we had a journey of
+thirty-five miles before us. He was in a bad humor; for a man, whom he had
+requested to keep watch over his tent, while he went into the village, had
+stolen a fork and spoon. The old Turk, who had returned as soon as we
+were stirring, went out to hunt the thief, but did not succeed in finding
+him. The inhabitants of the village were up long before sunrise, and
+driving away in their wooden-wheeled carts to the meadows where they cut
+grass. The old Turk accompanied us some distance, in order to show us a
+nearer way, avoiding a marshy spot. Our road lay over a vast plain,
+seemingly boundless, for the lofty mountain-ranges that surrounded it on
+all sides were so distant and cloud-like, and so lifted from the horizon
+by the deceptive mirage, that the eye did not recognize their connection
+with it. The wind blew strongly from the north-west, and was so cold that
+I dismounted and walked ahead for two or three hours.
+
+Before noon, we passed two villages of mud huts, partly inhabited, and
+with some wheat-fields around them. We breakfasted at another well, which
+furnished us with a drink that tasted like iced sea-water. Thence we rode
+forth again into the heat, for the wind had fallen by this time, and the
+sun shone out with great force. There was ever the same dead level, and we
+rode directly towards the mountains, which, to my eyes, seemed nearly as
+distant as ever. At last, there was a dark glimmer through the mirage, at
+their base, and a half-hour's ride showed it to be a line of trees. In
+another hour, we could distinguish a minaret or two, and finally, walls
+and the stately domes of mosques. This was Konia, the ancient Iconium, one
+of the most renowned cities of Asia Minor.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+Scenes in Konia.
+
+
+  Kpproach to Konia---Tomb of Hazret Mevlana--Lodgings in a Khan--An
+  American Luxury--A Night-Scene in Ramazan--Prayers in the
+  Mosque--Remains of the Ancient City--View from the Mosque--The
+  Interior--A Leaning Minaret--The Diverting History of the Muleteers.
+
+
+  "But they shook off the dust on their feet, and came unto
+  Iconium."--Acts, xiii. 51.
+
+
+Konia (Ancient Iconium), _June_ 27, 1852.
+
+The view of Konia from the plain is not striking until one has approached
+within a mile of the suburbs, when the group of mosques, with their heavy
+central domes lifted on clusters of smaller ones, and their tall, light,
+glittering minarets, rising above the foliage of the gardens, against the
+background of airy hills, has a very pleasing effect. We approached
+through a long line of dirty suburbs, which looked still more forlorn on
+account of the Ramazan. Some Turkish officials, in shabby Frank dresses,
+followed us to satisfy their curiosity by talking with our _Katurjees_, or
+muleteers. Outside the city walls, we passed some very large barracks for
+cavalry, built by Ibrahim Pasha. On the plain north-east of the city, the
+battle between him and the forces of the Sultan, resulting in the defeat
+of the latter, was fought.
+
+We next came upon two magnificent mosques, built of white limestone, with
+a multitude of leaden domes and lofty minarets, adorned with galleries
+rich in arabesque ornaments. Attached to one of them is the tomb, of
+Hazret Mevlana, the founder of the sect of Mevlevi Dervishes, which is
+reputed one of the most sacred places in the East. The tomb is surmounted
+by a dome, upon which stands a tall cylindrical tower, reeded, with
+channels between each projection, and terminating in a long, tapering
+cone. This tower is made of glazed tiles, of the most brilliant sea-blue
+color, and sparkles in the sun like a vast pillar of icy spar in some
+Polar grotto. It is a most striking and fantastic object, surrounded by a
+cluster of minarets and several cypress-trees, amid which it seems placed
+as the central ornament and crown of the group.
+
+The aspect of the city was so filthy and uninviting that we preferred
+pitching our tent; but it was impossible to find a place without going
+back upon the plain; so we turned into the bazaar, and asked the way to a
+khan. There was a tolerable crowd in the street, although many of the
+shops were shut. The first khan we visited was too filthy to enter; but
+the second, though most unpromising in appearance, turned out to be better
+than it looked. The _oda-bashi_ (master of the rooms) thoroughly swept and
+sprinkled the narrow little chamber he gave us, laid clean mats upon the
+floor, and, when our carpets and beds were placed within, its walls of mud
+looked somewhat comfortable. Its single window, with an iron grating in
+lieu of glass, looked upon an oblong court, on the second story,
+surrounded by the rooms of Armenian merchants. The main court (the gate of
+which is always closed at sunset) is two stories in height, with a rough
+wooden balcony running around it, and a well of muddy water in the centre.
+
+The oda-bashi lent us a Turkish table and supplied us with dinner from
+his own kitchen; kibabs, stewed beans, and cucumber salad. Mr. H. and I,
+forgetting the Ramazan, went out to hunt for an iced sherbet; but all the
+coffee-shops were closed until sunset. The people stared at our Egyptian
+costumes, and a fellow in official dress demanded my _teskeré_. Soon after
+we returned, François appeared with a splendid lump of ice in a basin and
+some lemons. The ice, so the _khangee_ said, is taken from a lake among
+the mountains, which in winter freezes to the thickness of a foot. Behind
+the lake is a natural cavern, which the people fill with ice, and then
+close up. At this season they take it out, day by day, and bring it down
+to the city. It is very pure and thick, and justifies the Turkish proverb
+in regard to Konia, which is celebrated for three excellent things:
+"_dooz, booz, küz_"--salt, ice, and girls.
+
+Soon after sunset, a cannon announced the close of the fast. We waited an
+hour or two longer, to allow the people time to eat, and then sallied out
+into the streets. Every minaret in the city blazed with a crown of lighted
+lamps around its upper gallery, while the long shafts below, and the
+tapering cones above, topped with brazen crescents, shone fair in the
+moonlight. It was a strange, brilliant spectacle. In the square before the
+principal mosque we found a crowd of persons frolicking around the
+fountain, in the light of a number of torches on poles planted in the
+ground. Mats were spread on the stones, and rows of Turks of all classes
+sat thereon, smoking their pipes. Large earthen water-jars stood here and
+there, and the people drank so often and so long that they seemed
+determined to provide against the morrow. The boys were having their
+amusement in wrestling, shouting and firing off squibs, which they threw
+into the crowd. We kicked off our slippers, sat down among the Turks,
+smoked a narghileh, drank a cup of coffee and an iced sherbet of raisin
+juice, and so enjoyed the Ramazan as well as the best of them.
+
+Numbers of True Believers were drinking and washing themselves at the
+picturesque fountain, and just as we rose to depart, the voice of a
+boy-muezzin, on one of the tallest minarets, sent down a musical call to
+prayer. Immediately the boys left off their sports and started on a run
+for the great mosque, and the grave, gray-bearded Turks got up from the
+mats, shoved on their slippers, and marched after them. We followed,
+getting a glimpse of the illuminated interior of the building, as we
+passed; but the oda-bashi conducted us still further, to a smaller though
+more beautiful mosque, surrounded with a garden-court. It was a truly
+magical picture. We entered the gate, and passed on by a marble pavement,
+under trees and arbors of vines that almost shut out the moonlight, to a
+paved space, in the centre whereof was a beautiful fountain, in the purest
+Saracenic style. Its heavy, projecting cornices and tall pyramidal roof
+rested on a circle of elegant arches, surrounding a marble structure,
+whence the water gushed forth in a dozen sparkling streams. On three sides
+it was inclosed by the moonlit trees and arbors; on the fourth by the
+outer corridor of the mosque, the door of entrance being exactly opposite.
+
+Large numbers of persons were washing their hands and feet at the
+fountain, after which they entered and knelt on the floor. We stood
+unobserved in the corridor, and looked in on the splendidly illuminated
+interior and the crowd at prayer, all bending their bodies to the earth at
+regular intervals and murmuring the name of Allah. They resembled a
+plain, of reeds bending before the gusts of wind which precede a storm.
+When all had entered and were united in solemn prayer, we returned,
+passing the grand mosque. I stole up to the door, lifted the heavy carpet
+that hung before it, and looked in. There was a Mevlevi Dervish standing
+in the entrance, but his eyes were lifted in heavenly abstraction, and he
+did not see me. The interior was brilliantly lit by white and colored
+lamps, suspended from the walls and the great central dome. It was an
+imposing structure, simple in form, yet grand from its dimensions. The
+floor was covered with kneeling figures, and a deep voice, coming from the
+other end of the mosque, was uttering pious phrases in a kind of chant. I
+satisfied my curiosity quickly, and we then returned to the khan.
+
+Yesterday afternoon I made a more thorough examination of the city.
+Passing through the bazaars, I reached the Serai, or Pasha's Palace, which
+stands on the site of that of the Sultans of Iconium. It is a long, wooden
+building, with no pretensions to architectural beauty. Near it there is a
+large and ancient mosque, with a minaret of singular elegance. It is about
+120 feet high, with two hanging galleries; the whole built of blue and red
+bricks, the latter projecting so as to form quaint patterns or designs.
+Several ancient buildings near this mosque are surmounted with pyramidal
+towers, resembling Pagodas of India. Following the long, crooked lanes
+between mud buildings, we passed these curious structures and reached the
+ancient wall of the city. In one of the streets lay a marble lion, badly
+executed, and apparently of the time of the Lower Empire. In the wall were
+inserted many similar figures, with fragments of friezes and cornices.
+This is the work of the Seljook Kings, who, in building the wall, took
+great pains to exhibit the fragments of the ancient city. The number of
+altars they have preserved is quite remarkable. On the square towers are
+sunken tablets, containing long Arabic inscriptions.
+
+The high walls of a ruined building in the southern part of the city
+attracted us, and on going thither we found it to be an ancient mosque,
+standing on an eminence formed apparently of the debris of other
+buildings. Part of the wall was also ancient, and in some places showed
+the marks of an earthquake. A long flight of steps led up to the door of
+the mosque, and as we ascended we were rewarded by the most charming view
+of the city and the grand plain. Konia lay at our feet--a wide, straggling
+array of low mud dwellings, dotted all over with patches of garden
+verdure, while its three superb mosques, with the many smaller tombs and
+places of worship, appeared like buildings left from some former and more
+magnificent capital. Outside of this circle ran a belt of garden land,
+adorned with groves and long lines of fruit trees; still further, the
+plain, a sea of faded green, flecked with the softest cloud-shadows, and
+beyond all, the beautiful outlines and dreamy tints of the different
+mountain chains. It was in every respect a lovely landscape, and the city
+is unworthy such surroundings. The sky, which in this region is of a pale,
+soft, delicious blue, was dotted with scattered fleeces of white clouds,
+and there was an exquisite play of light and shade over the hills.
+
+There were half a dozen men and boys about the door, amusing themselves
+with bursting percussion caps on the stone. They addressed us as
+"_hadji_!" (pilgrims), begging for more caps. I told them I was not a
+Turk, but an Arab, which they believed at once, and requested me to enter
+the mosque. The interior had a remarkably fine effect. It was a maze of
+arches, supported by columns of polished black marble, forty in number. In
+form it was nearly square, and covered with a flat, wooden roof. The floor
+was covered with a carpet, whereon several persons were lying at full
+length, while an old man, seated in one of the most remote corners, was
+reading in a loud, solemn voice. It is a peculiar structure, which I
+should be glad to examine more in detail.
+
+Not far from this eminence is a remarkable leaning minaret, more than a
+hundred feet in height, while in diameter it cannot be more than fifteen
+feet. In design it is light and elegant, and the effect is not injured by
+its deviation from the perpendicular, which I should judge to be about six
+feet. From the mosque we walked over the mounds of old Iconium to the
+eastern wall, passing another mosque, wholly in ruin, but which must have
+once been more splendid than any now standing. The portal is the richest
+specimen of Saracenic sculpture I have ever seen: a very labyrinth of
+intricate ornaments. The artist must have seen the great portal of the
+Temple of the Sun at Baalbec. The minarets have tumbled down, the roof has
+fallen in, but the walls are still covered with white and blue tiles, of
+the finest workmanship, resembling a mosaic of ivory and lapis lazuli.
+Some of the chambers seem to be inhabited, for two old men with white
+beards lay in the shade, and were not a little startled by our sudden
+appearance.
+
+We returned to the great mosque, which we had visited on the evening of
+our arrival, and listened for some time to the voice of a mollah who was
+preaching an afternoon sermon to a small and hungry congregation. We then
+entered the court before the tomb of Hazret Mevlana. It was apparently
+forbidden ground to Christians, but as the Dervishes did not seem to
+suspect us we walked about boldly, and were about to enter, when an
+indiscretion of my companion frustrated our plans. Forgetting his assumed
+character, he went to the fountain and drank, although it was no later
+than the _asser_, or afternoon prayer. The Dervishes were shocked and
+scandalized by this violation of the fast, in the very court-yard of their
+holiest mosque, and we judged it best to retire by degrees. We sent this
+morning to request an interview with the Pasha, but he had gone to pass
+the day in a country palace, about three hours distant. It is a still,
+hot, bright afternoon, and the silence of the famished populace disposes
+us to repose. Our view is bounded by the mud walls of the khan, and I
+already long for the freedom of the great Karamanian Plain. Here, in the
+heart of Asia Minor, all life seems to stagnate. There is sleep
+everywhere, and I feel that a wide barrier separates me from the living
+world.
+
+We have been detained here a whole day, through a chain of accidents, all
+resulting from the rascality of our muleteers on leaving Aleppo. The lame
+horse they palmed upon us was unable to go further, so we obliged them to
+buy another animal, which they succeeded in getting for 350 piastres. We
+advanced the money, although they were still in our debt, hoping to work
+our way through with the new horse, and thus avoid the risk of loss or
+delay. But this morning at sunrise Hadji Youssuf comes with a woeful face
+to say that the new horse has been stolen in the night, and we, who are
+ready to start, must sit down and wait till he is recovered. I suspected
+another trick, but when, after the lapse of three hours, François found
+the hadji sitting on the ground, weeping, and Achmet beating his breast,
+it seemed probable that the story was true. All search for the horse being
+vain, François went with them to the shekh of the horses, who promised, in
+case it should hereafter be found, to place it in the general pen, where
+they would be sure to get it on their return. The man who sold them the
+horse offered them another for the lame one and 150 piastres, and there
+was no other alternative but to accept it. But _we_ must advance the 150
+piastres, and so, in mid-journey, we have already paid them to the end,
+with the risk of their horses breaking down, or they, horses and all,
+absconding from us. But the knavish varlets are hardly bold enough for
+such a climax of villany.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI.
+
+The Heart of Asia Minor.
+
+
+  Scenery of the Hills--Ladik, the Ancient Laodicea--The Plague of
+  Gad-Flies--Camp at Ilgün--A Natural Warm Bath--The Gad-Flies Again--A
+  Summer Landscape--Ak-Sheher--The Base of Sultan Dagh--The Fountain of
+  Midas--A Drowsy Journey--The Town of Bolawadün.
+
+
+  "By the forests, lakes, and fountains,
+  Though the many-folded mountains." Shelley.
+
+
+Bolawadün, _July_ 1, 1852.
+
+Our men brought all the beasts into the court-yard of the khan at Konia,
+the evening before our departure, so that no more were stolen during the
+night. The oda-bashi, indefatigable to the last in his attention to us,
+not only helped load the mules, but accompanied us some distance on our
+way. All the merchants in the khan collected in the gallery to see us
+start, and we made our exit in some state. The morning was clear, fresh,
+and delightful. Turning away from the city walls, we soon emerged from the
+lines of fruit-trees and interminable fields of tomb-stones, and came out
+upon the great bare plain of Karamania. A ride of three hours brought us
+to a long, sloping hill, which gave us a view of the whole plain, and its
+circuit of mountains. A dark line in the distance marked the gardens of
+Konia. On the right, near the centre of the plain, the lake, now
+contracted to very narrow limits, glimmered in the sun. Notwithstanding
+the waste and unfertile appearance of the country, the soft, sweet sky
+that hangs over it, the pure, transparent air, the grand sweep of the
+plain, and the varied forms of the different mountain chains that
+encompass it, make our journey an inspiring one. A descent of the hills
+soon shut out the view; and the rest of the day's journey lay among them,
+skirting the eastern base of Allah Dagh.
+
+The country improved in character, as we advanced. The bottoms of the dry
+glens were covered with wheat, and shrubbery began to make its appearance
+on the mountain-sides In the afternoon, we crossed a watershed, dividing
+Karamania from the great central plain of Asia Minor, and descended to a
+village called Ladik, occupying the site of the ancient Laodicea, at the
+foot of Allah Dagh. The plain upon which we came was greener and more
+flourishing than that we had left. Trees were scattered here and there in
+clumps, and the grassy wastes, stretching beyond the grain-fields, were
+dotted with herds of cattle. Emir Dagh stood in the north-west, blue and
+distant, while, towards the north and north-east, the plain extended to
+the horizon--a horizon fifty miles distant--without a break. In that
+direction lay the great salt lake of Yüzler, and the strings of camels we
+met on the road, laden with salt, were returning from it. Ladik is
+surrounded with poppy-fields, brilliant with white and purple blossoms.
+When the petals have fallen, the natives go carefully over the whole field
+and make incisions in every stalk, whence the opium exudes.
+
+We pitched our tent under a large walnut tree, which we found standing in
+a deserted inclosure. The graveyard of the village is studded with relics
+of the ancient town. There are pillars, cornices, entablatures, jambs,
+altars, mullions and sculptured tablets, all of white marble, and many of
+them in an excellent state of preservation. They appear to date from the
+early time of the Lower Empire, and the cross has not yet been effaced
+from some which serve as head-stones for the True Believers. I was
+particularly struck with the abundance of altars, some of which contained
+entire and legible inscriptions. In the town there is the same abundance
+of ruins. The lid of a sarcophagus, formed of a single block of marble,
+now serves as a water-trough, and the fountain is constructed of ancient
+tablets. The town stands on a mound which appears to be composed entirely
+of the debris of the former place, and near the summit there are many
+holes which the inhabitants have dug in their search for rings, seals and
+other relics.
+
+The next day we made a journey of nine hours over a hilly country lying
+between the ranges of Allah Dagh and Emir Dagh. There were wells of
+excellent water along the road, at intervals of an hour or two. The day
+was excessively hot and sultry during the noon hours, and the flies were
+so bad as to give great inconvenience to our horses. The animal I bestrode
+kicked so incessantly that I could scarcely keep my seat. His belly was
+swollen and covered with clotted blood, from their bites. The hadji's mule
+began to show symptoms of illness, and we had great difficulty in keeping
+it on its legs. Mr. Harrison bled it in the mouth, as a last resource, and
+during the afternoon it partly recovered.
+
+An hour before sunset we reached Ilgün, a town on the plain, at the foot
+of one of the spurs of Emir Dagh. To the west of it there is a lake of
+considerable size, which receives the streams that flow through the town
+and water its fertile gardens. We passed through the town and pitched our
+tent upon a beautiful grassy meadow. Our customary pipe of refreshment was
+never more heartily enjoyed than at this place. Behind us was a barren
+hill, at the foot of which was a natural hot bath, wherein a number of
+women and children were amusing themselves. The afternoon heat had passed
+away, the air was calm, sweet, and tempered with the freshness of coming
+evening, and the long shadows of the hills, creeping over the meadows, had
+almost reached the town. Beyond the line of sycamore, poplar and fig-trees
+that shaded the gardens of Ilgün, rose the distant chain of Allah Dagh,
+and in the pale-blue sky, not far above it, the dim face of the gibbous
+moon showed like the ghost of a planet. Our horses were feeding on the
+green meadow; an old Turk sat beside us, silent with fasting, and there
+was no sound but the shouts of the children in the bath. Such hours as
+these, after a day's journey made in the drowsy heat of an Eastern summer,
+are indescribably grateful.
+
+After the women had retired from the bath, we were allowed to enter. The
+interior consisted of a single chamber, thirty feet high, vaulted and
+almost dark. In the centre was a large basin of hot water, filled by four
+streams which poured into it. A ledge ran around the sides, and niches in
+the wall supplied places for our clothes. The bath-keeper furnished us
+with towels, and we undressed and plunged in. The water was agreeably warm
+(about 90°), had a sweet taste, and a very slight sulphury smell. The
+vaulted hall redoubled the slightest noise, and a shaven Turk, who kept us
+company, sang in his delight, that he might hear the echo of his own
+voice. When we went back to the tent we found our visitor lying on the
+ground, trying to stay his hunger. It was rather too bad in us to light
+our pipes, make a sherbet and drink and smoke in his face, while we joked
+him about the Ramazan; and he at last got up and walked off, the picture
+of distress.
+
+We made an early start the next morning, and rode on briskly over the
+rolling, grassy hills. A beautiful lake, with an island in it, lay at the
+foot of Emir Dagh. After two hours we reached a guard-house, where our
+_teskerés_ were demanded, and the lazy guardsman invited us in to take
+coffee, that he might establish a right to the backsheesh which he could
+not demand. He had seen us afar off, and the coffee was smoking in the
+_finjans_ when we arrived. The sun was already terribly hot, and the
+large, green gad-flies came in such quantities that I seemed to be riding
+in the midst of a swarm of bees. My horse suffered very much, and struck
+out his hind feet so violently, in his endeavors to get rid of them, that
+he racked every joint in my body. They were not content with sucking his
+blood, but settling on the small segment of my calf, exposed between the
+big Tartar boot and the flowing trowsers, bit through my stockings with
+fierce bills. I killed hundreds of them, to no purpose, and at last, to
+relieve my horse, tied a bunch of hawthorn to a string, by which I swung
+it under his belly and against the inner side of his flanks. In this way I
+gave him some relief--a service which he acknowledged by a grateful motion
+of his head.
+
+As we descended towards Ak-Sheher the country became exceedingly rich and
+luxuriant. The range of Sultan Dagh (the Mountain of the Sultan) rose on
+our left, its sides covered with a thick screen of shrubbery, and its
+highest peak dotted with patches of snow; opposite, the lower range of
+Emir Dagh (the Mountain of the Prince) lay blue and bare in the sun
+shine. The base of Sultan Dagh was girdled with groves of fruit-trees,
+stretching out in long lines on the plain, with fields of ripening wheat
+between. In the distance the large lake of Ak-Sheher glittered in the sun.
+Towards the north-west, the plain stretched away for fifty miles before
+reaching the hills. It is evidently on a much lower level than the plain
+of Konia; the heat was not only greater, but the season was further
+advanced. Wheat was nearly ready for cutting, and the poppy-fields where,
+the day previous, the men were making their first incisions for opium,
+here had yielded their harvest and were fast ripening their seed.
+Ak-Sheher is beautifully situated at the entrance of a deep gorge in the
+mountains. It is so buried in its embowered gardens that little, except
+the mosque, is seen as you approach it. It is a large place, and boasts a
+fine mosque, but contains nothing worth seeing. The bazaar, after that of
+Konia, was the largest we had seen since leaving Tarsus. The greater part
+of the shopkeepers lay at full length, dozing, sleeping, or staying their
+appetites till the sunset gun. We found some superb cherries, and plenty
+of snow, which is brought down from the mountain. The natives were very
+friendly and good-humored, but seemed surprised at Mr. Harrison tasting
+the cherries, although I told them we were upon a journey. Our tent was
+pitched under a splendid walnut tree, outside of the town. The green
+mountain rose between us and the fading sunset, and the yellow moon was
+hanging in the east, as we took our dinner at the tent-door. Turks were
+riding homewards on donkeys, with loads of grass which they had been
+cutting in the meadows. The gun was fired, and the shouts of the children
+announced the close of the day's fast, while the sweet, melancholy voice
+of a boy muezzin called us to sunset prayer, from the minaret.
+
+Leaving Ak-Sheher this morning, we rode along the base of Sultan Dagh. The
+plain which we overlooked was magnificent. The wilderness of shrubbery
+which fringed the slopes of the mountain gave place to great orchards and
+gardens, interspersed with fields of grain, which extended far out on the
+plain, to the wild thickets and wastes of reeds surrounding the lake. The
+sides of Sultan Dagh were terraced and cultivated wherever it was
+practicable, and I saw some fields of wheat high up on the mountain. There
+were many, people in the road or laboring in the fields; and during the
+forenoon we passed several large villages. The country is more thickly
+inhabited, and has a more thrifty and prosperous air than any part of Asia
+Minor which I have seen. The people are better clad, have more open,
+honest, cheerful and intelligent faces, and exhibit a genuine courtesy and
+good-will in their demeanor towards us. I never felt more perfectly
+secure, or more certain of being among people whom I could trust.
+
+We passed under the summit of Sultan Dagh, which shone out so clear and
+distinct in the morning sun, that I could scarcely realize its actual
+height above the plain. From a tremendous gorge, cleft between the two
+higher peaks, issued a large stream, which, divided into a hundred
+channels, fertilizes a wide extent of plain. About two hours from
+Ak-Sheher we passed a splendid fountain of crystal water, gushing up
+beside the road. I believe it is the same called by some travellers the
+Fountain of Midas, but am ignorant wherefore the name is given it. We rode
+for several hours through a succession of grand, rich landscapes. A
+smaller lake succeeded to that of Ak-Sheher, Emir Dagh rose higher in the
+pale-blue sky, and Sultan Dagh showed other peaks, broken and striped with
+snow; but around us were the same glorious orchards and gardens, the same
+golden-green wheat and rustling phalanxes of poppies--armies of vegetable
+Round-heads, beside the bristling and bearded Cavaliers. The sun was
+intensely hot during the afternoon, as we crossed the plain, and I became
+so drowsed that it required an agony of exertion to keep from tumbling off
+my horse. We here left the great post-road to Constantinople, and took a
+less frequented track. The plain gradually became a meadow, covered with
+shrub cypress, flags, reeds, and wild water-plants. There were vast wastes
+of luxuriant grass, whereon thousands of black buffaloes were feeding. A
+stone causeway, containing many elegant fragments of ancient sculpture,
+extended across this part of the plain, but we took a summer path beside
+it, through beds of iris in bloom--a fragile snowy blossom, with a lip of
+the clearest golden hue. The causeway led to a bare salt plain, beyond
+which we came to the town of Bolawadün, and terminated our day's journey
+of forty miles.
+
+Bolawadün is a collection of mud houses, about a mile long, situated on an
+eminence at the western base of Emir Dagh. I went into the bazaar, which
+was a small place, and not very well supplied, though, as it was near
+sunset, there was quite a crowd of people, and the bakers were shovelling
+out their fresh bread at a brisk rate. Every one took me for a good
+Egyptian Mohammedan, and I was jostled right and left among the turbans,
+in a manner that certainly would not have happened me had I not also worn
+one. Mr. H., who had fallen behind the caravan, came up after we had
+encamped, and might have wandered a long time without finding us, but for
+the good-natured efforts of the inhabitants to set him aright. This
+evening he knocked over a hedgehog, mistaking it for a cat. The poor
+creature was severely hurt, and its sobs of distress, precisely like those
+of a little child, were to painful to hear, that we were obliged to have
+it removed from the vicinity of the tent.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+The Forests of Phrygia.
+
+
+  The Frontier of Phrygia--Ancient Quarries and Tombs--We Enter the Pine
+  Forests--A Guard-House--Encampments of the Turcomans--Pastoral
+  Scenery--A Summer Village--The Valley of the Tombs--Rock Sepulchres of
+  the Phrygian Kings--The Titan's Camp--The Valley of Kümbeh--A Land of
+  Flowers--Turcoman Hospitality--The Exiled Effendis--The Old Turcoman--A
+  Glimpse of Arcadia--A Landscape--Interested Friendship--The Valley of
+  the Pursek--Arrival at Kiutahya.
+
+
+  "And round us all the thicket rang
+  To many a flute of Arcady." Tennyson.
+
+
+Kiutahya, _July_ 5, 1852.
+
+We had now passed through the ancient provinces of Cilicia, Cappadocia,
+and Lycaonia, and reached the confines of Phrygia--a rude mountain region,
+which was never wholly penetrated by the light of Grecian civilization. It
+is still comparatively a wilderness, pierced but by a single high-road,
+and almost unvisited by travellers, yet inclosing in its depths many
+curious relics of antiquity. Leaving Bolawadün in the morning, we ascended
+a long, treeless mountain-slope, and in three or four hours reached the
+dividing ridge---the watershed of Asia Minor, dividing the affluents of
+the Mediterranean and the central lakes from the streams that flow to the
+Black Sea. Looking back, Sultan Dagh, along whose base we had travelled
+the previous day, lay high and blue in the background, streaked with
+shining snow, and far away behind it arose a still higher peak, hoary with
+the lingering winter. We descended into a grassy plain, shut in by a range
+of broken mountains, covered to their summits with dark-green shrubbery,
+through which the strata of marble rock gleamed like patches of snow. The
+hills in front were scarred with old quarries, once worked for the
+celebrated Phrygian marble. There was neither a habitation nor a human
+being to be seen, and the landscape had a singularly wild, lonely, and
+picturesque air.
+
+Turning westward, we crossed a high rolling tract, and entered a valley
+entirely covered with dwarf oaks and cedars. In spite of the dusty road,
+the heat, and the multitude of gad-flies, the journey presented an
+agreeable contrast to the great plains over which we had been travelling
+for many days. The opposite side of the glen was crowned with a tall crest
+of shattered rock, in which were many old Phrygian tombs. They were mostly
+simple chambers, with square apertures. There were traces of many more,
+the rock having been blown up or quarried down--the tombs, instead of
+protecting it, only furnishing one facility the more for destruction.
+After an hour's rest at a fountain, we threaded the windings of the glen
+to a lower plain, quite shut in by the hills, whose ribs of marble showed
+through the forests of oak, holly, cedar, and pine, which dotted them. We
+were now fully entered into the hill-country, and our road passed over
+heights and through hollows covered with picturesque clumps of foliage. It
+resembled some of the wild western downs of America, and, but for the
+Phrygian tombs, whose doorways stared at us from every rock, seemed as
+little familiar with the presence of Man.
+
+Hadji Youssuf, in stopping to arrange some of the baggage, lost his hold
+of his mule, and in spite of every effort to secure her, the provoking
+beast kept her liberty for the rest of the day. In vain did we head her
+off, chase her, coax her, set traps for her: she was too cunning to be
+taken in, and marched along at her ease, running into every field of
+grain, stopping to crop the choicest bunches of grass, or walking demurely
+in the caravan, allowing the hadji to come within arm's length before she
+kicked up her heels and dashed away again. We had a long chase through the
+clumps of oak and holly, but all to no purpose. The great green gad-flies
+swarmed around us, biting myself as well as my horse. Hecatombs, crushed
+by my whip, dropped dead in the dust, but the ranks were immediately
+filled from some invisible reserve. The soil was no longer bare, but
+entirely covered with grass and flowers. In one of the valleys I saw a
+large patch of the crimson larkspur, so thick as to resemble a pool of
+blood. While crossing a long, hot hill, we came upon a little arbor of
+stones, covered with pine branches. It inclosed an ancient sarcophagus of
+marble, nearly filled with water. Beside it stood a square cup, with a
+handle, rudely hewn out of a piece of pine wood. This was a charitable
+provision for travellers, and constantly supplied by the Turcomans who
+lived in the vicinity.
+
+The last two hours of our journey that day were through a glorious forest
+of pines. The road lay in a winding glen, green and grassy, and covered to
+the summits on both sides with beautiful pine trees, intermixed with
+cedar. The air had the true northern aroma, and was more grateful than
+wine. Every turn of the glen disclosed a charming woodland view. It was a
+wild valley of the northern hills, filled with the burning lustre of a
+summer sun, and canopied by the brilliant blue of a summer sky. There were
+signs of the woodman's axe, and the charred embers of forest camp-fires. I
+thought of the lovely _cañadas_ in the pine forests behind Monterey, and
+could really have imagined myself there. Towards evening we reached a
+solitary guard-house, on the edge of the forest. The glen here opened a
+little, and a stone fountain of delicious water furnished all that we
+wanted for a camping-place. The house was inhabited by three soldiers;
+sturdy, good-humored fellows, who immediately spread a mat in the shade
+for us and made us some excellent coffee. A Turcoman encampment in the
+neighborhood supplied us with milk and eggs.
+
+The guardsmen were good Mussulmans, and took us for the same. One of them
+asked me to let him know when the sun was down, and I prolonged his fast
+until it was quite dark, when I gave him permission to eat. They all had
+tolerable stallions for their service, and seemed to live pleasantly
+enough, in their wild way. The fat, stumpy corporal, with his enormously
+broad pantaloons and automaton legs, went down to the fountain with his
+musket, and after taking a rest and sighting full five minutes, fired at a
+dove without hitting it. He afterwards joined us in a social pipe, and we
+sat on a carpet at the door of the guard-house, watching the splendid
+moonrise through the pine boughs. When the pipes had burned out I went to
+bed, and slept a long, sweet sleep until dawn.
+
+We knew that the tombs of the Phrygian Kings could not be far off, and, on
+making inquiries of the corporal, found that he knew the place. It was not
+four hours distant, by a by-road and as it would be impossible to reach
+it without a guide, he would give us one of his men, in consideration of a
+fee of twenty piastres. The difficulty was evident, in a hilly, wooded
+country like this, traversed by a labyrinth of valleys and ravines, and so
+we accepted the soldier. As we were about leaving, an old Turcoman, whose
+beard was dyed a bright red, came up, saying that he knew Mr. H. was a
+physician, and could cure him of his deafness. The morning air was sweet
+with the breath of cedar and pine, and we rode on through the woods and
+over the open turfy glades, in high spirits. We were in the heart of a
+mountainous country, clothed with evergreen forests, except some open
+upland tracts, which showed a thick green turf, dotted all over with
+park-like clumps, and single great trees. The pines were noble trunks,
+often sixty to eighty feet high, and with boughs disposed in all possible
+picturesqueness of form. The cedar frequently showed a solid white bole,
+three feet in diameter.
+
+We took a winding footpath, often a mere track, striking across the hills
+in a northern direction. Everywhere we met the Turks of the plain, who are
+now encamped in the mountains, to tend their flocks through the summer
+months. Herds of sheep and goats were scattered over the green
+pasture-slopes, and the idle herd-boys basked in the morning sun, playing
+lively airs on a reed flute, resembling the Arabic _zumarra_. Here and
+there was a woodman, busy at a recently felled tree, and we met several of
+the creaking carts of the country, hauling logs. All that we saw had a
+pleasant rural air, a smack of primitive and unsophisticated life. From
+the higher ridges over which we passed, we could see, far to the east and
+west, other ranges of pine-covered mountains, and in the distance the
+cloudy lines of loftier chains. The trunks of the pines were nearly all
+charred, and many of the smaller trees dead, from the fires which, later
+in the year, rage in these forests.
+
+After four hours of varied and most inspiring travel, we reached a
+district covered for the most part with oak woods--a more open though
+still mountainous region. There was a summer village of Turks scattered
+over the nearest slope--probably fifty houses in all, almost perfect
+counterparts of Western log-cabins. They were built of pine logs, laid
+crosswise, and covered with rough boards. These, as we were told, were the
+dwellings of the people who inhabit the village of Khosref Pasha Khan
+during the winter. Great numbers of sheep and goats were browsing over the
+hills or lying around the doors of the houses. The latter were beautiful
+creatures, with heavy, curved horns, and long, white, silky hair, that
+entirely hid their eyes. We stopped at a house for water, which the man
+brought out in a little cask. He at first proposed giving us _yaourt_, and
+his wife suggested _kaïmak_ (sweet curds), which we agreed to take, but it
+proved to be only boiled milk.
+
+Leaving the village, we took a path leading westward, mounted a long hill,
+and again entered the pine forests. Before long, we came to a well-built
+country-house, somewhat resembling a Swiss cottage. It was two stories
+high, and there was an upper balcony, with cushioned divans, overlooking a
+thriving garden-patch and some fruit-trees. Three or four men were weeding
+in the garden, and the owner came up and welcomed us. A fountain of
+ice-cold water gushed into a stone trough at the door, making a tempting
+spot for our breakfast, but we were bent on reaching the tombs. There were
+convenient out-houses for fowls, sheep, and cattle. The herds were out,
+grazing along the edges of the forest, and we heard the shrill, joyous
+melodies of the flutes blown by the herd-boys.
+
+We now reached a ridge, whence we looked down through the forest upon a
+long valley, nearly half a mile wide, and bordered on the opposite side by
+ranges of broken sandstone crags. This was the place we sought--the Valley
+of the Phrygian Tombs. Already we could distinguish the hewn faces of the
+rocks, and the dark apertures to the chambers within. The bottom of the
+valley was a bed of glorious grass, blazoned with flowers, and redolent of
+all vernal smells. Several peasants, finding it too hot to mow, had thrown
+their scythes along the swarths, and were lying in the shade of an oak. We
+rode over the new-cut hay, up the opposite side, and dismounted at the
+face of the crags. As we approached them, the number of chambers hewn in
+the rock, the doors and niches now open to the day, surmounted by
+shattered spires and turrets, gave the whole mass the appearance of a
+grand fortress in ruins. The crags, which are of a very soft, reddish-gray
+sandstone, rise a hundred and fifty feet from their base, and their
+summits are worn by the weather into the most remarkable forms.
+
+The principal monument is a broad, projecting cliff, one side of which has
+been cut so as to resemble the façade of a temple. The sculptured part is
+about sixty feet high by sixty in breadth, and represents a solid wall
+with two pilasters at the ends, upholding an architrave and pediment,
+which is surmounted by two large volutes. The whole face of the wall is
+covered with ornaments resembling panel-work, not in regular squares, but
+a labyrinth of intricate designs. In the centre, at the bottom, is a
+shallow square recess, surrounded by an elegant, though plain moulding,
+but there is no appearance of an entrance to the sepulchral chamber, which
+may be hidden in the heart of the rock. There is an inscription in Greek
+running up one side, but it is of a later date than the work itself. On
+one of the tombs there is an inscription: "To King Midas." These relics
+are supposed to date from the period of the Gordian Dynasty, about seven
+centuries before Christ.
+
+A little in front of a headland, formed by the summit walls of two meeting
+valleys, rises a mass of rocks one hundred feet high, cut into sepulchral
+chambers, story above story, with the traces of steps between them,
+leading to others still higher. The whole rock, which may be a hundred and
+fifty feet long by fifty feet broad, has been scooped out, leaving but
+narrow partitions to separate the chambers of the dead. These chambers are
+all plain, but some are of very elegant proportions, with arched or
+pyramidal roofs, and arched recesses at the sides, containing sarcophagi
+hewn in the solid stone. There are also many niches for cinerary urns. The
+principal tomb had a portico, supported by columns, but the front is now
+entirely hurled down, and only the elegant panelling and stone joists of
+the ceiling remain. The entire hill was a succession of tombs. There is
+not a rock which does not bear traces of them. I might have counted
+several hundred within a stone's throw. The position of these curious
+remains in a lonely valley, shut in on all sides by dark, pine-covered
+mountains---two of which are crowned with a natural acropolis of rock,
+resembling a fortress--increases the interest with which they inspire the
+beholder. The valley on the western side, with its bed of ripe wheat in
+the bottom, its tall walls, towers, and pinnacles of rock, and its distant
+vista of mountain and forest, is the most picturesque in Phrygia.
+
+The Turcoman reapers, who came up to see us and talk with us, said that
+there were the remains of walls on the summit of the principal acropolis
+opposite us, and that, further up the valley, there was a chamber with two
+columns in front. Mr. Harrison and I saddled and rode off, passing along a
+wall of fantastic rock-turrets, at the base of which was a natural column,
+about ten feet high, and five in diameter, almost perfectly round, and
+upholding an immense rock, shaped like a cocked hat. In crossing the
+meadow we saw a Turk sitting in the sun beside a spring, and busily
+engaged in knitting a stocking. After a ride of two miles we found the
+chamber, hewn like the façade of a temple in an isolated rock, overlooking
+two valleys of wild meadow-land. The pediment and cornice were simple and
+beautiful, but the columns had been broken away. The chambers were
+perfectly plain, but the panel-work on the ceiling of the portico was
+entire.
+
+After passing three hours in examining these tombs, we took the track
+which our guide pointed out as the road to Kiutahya. We rode two hours
+through the forest, and came out upon a wooded height, overlooking a
+grand, open valley, rich in grain-fields and pasture land. While I was
+contemplating this lovely view, the road turned a corner of the ridge, and
+lo! before me there appeared (as I thought), above the tops of the pines,
+high up on the mountain side, a line of enormous tents. Those snow-white
+cones, uprearing their sharp spires, and spreading out their broad
+bases--what could they be but an encampment of monster tents? Yet no; they
+were pinnacles of white rock--perfect cones, from thirty to one hundred
+feet in height, twelve in all, and ranged side by side along the edge of
+the cliff, with the precision of a military camp. They were snow-white,
+perfectly smooth and full, and their bases touched. What made the
+spectacle more singular, there was no other appearance of the same rock on
+the mountain. All around them was the dark-green of the pines, out of
+which they rose like drifted horns of unbroken snow. I named this singular
+phenomenon--which seems to have escaped the notice of travellers--The
+Titan's Camp.
+
+In another hour we reached a fountain near the village of Kümbeh, and
+pitched our tents for the night. The village, which is half a mile in
+length, is built upon a singular crag, which shoots up abruptly from the
+centre of the valley, rising at one extremity to a height of more than a
+hundred feet. It was entirely deserted, the inhabitants having all gone
+off to the mountains with their herds. The solitary muezzin, who cried the
+_mughreb_ at the close of the fast, and lighted the lamps on his minaret,
+went through with his work in most unclerical haste, now that there was no
+one to notice him. We sent Achmet, the _katurgee_, to the mountain camp of
+the villagers, to procure a supply of fowls and barley.
+
+We rose very early yesterday morning, shivering in the cold air of the
+mountains, and just as the sun, bursting through the pines, looked down
+the little hollow where our tents were pitched, set the caravan in motion.
+The ride down the valley was charming. The land was naturally rich and
+highly cultivated, which made its desertion the more singular. Leagues of
+wheat, rye and poppies spread around us, left for the summer warmth to do
+its silent work. The dew sparkled on the fields as we rode through them,
+and the splendor of the flowers in blossom was equal to that of the plains
+of Palestine. There were purple, white and scarlet poppies; the rich
+crimson larkspur; the red anemone; the golden daisy; the pink convolvulus;
+and a host of smaller blooms, so intensely bright and dazzling in their
+hues, that the meadows were richer than a pavement of precious jewels. To
+look towards the sun, over a field of scarlet poppies, was like looking on
+a bed of live coals; the light, striking through the petals, made them
+burn as with an inward fire. Out of this wilderness of gorgeous color,
+rose the tall spires of a larger plant, covered with great yellow flowers,
+while here and there the snowy blossoms of a clump of hawthorn sweetened
+the morning air.
+
+A short distance beyond Kümbeh, we passed another group of ancient tombs,
+one of which was of curious design. An isolated rock, thirty feet in
+height by twenty in diameter, was cut so as to resemble a triangular
+tower, with the apex bevelled. A chamber, containing a sarcophagus, was
+hewn out of the interior. The entrance was ornamented with double columns
+in bas-relief, and a pediment. There was another arched chamber, cut
+directly through the base of the triangle, with a niche on each side,
+hollowed out at the bottom so as to form a sarcophagus.
+
+Leaving these, the last of the Phrygian tombs, we struck across the valley
+and ascended a high range of hills, covered with pine, to an upland,
+wooded region. Here we found a summer village of log cabins, scattered
+over a grassy slope. The people regarded us with some curiosity, and the
+women hastily concealed their faces. Mr. H. rode up to a large new house,
+and peeped in between the logs. There were several women inside, who
+started up in great confusion and threw over their heads whatever article
+was most convenient. An old man, with a long white beard, neatly dressed
+in a green jacket and shawl turban, came out and welcomed us. I asked for
+_kaïmak_, which he promised, and immediately brought out a carpet and
+spread it on the ground. Then followed a large basin of kaïmak, with
+wooden spoons, three loaves of bread, and a plate of cheese. We seated
+ourselves on the carpet, and delved in with the spoons, while the old man
+retired lest his appetite should be provoked. The milk was excellent, nor
+were the bread and cheese to be despised.
+
+While we were eating, the Khowagee, or schoolmaster of the community, a
+genteel little man in a round white turban, came op to inquire of François
+who we were. "That effendi in the blue dress," said he, "is the Bey, is he
+not?" "Yes," said F. "And the other, with the striped shirt and white
+turban, is a writer?" [Here he was not far wrong.] "But how is it that the
+effendis do not speak Turkish?" he persisted. "Because," said François,
+"their fathers were exiled by Sultan Mahmoud when they were small
+children. They have grown up in Aleppo like Arabs, and have not yet
+learned Turkish; but God grant that the Sultan may not turn his face away
+from them, and that they may regain the rank their fathers once had in
+Stamboul." "God grant it!" replied the Khowagee, greatly interested in the
+story. By this time we had eaten our full share of the kaïmak, which was
+finished by François and the katurgees. The old man now came up, mounted
+on a dun mare, stating that he was bound for Kiutahya, and was delighted
+with the prospect of travelling in such good company, I gave one of his
+young children some money, as the kaïmak was tendered out of pure
+hospitality, and so we rode off.
+
+Our new companion was armed to the teeth, having a long gun with a heavy
+wooden stock and nondescript lock, and a sword of excellent metal. It was,
+in fact, a weapon of the old Greek empire, and the cross was still
+enamelled in gold at the root of the blade, in spite of all his efforts to
+scratch it out. He was something of a _fakeer_, having made a pilgrimage
+to Mecca and Jerusalem. He was very inquisitive, plying François with
+questions about the government. The latter answered that we were not
+connected with the government, but the old fellow shrewdly hinted that he
+knew better--we were persons of rank, travelling incognito. He was very
+attentive to us, offering us water at every fountain, although he believed
+us to be good Mussulmans. We found him of some service as a guide,
+shortening our road by taking by-paths through the woods.
+
+For several hours we traversed a beautifully wooded region of hills.
+Graceful clumps of pine shaded the grassy knolls, where the sheep and
+silky-haired goats were basking at rest, and the air was filled with a
+warm, summer smell, blown from the banks of golden broom. Now and then,
+from the thickets of laurel and arbutus, a shrill shepherd's reed piped
+some joyous woodland melody. Was it a Faun, astray among the hills? Green
+dells, open to the sunshine, and beautiful as dreams of Arcady, divided
+the groves of pine. The sky overhead was pure and cloudless, clasping the
+landscape with its belt of peace and silence. Oh, that delightful region,
+haunted by all the bright spirits of the immortal Grecian Song! Chased
+away from the rest of the earth, here they have found a home--here
+secret altars remain to them from the times that are departed!
+
+Out of these woods, we passed into a lonely plain, inclosed by piny hills
+that brightened in the thin, pure ether. In the distance were some
+shepherds' tents, and musical goat-bells tinkled along the edges of the
+woods. From the crest of a lofty ridge beyond this plain, we looked back
+over the wild solitudes wherein we had been travelling for two days--long
+ranges of dark hills, fading away behind each other, with a perspective
+that hinted of the hidden gulfs between. From the western slope, a still
+more extensive prospect opened before us. Over ridges covered with forests
+of oak and pine, we saw the valley of the Pursek, the ancient Thymbrius,
+stretching far away to the misty line of Keshish Dagh, The mountains
+behind Kintahya loomed up high and grand, making a fine feature in the
+middle distance. We caught but fleeting glimpses of the view through the
+trees; and then, plunging into the forest again, descended to a cultivated
+slope, whereon there was a little village, now deserted. The graveyard
+beside it was shaded with large cedar-trees, and near it there was a
+fountain of excellent water. "Here," said the old man, "you can wash and
+pray, and then rest awhile under the trees." François excused us by saying
+that, while on a journey, we always bathed before praying; but, not to
+slight his faith entirely, I washed my hands and face before sitting down
+to our scanty breakfast of bread and water.
+
+Our path now led down through long, winding glens, over grown with oaks,
+from which the wild yellow honeysuckles fell in a shower of blossoms. As
+we drew near the valley, the old man began to hint that his presence had
+been of great service to us, and deserved recompense. "God knows," said
+he to François, "in what corner of the mountains you might now be, if I
+had not accompanied you." "Oh," replied François, "there are always plenty
+of people among the woods, who would have been equally as kind as yourself
+in showing us the way." He then spoke of the robbers in the neighborhood,
+and pointed out some graves by the road-side, as those of persons who had
+been murdered. "But," he added, "everybody in these parts knows me, and
+whoever is in company with me is always safe." The Greek assured him that
+we always depended on ourselves for our safety. Defeated on these tacks,
+he boldly affirmed that his services were worthy of payment. "But," said
+François "you told us at the village that you had business in Kiutahya,
+and would be glad to join us for the sake of having company on the road."
+"Well, then," rejoined the old fellow, making a last effort, "I leave the
+matter to your politeness." "Certainly," replied the imperturbable
+dragoman, "we could not be so impolite as to offer money to a man of your
+wealth and station; we could not insult you by giving you alms." The old
+Turcoman thereupon gave a shrug and a grunt, made a sullen good-by
+salutation, and left us.
+
+It was nearly six o'clock when we reached the Pursek. There was no sign of
+the city, but we could barely discern an old fortress on the lofty cliff
+which commands the town. A long stone bridge crossed the river, which here
+separates into half a dozen channels. The waters are swift and clear, and
+wind away in devious mazes through the broad green meadows. We hurried on,
+thinking we saw minarets in the distance, but they proved to be poplars.
+The sun sank lower and lower, and finally went down before there was any
+token of our being in the vicinity of the city. Soon, however, a line of
+tiled roofs appeared along the slope of a hill on our left, and turning
+its base, we saw the city before us, filling the mouth of a deep valley or
+gorge, which opened from the mountains.
+
+But the horses are saddled, and François tells me it is time to put up my
+pen. We are off, over the mountains, to the Greek city of OEzani, in
+the valley of the Rhyndacus.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII.
+
+Kiutahya and the Ruins of OEzani.
+
+
+  Entrance into Kiutahya--The New Khan--An Unpleasant
+  Discovery--Kiutahya--The Citadel--Panorama from the Walls--The Gorge of
+  the Mountains--Camp in a Meadow--The Valley of the
+  Rhyndacus--Chavdür--The Ruins of OEzani--The Acropolis and
+  Temple--The Theatre and Stadium--Ride down the Valley--Camp at Daghje
+  Köi
+
+
+  "There is a temple in ruin stands,
+  Fashioned by long-forgotten hands;
+  Two or three columns and many a stone,
+  Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown!
+  Out upon Time! it will leave no more
+  Of the things to come than the things before!"
+
+
+Daghje Köi, on the Rhyndacus, _July_ 6, 1852.
+
+On entering Kiutahya, we passed the barracks, which were the residence of
+Kossuth and his companions in exile. Beyond them, we came to a broad
+street, down which flowed the vilest stream of filth of which even a
+Turkish city could ever boast. The houses on either side were two stories
+high, the upper part of wood, with hanging balconies, over which shot the
+eaves of the tiled roofs. The welcome cannon had just sounded, announcing
+the close of the day's fast. The coffee-shops were already crowded with
+lean and hungry customers, the pipes were filled and lighted, and the
+coffee smoked in the finjans. In half a minute such whiffs arose on all
+sides as it would have cheered the heart of a genuine smoker to behold.
+Out of these cheerful places we passed into other streets which were
+entirely deserted, the inhabitants being at dinner. It had a weird,
+uncomfortable effect to ride through streets where the clatter of our
+horses' hoofs was the only sound of life. At last we reached the entrance
+to a bazaar, and near it a khan--a new khan, very neatly built, and with a
+spare room so much better than we expected, that we congratulated
+ourselves heartily. We unpacked in a hurry, and François ran off to the
+bazaar, from which he speedily returned with some roast kid, cucumbers,
+and cherries. We lighted two lamps, I borrowed the oda-bashi's narghileh,
+and François, learning that it was our national anniversary, procured us a
+flask of Greek wine, that we might do it honor. The beverage, however,
+resembled a mixture of vinegar and sealing-wax, and we contented ourselves
+with drinking patriotic toasts, in two finjans of excellent coffee. But in
+the midst of our enjoyment, happening to cast my eye on the walls, I saw a
+sight that turned all our honey into gall. Scores on scores--nay, hundreds
+on hundreds--of enormous bed-bugs swarmed on the plaster, and were already
+descending to our beds and baggage. To sleep there was impossible, but we
+succeeded in getting possession of one of the outside balconies, where we
+made our beds, after searching them thoroughly.
+
+In the evening a merchant, who spoke a little Arabic, came up to me and
+asked: "Is not your Excellency's friend the _hakim pasha_" (chief
+physician). I did not venture to assent, but replied: "No; he is a
+_sowakh_" This was beyond his comprehension, and he went away with the
+impression that Mr. H. was much greater than a _hakim pasha_. I slept
+soundly on my out-doors bed, but was awakened towards morning by two
+tremendous claps of thunder, echoing in the gorge, and the rattling of
+rain on the roof of the khan.
+
+I spent two or three hours next morning in taking a survey of Kiutahya.
+The town is much larger than I had supposed: I should judge it to contain
+from fifty to sixty thousand inhabitants. The situation is remarkable, and
+gives a picturesque effect to the place when seen from above, which makes
+one forget its internal filth. It is built in the mouth of a gorge, and
+around the bases of the hills on either side. The lofty mountains which
+rise behind it supply it with perpetual springs of pure water. At every
+dozen steps you come upon a fountain, and every large street has a brook
+in the centre. The houses are all two and many of them three stories high,
+with hanging balconies, which remind me much of Switzerland. The bazaars
+are very extensive, covering all the base of the hill on which stands the
+ancient citadel. The goods displayed were mostly European cotton fabrics,
+_quincaillerie_, boots and slippers, pipe-sticks and silks. In the parts
+devoted to the produce of the country, I saw very fine cherries, cucumbers
+and lettuce, and bundles of magnificent clover, three to four feet high.
+
+We climbed a steep path to the citadel, which covers the summit of an
+abrupt, isolated hill, connected by a shoulder with the great range. The
+walls are nearly a mile in circuit, consisting almost wholly of immense
+circular buttresses, placed so near each other that they almost touch. The
+connecting walls are broken down on the northern side, so that from below
+the buttresses have the appearance of enormous shattered columns. They are
+built of rough stones, with regular layers of flat, burnt bricks. On the
+highest part of the hill stands the fortress, or stronghold, a place which
+must have been almost impregnable before the invention of cannon. The
+structure probably dates from the ninth or tenth century, but is built on
+the foundations of more ancient edifices. The old Greek city of Cotyaeum
+(whence Kiutahya) probably stood upon this hill. Within the citadel is an
+upper town, containing about a hundred houses, the residence, apparently
+of poor families.
+
+From the circuit of the walls, on every side, there are grand views over
+the plain, the city, and the gorges of the mountains behind. The valley of
+the Pursek, freshened by the last night's shower, spread out a sheet of
+vivid green, to the pine-covered mountains which bounded it on all sides.
+Around the city it was adorned with groves and gardens, and, in the
+direction of Brousa, white roads went winding away to other gardens and
+villages in the distance. The mountains of Phrygia, through which we had
+passed, were the loftiest in the circle that inclosed the valley. The city
+at our feet presented a thick array of red-tiled roofs, out of which rose
+here and there the taper shaft of a minaret, or the dome of a mosque or
+bath. From the southern side of the citadel, we looked down into the gorge
+which supplies Kiutahya with water--a wild, desert landscape of white
+crags and shattered peaks of gray rock, hanging over a narrow winding bed
+of the greenest foliage.
+
+Instead of taking the direct road to Brousa, we decided to make a detour
+of two days, in order to visit the ruins of the old Greek city of
+OEzani, which are thirty-six miles south of Kiutahya. Leaving at
+noon, we ascended the gorge behind the city, by delightfully embowered
+paths, at first under the eaves of superb walnut-trees, and then through
+wild thickets of willow, hazel, privet, and other shrubs, tangled
+together with the odorous white honeysuckle. Near the city, the
+mountain-sides were bare white masses of gypsum and other rock, in many
+places with the purest chrome-yellow hue; but as we advanced they were
+clothed to the summit with copsewood. The streams that foamed down these
+perennial heights were led into buried channels, to come to light again in
+sparkling fountains, pouring into ever-full stone basins. The day was cool
+and cloudy, and the heavy shadows which hung on the great sides of the
+mountain gateway, heightened, by contrast, the glory of the sunlit plain
+seen through them.
+
+After passing the summit ridge, probably 5,000 feet above the sea, we came
+upon a wooded, hilly region, stretching away in long misty lines to Murad
+Dagh, whose head was spotted with snow. There were patches of wheat and
+rye in the hollows, and the bells of distant herds tinkled occasionally
+among the trees. There was no village on the road, and we were on the way
+to one which we saw in the distance, when we came upon a meadow of good
+grass, with a small stream running through it. Here we encamped, sending
+Achmet, the katurgee, to the village for milk and eggs. The ewes had just
+been milked for the suppers of their owners, but they went over the flock
+again, stripping their udders, which greatly improved the quality of the
+milk. The night was so cold that I could scarcely sleep during the morning
+hours. There was a chill, heavy dew on the meadow; but when François awoke
+me at sunrise, the sky was splendidly clear and pure, and the early beams
+had a little warmth in them. Our coffee, before starting, made with
+sheep's milk, was the richest I ever drank.
+
+After riding for two hours across broad, wild ridges, covered with cedar,
+we reached a height overlooking the valley of the Rhyndacus, or rather the
+plain whence he draws his sources--a circular level, ten or twelve miles
+in diameter, and contracting towards the west into a narrow dell, through
+which his waters find outlet; several villages, each embowered in gardens,
+were scattered along the bases of the hills that inclose it. We took the
+wrong road, but were set aright by a herdsman, and after threading a lane
+between thriving grain-fields, were cheered by the sight of the Temple of
+OEzani, lifted on its acropolis above the orchards of Chavdür, and
+standing out sharp and clear against the purple of the hills.
+
+Our approach to the city was marked by the blocks of sculptured marble
+that lined the way: elegant mouldings, cornices, and entablatures, thrown
+together with common stone to make walls between the fields. The village
+is built on both sides of the Rhyndacus; it is an ordinary Turkish hamlet,
+with tiled roofs and chimneys, and exhibits very few of the remains of the
+old city in its composition. This, I suspect, is owing to the great size
+of the hewn blocks, especially of the pillars, cornices, and entablatures,
+nearly all of which are from twelve to fifteen feet long. It is from the
+size and number of these scattered blocks, rather than from the buildings
+which still partially exist, that one obtains an idea of the size and
+splendor of the ancient OEzani. The place is filled with fragments,
+especially of columns, of which there are several hundred, nearly all
+finely fluted. The Rhyndacus is still spanned by an ancient bridge of
+three arches, and both banks are lined with piers of hewn stone. Tall
+poplars and massy walnuts of the richest green shade the clear waters, and
+there are many picturesque combinations of foliage and ruin--death and
+life--which would charm a painter's eye. Near the bridge we stopped to
+examine a pile of immense fragments which have been thrown together by the
+Turks--pillars, cornices, altars, pieces of a frieze, with bulls' heads
+bound together by hanging garlands, and a large square block, with a
+legible tablet. It resembled an altar in form, and, from the word
+"_Artemidoron_" appeared to have belonged to some temple to Diana.
+
+Passing through the village we came to a grand artificial platform on its
+western side, called the Acropolis. It is of solid masonry, five hundred
+feet square, and averaging ten feet in height. On the eastern side it is
+supported on rude though massive arches, resembling Etruscan workmanship.
+On the top and around the edges of this platform lie great numbers of
+fluted columns, and immense fragments of cornice and architrave. In the
+centre, on a foundation platform about eight feet high, stands a beautiful
+Ionic temple, one hundred feet in length. On approaching, it appeared
+nearly perfect, except the roof, and so many of the columns remain
+standing that its ruined condition scarcely injures the effect. There are
+seventeen columns on the side and eight at the end, Ionic in style,
+fluted, and fifty feet in height. About half the cella remains, with an
+elegant frieze and cornice along the top, and a series of tablets, set in
+panels of ornamental sculpture, running along the sides. The front of the
+cella includes a small open peristyle, with two composite Corinthian
+columns at the entrance, making, with those of the outer colonnade,
+eighteen columns standing. The tablets contain Greek inscriptions,
+perfectly legible, where the stone has not been shattered. Under the
+temple there are large vaults, which we found filled up with young kids,
+who had gone in there to escape the heat of the sun. The portico was
+occupied by sheep, which at first refused to make room for us, and gave
+strong olfactory evidence of their partiality for the temple as a
+resting-place.
+
+On the side of a hill, about three hundred yards to the north, are the
+remains of a theatre. Crossing some patches of barley and lentils, we
+entered a stadium, forming an extension of the theatre---that is, it took
+the same breadth and direction, so that the two might be considered as one
+grand work, more than one thousand feet long by nearly four hundred wide.
+The walls of the stadium are hurled down, except an entrance of five
+arches of massive masonry, on the western side. We rode up the artificial
+valley, between high, grassy hills, completely covered with what at a
+distance resembled loose boards, but which were actually the long marble
+seats of the stadium. Urging our horses over piles of loose blocks, we
+reached the base of the theatre, climbed the fragments that cumber the
+main entrance, and looked on the spacious arena and galleries within.
+Although greatly ruined, the materials of the whole structure remain, and
+might be put together again. It is a grand wreck; the colossal fragments
+which have tumbled from the arched proscenium fill the arena, and the rows
+of seats, though broken and disjointed, still retain their original order.
+It is somewhat more than a semicircle, the radius being about one hundred
+and eighty feet. The original height was upwards of fifty feet, and there
+were fifty rows of seats in all, each row capable of seating two hundred
+persons, so that the number of spectators who could be accommodated was
+eight thousand.
+
+The fragments cumbering the arena were enormous, and highly interesting
+from their character. There were rich blocks of cornice, ten feet long;
+fluted and reeded pillars; great arcs of heavily-carved sculpture, which
+appeared to have served as architraves from pillar to pillar, along the
+face of the proscenium, where there was every trace of having been a
+colonnade; and other blocks sculptured with figures of animals in
+alto-relievo. There were generally two figures on each block, and among
+those which could be recognized were the dog and the lion. Doors opened
+from the proscenium into the retiring-rooms of the actors, under which
+were the vaults where the beasts were kept. A young fox or jackal started
+from his siesta as we entered the theatre, and took refuge under the loose
+blocks. Looking backwards through the stadium from the seats of the
+theatre, we had a lovely view of the temple, standing out clear and bright
+in the midst of the summer plain, with the snow-streaked summits of Murad
+Dagh in the distance. It was a picture which I shall long remember. The
+desolation of the magnificent ruins was made all the more impressive by
+the silent, solitary air of the region around them.
+
+Leaving Chavdür in the afternoon, we struck northward, down the valley of
+the Rhyndacus, over tracts of rolling land, interspersed with groves of
+cedar and pine. There were so many branch roads and crossings that we
+could not fail to go wrong; and after two or three hours found ourselves
+in the midst of a forest, on the broad top of a mountain, without any road
+at all. There were some herdsmen tending their flocks near at hand, but
+they could give us no satisfactory direction. We thereupon, took our own
+course, and soon brought up on the brink of a precipice, overhanging a
+deep valley. Away to the eastward we caught a glimpse of the Rhyndacus,
+and the wooden minaret of a little village on his banks. Following the
+edge of the precipice, we came at last to a glen, down which ran a rough
+footpath that finally conducted us, by a long road through the forests, to
+the village of Daghje Köi, where we are now encamped.
+
+The place seems to be devoted to the making of flints, and the streets are
+filled with piles of the chipped fragments. Our tent is pitched on the
+bank of the river, in a barren meadow. The people tell us that the whole
+region round about has just been visited by a plague of grasshoppers,
+which have destroyed their crops. Our beasts have wandered off to the
+hills, in search for grass, and the disconsolate Hadji is hunting them.
+Achmet, the katurgee, lies near the fire, sick; Mr. Harrison complains of
+fever, and François moves about languidly, with a dismal countenance. So
+here we are in the solitudes of Bithynia, but there is no God but God, and
+that which is destined comes to pass.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV.
+
+The Mysian Olympus.
+
+
+  Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
+  of Taushanlü--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
+  Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
+  Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
+  of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghiöl--A Showery Ride--The
+  Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
+  Furled.
+
+
+  "I looked yet farther and higher, and saw in the heavens a silvery cloud
+  that stood fast, and still against the breeze; * * * * and so it was as
+  a sign and a testimony--almost as a call from the neglected gods, that I
+  now saw and acknowledged the snowy crown of the Mysian Olympus!"
+  Kinglake.
+
+
+Brousa, _July_ 9, 1852.
+
+From Daghje Küi, there were two roads to Taushanlü, but the people
+informed us that the one which led across the mountains was difficult to
+find, and almost impracticable. We therefore took the river road, which we
+found picturesque in the highest degree. The narrow dell of the Rhyndacus
+wound through a labyrinth of mountains, sometimes turning at sharp angles
+between craggy buttresses, covered with forests, and sometimes broadening
+out into a sweep of valley, where the villagers were working in companies
+among the grain and poppy fields. The banks of the stream were lined with
+oak, willow and sycamore, and forests of pine, descending from the
+mountains, frequently overhung the road. We met numbers of peasants,
+going to and from the fields, and once a company of some twenty women,
+who, on seeing us, clustered together like a flock of frightened sheep,
+and threw their mantles over their heads. They had curiosity enough,
+however, to peep at us as we went by, and I made them a salutation, which
+they returned, and then burst into a chorus of hearty laughter. All this
+region was ravaged by a plague of grasshoppers. The earth was black with
+them in many places, and our horses ploughed up a living spray, as they
+drove forward through the meadows. Every spear of grass was destroyed, and
+the wheat and rye fields were terribly cut up. We passed a large crag
+where myriads of starlings had built their nests, and every starling had a
+grasshopper in his mouth.
+
+We crossed the river, in order to pass a narrow defile, by which it forces
+its way through the rocky heights of Dumanidj Dagh. Soon after passing the
+ridge, a broad and beautiful valley expanded before us. It was about ten
+miles in breadth, nearly level, and surrounded by picturesque ranges of
+wooded mountains. It was well cultivated, principally in rye and poppies,
+and more thickly populated than almost any part of Europe. The tinned tops
+of the minarets of Taushanlü shone over the top of a hill in front, and
+there was a large town nearly opposite, on the other bank of the
+Rhyndacus, and seven small villages scattered about in various directions.
+Most of the latter, however, were merely the winter habitations of the
+herdsmen, who are now living in tents on the mountain tops. All over the
+valley, the peasants were at work in the harvest-fields, cutting and
+binding grain, gathering opium from the poppies, or weeding the young
+tobacco. In the south, over the rim of the hills that shut in this
+pastoral solitude, rose the long blue summits of Urus Dagh. We rode into
+Taushanlü, which is a long town, filling up a hollow between two stony
+hills. The houses are all of stone, two stories high, with tiled roofs and
+chimneys, so that, but for the clapboarded and shingled minarets, it would
+answer for a North-German village.
+
+The streets were nearly deserted, and even in the bazaars, which are of
+some extent, we found but few persons. Those few, however, showed a
+laudable curiosity with regard to us, clustering about us whenever we
+stopped, and staring at us with provoking pertinacity. We had some
+difficulty in procuring information concerning the road, the directions
+being so contradictory that we were as much in the dark as ever. We lost
+half an hour in wandering among the hills; and, after travelling four
+hours over piny uplands, without finding the village of Kara Köi, encamped
+on a dry plain, on the western bank of the river. There was not a spear of
+grass for the beasts, everything being eaten up by the grasshoppers, and
+there were no Turcomans near who could supply us with food. So we dined on
+hard bread and black coffee, and our forlorn beasts walked languidly
+about, cropping the dry stalks of weeds and the juiceless roots of the
+dead grass.
+
+We crossed the river next morning, and took a road following its course,
+and shaded with willows and sycamores. The lofty, wooded ranges of the
+Mysian Olympus lay before us, and our day's work was to pass them. After
+passing the village of Kara Köi, we left the valley of the Rhyndacus, and
+commenced ascending one of the long, projecting spurs thrust out from the
+main chain of Olympus. At first we rode through thickets of scrubby cedar,
+but soon came to magnificent pine forests, that grew taller and sturdier
+the higher we clomb. A superb mountain landscape opened behind us. The
+valleys sank deeper and deeper, and at last disappeared behind the great
+ridges that heaved themselves out of the wilderness of smaller hills. All
+these ridges were covered with forests; and as we looked backwards out of
+the tremendous gulf up the sides of which we were climbing, the scenery
+was wholly wild and uncultivated. Our path hung on the imminent side of a
+chasm so steep that one slip might have been destruction to both horse and
+rider. Far below us, at the bottom of the chasm, roared an invisible
+torrent. The opposite side, vapory from its depth, rose like an immense
+wall against Heaven. The pines were even grander than those in the woods
+of Phrygia. Here they grew taller and more dense, hanging their cloudy
+boughs over the giddy depths, and clutching with desperate roots to the
+almost perpendicular sides of the gorges. In many places they were the
+primeval forests of Olympus, and the Hamadryads were not yet frightened
+from their haunts.
+
+Thus, slowly toiling up through the sublime wilderness, breathing the
+cold, pure air of those lofty regions, we came at last to a little stream,
+slowly trickling down the bed of the gorge. It was shaded, not by the
+pine, but by the Northern beech, with its white trunk and close,
+confidential boughs, made for the talks of lovers and the meditations of
+poets. Here we stopped to breakfast, but there was nothing for the poor
+beasts to eat, and they waited for us droopingly, with their heads thrust
+together. While we sat there three camels descended to the stream, and
+after them a guard with a long gun. He was a well-made man, with a brown
+face, keen, black eye, and piratical air, and would have made a good hero
+of modern romance. Higher up we came to a guard house, on a little cleared
+space, surrounded by beech forests. It was a rough stone hut, with a white
+flag planted on a pole before it, and a miniature water-wheel, running a
+miniature saw at a most destructive rate, beside the door.
+
+Continuing our way, we entered on a region such as I had no idea could be
+found in Asia. The mountains, from the bottoms of the gorges to their
+topmost summits, were covered with the most superb forests of beech I ever
+saw--masses of impenetrable foliage, of the most brilliant green, touched
+here and there by the darker top of a pine. Our road was through a deep,
+dark shade, and on either side, up and down, we saw but a cool, shadowy
+solitude, sprinkled with dots of emerald light, and redolent with the odor
+of damp earth, moss, and dead leaves. It was a forest, the counterpart of
+which could only be found in America--such primeval magnitude of growth,
+such wild luxuriance, such complete solitude and silence! Through the
+shafts of the pines we had caught glorious glimpses of the blue mountain
+world below us; but now the beech folded us in its arms, and whispered in
+our ears the legends of our Northern home. There, on the ridges of the
+Mysian Olympus, sacred to the bright gods of Grecian song, I found the
+inspiration of our darker and colder clime and age. "_O gloriosi spiriti
+degli boschi!_"
+
+I could scarcely contain myself, from surprise and joy. François failed to
+find French adjectives sufficient for his admiration, and even our
+cheating katurgees were touched by the spirit of the scene. On either
+side, whenever a glimpse could be had through the boughs, we looked upon
+leaning walls of trees, whose tall, rounded tops basked in the sunshine,
+while their bases were wrapped in the shadows cast by themselves. Thus,
+folded over each other like scales, or feathers on a falcon's wing, they
+clad the mountain. The trees were taller, and had a darker and more glossy
+leaf than the American beech. By and by patches of blue shone between the
+boughs before us, a sign that the summit was near, and before one o'clock
+we stood upon the narrow ridge forming the crest of the mountain. Here,
+although we were between five and six thousand feet above the sea, the
+woods of beech were a hundred feet in height, and shut out all view. On
+the northern side the forest scenery is even grander than on the southern.
+The beeches are magnificent trees, straight as an arrow, and from a
+hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in height. Only now and then could we
+get any view beyond the shadowy depths sinking below us, and then it was
+only to see similar mountain ranges, buried in foliage, and rolling far
+behind each other into the distance. Twice, in the depth of the gorge, we
+saw a saw-mill, turned by the snow-cold torrents. Piles of pine and
+beechen boards were heaped around them, and the sawyers were busily plying
+their lonely business. The axe of the woodman echoed but rarely through
+the gulfs, though many large trees lay felled by the roadside. The rock,
+which occasionally cropped out of the soil, was white marble, and there
+was a shining precipice of it, three hundred feet high, on the opposite
+side of the gorge.
+
+After four hours of steady descent, during the last hour of which we
+passed into a forest entirely of oaks, we reached the first terrace at the
+base of the mountain. Here, as I was riding in advance of the caravan, I
+met a company of Turkish officers, who saluted me with an inclination of
+the most profound reverence. I replied with due Oriental gravity, which
+seemed to justify their respect, for when they met François, who is
+everywhere looked upon as a Turkish janissary, they asked: "Is not your
+master a _Shekh el-Islàm_?" "You are right: he is," answered the
+unscrupulous Greek. A Shekh el-Islàm is a sort of high-priest,
+corresponding in dignity to a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. It is
+rather singular that I am generally taken for a Secretary of some kind, or
+a Moslem priest, while my companion, who, by this time, has assumed the
+Oriental expression, is supposed to be either medical or military.
+
+We had no sooner left the forests and entered the copsewood which
+followed, than the blue bulk, of Olympus suddenly appeared in the west,
+towering far into the sky. It is a magnificent mountain, with a broad
+though broken summit, streaked with snow. Before us, stretching away
+almost to his base, lay a grand mountain slope, covered with orchards and
+golden harvest-fields. Through lanes of hawthorn and chestnut trees in
+blossom, which were overgrown with snowy clematis and made a shady roof
+above our heads, we reached the little village of Orta Köi, and encamped
+in a grove of pear-trees. There was grass for our beasts, who were on the
+brink of starvation, and fowls and cucumbers for ourselves, who had been
+limited to bread and coffee for two days. But as one necessity was
+restored, another disappeared. We had smoked the last of our delicious
+Aleppo tobacco, and that which the villagers gave us was of very inferior
+quality. Nevertheless, the pipe which we smoked with them in the twilight,
+beside the marble fountain, promoted that peace of mind which is the
+sweetest preparative of slumber.
+
+François was determined to finish our journey to-day. He had a
+presentiment that we should reach Brousa, although I expected nothing of
+the kind. He called us long before the lovely pastoral valley in which we
+lay had a suspicion of the sun, but just in time to see the first rays
+strike the high head of Olympus. The long lines of snow blushed with an
+opaline radiance against the dark-blue of the morning sky, and all the
+forests and fields below lay still, and cool, and dewy, lapped in dreams
+yet unrecalled by the fading moon. I bathed my face in the cold well that
+perpetually poured over its full brim, drank the coffee which François had
+already prepared, sprang into the saddle, and began the last day of our
+long pilgrimage. The tent was folded, alas! for the last time; and now
+farewell to the freedom of our wandering life! Shall I ever feel it again?
+
+The dew glistened on the chestnuts and the walnuts, on the wild
+grape-vines and wild roses, that shaded our road, as we followed the
+course of an Olympian stream through a charming dell, into the great plain
+below. Everywhere the same bountiful soil, the same superb orchards, the
+same ripe fields of wheat and barley, and silver rye. The peasants were at
+work, men and women, cutting the grain with rude scythes, binding it into
+sheaves, and stacking it in the fields. As we rode over the plain, the
+boys came running out to us with handfuls of grain, saluting us from afar,
+bidding us welcome as pilgrims, wishing us as many years of prosperity as
+there were kernels in their sheaves, and kissing the hands that gave them
+the harvest-toll. The whole landscape had an air of plenty, peace, and
+contentment. The people all greeted us cordially; and once a Mevlevi
+Dervish and a stately Turk, riding in company, saluted me so
+respectfully, stopping to speak with me, that I quite regretted being
+obliged to assume an air of dignified reserve, and ride away from them.
+
+Ere long, we saw the two white minarets of Aineghiöl, above the line of
+orchards in front of us, and, in three hours after starting, reached the
+place. It is a small town, not particularly clean, but with brisk-looking
+bazaars. In one of the houses, I saw half-a-dozen pairs of superb antlers,
+the spoils of Olympian stags. The bazaar is covered with a trellised roof,
+overgrown with grape-vines, which hang enormous bunches of young grapes
+over the shop-boards. We were cheered by the news that Brousa was only
+eight hours distant, and I now began to hope that we might reach it. We
+jogged on as fast as we could urge our weary horses, passed another belt
+of orchard land, paid more harvest-tolls to the reapers, and commenced
+ascending a chain of low hills which divides the plain of Aineghiöl from
+that of Brousa.
+
+At a fountain called the "mid-day _konnàk_" we met some travellers coming
+from Brousa, who informed us that we could get there by the time of
+_asser_ prayer. Rounding the north-eastern base of Olympus, we now saw
+before us the long headland which forms his south-western extremity. A
+storm was arising from the sea of Marmora, and heavy white clouds settled
+on the topmost summits of the mountain. The wind began to blow fresh and
+cool, and when we had reached a height overlooking the deep valley, in the
+bottom of which lies the picturesque village of Ak-su, there were long
+showery lines coming up from the sea, and a filmy sheet of gray rain
+descended between us and Olympus, throwing his vast bulk far into the
+background. At Ak-su, the first shower met us, pouring so fast and thick
+that we were obliged to put on our capotes, and halt under a walnut-tree
+for shelter. But it soon passed over, laying the dust, for the time, and
+making the air sweet and cool.
+
+We pushed forward over heights covered with young forests of oak, which
+are protected by the government, in order that they may furnish
+ship-timber. On the right, we looked down into magnificent valleys,
+opening towards the west into the the plain of Brousa; but when, in the
+middle of the afternoon, we reached the last height, and saw the great
+plain itself, the climax was attained. It was the crown of all that we had
+yet seen. This superb plain or valley, thirty miles long, by five in
+breadth, spread away to the westward, between the mighty mass of Olympus
+on the one side, and a range of lofty mountains on the other, the sides of
+which presented a charming mixture of forest and cultivated land. Olympus,
+covered with woods of beech and oak, towered to the clouds that concealed
+his snowy head; and far in advance, under the last cape he threw out
+towards the sea, the hundred minarets of Brousa stretched in a white and
+glittering line, like the masts of a navy, whose hulls were buried in the
+leafy sea. No words can describe the beauty of the valley, the blending of
+the richest cultivation with the wildest natural luxuriance. Here were
+gardens and orchards; there groves of superb chestnut-trees in blossom;
+here, fields of golden grain or green pasture-land; there, Arcadian
+thickets overgrown with clematis and wild rose; here, lofty poplars
+growing beside the streams; there, spiry cypresses looking down from the
+slopes: and all blended in one whole, so rich, so grand, so gorgeous, that
+I scarcely breathed when it first burst upon me.
+
+And now we descended to its level, and rode westward along the base of
+Olympus, grandest of Asian mountains. This after-storm view, although his
+head was shrouded, was sublime. His base is a vast sloping terrace,
+leagues in length, resembling the nights of steps by which the ancient
+temples were approached. From this foundation rise four mighty pyramids,
+two thousand feet in height, and completely mantled with forests. They are
+very nearly regular in their form and size, and are flanked to the east
+and west by headlands, or abutments, the slopes of which are longer and
+more gradual, as if to strengthen the great structure. Piled upon the four
+pyramids are others nearly as large, above whose green pinnacles appear
+still other and higher ones, bare and bleak, and clustering thickly
+together, to uphold the great central dome of snow. Between the bases of
+the lowest, the streams which drain the gorges of the mountain issue
+forth, cutting their way through the foundation terrace, and widening
+their beds downwards to the plain, like the throats of bugles, where, in
+winter rains, they pour forth the hoarse, grand monotone of their Olympian
+music. These broad beds are now dry and stony tracts, dotted all over with
+clumps of dwarfed sycamores and threaded by the summer streams, shrunken
+in bulk, but still swift, cold, and clear as ever.
+
+We reached the city before night, and François is glad to find his
+presentiment fulfilled. We have safely passed through the untravelled
+heart of Asia Minor, and are now almost in sight of Europe. The camp-fire
+is extinguished; the tent is furled. We are no longer happy nomads,
+masquerading in Moslem garb. We shall soon become prosaic Christians, and
+meekly hold out our wrists for the handcuffs of Civilization. Ah, prate
+as we will of the progress of the race, we are but forging additional
+fetters, unless we preserve that healthy physical development, those pure
+pleasures of mere animal existence, which are now only to be found among
+our semi-barbaric brethren. Our progress is nervous, when it should be
+muscular.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV.
+
+Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.
+
+
+  The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
+  Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
+  Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
+  the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
+  Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Caïque--Breakfast with
+  the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
+  View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn.
+
+
+  "And we glode fast o'er a pellucid plain
+  Of waters, azure with the noontide ray.
+  Ethereal mountains shone around--a fane
+  Stood in the midst, beyond green isles which lay
+  On the blue, sunny deep, resplendent far away."
+
+  Shelley.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Monday, July_ 12, 1852.
+
+Before entering Brousa, we passed the whole length of the town, which is
+built on the side of Olympus, and on three bluffs or spurs which project
+from it. The situation is more picturesque than that of Damascus, and from
+the remarkable number of its white domes and minarets, shooting upward
+from the groves of chestnut, walnut, and cypress-trees, the city is even
+more beautiful. There are large mosques on all the most prominent points,
+and, near the centre of the city, the ruins of an ancient castle, built
+upon a crag. The place, as we rode along, presented a shifting diorama of
+delightful views. The hotel is at the extreme western end of the city, not
+far from its celebrated hot baths. It is a new building, in European
+style, and being built high on the slope, commands one of the most
+glorious prospects I ever enjoyed from windows made with hands. What a
+comfort it was to go up stairs into a clean, bright, cheerful room; to
+drop at full length on a broad divan; to eat a Christian meal; to smoke a
+narghileh of the softest Persian tobacco; and finally, most exquisite of
+all luxuries, to creep between cool, clean sheets, on a curtained bed, and
+find it impossible to sleep on account of the delicious novelty of the
+sensation!
+
+At night, another storm came up from the Sea of Marmora. Tremendous peals
+of thunder echoed in the gorges of Olympus and sharp, broad flashes of
+lightning gave us blinding glimpses of the glorious plain below. The rain
+fell in heavy showers, but our tent-life was just closed, and we sat
+securely at our windows and enjoyed the sublime scene.
+
+The sun, rising over the distant mountains of Isnik, shone full in my
+face, awaking me to a morning view of the valley, which, freshened by the
+night's thunder-storm, shone wonderfully bright and clear. After coffee,
+we went to see the baths, which are on the side of the mountain, a mile
+from the hotel. The finest one, called the Kalputcha Hammam, is at the
+base of the hill. The entrance hall is very large, and covered by two
+lofty domes. In the centre is a large marble urn-shaped fountain, pouring
+out an abundant flood of cold water. Out of this, we passed into an
+immense rotunda, filled with steam and traversed by long pencils of light,
+falling from holes in the roof. A small but very beautiful marble fountain
+cast up a jet of cold water in the centre. Beyond this was still another
+hall, of the same size, but with a circular basin, twenty-five feet in
+diameter, in the centre. The floor was marble mosaic, and the basin was
+lined with brilliantly-colored tiles. It was kept constantly full by the
+natural hot streams of the mountain. There were a number of persons in the
+pool, but the atmosphere was so hot that we did not long disturb them by
+our curiosity.
+
+We then ascended to the Armenian bath, which is the neatest of all, but it
+was given up to the women, and we were therefore obliged to go to a
+Turkish one adjoining. The room into which we were taken was so hot that a
+violent perspiration immediately broke out all over my body, and by the
+time the _dellèks_ were ready to rasp me, I was as limp as a wet towel,
+and as plastic as a piece of putty. The man who took me was sweated away
+almost to nothing; his very bones appeared to have become soft and
+pliable. The water was slightly sulphureous, and the pailfuls which he
+dashed over my head were so hot that they produced the effect of a
+chill--a violent nervous shudder. The temperature of the springs is 180°
+Fahrenheit, and I suppose the tank into which he afterwards plunged me
+must have been nearly up to the mark. When, at last, I was laid on the
+couch, my body was so parboiled that I perspired at all pores for full an
+hour--a feeling too warm and unpleasant at first, but presently merging
+into a mood which was wholly rapturous and heavenly. I was like a soft
+white cloud, that rests all of a summer afternoon on the peak of a distant
+mountain. I felt the couch on which I lay no more than the cloud might
+feel the cliffs on which it lingers so airily. I saw nothing but peaceful,
+glorious sights; spaces of clear blue sky; stretches of quiet lawns;
+lovely valleys threaded by the gentlest of streams; azure lakes, unruffled
+by a breath; calms far out on mid-ocean, and Alpine peaks bathed in the
+flush of an autumnal sunset. My mind retraced all our journey from
+Aleppo, and there was a halo over every spot I had visited. I dwelt with
+rapture on the piny hills of Phrygia, on the gorges of Taurus, on the
+beechen solitudes of Olympus. Would to heaven that I might describe those
+scenes as I then felt them! All was revealed to me: the heart of Nature
+lay bare, and I read the meaning and knew the inspiration of her every
+mood. Then, as my frame grew cooler, and the fragrant clouds of the
+narghileh, which had helped my dreams, diminished, I was like that same
+summer cloud, when it feels a gentle breeze and is lifted above the hills,
+floating along independent of Earth, but for its shadow.
+
+Brousa is a very long, straggling place, extending for three or four miles
+along the side of the mountain, but presenting a very picturesque
+appearance from every point. The houses are nearly all three stories high,
+built of wood and unburnt bricks, and each story projects over the other,
+after the manner of German towns of the Middle Ages. They have not the
+hanging balconies which I have found so quaint and pleasing in Kiutahya.
+But, especially in the Greek quarter, many of them are plastered and
+painted of some bright color, which gives a gay, cheerful appearance to
+the streets. Besides, Brousa is the cleanest Turkish town I have seen. The
+mountain streams traverse most of the streets, and every heavy rain washes
+them out thoroughly. The whole city has a brisk, active air, and the
+workmen appear both more skilful and more industrious than in the other
+parts of Asia Minor. I noticed a great many workers in copper, iron, and
+wood, and an extensive manufactory of shoes and saddles. Brousa, however,
+is principally noted for its silks, which are produced in this valley,
+and others to the South and East. The manufactories are near the city. I
+looked over some of the fabrics in the bazaars, but found them nearly all
+imitations of European stuffs, woven in mixed silk and cotton, and even
+more costly than the silks of Damascus.
+
+We passed the whole length of the bazaars, and then, turning up one of the
+side streets on our right, crossed a deep ravine by a high stone bridge.
+Above and below us there were other bridges, under which a stream flowed
+down from the mountains. Thence we ascended the height, whereon stands the
+largest and one of the oldest mosques in Brousa. The position is
+remarkably fine, commanding a view of nearly the whole city and the plain
+below it. We entered the court-yard boldly, François taking the precaution
+to speak to me only in Arabic, as there was a Turk within. Mr. H. went to
+the fountain, washed his hands and face, but did not dare to swallow a
+drop, putting on a most dolorous expression of countenance, as if
+perishing with thirst. The mosque was a plain, square building, with a
+large dome and two minarets. The door was a rich and curious specimen of
+the _stalactitic_ style, so frequent in Saracenic buildings. We peeped
+into the windows, and, although the mosque, which does not appear to be in
+common use, was darkened, saw enough to show that the interior was quite
+plain.
+
+Just above this edifice stands a large octagonal tomb, surmounted by a
+dome, and richly adorned with arabesque cornices and coatings of green and
+blue tiles. It stood in a small garden inclosure, and there was a sort of
+porter's lodge at the entrance. As we approached, an old gray-bearded man
+in a green turban came out, and, on François requesting entrance for us,
+took a key and conducted us to the building. He had not the slightest idea
+of our being Christians. We took off our slippers before touching the
+lintel of the door, as the place was particularly holy. Then, throwing
+open the door, the old man lingered a few moments after we entered, so as
+not to disturb our prayers--a mark of great respect. We advanced to the
+edge of the parapet, turned our faces towards Mecca, and imitated the
+usual Mohammedan prayer on entering a mosque, by holding both arms
+outspread for a few moments, then bringing the hands together and bowing
+the face upon them. This done, we leisurely examined the building, and the
+old man was ready enough to satisfy our curiosity. It was a rich and
+elegant structure, lighted from the dome. The walls were lined with
+brilliant tiles, and had an elaborate cornice, with Arabic inscriptions in
+gold. The floor was covered with a carpet, whereon stood eight or ten
+ancient coffins, surrounding a larger one which occupied a raised platform
+in the centre. They were all of wood, heavily carved, and many of them
+entirely covered with gilded inscriptions. These, according to the old
+man, were the coffins of the Ottoman Sultans, who had reigned at Brousa
+previous to the taking of Constantinople, with some members of their
+families. There were four Sultans, among whom were Mahomet I., and a
+certain Achmet. Orchan, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty, is buried
+somewhere in Brousa, and the great central coffin may have been his.
+François and I talked entirely in Arabic, and the old man asked: "Who are
+these Hadjis?" whereupon F. immediately answered: "They are Effendis from
+Baghdad."
+
+We had intended making the ascent of Olympus, but the summit was too
+thickly covered with clouds. On the morning of the second day, therefore,
+we determined to take up the line of march for Constantinople. The last
+scene of our strange, eventful history with the katurgees had just
+transpired, by their deserting us, being two hundred piastres in our debt.
+They left their khan on the afternoon after our arrival, ostensibly for
+the purpose of taking their beasts out to pasture, and were never heard of
+more. We let them go, thankful that they had not played the trick sooner.
+We engaged fresh horses for Moudania, on the Sea of Marmora, and
+dispatched François in advance, to procure a caïque for Constantinople,
+while we waited to have our passports signed. But after waiting an hour,
+as there was no appearance of the precious documents, we started the
+baggage also, under the charge of a _surroudjee_, and remained alone.
+Another hour passed by, and yet another, and the Bey was still occupied in
+sleeping off his hunger. Mr. Harrison, in desperation, went to the office,
+and after some delay, received the passports with a visè, but not, as we
+afterwards discovered, the necessary one.
+
+It was four o'clock by the time we left Brousa. Our horses were stiff,
+clumsy pack-beasts; but, by dint of whips and the sharp shovel-stirrups,
+we forced them into a trot and made them keep it. The road was well
+travelled, and by asking everybody we met: "_Bou yôl Moudania yedermi_?"
+("Is this the way to Moudania?"), we had no difficulty in finding it. The
+plain in many places is marshy, and traversed by several streams. A low
+range of hills stretches across, and nearly closes it, the united waters
+finding their outlet by a narrow valley to the north. From the top of the
+hill we had a grand view, looking back over the plain, with the long line
+of Brousa's minarets glittering through the interminable groves at the
+foot of the mountain Olympus now showed a superb outline; the clouds hung
+about his shoulders, but his snowy head was bare. Before us lay a broad,
+rich valley, extending in front to the mountains of Moudania. The country
+was well cultivated, with large farming establishments here and there.
+
+The sun was setting as we reached the summit ridge, where stood a little
+guard-house. As we rode over the crest, Olympus disappeared, and the Sea
+of Marmora lay before us, spreading out from the Gulf of Moudania, which
+was deep and blue among the hills, to an open line against the sunset.
+Beyond that misty line lay Europe, which I had not seen for nearly nine
+months, and the gulf below me was the bound of my tent and saddle life.
+But one hour more, old horse! Have patience with my Ethiopian thong, and
+the sharp corners of my Turkish stirrups: but one hour more, and I promise
+never to molest you again! Our path was downward, and I marvel that the
+poor brute did not sometimes tumble headlong with me. He had been too long
+used to the pack, however, and his habits were as settled as a Turk's. We
+passed a beautiful village in a valley on the right, and came into olive
+groves and vineyards, as the dusk was creeping on. It was a lovely country
+of orchards and gardens, with fountains spouting by the wayside, and
+country houses perched on the steeps. In another hour, we reached the
+sea-shore. It was now nearly dark, but we could see the tower of Moudania
+some distance to the west.
+
+Still in a continual trot, we rode on; and as we drew near, Mr. H. fired
+his gun to announce our approach. At the entrance of the town, we found
+the sourrudjee waiting to conduct us. We clattered through the rough
+streets for what seemed an endless length of time. The Ramazan gun had
+just fired, the minarets were illuminated, and the coffee-houses were
+filled with people. Finally, François, who had been almost in despair at
+our non-appearance, hailed us with the welcome news that he had engaged a
+caïque, and that our baggage was already embarked. We only needed the
+visès of the authorities, in order to leave. He took our teskerés to get
+them, and we went upon the balcony of a coffee-house overhanging the sea,
+and smoked a narghileh.
+
+But here there was another history. The teskerés had not been properly
+visèd at Brousa, and the Governor at first decided to send us back. Taking
+François, however, for a Turk, and finding that we had regularly passed
+quarantine, he signed them after a delay of an hour and a half, and we
+left the shore, weary, impatient, and wolfish with twelve hours' fasting.
+A cup of Brousan beer and a piece of bread brought us into a better mood,
+and I, who began to feel sick from the rolling of the caïque, lay down on
+my bed, which was spread at the bottom, and found a kind of uneasy sleep.
+The sail was hoisted at first, to get us across the mouth of the Gulf, but
+soon the Greeks took to their oars. They were silent, however, and though
+I only slept by fits, the night wore away rapidly. As the dawn was
+deepening, we ran into a little bight in the northern side of a
+promontory, where a picturesque Greek village stood at the foot of the
+mountains. The houses were of wood, with balconies overgrown with
+grape-vines, and there was a fountain of cold, excellent water on the very
+beach. Some Greek boatmen were smoking in the portico of a café on shore,
+and two fishermen, who had been out before dawn to catch sardines, were
+emptying their nets of the spoil. Our men kindled a fire on the sand, and
+roasted us a dish of the fish. Some of the last night's hunger remained,
+and the meal had enough of that seasoning to be delicious.
+
+After giving our men an hour's rest, we set off for the Princes' Islands,
+which now appeared to the north, over the glassy plain of the sea. The
+Gulf of Iskmid, or Nicomedia, opened away to the east, between two
+mountain headlands. The morning was intensely hot and sultry, and but for
+the protection of an umbrella, we should have suffered greatly. There was
+a fiery blue vapor on the sea, and a thunder-cloud hid the shores of
+Thrace. Now and then came a light puff of wind, whereupon the men would
+ship the little mast, and crowd on an enormous quantity of sail. So,
+sailing and rowing, we neared the islands with the storm, but it advanced
+slowly enough to allow a sight of the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed, gleaming far and white, like icebergs astray on a torrid sea.
+Another cloud was pouring its rain over the Asian shore, and we made haste
+to get to the landing at Prinkipo before it could reach us. From the
+south, the group of islands is not remarkable for beauty. Only four of
+them--Prinkipo, Chalki, Prote, and Antigone--are inhabited, the other five
+being merely barren rocks.
+
+There is an ancient convent on the summit of Prinkipo, where the Empress
+Irene--the contemporary of Charlemagne--is buried. The town is on the
+northern side of the island, and consists mostly of the summer residences
+of Greek and Armenian merchants. Many of these are large and stately
+houses, surrounded with handsome gardens. The streets are shaded with
+sycamores, and the number of coffee-houses shows that the place is much
+frequented on festal days. A company of drunken Greeks were singing in
+violation of all metre and harmony--a discord the more remarkable, since
+nothing could be more affectionate than their conduct towards each other.
+Nearly everybody was in Frank costume, and our Oriental habits, especially
+the red Tartar boots, attracted much observation. I began to feel awkward
+and absurd, and longed to show myself a Christian once more.
+
+Leaving Prinkipo, we made for Constantinople, whose long array of marble
+domes and gilded spires gleamed like a far mirage over the waveless sea.
+It was too faint and distant and dazzling to be substantial. It was like
+one of those imaginary cities which we build in a cloud fused in the light
+of the setting sun. But as we neared the point of Chalcedon, running along
+the Asian shore, those airy piles gathered form and substance. The
+pinnacles of the Seraglio shot up from the midst of cypress groves;
+fantastic kiosks lined the shore; the minarets of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed rose more clearly against the sky; and a fleet of steamers and
+men-of-war, gay with flags, marked the entrance of the Golden Horn. We
+passed the little bay where St. Chrysostom was buried, the point of
+Chalcedon, and now, looking up the renowned Bosphorus, saw the Maiden's
+Tower, opposite Scutari. An enormous pile, the barracks of the Anatolian
+soldiery, hangs over the high bank, and, as we row abreast of it, a fresh
+breeze comes up from the Sea of Marmora. The prow of the caïque is turned
+across the stream, the sail is set, and we glide rapidly and noiselessly
+over the Bosphorus and into the Golden Horn, between the banks of the
+Frank and Moslem--Pera and Stamboul. Where on the earth shall we find a
+panorama more magnificent?
+
+The air was filled with the shouts and noises of the great Oriental
+metropolis; the water was alive with caïques and little steamers; and all
+the world of work and trade, which had grown almost to be a fable,
+welcomed us back to its restless heart. We threaded our rather perilous
+way over the populous waves, and landed in a throng of Custom-House
+officers and porters, on the wharf at Galata.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI.
+
+The Night of Predestination.
+
+
+  Constantinople in Ramazan--The Origin of the Fast--Nightly
+  Illuminations--The Night of Predestination--The Golden Horn at
+  Night--Illumination of the Shores--The Cannon of Constantinople--A Fiery
+  Panorama--The Sultan's Caïque--Close of the Celebration--A Turkish
+  Mob--The Dancing Dervishes.
+
+
+  "Skies full of splendid moons and shooting stars,
+  And spouting exhalations, diamond fires." Keats.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Wednesday, July_ 14, 1862.
+
+Constantinople, during the month of Ramazan, presents a very different
+aspect from Constantinople at other times. The city, it is true, is much
+more stern and serious during the day; there is none of that gay, careless
+life of the Orient which you see in Smyrna, Cairo, and Damascus; but when
+once the sunset gun has fired, and the painful fast is at an end, the
+picture changes as if by magic. In all the outward symbols of their
+religion, the Mussulmans show their joy at being relieved from what they
+consider a sacred duty. During the day, it is quite a science to keep the
+appetite dormant, and the people not only abstain from eating and
+drinking, but as much as possible from the sight of food. In the bazaars,
+you see the famished merchants either sitting, propped back against their
+cushions, with the shawl about their stomachs, tightened so as to prevent
+the void under it from being so sensibly felt, or lying at full length in
+the vain attempt to sleep. It is whispered here that many of the Turks
+will both eat and smoke, when there is no chance of detection, but no one
+would dare infringe the fast in public. Most of the mechanics and porters
+are Armenians, and the boatmen are Greeks.
+
+I have endeavored to ascertain the origin of this fast month. The Syrian
+Christians say that it is a mere imitation of an incident which happened
+to Mahomet. The Prophet, having lost his camels, went day after day
+seeking them in the Desert, taking no nourishment from the time of his
+departure in the morning until his return at sunset. After having sought
+them thus daily, for the period of one entire moon, he found them, and in
+token of joy, gave a three days' feast to the tribe, now imitated in the
+festival of Bairam, which lasts for three days after the close of Ramazan.
+This reason, however, seems too trifling for such a rigid fast, and the
+Turkish tradition, that the Koran was sent down from heaven during this
+month, offers a more probable explanation. During the fast, the
+Mussulmans, as is quite natural, are much more fanatical than at other
+times. They are obliged to attend prayers at the mosque every night, or to
+have a _mollah_ read the Koran to them at their own houses. All the
+prominent features of their religion are kept constantly before their
+eyes, and their natural aversion to the Giaour, or Infidel, is increased
+tenfold. I have heard of several recent instances in which strangers have
+been exposed to insults and indignities.
+
+At dusk the minarets are illuminated; a peal of cannon from the Arsenal,
+echoed by others from the forts along the Bosphorus, relieves the
+suffering followers of the Prophet, and after an hour of silence, during
+which they are all at home, feasting, the streets are filled with noisy
+crowds, and every coffee-shop is thronged. Every night there are
+illuminations along the water, which, added to the crowns of light
+sparkling on the hundred minarets and domes, give a magical effect to the
+night view of the city. Towards midnight there is again a season of
+comparative quiet, most of the inhabitants having retired to rest; but,
+about two hours afterwards a watchman comes along with a big drum, which
+he beats lustily before the doors of the Faithful, in order to arouse them
+in time to eat again before the daylight-gun, which announces the
+commencement of another day's fast.
+
+Last night was the holiest night of Islam, being the twenty-fifth of the
+fast. It is called the _Leilet-el-Kadr,_ or Night of the Predestination,
+the anniversary of that on which the Koran was miraculously communicated
+to the Prophet. On this night the Sultan, accompanied by his whole suite,
+attends service at the mosque, and on his return to the Seraglio, the
+Sultana Valide, or Sultana-Mother, presents him with a virgin from one of
+the noble families of Constantinople. Formerly, St. Sophia was the theatre
+of this celebration, but this year the Sultan chose the Mosque of
+Tophaneh, which stands on the shore--probably as being nearer to his
+imperial palace at Beshiktashe, on the Bosphorus. I consider myself
+fortunate in having reached Constantinople in season to witness this
+ceremony, and the illumination of the Golden Horn, which accompanies it.
+
+After sunset the mosques crowning the hills of Stamboul, the mosque of
+Tophaneh, on this side of the water, and the Turkish men-of-war and
+steamers afloat at the mouth of the Golden Horn, began to blaze with more
+than their usual brilliance. The outlines of the minarets and domes were
+drawn in light on the deepening gloom, and the masts and yards of the
+vessel were hung with colored lanterns. From the battery in front of the
+mosque and arsenal of Tophaneh a blaze of intense light streamed out over
+the water, illuminating the gliding forms of a thousand caïques, and the
+dark hulls of the vessels lying at anchor. The water is the best place
+from which to view the illumination, and a party of us descended to the
+landing-place. The streets of Tophaneh were crowded with swarms of Turks,
+Greeks and Armenians. The square around the fountain was brilliantly
+lighted, and venders of sherbet and kaïmak were ranged along the
+sidewalks. In the neighborhood of the mosque the crowd was so dense that
+we could with difficulty make our way through. All the open space next the
+water was filled up with the clumsy _arabas_, or carriages of the Turks,
+in which sat the wives of the Pashas and other dignitaries.
+
+We took a caïque, and were soon pulled out into the midst of a multitude
+of other caïques, swarming all over the surface of the Golden Horn. The
+view from this point was strange, fantastic, yet inconceivably gorgeous.
+In front, three or four large Turkish frigates lay in the Bosphorus, their
+hulls and spars outlined in fire against the dark hills and distant
+twinkling lights of Asia. Looking to the west, the shores of the Golden
+Horn were equally traced by the multitude of lamps that covered them, and
+on either side, the hills on which the city is built rose from the
+water--masses of dark buildings, dotted all over with shafts and domes of
+the most brilliant light. The gateway on Seraglio Point was illuminated,
+as well as the quay in front of the mosque of Tophaneh, all the cannons of
+the battery being covered with lamps. The commonest objects shared in the
+splendor, even a large lever used for hoisting goods being hung with
+lanterns from top to bottom. The mosque was a mass of light, and between
+the tall minarets flanking it, burned the inscription, in Arabic
+characters, "Long life to you, O our Sovereign!"
+
+The discharge of a cannon announced the Sultan's departure from his
+palace, and immediately the guns on the frigates and the batteries on both
+shores took up the salute, till the grand echoes, filling the hollow
+throat of the Golden Horn, crashed from side to side, striking the hills
+of Scutari and the point of Chalcedon, and finally dying away among the
+summits of the Princes' Islands, out on the Sea of Marmora. The hulls of
+the frigates were now lighted up with intense chemical fires, and an
+abundance of rockets were spouted from their decks. A large Drummond light
+on Seraglio Point, and another at the Battery of Tophaneh, poured their
+rival streams across the Golden Horn, revealing the thousands of caïques
+jostling each other from shore to shore, and the endless variety of gay
+costumes with which they were filled. The smoke of the cannon hanging in
+the air, increased the effect of this illumination, and became a screen of
+auroral brightness, through which the superb spectacle loomed with large
+and unreal features. It was a picture of air--a phantasmagoric spectacle,
+built of luminous vapor and meteoric fires, and hanging in the dark round
+of space. In spite of ourselves, we became eager and excited, half fearing
+that the whole pageant would dissolve the next moment, and leave no trace
+behind.
+
+Meanwhile, the cannon thundered from a dozen batteries, and the rockets
+burst into glittering rain over our heads. Grander discharges I never
+heard; the earth shook and trembled under the mighty bursts of sound, and
+the reverberation which rattled along the hill of Galata, broken by the
+scattered buildings into innumerable fragments of sound, resembled the
+crash of a thousand falling houses. The distant echoes from Asia and the
+islands in the sea filled up the pauses between the nearer peals, and we
+seemed to be in the midst of some great naval engagement. But now the
+caïque of the Sultan is discerned, approaching from the Bosphorus. A
+signal is given, and a sunrise of intense rosy and golden radiance
+suddenly lights up the long arsenal and stately mosque of Tophaneh, plays
+over the tall buildings on the hill of Pera, and falls with a fainter
+lustre on the Genoese watch-tower that overlooks Galata. It is impossible
+to describe the effect of this magical illumination. The mosque, with its
+taper minarets, its airy galleries, and its great central dome, is built
+of compact, transparent flame, and in the shifting of the red and yellow
+fires, seems to flicker and waver in the air. It is as lofty, and
+gorgeous, and unsubstantial as the cloudy palace in Cole's picture of
+"Youth." The long white front of the arsenal is fused in crimson heat, and
+burns against the dark as if it were one mass of living coal. And over all
+hangs the luminous canopy of smoke, redoubling its lustre on the waters of
+the Golden Horn, and mingling with the phosphorescent gleams that play
+around the oars of the caïques.
+
+A long barge, propelled by sixteen oars, glides around the dark corner of
+Tophaneh, and shoots into the clear, brilliant space in front of the
+mosque. It is not lighted, and passes with great swiftness towards the
+brilliant landing-place. There are several persons seated under a canopy
+in the stern, and we are trying to decide which is the Sultan, when a
+second boat, driven by twenty-four oarsmen, comes in sight. The men rise
+up at each stroke, and the long, sharp craft flies over the surface of
+the water, rather than forces its way through it. A gilded crown surmounts
+the long, curved prow, and a light though superb canopy covers the stern.
+Under this, we catch a glimpse of the Sultan and Grand Vizier, as they
+appear for an instant like black silhouettes against the burst of light on
+shore.
+
+After the Sultan had entered the mosque, the fires diminished and the
+cannon ceased, though the illuminated masts, minarets and gateways still
+threw a brilliant gleam over the scene. After more than an hour spent in
+devotion, he again entered his caïque and sped away to greet his new wife,
+amid a fresh discharge from the frigates and the batteries on both shores,
+and a new dawn of auroral splendor. We made haste to reach the
+landing-place, in order to avoid the crowd of caïques; but, although we
+were among the first, we came near being precipitated into the water, in
+the struggle to get ashore. The market-place at Tophaneh was so crowded
+that nothing but main force brought us through, and some of our party had
+their pockets picked. A number of Turkish soldiers and police-men were
+mixed up in the melee, and they were not sparing of blows when they came
+in contact with a Giaour. In making my way through, I found that a
+collision with one of the soldiers was inevitable, but I managed to plump
+against him with such force as to take the breath out of his body, and was
+out of his reach before he had recovered himself. I saw several Turkish
+women striking right and left in their endeavors to escape, and place
+their hands against the faces of those who opposed them, pushing them
+aside. This crowd was contrived by thieves, for the purpose of plunder,
+and, from what I have since learned, must have been very successful.
+
+I visited to-day the College of the Mevlevi Dervishes at Pera, and
+witnessed their peculiar ceremonies. They assemble in a large hall, where
+they take their seats in a semi-circle, facing the shekh. After going
+through several times with the usual Moslem prayer, they move in slow
+march around the room, while a choir in the gallery chants Arabic phrases
+in a manner very similar to the mass in Catholic churches. I could
+distinguish the sentences "God is great," "Praise be to God," and other
+similar ejaculations. The chant was accompanied with a drum and flute, and
+had not lasted long before the Dervishes set themselves in a rotary
+motion, spinning slowly around the shekh, who stood in the centre. They
+stretched both arms out, dropped their heads on one side, and glided
+around with a steady, regular motion, their long white gowns spread out
+and floating on the air. Their steps were very similar to those of the
+modern waltz, which, it is possible, may have been derived from the dance
+of the Mevlevis. Baron Von Hammer finds in this ceremony an imitation of
+the dance of the spheres, in the ancient Samothracian Mysteries; but I see
+no reason to go so far back for its origin. The dance lasted for about
+twenty minutes, and the Dervishes appeared very much exhausted at the
+close, as they are obliged to observe the fast very strictly.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII.
+
+The Solemnities of Bairam.
+
+
+  The Appearance of the New Moon--The Festival of Bairam--The Interior of
+  the Seraglio--The Pomp of the Sultan's Court--Rescind Pasha--The
+  Sultan's Dwarf--Arabian Stallions--The Imperial Guard--Appearance of the
+  Sultan--The Inner Court--Return of the Procession--The Sultan on his
+  Throne--The Homage of the Pashas--An Oriental Picture--Kissing the
+  Scarf--The Shekh el-Islàm--The Descendant of the Caliphs--Bairam
+  Commences.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Monday_, _July_ 19, 1852.
+
+Saturday was the last day of the fast-month of Ramazan, and yesterday the
+celebration of the solemn festival of Bairam took place. The moon changed
+on Friday morning at 11 o'clock, but as the Turks have no faith in
+astronomy, and do not believe the moon has actually changed until they see
+it, all good Mussulmen were obliged to fast an additional day. Had
+Saturday been cloudy, and the new moon invisible, I am not sure but the
+fast would have been still further prolonged. A good look-out was kept,
+however, and about four o'clock on Saturday afternoon some sharp eyes saw
+the young crescent above the sun. There is a hill near Gemlik, on the Gulf
+of Moudania, about fifty miles from here, whence the Turks believe the new
+moon can be first seen. The families who live on this hill are exempted
+from taxation, in consideration of their keeping a watch for the moon, at
+the close of Ramazan. A series of signals, from hill to hill, is in
+readiness, and the news is transmitted to Constantinople in a very short
+time Then, when the muezzin proclaims the _asser_, or prayer two hours
+before sunset, he proclaims also the close of Ramazan. All the batteries
+fire a salute, and the big guns along the water announce the joyful news
+to all parts of the city. The forts on the Bosphorus take up the tale, and
+both shores, from the Black Sea to the Propontis, shake with the burden of
+their rejoicing. At night the mosques are illuminated for the last time,
+for it is only during Ramazan that they are lighted, or open for night
+service.
+
+After Ramazan, comes the festival of Bairam, which lasts three days, and
+is a season of unbounded rejoicing. The bazaars are closed, no Turk does
+any work, but all, clothed in their best dresses, or in an entire new suit
+if they can afford it, pass the time in feasting, in paying visits, or in
+making excursions to the shores of the Bosphorus, or other favorite spots
+around Constantinople. The festival is inaugurated by a solemn state
+ceremony, at the Seraglio and the mosque of Sultan Achmed, whither the
+Sultan goes in procession, accompanied by all the officers of the
+Government. This is the last remaining pageant which has been spared to
+the Ottoman monarchs by the rigorous reforming measures of Sultan Mahmoud,
+and shorn as it is of much of its former splendor, it probably surpasses
+in brilliant effect any spectacle which any other European Court can
+present. The ceremonies which take place inside of the Seraglio were,
+until within three or four years, prohibited to Frank eyes, and travellers
+were obliged to content themselves with a view of the procession, as it
+passed to the mosque. Through the kindness of Mr. Brown, of the American
+Embassy, I was enabled to witness the entire solemnity, in all its
+details.
+
+As the procession leaves the Seraglio at sunrise, we rose with the first
+streak of dawn, descended to Tophaneh, and crossed to Seraglio Point,
+where the cavass of the Embassy was in waiting for us. He conducted us
+through the guards, into the garden of the Seraglio, and up the hill to
+the Palace. The Capudan Pasha, or Lord High Admiral, had just arrived in a
+splendid caïque, and pranced up the hill before us on a magnificent
+stallion, whose trappings blazed with jewels and gold lace. The rich
+uniforms of the different officers of the army and marine glittered far
+and near under the dense shadows of the cypress trees, and down the dark
+alleys where the morning twilight had not penetrated. We were ushered into
+the great outer court-yard of the Seraglio, leading to the Sublime Porte.
+A double row of marines, in scarlet jackets and white trowsers, extended
+from one gate to the other, and a very excellent brass band played "_Suoni
+la tromba_" with much spirit. The groups of Pashas and other officers of
+high rank, with their attendants, gave the scene a brilliant character of
+festivity. The costumes, except those of the secretaries and servants,
+were after the European model, but covered with a lavish profusion of gold
+lace. The horses were all of the choicest Eastern breeds, and the broad
+housings of their saddles of blue, green, purple, and crimson cloth, were
+enriched with gold lace, rubies, emeralds and turquoises.
+
+The cavass took us into a chamber near the gate, and commanding a view of
+the whole court. There we found Mr. Brown and his lady, with several
+officers from the U.S. steamer San Jacinto. At this moment the sun,
+appearing above the hill of Bulgaria, behind Scutari, threw his earliest
+rays upon the gilded pinnacles of the Seraglio. The commotion in the long
+court-yard below increased. The marines were formed into exact line, the
+horses of the officers clattered on the rough pavement as they dashed
+about to expedite the arrangements, the crowd pressed closer to the line
+of the procession, and in five minutes the grand pageant was set in
+motion. As the first Pasha made his appearance under the dark archway of
+the interior gate, the band struck up the _Marseillaise_ (which is a
+favorite air among the Turks), and the soldiers presented arms. The
+court-yard was near two hundred yards long, and the line of Pashas, each
+surrounded with the officers of his staff, made a most dazzling show. The
+lowest in rank came first. I cannot recollect the precise order, nor the
+names of all of them, which, in fact, are of little consequence, while
+power and place are such uncertain matters in Turkey.
+
+Each Pasha wore the red fez on his head, a frock-coat of blue cloth, the
+breast of which was entirely covered with gold lace, while a broad band of
+the same decorated the skirts, and white pantaloons. One of the Ministers,
+Mehemet Ali Pasha, the brother-in-law of the Sultan, was formerly a
+cooper's apprentice, but taken, when a boy, by the late Sultan Mahmoud, to
+be a playmate for his son, on account of his extraordinary beauty. Rescind
+Pasha, the Grand Vizier, is a man of about sixty years of age. He is
+frequently called Giaour, or Infidel, by the Turks, on account of his
+liberal policy, which has made him many enemies. The expression of his
+face denotes intelligence, but lacks the energy necessary to accomplish
+great reforms. His son, a boy of about seventeen, already possesses the
+rank of Pasha, and is affianced to the Sultan's daughter, a child of ten,
+or twelve years old. He is a fat, handsome youth, with a sprightly face,
+and acted his part in the ceremonies with a nonchalance which made him
+appear graceful beside his stiff, dignified elders.
+
+After the Pashas came the entire household of the Sultan, including even
+his eunuchs, cooks, and constables. The Kislar Aga, or Chief Eunuch, a
+tall African in resplendent costume, is one of the most important
+personages connected with the Court. The Sultan's favorite dwarf, a little
+man about forty years old and three feet high, bestrode his horse with as
+consequential an air as any of them. A few years ago, this man took a
+notion to marry, and applied to the Sultan for a wife. The latter gave him
+permission to go into his harem and take the one whom he could kiss. The
+dwarf, like all short men, was ambitious to have a long wife. While the
+Sultan's five hundred women, who knew the terms according to which the
+dwarf was permitted to choose, were laughing at the amorous mannikin, he
+went up to one of the tallest and handsomest of them, and struck her a
+sudden blow on the stomach. She collapsed with the pain, and before she
+could recover he caught her by the neck and gave her the dreaded kiss. The
+Sultan kept his word, and the tall beauty is now the mother of the dwarfs
+children.
+
+The procession grows more brilliant as it advances, and the profound
+inclination made by the soldiers at the further end of the court,
+announces the approach of the Sultan himself. First come three led horses,
+of the noblest Arabian blood--glorious creatures, worthy to represent
+
+  "The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven,
+   And snort the morning from their nostrils,
+   Making their fiery gait above the glades."
+
+Their eyes were more keen and lustrous than the diamonds which studded
+their head-stalls, and the wealth of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires that
+gleamed on their trappings would have bought the possessions of a German
+Prince. After them came the Sultan's body-guard, a company of tall, strong
+men, in crimson tunics and white trousers, with lofty plumes of peacock
+feathers in their hats. Some of them carried crests of green feathers,
+fastened upon long staves. These superb horses and showy guards are the
+only relics of that barbaric pomp which characterized all State
+processions during the time of the Janissaries. In the centre of a hollow
+square of plume-bearing guards rode Abdul-Medjid himself, on a snow-white
+steed. Every one bowed profoundly as he passed along, but he neither
+looked to the right or left, nor made the slightest acknowledgment of the
+salutations. Turkish etiquette exacts the most rigid indifference on the
+part of the Sovereign, who, on all public occasions, never makes a
+greeting. Formerly, before the change of costume, the Sultan's turbans
+were carried before him in the processions, and the servants who bore them
+inclined them to one side and the other, in answer to the salutations of
+the crowd.
+
+Sultan Abdul-Medjid is a man of about thirty, though he looks older. He
+has a mild, amiable, weak face, dark eyes, a prominent nose, and short,
+dark brown mustaches and beard. His face is thin, and wrinkles are already
+making their appearance about the corners of his mouth and eyes. But for a
+certain vacancy of expression, he would be called a handsome man. He sits
+on his horse with much ease and grace, though there is a slight stoop in
+his shoulders. His legs are crooked, owing to which cause he appears
+awkward when on his feet, though he wears a long cloak to conceal the
+deformity. Sensual indulgence has weakened a constitution not naturally
+strong, and increased that mildness which has now become a defect in his
+character. He is not stern enough to be just, and his subjects are less
+fortunate under his easy rule than under the rod of his savage father,
+Mahmoud. He was dressed in a style of the utmost richness and elegance. He
+wore a red Turkish fez, with an immense rosette of brilliants, and a long,
+floating plume of bird-of-paradise feathers. The diamond in the centre of
+the rosette is of unusual size; it was picked up some years ago in the
+Hippodrome, and probably belonged to the treasury of the Greek Emperors.
+The breast and collar of his coat were one mass of diamonds, and sparkled
+in the early sun with a thousand rainbow gleams. His mantle of dark-blue
+cloth hung to his knees, concealing the deformity of his legs. He wore
+white pantaloons, white kid gloves, and patent leather boots, thrust into
+his golden stirrups.
+
+A few officers of the Imperial household followed behind the Sultan, and
+the procession then terminated. Including the soldiers, it contained from
+two to three thousand persons. The marines lined the way to the mosque of
+Sultan Achmed, and a great crowd of spectators filled up the streets and
+the square of the Hippodrome. Coffee was served to us, after which we were
+all conducted into the inner court of the Seraglio, to await the return of
+the cortège. This court is not more than half the size of the outer one,
+but is shaded with large sycamores, embellished with fountains, and
+surrounded with light and elegant galleries, in pure Saracenic style. The
+picture which it presented was therefore far richer and more
+characteristic of the Orient than the outer court, where the architecture
+is almost wholly after Italian models. The portals at either end rested
+on slender pillars, over which projected broad eaves, decorated with
+elaborate carved and gilded work, and above all rose a dome, surmounted by
+the Crescent. On the right, the tall chimneys of the Imperial kitchens
+towered above the walls. The sycamores threw their broad, cool shadows
+over the court, and groups of servants, in gala dresses, loitered about
+the corridors.
+
+After waiting nearly half an hour, the sound of music and the appearance
+of the Sultan's body-guard proclaimed the return of the procession. It
+came in reversed order, headed by the Sultan, after whom followed the
+Grand Vizier and other Ministers of the Imperial Council, and the Pashas,
+each surrounded by his staff of officers. The Sultan dismounted at the
+entrance to the Seraglio, and disappeared through the door. He was absent
+for more than half an hour, during which time he received the
+congratulations of his family, his wives, and the principal personages of
+his household, all of whom came to kiss his feet. Meanwhile, the Pashas
+ranged themselves in a semicircle around the arched and gilded portico.
+The servants of the Seraglio brought out a large Persian carpet, which
+they spread on the marble pavement. The throne, a large square seat,
+richly carved and covered with gilding, was placed in the centre, and a
+dazzling piece of cloth-of-gold thrown over the back of it. When the
+Sultan re-appeared, he took his seat thereon, placing his feet on a small
+footstool. The ceremony of kissing his feet now commenced. The first who
+had this honor was the Chief of the Emirs, an old man in a green robe,
+embroidered with pearls. He advanced to the throne, knelt, kissed the
+Sultan's patent-leather boot, and retired backward from the presence.
+
+The Ministers and Pashas followed in single file, and, after they had
+made the salutation, took their stations on the right hand of the throne.
+Most of them were fat, and their glittering frock-coats were buttoned so
+tightly that they seemed ready to burst. It required a great effort for
+them to rise from their knees. During all this time, the band was playing
+operatic airs, and as each Pasha knelt, a marshal, or master of
+ceremonies, with a silver wand, gave the signal to the Imperial Guard, who
+shouted at the top of their voices: "Prosperity to our Sovereign! May he
+live a thousand years!" This part of the ceremony was really grand and
+imposing. All the adjuncts were in keeping: the portico, wrought in rich
+arabesque designs; the swelling domes and sunlit crescents above; the
+sycamores and cypresses shading the court; the red tunics and peacock
+plumes of the guard; the monarch himself, radiant with jewels, as he sat
+in his chair of gold--all these features combined to form a stately
+picture of the lost Orient, and for the time Abdul-Medjid seemed the true
+representative of Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid.
+
+After the Pashas had finished, the inferior officers of the Army, Navy,
+and Civil Service followed, to the number of at least a thousand. They
+were not considered worthy to touch the Sultan's person, but kissed his
+golden scarf, which was held out to them by a Pasha, who stood on the left
+of the throne. The Grand Vizier had his place on the right, and the Chief
+of the Eunuchs stood behind him. The kissing of the scarf occupied an
+hour. The Sultan sat quietly during all this time, his face expressing a
+total indifference to all that was going on. The most skilful
+physiognomist could not have found in it the shadow of an expression. If
+this was the etiquette prescribed for him, he certainly acted it with
+marvellous skill and success.
+
+The long line of officers at length came to an end, and I fancied that the
+solemnities were now over; but after a pause appeared the _Shekh
+el-Islàm,_ or High Priest of the Mahometan religion. His authority in
+religious matters transcends that of the Sultan, and is final and
+irrevocable. He was a very venerable man, of perhaps seventy-five years of
+age, and his tottering steps were supported by two mollahs. He was dressed
+in a long green robe, embroidered with gold and pearls, over which his
+white beard flowed below his waist. In his turban of white cambric was
+twisted a scarf of cloth-of-gold. He kissed the border of the Sultan's
+mantle, which salutation was also made by a long line of the chief priests
+of the mosques of Constantinople, who followed him. These priests were
+dressed in long robes of white, green, blue, and violet, many of them with
+collars of pearls and golden scarfs wound about their turbans, the rich
+fringes falling on their shoulders. They were grave, stately men, with
+long gray beards, and the wisdom of age and study in their deep-set eyes.
+
+Among the last who came was the most important personage of all. This was
+the Governor of Mecca (as I believe he is called), the nearest descendant
+of the Prophet, and the successor to the Caliphate, in case the family of
+Othman becomes extinct. Sultan Mahmoud, on his accession to the throne,
+was the last descendant of Orchan, the founder of the Ottoman Dynasty, the
+throne being inherited only by the male heirs. He left two sons, who are
+both living, Abdul-Medjid having departed from the practice of his
+predecessors, each of whom slew his brothers, in order to make his own
+sovereignty secure. He has one son, Muzad, who is about ten years old, so
+that there are now three males of the family of Orchan. In case of their
+death, the Governor of Mecca would become Caliph, and the sovereignty
+would be established in his family. He is a swarthy Arab, of about fifty,
+with a bold, fierce face. He wore a superb dress of green, the sacred
+color, and was followed by his two sons, young men of twenty and
+twenty-two. As he advanced to the throne, and was about to kneel and kiss
+the Sultan's robe, the latter prevented him, and asked politely after his
+health--the highest mark of respect in his power to show. The old Arab's
+face gleamed with such a sudden gush of pride and satisfaction, that no
+flash of lightning could have illumined it more vividly.
+
+The sacred writers, or transcribers of the Koran, closed the procession,
+after which the Sultan rose and entered the Seraglio. The crowd slowly
+dispersed, and in a few minutes the grand reports of the cannon on
+Seraglio Point announced the departure of the Sultan for his palace on the
+Bosphorus. The festival of Bairam was now fairly inaugurated, and all
+Stamboul was given up to festivity. There was no Turk so poor that he did
+not in some sort share in the rejoicing. Our Fourth could scarcely show
+more flags, let off more big guns or send forth greater crowds of
+excursionists than this Moslem holiday.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII.
+
+The Mosques of Constantinople.
+
+
+  Sojourn at Constantinople--Semi-European Character of the City--The
+  Mosque--Procuring a Firman--The Seraglio--The Library--The Ancient
+  Throne-Room--Admittance to St. Sophia--Magnificence of the Interior--The
+  Marvellous Dome--The Mosque of Sultan Achmed--The Sulemanye--Great
+  Conflagrations--Political Meaning of the Fires--Turkish Progress--Decay
+  of the Ottoman Power.
+
+
+  "Is that indeed Sophia's far-famed dome,
+  Where first the Faith was led in triumph home,
+  Like some high bride, with banner and bright sign,
+  And melody, and flowers?" Audrey de Vere.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Tuesday, August_ 8, 1852.
+
+The length of my stay in Constantinople has enabled me to visit many
+interesting spots in its vicinity, as well as to familiarize myself with
+the peculiar features of the great capital. I have seen the beautiful
+Bosphorus from steamers and caïques; ridden up the valley of Buyukdere,
+and through the chestnut woods of Belgrade; bathed in the Black Sea, under
+the lee of the Symplegades, where the marble altar to Apollo still invites
+an oblation from passing mariners; walked over the flowery meadows beside
+the "Heavenly Waters of Asia;" galloped around the ivy-grown walls where
+Dandolo and Mahomet II. conquered, and the last of the Palæologi fell; and
+dreamed away many an afternoon-hour under the funereal cypresses of Pera,
+and beside the Delphian tripod in the Hippodrome. The historic interest
+of these spots is familiar to all, nor; with one exception, have their
+natural beauties been exaggerated by travellers. This exception is the
+village of Belgrade, over which Mary Montague went into raptures, and set
+the fashion for tourists ever since. I must confess to having been wofully
+disappointed. The village is a miserable cluster of rickety houses, on an
+open piece of barren land, surrounded by the forests, or rather thickets,
+which keep alive the springs that supply Constantinople with water. We
+reached there with appetites sharpened by our morning's ride, expecting to
+find at least a vender of _kibabs_ (bits of fried meat) in so renowned a
+place; but the only things to be had were raw salt mackerel, and bread
+which belonged to the primitive geological formation.
+
+The general features of Constantinople and the Bosphorus are so well
+known, that I am spared the dangerous task of painting scenes which have
+been colored by abler pencils. Von Hammer, Lamartine, Willis, Miss Pardoe,
+Albert Smith, and thou, most inimitable Thackeray! have made Pera and
+Scutari, the Bazaars and Baths, the Seraglio and the Golden Horn, as
+familiar to our ears as Cornhill and Wall street. Besides, Constantinople
+is not the true Orient, which is to be found rather in Cairo, in Aleppo,
+and brightest and most vital, in Damascus. Here, we tread European soil;
+the Franks are fast crowding out the followers of the Prophet, and
+Stamboul itself, were its mosques and Seraglio removed, would differ
+little in outward appearance from a third-rate Italian town. The Sultan
+lives in a palace with a Grecian portico; the pointed Saracenic arch, the
+arabesque sculptures, the latticed balconies, give place to clumsy
+imitations of Palladio, and every fire that sweeps away a recollection of
+the palmy times of Ottoman rule, sweeps it away forever.
+
+But the Mosque--that blossom of Oriental architecture, with its crowning
+domes, like the inverted bells of the lotus, and its reed-like minarets,
+its fountains and marble courts--can only perish with the faith it
+typifies. I, for one, rejoice that, so long as the religion of Islam
+exists (and yet, may its time be short!), no Christian model can shape its
+houses of worship. The minaret must still lift its airy tower for the
+muezzin; the dome must rise like a gilded heaven above the prayers of the
+Faithful, with its starry lamps and emblazoned phrases; the fountain must
+continue to pour its waters of purification. A reformation of the Moslem
+faith is impossible. When it begins to give way, the whole fabric must
+fall. Its ceremonies, as well as its creed, rest entirely on the
+recognition of Mahomet as the Prophet of God. However the Turks may change
+in other respects, in all that concerns their religion they must continue
+the same.
+
+Until within a few years, a visit to the mosques, especially the more
+sacred ones of St. Sophia and Sultan Achmed, was attended with much
+difficulty. Miss Pardoe, according to her own account, risked her life in
+order to see the interior of St. Sophia, which she effected in the
+disguise of a Turkish Effendi. I accomplished the same thing, a few days
+since, but without recourse to any such romantic expedient. Mr. Brown, the
+interpreter of the Legation, procured a firman from the Grand Vizier, on
+behalf of the officers of the San Jacinto, and kindly invited me, with
+several other American and English travellers, to join the party. During
+the month of Ramazan, no firmans are given, and as at this time there are
+few travellers in Constantinople, we should otherwise have been subjected
+to a heavy expense. The cost of a firman, including backsheesh to the
+priests and doorkeepers, is 700 piastres (about $33).
+
+We crossed the Golden Horn in caïques, and first visited the gardens and
+palaces on Seraglio Point. The Sultan at present resides in his summer
+palace of Beshiktashe, on the Bosphorus, and only occupies the Serai
+Bornou, as it is called, during the winter months. The Seraglio covers the
+extremity of the promontory on which Constantinople is built, and is
+nearly three miles in circuit. The scattered buildings erected by
+different Sultans form in themselves a small city, whose domes and pointed
+turrets rise from amid groves of cypress and pine. The sea-wall is lined
+with kiosks, from whose cushioned windows there are the loveliest views of
+the European and Asian shores. The newer portion of the palace, where the
+Sultan now receives the ambassadors of foreign nations, shows the
+influence of European taste in its plan and decorations. It is by no means
+remarkable for splendor, and suffers by contrast with many of the private
+houses in Damascus and Aleppo. The building is of wood, the walls
+ornamented with detestable frescoes by modern Greek artists, and except a
+small but splendid collection of arms, and some wonderful specimens of
+Arabic chirography, there is nothing to interest the visitor.
+
+In ascending to the ancient Seraglio, which was founded by Mahomet II., on
+the site of the palace of the Palæologi, we passed the Column of
+Theodosius, a plain Corinthian shaft, about fifty feet high. The Seraglio
+is now occupied entirely by the servants and guards, and the greater part
+of it shows a neglect amounting almost to dilapidation. The Saracenic
+corridors surrounding its courts are supported by pillars of marble,
+granite, and porphyry, the spoils of the Christian capital. We were
+allowed to walk about at leisure, and inspect the different compartments,
+except the library, which unfortunately was locked. This library was for a
+long time supposed to contain many lost treasures of ancient
+literature--among other things, the missing books of Livy--but the recent
+researches of Logothetos, the Prince of Samos, prove that there is little
+of value, among its manuscripts. Before the door hangs a wooden globe,
+which is supposed to be efficacious in neutralizing the influence of the
+Evil Eye. There are many ancient altars and fragments of pillars scattered
+about the courts, and the Turks have even commenced making a collection of
+antiquities, which, with the exception of two immense sarcophagi of red
+porphyry, contains nothing of value. They show, however, one of the brazen
+heads of the Delphian tripod in the Hippodrome, which, they say, Mahomet
+the Conqueror struck off with a single blow of his sword, on entering
+Constantinople.
+
+The most interesting portion of the Seraglio is the ancient throne-room,
+now no longer used, but still guarded by a company of white eunuchs. The
+throne is an immense, heavy bedstead, the posts of which are thickly
+incrusted with rubies, turquoises, emeralds, and sapphires. There is a
+funnel-shaped chimney-piece in the room, a master-work of Benevenuto
+Cellini. There, half a century ago, the foreign ambassadors were
+presented, after having been bathed, fed, and clothed with a rich mantle
+in the outer apartments. They were ushered into the imperial presence,
+supported by a Turkish official on either side, in order that they might
+show no signs of breaking down under the load of awe and reverence they
+were supposed to feel. In the outer Court, adjoining the Sublime Porte, is
+the Chapel of the Empress Irene, now converted into an armory, which, for
+its size, is the most tasteful and picturesque collection of weapons I
+have ever seen. It is especially rich in Saracenic armor, and contains
+many superb casques of inlaid gold. In a large glass case in the chancel,
+one sees the keys of some thirty or forty cities, with the date of their
+capture. It is not likely that another will ever be added to the list.
+
+We now passed out through the Sublime Porte, and directed our steps to the
+famous _Aya Sophia_--the temple dedicated by Justinian to the Divine
+Wisdom. The repairs made to the outer walls by the Turks, and the addition
+of the four minarets, have entirely changed the character of the building,
+without injuring its effect. As a Christian Church, it must have been less
+imposing than in its present form. A priest met us at the entrance, and
+after reading the firman with a very discontented face, informed us that
+we could not enter until the mid-day prayers were concluded. After taking
+off our shoes, however, we were allowed to ascend to the galleries, whence
+we looked down on the bowing worshippers. Here the majesty of the renowned
+edifice, despoiled as it now is, bursts at once upon the eye. The
+wonderful flat dome, glittering with its golden mosaics, and the sacred
+phrase from the Koran: "_God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth_,"
+swims in the air, one hundred and eighty feet above the marble pavement.
+On the eastern and western sides, it rests on two half domes; which again
+rise from or rest upon a group of three small half-domes, so that the
+entire roof of the mosque, unsupported by a pillar, seems to have been
+dropped from above on the walls, rather than to have been built up from
+them. Around the edifice run an upper and a lower gallery, which alone
+preserve the peculiarities of the Byzantine style. These galleries are
+supported by the most precious columns which ancient art could afford:
+among them eight shafts of green marble, from the Temple of Diana, at
+Ephesus; eight of porphyry, from the Temple of the Sun, at Baalbek;
+besides Egyptian granite from the shrines of Isis and Osiris, and
+Pentelican marble from the sanctuary of Pallas Athena. Almost the whole of
+the interior has been covered with gilding, but time has softened its
+brilliancy, and the rich, subdued gleam of the walls is in perfect harmony
+with the varied coloring of the ancient marbles.
+
+Under the dome, four Christian seraphim, executed in mosaic, have been
+allowed to remain, but the names of the four archangels of the Moslem
+faith are inscribed underneath. The bronze doors are still the same, the
+Turks having taken great pains to obliterate the crosses with which they
+were adorned. Around the centre of the dome, as on that of Sultan Achmed,
+may be read, in golden letters, and in all the intricacy of Arabic
+penmanship, the beautiful verse:--"God is the Light of the Heavens and the
+Earth. His wisdom is a light on the wall, in which burns a lamp covered
+with glass. The glass shines like a star, the lamp is lit with the oil of
+a blessed tree. No Eastern, no Western oil, it shines for whoever wills."
+After the prayers were over, and we had descended to the floor of the
+mosque, I spent the rest of my time under the dome, fascinated by its
+marvellous lightness and beauty. The worshippers present looked at us with
+curiosity, but without ill-will; and before we left, one of the priests
+came slyly with some fragments of the ancient gilded mosaic, which, he was
+heathen enough to sell, and we to buy.
+
+From St. Sophia we went to Sultan Achmed, which faces the Hippodrome, and
+is one of the stateliest piles of Constantinople. It is avowedly an
+imitation of St. Sophia, and the Turks consider it a more wonderful work,
+because the dome is seven feet higher. It has six minarets, exceeding in
+this respect all the mosques of Asia. The dome rests on four immense
+pillars, the bulk of which quite oppresses the light galleries running
+around the walls. This, and the uniform white color of the interior,
+impairs the effect which its bold style and imposing dimensions would
+otherwise produce. The outside view, with the group of domes swelling
+grandly above the rows of broad-armed sycamores, is much more
+satisfactory. In the tomb of Sultan Achmed, in one corner of the court, we
+saw his coffin, turban, sword, and jewelled harness. I had just been
+reading old Sandys' account of his visit to Constantinople, in 1610,
+during this Sultan's reign, and could only think of him as Sandys
+represents him, in the title-page to his book, as a fat man, with bloated
+cheeks, in a long gown and big turban, and the words underneath:--
+"_Achmed, sive Tyrannus._"
+
+The other noted mosques of Constantinople are the _Yeni Djami,_ or Mosque
+of the Sultana Valide, on the shore of the Golden Horn, at the end of the
+bridge to Galata; that of Sultan Bajazet; of Mahomet II., the Conqueror,
+and of his son, Suleyman the Magnificent, whose superb mosque well
+deserves this title. I regret exceedingly that our time did not allow us
+to view the interior, for outwardly it not only surpasses St. Sophia, and
+all other mosques in the city, but is undoubtedly one of the purest
+specimens of Oriental architecture extant. It stands on a broad terrace,
+on one of the seven hills of Stamboul, and its exquisitely proportioned
+domes and minarets shine as if crystalized in the blue of the air. It is a
+type of Oriental, as the Parthenon is of Grecian, and the Cologne
+Cathedral of Gothic art. As I saw it the other night, lit by the flames of
+a conflagration, standing out red and clear against the darkness, I felt
+inclined to place it on a level with either of those renowned structures.
+It is a product of the rich fancy of the East, splendidly ornate, and not
+without a high degree of symmetry--yet here the symmetry is that of
+ornament alone, and not the pure, absolute proportion of forms, which we
+find in Grecian Art. It requires a certain degree of enthusiasm--nay, a
+slight inebriation of the imaginative faculties--in order to feel the
+sentiment of this Oriental Architecture. If I rightly express all that it
+says to me, I touch the verge of rapsody. The East, in almost all its
+aspects, is so essentially poetic, that a true picture of it must be
+poetic in spirit, if not in form.
+
+Constantinople has been terribly ravaged by fires, no less than fifteen
+having occurred during the past two weeks. Almost every night the sky has
+been reddened by burning houses, and the minarets of the seven hills
+lighted with an illumination brighter than that of the Bairam. All the
+space from the Hippodrome to the Sea of Marmora has been swept away; the
+lard, honey, and oil magazines on the Golden Horn, with the bazaars
+adjoining; several large blocks on the hill of Galata, with the College of
+the Dancing Dervishes; a part of Scutari, and the College of the Howling
+Dervishes, all have disappeared; and to-day, the ruins of 3,700 houses,
+which were destroyed last night, stand smoking in the Greek quarter,
+behind the aqueduct of Valens. The entire amount of buildings consumed in
+these two weeks is estimated at between _five and six thousand_! The fire
+on the hill of Galata threatened to destroy a great part of the suburb of
+Pera. It came, sweeping over the brow of the hill, towards my hotel,
+turning the tall cypresses in the burial ground into shafts of angry
+flame, and eating away the crackling dwellings of hordes of hapless Turks.
+I was in bed; from a sudden attack of fever, but seeing the other guests
+packing up their effects and preparing to leave, I was obliged to do the
+same; and this, in my weak state, brought on such a perspiration that the
+ailment left me, The officers of the United States steamer _San Jacinto_,
+and the French frigate _Charlemagne_, came to the rescue with their men
+and fire-engines, and the flames were finally quelled. The proceedings of
+the Americans, who cut holes in the roofs and played through them upon the
+fires within, were watched by the Turks with stupid amazement.
+"Máshallah!" said a fat Bimbashi, as he stood sweltering in the heat; "The
+Franks are a wonderful people."
+
+To those initiated into the mysteries of Turkish politics, these fires are
+more than accidental; they have a most weighty significance. They indicate
+either a general discontent with the existing state of affairs, or else a
+powerful plot against the Sultan and his Ministry. Setting fire to houses
+is, in fact, the Turkish method of holding an "indignation meeting," and
+from the rate with which they are increasing, the political crisis must be
+near at hand. The Sultan, with his usual kindness of heart, has sent large
+quantities of tents and other supplies to the guiltless sufferers; but no
+amount of kindness can soften the rancor of these Turkish intrigues.
+Reschid Pasha, the present Grand Vizier, and the leader of the party of
+Progress, is the person against whom this storm of opposition is now
+gathering.
+
+In spite of all efforts, the Ottoman Power is rapidly wasting away. The
+life of the Orient is nerveless and effete; the native strength of the
+race has died out, and all attempts to resuscitate it by the adoption of
+European institutions produce mere galvanic spasms, which leave it more
+exhausted than before. The rosy-colored accounts we have had of Turkish
+Progress are for the most part mere delusions. The Sultan is a
+well-meaning but weak man, and tyrannical through his very weakness. Had
+he strength enough to break through the meshes of falsehood and venality
+which are woven so close about him, he might accomplish some solid good.
+But Turkish rule, from his ministers down to the lowest _cadi_, is a
+monstrous system of deceit and corruption. These people have not the most
+remote conception of the true aims of government; they only seek to enrich
+themselves and their parasites, at the expense of the people and the
+national treasury. When we add to this the conscript system, which is
+draining the provinces of their best Moslem subjects, to the advantage of
+the Christians and Jews, and the blindness of the Revenue Laws, which
+impose on domestic manufactures double the duty levied on foreign
+products, it will easily be foreseen that the next half-century, or less,
+will completely drain the Turkish Empire of its last lingering energies.
+
+Already, in effect, Turkey exists only through the jealousy of the
+European nations. The treaty of Unkiar-iskelessi, in 1833, threw her into
+the hands of Russia, although the influence of England has of late years
+reigned almost exclusively in her councils. These are the two powers who
+are lowering at each other with sleepless eyes, in the Dardanelles and the
+Bosphorus. The people, and most probably the government, is strongly
+preposessed in favor of the English; but the Russian Bear has a heavy paw,
+and when he puts it into the scale, all other weights kick the beam. It
+will be a long and wary struggle, and no man can prophecy the result. The
+Turks are a people easy to govern, were even the imperfect laws, now in
+existence, fairly administered. They would thrive and improve under a
+better state of things; but I cannot avoid the conviction that the
+regeneration of the East will never be effected at their hands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIX.
+
+Farewell to the Orient--Malta.
+
+
+  Embarcation--Farewell to the Orient--Leaving Constantinople--A
+  Wreck--The Dardanelles--Homeric Scenery--Smyrna Revisited--The Grecian
+  Isles--Voyage to Malta--Detention--La Valetta--The Maltese--The
+  Climate--A Boat for Sicily.
+
+  "Farewell, ye mountains,
+    By glory crowned
+  Ye sacred fountains
+    Of Gods renowned;
+  Ye woods and highlands,
+    Where heroes dwell;
+  Ye seas and islands,
+    Farewell! Farewell!"
+
+  Frithiof's Saga.
+
+
+In The Dardanelles, _Saturday, August_ 7, 1852.
+
+At last, behold me fairly embarked for Christian Europe, to which I bade
+adieu in October last, eager for the unknown wonders of the Orient. Since
+then, nearly ten months have passed away, and those wonders are now
+familiar as every-day experiences. I set out, determined to be satisfied
+with no slight taste of Eastern life, but to drain to the bottom its
+beaker of mingled sunshine and sleep. All this has been accomplished; and
+if I have not wandered so far, nor enriched myself with such varied
+knowledge of the relics of ancient history, as I might have purposed or
+wished, I have at least learned to know the Turk and the Arab, been
+soothed by the patience inspired by their fatalism, and warmed by the
+gorgeous gleams of fancy that animate their poetry and religion. These
+ten months of my life form an episode which seems to belong to a separate
+existence. Just refined enough to be poetic, and just barbaric enough to
+be freed from all conventional fetters, it is as grateful to brain and
+soul, as an Eastern bath to the body. While I look forward, not without
+pleasure, to the luxuries and conveniences of Europe, I relinquish with a
+sigh the refreshing indolence of Asia.
+
+We have passed between the Castles of the two Continents, guarding the
+mouth of the Dardanelles, and are now entering the Grecian Sea. To-morrow,
+we shall touch, for a few hours, at Smyrna, and then turn westward, on the
+track of Ulysses and St. Paul. Farewell, then, perhaps forever, to the
+bright Orient! Farewell to the gay gardens, the spicy bazaars, to the
+plash of fountains and the gleam of golden-tipped minarets! Farewell to
+the perfect morn's, the balmy twilights, the still heat of the blue noons,
+the splendor of moon and stars! Farewell to the glare of the white crags,
+the tawny wastes of dead sand, the valleys of oleander, the hills of
+myrtle and spices! Farewell to the bath, agent of purity and peace, and
+parent of delicious dreams--to the shebook, whose fragrant fumes are
+breathed from the lips of patience and contentment--to the narghileh,
+crowned with that blessed plant which grows in the gardens of Shiraz,
+while a fountain more delightful than those of Samarcand bubbles in its
+crystal bosom I Farewell to the red cap and slippers, to the big turban,
+the flowing trousers, and the gaudy shawl--to squatting on broad divans,
+to sipping black coffee in acorn cups, to grave faces and _salaam
+aleikooms_, and to aching of the lips and forehead! Farewell to the
+evening meal in the tent door, to the couch on the friendly earth, to the
+yells of the muleteers, to the deliberate marches of the plodding horse,
+and the endless rocking of the dromedary that knoweth his master!
+Farewell, finally, to annoyance without anger, delay without vexation,
+indolence without ennui, endurance without fatigue, appetite without
+intemperance, enjoyment without pall!
+
+
+La Valetta, Malta, _Saturday, August_ 14, 1852.
+
+My last view of Stamboul was that of the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed, shining faintly in the moonlight, as we steamed down the Sea of
+Marmora. The _Caire_ left at nine o'clock, freighted with the news of
+Reschid Pasha's deposition, and there were no signs of conflagration in
+all the long miles of the city that lay behind us. So we speculated no
+more on the exciting topics of the day, but went below and took a vapor
+bath in our berths; for I need not assure you that the nights on the
+Mediterranean at this season are anything but chilly. And here I must note
+the fact, that the French steamers, while dearer than the Austrian, are
+more cramped in their accommodations, and filled with a set of most
+uncivil servants. The table is good, and this is the only thing to be
+commended. In all other respects, I prefer the Lloyd vessels.
+
+Early next morning, we passed the promontory of Cyzicus, and the Island of
+Marmora, the marble quarries of which give name to the sea. As we were
+approaching the entrance to the Dardanelles, we noticed an Austrian brig
+drifting in the current, the whiff of her flag indicating distress. Her
+rudder was entirely gone, and she was floating helplessly towards the
+Thracian coast. A boat was immediately lowered and a hawser carried to her
+bows, by which we towed her a short distance; but our steam engine did
+not like this drudgery, and snapped the rope repeatedly, so that at last
+we were obliged to leave her to her fate. The lift we gave, however, had
+its effect, and by dexterous maneuvering with the sails, the captain
+brought her safely into the harbor of Gallipoli, where she dropped anchor
+beside us.
+
+Beyond Gallipoli, the Dardanelles contract, and the opposing continents
+rise into lofty and barren hills. In point of natural beauty, this strait
+is greatly inferior to the Bosphorus. It lacks the streams and wooded
+valleys which open upon the latter. The country is but partially
+cultivated, except around the town of Dardanelles, near the mouth of the
+strait. The site of the bridge of Xerxes is easily recognized, the
+conformation of the different shores seconding the decision of
+antiquarians. Here, too, are Sestos and Abydos, of passionate and poetic
+memory. But as the sun dipped towards the sea, we passed out of the narrow
+gateway. On our left lay the plain of Troy, backed by the blue range of
+Mount Ida. The tamulus of Patroclus crowned a low bluff looking on the
+sea. On the right appeared the long, irregular island of Imbros, and the
+peaks of misty Samothrace over and beyond it. Tenedos was before us. The
+red flush of sunset tinged the grand Homeric landscape, and lingered and
+lingered on the summit of Ida, as if loth to depart. I paced the deck
+until long after it was too dark to distinguish it any more.
+
+The next morning we dropped anchor in the harbor of Smyrna, where we
+remained five hours. I engaged a donkey, and rode out to the Caravan
+Bridge, where the Greek driver and I smoked narghilehs and drank coffee in
+the shade of the acacias. I contrasted my impressions with those of my
+first visit to Smyrna last October--my first glimpse of Oriental ground.
+Then, every dog barked at me, and all the horde of human creatures who
+prey upon innocent travellers ran at my heels, but now, with my brown face
+and Turkish aspect of grave indifference, I was suffered to pass as
+quietly as my donkey-driver himself. Nor did the latter, nor the ready
+_cafidji_, who filled our pipes on the banks of the Meles, attempt to
+overcharge me--a sure sign that the Orient had left its seal on my face.
+Returning through the city, the same mishap befel me which travellers
+usually experience on their first arrival. My donkey, while dashing at
+full speed through a crowd of Smyrniotes in their Sunday dresses, slipped
+up in a little pool of black mud, and came down with a crash. I flew over
+his head and alighted firmly on my feet, but the spruce young Greeks,
+whose snowy fustanelles were terribly bespattered, came off much worse.
+The donkey shied back, levelled his ears and twisted his head on one side,
+awaiting a beating, but his bleeding legs saved him.
+
+We left at two o'clock, touched at Scio in the evening, and the next
+morning at sunrise lay-to in the harbor of Syra. The Piræus was only
+twelve hours distant; but after my visitation of fever in Constantinople,
+I feared to encounter the pestilential summer heats of Athens. Besides, I
+had reasons for hastening with all speed to Italy and Germany. At ten
+o'clock we weighed anchor again and steered southwards, between the groups
+of the Cyclades, under a cloudless sky and over a sea of the brightest
+blue. The days were endurable under the canvas awning of our quarter-deck,
+but the nights in our berths were sweat-baths, which left us so limp and
+exhausted that we were almost fit to vanish, like ghosts, at daybreak.
+
+Our last glimpse of the Morea--Cape Matapan--faded away in the moonlight,
+and for _two_ days we travelled westward over the burning sea. On the
+evening of the 11th, the long, low outline of Malta rose gradually against
+the last flush of sunset, and in two hours thereafter, we came to anchor
+in Quarantine Harbor. The quarantine for travellers returning from the
+East, which formerly varied from fourteen to twenty-one days, is now
+reduced to one day for those arriving from Greece or Turkey, and three
+days for those from Egypt and Syria. In our case, it was reduced to
+sixteen hours, by an official courtesy. I had intended proceeding directly
+to Naples; but by the contemptible trickery of the agents of the French
+steamers--a long history, which it is unnecessary to recapitulate--am left
+here to wait ten days for another steamer. It is enough to say that there
+are six other travellers at the same hotel, some coming from
+Constantinople, and some from Alexandria, in the same predicament. Because
+a single ticket to Naples costs some thirty or forty francs less than by
+dividing the trip into two parts, the agents in those cities refuse to
+give tickets further than Malta to those who are not keen enough to see
+through the deception. I made every effort to obtain a second ticket in
+time to leave by the branch steamer for Italy, but in vain.
+
+La Valetta is, to my eyes, the most beautiful small city in the world. It
+is a jewel of a place; not a street but is full of picturesque effects,
+and all the look-outs, which you catch at every turn, let your eyes rest
+either upon one of the beautiful harbors on each side, or the distant
+horizon of the sea. The streets are so clean that you might eat your
+dinner off the pavement; the white balconies and cornices of the houses,
+all cleanly cut in the soft Maltese stone, stand out in intense relief
+against the sky, and from the manifold reflections and counter
+reflections, the shadows (where there are any) become a sort of milder
+light. The steep sides of the promontory, on which the city is built, are
+turned into staircases, and it is an inexhaustible pastime to watch the
+groups, composed of all nations who inhabit the shores of the
+Mediterranean, ascending and descending. The Auberges of the old Knights,
+the Palace of the Grand Master, the Church of St. John, and other relics
+of past time, but more especially the fortifications, invest the place
+with a romantic interest, and I suspect that, after Venice and Granada,
+there are few cities where the Middle Ages have left more impressive
+traces of their history.
+
+The Maltese are contented, and appear to thrive under the English
+administration. They are a peculiar people, reminding me of the Arab even
+more than the Italian, while a certain rudeness in their build and motions
+suggests their Punic ancestry. Their language is a curious compound of
+Arabic and Italian, the former being the basis. I find that I can
+understand more than half that is said, the Arabic terminations being
+applied to Italian words. I believe it has never been successfully reduced
+to writing, and the restoration of pure Arabic has been proposed, with
+much reason, as preferable to an attempt to improve or refine it. Italian
+is the language used in the courts of justice and polite society, and is
+spoken here with much more purity than either in Naples or Sicily.
+
+The heat has been so great since I landed that I have not ventured outside
+of the city, except last evening to an amateur theatre, got up by the
+non-commissioned officers and privates in the garrison. The performances
+were quite tolerable, except a love-sick young damsel who spoke with a
+rough masculine voice, and made long strides across the stage when she
+rushed into her lover's arms. I am at a loss to account for the exhausting
+character of the heat. The thermometer shows 90° by day, and 80° to 85° by
+night--a much lower temperature than I have found quite comfortable in
+Africa and Syria. In the Desert 100° in the shade is rather bracing than
+otherwise; here, 90° renders all exercise, more severe than smoking a
+pipe, impossible. Even in a state of complete inertia, a shirt-collar will
+fall starchless in five minutes.
+
+Rather than waste eight more days in this glimmering half-existence, I
+have taken passage in a Maltese _speronara_, which sails this evening for
+Catania, in Sicily, where the grand festival of St. Agatha, which takes
+place once in a hundred years, will be celebrated next week. The trip
+promises a new experience, and I shall get a taste, slight though it be,
+of the golden Trinacria of the ancients. Perhaps, after all, this delay
+which so vexes me (bear in mind, I am no longer in the Orient!) may be
+meant solely for my good. At least, Mr. Winthrop, our Consul here, who has
+been exceedingly kind and courteous to me, thinks it a rare good fortune
+that I shall see the Catanian festa.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXX.
+
+The Festival of St. Agatha.
+
+
+  Departure from Malta--The Speronara--Our Fellow-Passengers--The First
+  Night on Board--Sicily--Scarcity of Provisions--Beating in the Calabrian
+  Channel--The Fourth Morning--The Gulf of Catania--A Sicilian
+  Landscape--The Anchorage--The Suspected List--The Streets of
+  Catania--Biography of St. Agatha--The Illuminations--The Procession of
+  the Veil--The Biscari Palace--The Antiquities of Catania--The Convent of
+  St. Nicola.
+
+
+  "The morn is full of holiday, loud bells
+  With rival clamors ring from every spire;
+  Cunningly-stationed music dies and swells
+  In echoing places; when the winds respire,
+  Light flags stream out like gauzy tongues of fire."--Keats.
+
+
+Catania, Sicily, _Friday_, _August_ 20, 1852.
+
+I went on board the _speronara_ in the harbor of La Valetta at the
+appointed hour (5 P.M.), and found the remaining sixteen passengers
+already embarked. The captain made his appearance an hour later, with our
+bill of health and passports, and as the sun went down behind the brown
+hills of the island, we passed the wave-worn rocks of the promontory,
+dividing the two harbors, and slowly moved off towards Sicily.
+
+The Maltese _speronara_ resembles the ancient Roman galley more than any
+modern craft. It has the same high, curved poop and stern, the same short
+masts and broad, square sails. The hull is too broad for speed, but this
+adds to the security of the vessel in a gale. With a fair wind, it rarely
+makes more than eight knots an hour, and in a calm, the sailors (if not
+too lazy) propel it forward with six long oars. The hull is painted in a
+fanciful style, generally blue, red, green and white, with bright red
+masts. The bulwarks are low, and the deck of such a convexity that it is
+quite impossible to walk it in a heavy sea. Such was the vessel to which I
+found myself consigned. It was not more than fifty feet long, and of less
+capacity than a Nile _dahabiyeh_. There was a sort of deck cabin, or crib,
+with two berths, but most of the passengers slept in the hold. For a
+passage to Catania I was obliged to pay forty francs, the owner swearing
+that this was the regular price; but, as I afterwards discovered, the
+Maltese only paid thirty-six francs for the whole trip. However, the
+Captain tried to make up the money's worth in civilities, and was
+incessant in his attentions to "your Lordships," as he styled myself and
+my companion, Cæsar di Cagnola, a young Milanese.
+
+The Maltese were tailors and clerks, who were taking a holiday trip to
+witness the great festival of St. Agatha. With two exceptions, they were a
+wild and senseless, though good-natured set, and in spite of sea-sickness,
+which exercised them terribly for the first two days, kept up a constant
+jabber in their bastard Arabic from morning till night. As is usual in
+such a company, one of them was obliged to serve as a butt for the rest,
+and "Maestro Paolo," as they termed him, wore such a profoundly serious
+face all the while, from his sea-sickness, that the fun never came to an
+end. As they were going to a religious festival, some of them had brought
+their breviaries along with them; but I am obliged to testify that, after
+the first day, prayers were totally forgotten. The sailors, however, wore
+linen bags, printed with a figure of the Madonna, around their necks.
+
+The sea was rather rough, but Cæsar and I fortified our stomachs with a
+bottle of English ale, and as it was dark by this time, sought our
+resting-places for the night. As we had paid double, _places_ were assured
+us in the coop on deck, but beds were not included in the bargain. The
+Maltese, who had brought mattresses and spread a large Phalansteriau bed
+in the hold, fared much better. I took one of my carpet bags for a pillow
+and lay down on the planks, where I succeeded in getting a little sleep
+between the groans of the helpless land-lubbers. We had the _ponente_, or
+west-wind, all night, but the speronara moved sluggishly, and in the
+morning it changed to the _greco-levante,_ or north-east. No land was in
+sight; but towards noon, the sky became clearer, and we saw the southern
+coast of Sicily--a bold mountain-shore, looming phantom-like in the
+distance. Cape Passaro was to the east, and the rest of the day was spent
+in beating up to it. At sunset, we were near enough to see the villages
+and olive-groves of the beautiful shore, and, far behind the nearer
+mountains, ninety miles distant, the solitary cone of Etna.
+
+The second night passed like the first, except that our bruised limbs were
+rather more sensitive to the texture of the planks. We crawled out of our
+coop at dawn, expecting to behold Catania in the distance; but there was
+Cape Passaro still staring us in the face. The Maltese were patient, and
+we did not complain, though Cæsar and I began to make nice calculations as
+to the probable duration of our two cold fowls and three loaves of bread.
+The promontory of Syracuse was barely visible forty miles ahead; but the
+wind was against us, and so another day passed in beating up the eastern
+coast. At dusk, we overtook another speronara which had left Malta two
+hours before us, and this was quite a triumph to our captain, All the oars
+were shipped, the sailors and some of the more courageous passengers took
+hold, and we shot ahead, scudding rapidly along the dark shores, to the
+sound of the wild Maltese songs. At length, the promontory was gained, and
+the restless current, rolling down from Scylla and Charybdis, tossed our
+little bark from wave to wave with a recklessness that would have made any
+one nervous but an old sailor like myself.
+
+"To-morrow morning," said the Captain, "we shall sail into Catania;" but
+after a third night on the planks, which were now a little softer, we rose
+to find ourselves abreast of Syracuse, with Etna as distant as ever. The
+wind was light, and what little we made by tacking was swept away by the
+current, so that, after wasting the whole forenoon, we kept a straight
+course across the mouth of the channel, and at sunset saw the Calabrian
+Mountains. This move only lost us more ground, as it happened. Cæsar and I
+mournfully and silently consumed our last fragment of beef, with the
+remaining dry crusts of bread, and then sat down doggedly to smoke and see
+whether the captain would discover our situation. But no; while we were
+supplied, the whole vessel was at our Lordships' command, and now that we
+were destitute, he took care to make no rash offers. Cæsar, at last, with
+an imperial dignity becoming his name, commanded dinner. It came, and the
+pork and maccaroni, moistened with red Sicilian wine, gave us patience for
+another day.
+
+The fourth morning dawned, and--Great Neptune be praised!--we were
+actually within the Gulf of Catania. Etna loomed up in all his sublime
+bulk, unobscured by cloud or mist, while a slender jet of smoke, rising
+from his crater, was slowly curling its wreaths in the clear air, as if
+happy to receive the first beam of the sun. The towers of Syracuse, which
+had mocked us all the preceding day, were no longer visible; the
+land-locked little port of Augusta lay behind us; and, as the wind
+continued favorable, ere long we saw a faint white mark at the foot of the
+mountain. This was Catania. The shores of the bay were enlivened with
+olive-groves and the gleam of the villages, while here and there a single
+palm dreamed of its brothers across the sea. Etna, of course, had the
+monarch's place in the landscape, but even his large, magnificent outlines
+could not usurp all my feeling. The purple peaks to the westward and
+farther inland, had a beauty of their own, and in the gentle curves with
+which they leaned towards each other, there was a promise of the flowery
+meadows of Enna. The smooth blue water was speckled with fishing-boats. We
+hailed one, inquiring when the _festa_ was to commence; but, mistaking our
+question, they answered: "Anchovies." Thereupon, a waggish Maltese
+informed them that Maestro Paolo thanked them heartily. All the other
+boats were hailed in the name of Maestro Paolo, who, having recovered from
+his sea-sickness, took his bantering good-humoredly.
+
+Catania presented a lovely picture, as we drew near the harbor. Planted at
+the very foot of Etna, it has a background such as neither Naples nor
+Genoa can boast. The hills next the sea are covered with gardens and
+orchards, sprinkled with little villages and the country palaces of the
+nobles--a rich, cultured landscape, which gradually merges into the
+forests of oak and chestnut that girdle the waist of the great volcano.
+But all the wealth of southern vegetation cannot hide the footsteps of
+that Ruin, which from time to time visits the soil. Half-way up, the
+mountain-side is dotted with cones of ashes and cinders, some covered with
+the scanty shrubbery which centuries have called forth, some barren and
+recent; while two dark, winding streams of sterile lava descend to the
+very shore, where they stand congealed in ragged needles and pyramids.
+Part of one of these black floods has swept the town, and, tumbling into
+the sea, walls one side of the port.
+
+We glided slowly past the mole, and dropped anchor a few yards from the
+shore. There was a sort of open promenade planted with trees, in front of
+us, surrounded with high white houses, above which rose the dome of the
+Cathedral and the spires of other churches. The magnificent palace of
+Prince Biscari was on our right, and at its foot the Customs and Revenue
+offices. Every roof, portico, and window was lined with lamps, a triumphal
+arch spanned the street before the palace, and the landing-place at the
+offices was festooned with crimson and white drapery, spangled with gold.
+While we were waiting permission to land, a scene presented itself which
+recalled the pagan days of Sicily to my mind. A procession came in sight
+from under the trees, and passed along the shore. In the centre was borne
+a stately shrine, hung with garlands, and containing an image of St.
+Agatha. The sound of flutes and cymbals accompanied it, and a band of
+children, bearing orange and palm branches, danced riotously before. Had
+the image been Pan instead of St. Agatha, the ceremonies would have been
+quite as appropriate.
+
+The speronara's boat at last took us to the gorgeous landing place, where
+we were carefully counted by a fat Sicilian official, and declared free
+from quarantine. We were then called into the Passport Office where the
+Maltese underwent a searching examination. One of the officers sat with
+the Black Book, or list of suspected persons of all nations, open before
+him, and looked for each name as it was called out. Another scanned the
+faces of the frightened tailors, as if comparing them with certain
+revolutionary visages in his mind. Terrible was the keen, detective glance
+of his eye, and it went straight through the poor Maltese, who vanished
+with great rapidity when they were declared free to enter the city. At
+last, they all passed the ordeal, but Cæsar and I remained, looking in at
+the door. "There are still these two Frenchmen," said the captain. "I am
+no Frenchman," I protested; "I am an American." "And I," said Cæsar, "am
+an Austrian subject." Thereupon we received a polite invitation to enter;
+the terrible glance softened into a benign, respectful smile; he of the
+Black Book ran lightly over the C's and T's, and said, with a courteous
+inclination: "There is nothing against the signori." I felt quite relieved
+by this; for, in the Mediterranean, one is never safe from spies, and no
+person is too insignificant to escape the ban, if once suspected.
+
+Calabria was filled to overflowing with strangers from all parts of the
+Two Sicilies, and we had some difficulty in finding very bad and dear
+lodgings. It was the first day of the _festa,_ and the streets were
+filled with peasants, the men in black velvet jackets and breeches, with
+stockings, and long white cotton caps hanging on the shoulders, and the
+women with gay silk shawls on their heads, after the manner of the Mexican
+_reboza_. In all the public squares, the market scene in Masaniello was
+acted to the life. The Sicilian dialect is harsh and barbarous, and the
+original Italian is so disguised by the admixture of Arabic, Spanish,
+French, and Greek words, that even my imperial friend, who was a born
+Italian, had great difficulty in understanding the people.
+
+I purchased a guide to the festa, which, among other things, contained a
+biography of St. Agatha. It is a beautiful specimen of pious writing, and
+I regret that I have not space to translate the whole of it. Agatha was a
+beautiful Catanian virgin, who secretly embraced Christianity during the
+reign of Nero. Catania was then governed by a prætor named Quintianus,
+who, becoming enamored of Agatha, used the most brutal means to compel her
+to submit to his desires, but without effect. At last, driven to the
+cruelest extremes, he cut off her breasts, and threw her into prison. But
+at midnight, St. Peter, accompanied by an angel, appeared to her, restored
+the maimed parts, and left her more beautiful than ever. Quintianus then
+ordered a furnace to be heated, and cast her therein. A terrible
+earthquake shook the city; the sun was eclipsed; the sea rolled backwards,
+and left its bottom dry; the prætor's palace fell in ruins, and he,
+pursued by the vengeance of the populace, fled till he reached the river
+Simeto, where he was drowned in attempting to cross. "The thunders of the
+vengeance of God," says the biography, "struck him down into the
+profoundest Hell." This was in the year 252.
+
+The body was carried to Constantinople in 1040, "although the Catanians
+wept incessantly at their loss;" but in 1126, two French knights, named
+Gilisbert and Goselin, were moved by angelic influences to restore it to
+its native town, which they accomplished, "and the eyes of the Catanians
+again burned with joy." The miracles effected by the saint are numberless,
+and her power is especially efficacious in preventing earthquakes and
+eruptions of Mount Etna. Nevertheless, Catania has suffered more from
+these causes than any other town in Sicily. But I would that all saints
+had as good a claim to canonization as St. Agatha. The honors of such a
+festival as this are not out of place, when paid to such youth, beauty,
+and "heavenly chastity," as she typifies.
+
+The guide, which I have already consulted, gives a full account of the
+festa, in advance, with a description of Catania. The author says: "If thy
+heart is not inspired by gazing on this lovely city, it is a fatal
+sign--thou wert not born to feel the sweet impulses of the Beautiful!"
+Then, in announcing the illuminations and pyrotechnic displays, he
+exclaims: "Oh, the amazing spectacle! Oh, how happy art thou, that thou
+beholdest it! I What pyramids of lamps! What myriads of rockets! What
+wonderful temples of flame! The Mountain himself is astonished at such a
+display." And truly, except the illumination of the Golden Horn on the
+Night of Predestination, I have seen nothing equal to the spectacle
+presented by Catania, during the past three nights. The city, which has
+been built up from her ruins more stately than ever, was in a blaze of
+light--all her domes, towers, and the long lines of her beautiful palaces
+revealed in the varying red and golden flames of a hundred thousand lamps
+and torches. Pyramids of fire, transparencies, and illuminated triumphal
+arches filled the four principal streets, and the fountain in the
+Cathedral square gleamed like a jet of molten silver, spinning up from one
+of the pores of Etna. At ten o'clock, a gorgeous display of fireworks
+closed the day's festivities, but the lamps remained burning nearly all
+night.
+
+On the second night, the grand Procession of the Veil took place. I
+witnessed this imposing spectacle from the balcony of Prince Gessina's
+palace. Long lines of waxen torches led the way, followed by a military
+band, and then a company of the highest prelates, in their most brilliant
+costumes, surrounding the Bishop, who walked under a canopy of silk and
+gold, bearing the miraculous veil of St. Agatha. I was blessed with a
+distant view of it, but could see no traces of the rosy hue left upon it
+by the flames of the Saint's martyrdom. Behind the priests came the
+_Intendente_ of Sicily, Gen. Filangieri, the same who, three years ago,
+gave up Catania to sack and slaughter. He was followed by the Senate of
+the City, who have just had the cringing cowardice to offer him a ball on
+next Sunday night. If ever a man deserved the vengeance of an outraged
+people, it is this Filangieri, who was first a Liberal, when the cause
+promised success, and then made himself the scourge of the vilest of
+kings. As he passed me last night in his carriage of State, while the
+music pealed in rich rejoicing strains, that solemn chant with which the
+monks break upon the revellers, in "Lucrezia Borgia," came into my mind:
+
+  "La gioja del profani
+  'E un fumo passagier'--"
+
+[the rejoicing of the profane is a transitory mist.] I heard, under the
+din of all these festivities, the voice of that Retribution which even now
+lies in wait, and will not long be delayed.
+
+To-night Signor Scavo, the American Vice-Consul, took me to the palace of
+Prince Biscari, overlooking the harbor, in order to behold the grand
+display of fireworks from the end of the mole. The showers of rockets and
+colored stars, and the temples of blue and silver fire, were repeated in
+the dark, quiet bosom of the sea, producing the most dazzling and
+startling effects. There was a large number of the Catanese nobility
+present, and among them a Marchesa Gioveni, the descendant of the bloody
+house of Anjou. Prince Biscari is a benign, courtly old man, and greatly
+esteemed here. His son is at present in exile, on account of the part he
+took in the late revolution. During the sack of the city under Filangieri,
+the palace was plundered of property to the amount of ten thousand
+dollars. The museum of Greek and Roman antiquities attached to it, and
+which the house of Biscari has been collecting for many years, is probably
+the finest in Sicily. The state apartments were thrown open this evening,
+and when I left, an hour ago, the greater portion of the guests were going
+through mazy quadrilles on the mosaic pavements.
+
+Among the antiquities of Catania which I have visited, are the
+Amphitheatre, capable of holding 15,000 persons, the old Greek Theatre,
+the same in which Alcibiades made his noted harangue to the Catanians, the
+Odeon, and the ancient Baths. The theatre, which is in tolerable
+preservation, is built of lava, like many of the modern edifices in the
+city. The Baths proved to me, what I had supposed, that the Oriental Bath
+of the present day is identical with that of the Ancients. Why so
+admirable an institution has never been introduced into Europe (except in
+the _Bains Chinois_ of Paris) is more than I can tell. From the pavement
+of these baths, which is nearly twenty feet below the surface of the
+earth, the lava of later eruptions has burst up, in places, in hard black
+jets. The most wonderful token of that flood which whelmed Catania two
+hundred years ago, is to be seen at the Grand Benedictine Convent of San
+Nicola, in the upper part of the city. Here the stream of lava divides
+itself just before the Convent, and flows past on both sides, leaving the
+building and gardens untouched. The marble courts, the fountains, the
+splendid galleries, and the gardens of richest southern bloom and
+fragrance, stand like an epicurean island in the midst of the terrible
+stony waves, whose edges bristle with the thorny aloe and cactus. The
+monks of San Nicola are all chosen from the Sicilian nobility, and live a
+comfortable life of luxury and vice. Each one has his own carriage,
+horses, and servants, and each his private chambers outside of the convent
+walls and his kept concubines. These facts are known and acknowledged by
+the Catanians, to whom they are a lasting scandal.
+
+It is past midnight, and I must close. Cæsar started this afternoon,
+alone, for the ascent of Etna. I would have accompanied him, but my only
+chance of reaching Messina in time for the next steamer to Naples is the
+diligence which leaves here to-morrow. The mountain has been covered with
+clouds for the last two days, and I have had no view at all comparable to
+that of the morning of my arrival. To-morrow the grand procession of the
+Body of St. Agatha takes place, but I am quite satisfied with three days
+of processions and horse races, and three nights of illuminations.
+
+I leave in the morning, with a Sicilian passport, my own availing me
+nothing, after landing.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXI.
+
+The Eruption of Mount Etna.
+
+
+  The Mountain Threatens--The Signs Increase--We Leave Catania--Gardens
+  Among the Lava--Etna Labors--Aci Reale--The Groans of Etna--The
+  Eruption--Gigantic Tree of Smoke--Formation of the New Crater--We Lose
+  Sight of the Mountain--Arrival at Messina--Etna is Obscured--Departure.
+
+
+  -------"the shattered side
+  Of thundering Ætna, whose combustible
+  And fuel'd entrails thence conceiving fire,
+  Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
+  And leave a singed bottom." Milton.
+
+
+Messina, Sicily, _Monday, August_ 23, 1852.
+
+The noises of the festival had not ceased when I closed my letter at
+midnight, on Friday last. I slept soundly through the night, but was
+awakened before sunrise by my Sicilian landlord. "O, Excellenza! have you
+heard the Mountain? He is going to break out again; may the holy Santa
+Agatha protect us!" It is rather ill-timed on the part of the Mountain,
+was my involuntary first thought, that he should choose for a new eruption
+precisely the centennial festival of the only Saint who is supposed to
+have any power over him. It shows a disregard of female influence not at
+all suited to the present day, and I scarcely believe that he seriously
+means it. Next came along the jabbering landlady: "I don't like his looks.
+It was just so the last time. Come, Excellenza, you can see him from the
+back terrace." The sun was not yet risen, but the east was bright with
+his coming, and there was not a cloud in the sky. All the features of Etna
+were sharply sculptured in the clear air. From the topmost cone, a thick
+stream of white smoke was slowly puffed out at short intervals, and rolled
+lazily down the eastern side. It had a heavy, languid character, and I
+should have thought nothing of the appearance but for the alarm of my
+hosts. It was like the slow fire of Earth's incense, burning on that grand
+mountain altar.
+
+I hurried off to the Post Office, to await the arrival of the diligence
+from Palermo. The office is in the Strada Etnea, the main street of
+Catania, which runs straight through the city, from the sea to the base of
+the mountain, whose peak closes the long vista. The diligence was an hour
+later than usual, and I passed the time in watching the smoke which
+continued to increase in volume, and was mingled, from time to time, with
+jets of inky blackness. The postilion said he had seen fires and heard
+loud noises during the night. According to his account, the disturbances
+commenced about midnight. I could not but envy my friend Cæsar, who was
+probably at that moment on the summit, looking down into the seething
+fires of the crater.
+
+At last, we rolled out of Catania. There were in the diligence, besides
+myself, two men and a woman, Sicilians of the secondary class. The road
+followed the shore, over rugged tracts of lava, the different epochs of
+which could be distinctly traced in the character of the vegetation. The
+last great flow (of 1679) stood piled in long ridges of terrible
+sterility, barely allowing the aloe and cactus to take root in the hollows
+between. The older deposits were sufficiently decomposed to nourish the
+olive and vine; but even here, the orchards were studded with pyramids of
+the harder fragments, which are laboriously collected by the husbandmen.
+In the few favored spots which have been untouched for so many ages that a
+tolerable depth of soil has accumulated, the vegetation has all the
+richness and brilliancy of tropical lands. The palm, orange, and
+pomegranate thrive luxuriantly, and the vines almost break under their
+heavy clusters. The villages are frequent and well built, and the hills
+are studded, far and near, with the villas of rich proprietors, mostly
+buildings of one story, with verandahs extending their whole length.
+Looking up towards Etna, whose base the road encircles, the views are
+gloriously rich and beautiful. On the other hand is the blue Mediterranean
+and the irregular outline of the shore, here and there sending forth
+promontories of lava, cooled by the waves into the most fantastic forms.
+
+We had sot proceeded far before a new sign called my attention to the
+mountain. Not only was there a perceptible jar or vibration in the earth,
+but a dull, groaning sound, like the muttering of distant thunder, began
+to be heard. The smoke increased in volume, and, as we advanced further to
+the eastward, and much nearer to the great cone, I perceived that it
+consisted of two jets, issuing from different mouths. A broad stream of
+very dense white smoke still flowed over the lip of the topmost crater and
+down the eastern side. As its breadth did not vary, and the edges were
+distinctly defined, it was no doubt the sulphureous vapor rising from a
+river of molten lava. Perhaps a thousand yards below, a much stronger
+column of mingled black and white smoke gushed up, in regular beats or
+pants, from a depression in the mountain side, between two small, extinct
+cones. All this part of Etna was scarred with deep chasms, and in the
+bottoms of those nearest the opening, I could see the red gleam of fire.
+The air was perfectly still, and as yet there was no cloud in the sky.
+
+When we stopped to change horses at the town of Aci Reale, I first felt
+the violence of the tremor and the awful sternness of the sound. The smoke
+by this time seemed to be gathering on the side towards Catania, and hung
+in a dark mass about half-way down the mountain. Groups of the villagers
+were gathered in the streets which looked upwards to Etna, and discussing
+the chances of an eruption. "Ah," said an old peasant, "the Mountain knows
+how to make himself respected. When he talks, everybody listens." The
+sound was the most awful that ever met my ears. It was a hard, painful
+moan, now and then fluttering like a suppressed sob, and had, at the same
+time, an expression of threatening and of agony. It did not come from Etna
+alone. It had no fixed location; it pervaded all space. It was in the air,
+in the depths of the sea, in the earth under my feet--everywhere, in fact;
+and as it continued to increase in violence, I experienced a sensation of
+positive pain. The people looked anxious and alarmed, although they said
+it was a good thing for all Sicily; that last year they had been in
+constant fear from earthquakes, and that an eruption invariably left the
+island quiet for several years. It is true that, during the past year,
+parts of Sicily and Calabria have been visited with severe shocks,
+occasioning much damage to property. A merchant of this city informed me
+yesterday that his whole family had slept for two months in the vaults of
+his warehouse, fearing that their residence might be shaken down in the
+night.
+
+As we rode along from Aci Reale to Taormina, all the rattling of the
+diligence over the rough road could not drown the awful noise. There was a
+strong smell of sulphur in the air, and the thick pants of smoke from the
+lower crater continued to increase in strength. The sun was fierce and
+hot, and the edges of the sulphureous clouds shone with a dazzling
+whiteness. A mounted soldier overtook us, and rode beside the diligence,
+talking with the postillion. He had been up to the mountain, and was
+taking his report to the Governor of the district. The heat of the day and
+the continued tremor of the air lulled me into a sort of doze, when I was
+suddenly aroused by a cry from the soldier and the stopping of the
+diligence. At the same time, there was a terrific peal of sound, followed
+by a jar which must have shaken the whole island. We looked up to Etna,
+which was fortunately in full view before us. An immense mass of
+snow-white smoke had burst up from the crater and was rising
+perpendicularly into the air, its rounded volumes rapidly whirling one
+over the other, yet urged with such impetus that they only rolled outwards
+after they had ascended to an immense height. It might have been one
+minute or five--for I was so entranced by this wonderful spectacle that I
+lost the sense of time--but it seemed instantaneous (so rapid and violent
+were the effects of the explosion), when there stood in the air, based on
+the summit of the mountain, a mass of smoke four or five miles high, and
+shaped precisely like the Italian pine tree.
+
+Words cannot paint the grandeur of this mighty tree. Its trunk of columned
+smoke, one side of which was silvered by the sun, while the other, in
+shadow, was lurid with red flame, rose for more than a mile before it sent
+out its cloudy boughs. Then parting into a thousand streams, each of
+which again threw out its branching tufts of smoke, rolling and waving in
+the air, it stood in intense relief against the dark blue of the sky. Its
+rounded masses of foliage were dazzlingly white on one side, while, in the
+shadowy depths of the branches, there was a constant play of brown,
+yellow, and crimson tints, revealing the central shaft of fire. It was
+like the tree celebrated in the Scandinavian sagas, as seen by the mother
+of Harold Hardrada--that tree, whose roots pierced through the earth,
+whose trunk was of the color of blood, and whose branches filled the
+uttermost corners of the heavens.
+
+This outburst seemed to have relieved the mountain, for the tremors were
+now less violent, though the terrible noise still droned in the air, and
+earth, and sea. And now, from the base of the tree, three white streams
+slowly crept into as many separate chasms, against the walls of which
+played the flickering glow of the burning lava. The column of smoke and
+flame was still hurled upwards, and the tree, after standing about ten
+minutes--a new and awful revelation of the active forces of
+Nature--gradually rose and spread, lost its form, and, slowly moved by a
+light wind (the first that disturbed the dead calm of the day), bent over
+to the eastward. We resumed our course. The vast belt of smoke at last
+arched over the strait, here about twenty miles wide, and sank towards the
+distant Calabrian shore. As we drove under it, for some miles of our way,
+the sun was totally obscured, and the sky presented the singular spectacle
+of two hemispheres of clear blue, with a broad belt of darkness drawn
+between them. There was a hot, sulphureous vapor in the air, and showers
+of white ashes fell, from time to time. We were distant about twelve
+miles, in a straight line, from the crater; but the air was so clear,
+even under the shadow of the smoke, that I could distinctly trace the
+downward movement of the rivers of lava.
+
+This was the eruption, at last, to which all the phenomena of the morning
+had been only preparatory. For the first time in ten years the depths of
+Etna had been stirred, and I thanked God for my detention at Malta, and
+the singular hazard of travel which had brought me here, to his very base,
+to witness a scene, the impression of which I shall never lose, to my
+dying day. Although the eruption may continue and the mountain pour forth
+fiercer fires and broader tides of lava, I cannot but think that the first
+upheaval, which lets out the long-imprisoned forces, will not be equalled
+in grandeur by any later spectacle.
+
+After passing Taormina, our road led us under the hills of the coast, and
+although I occasionally caught glimpses of Etna, and saw the reflection of
+fires from the lava which was filling up his savage ravines, the smoke at
+last encircled his waist, and he was then shut out of sight by the
+intervening mountains. We lost a bolt in a deep valley opening on the sea,
+and during our stoppage I could still hear the groans of the Mountain,
+though farther off and less painful to the ear. As evening came on, the
+beautiful hills of Calabria, with white towns and villages on their sides,
+gleamed in the purple light of the setting sun. We drove around headland
+after headland, till the strait opened, and we looked over the harbor of
+Messina to Capo Faro, and the distant islands of the Tyrrhene Sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I leave this afternoon for Naples and Leghorn. I have lost already so much
+time between Constantinople and this place, that I cannot give up ten
+days more to Etna. Besides, I am so thoroughly satisfied with what I have
+seen, that I fear no second view of the eruption could equal it. Etna
+cannot be seen from here, nor from a nearer point than a mountain six or
+eight miles distant. I tried last evening to get a horse and ride out to
+it, in order to see the appearance of the eruption by night; but every
+horse, mule and donkey in the place was engaged, except a miserable lame
+mule, for which five dollars was demanded. However, the night happened to
+be cloudy so that I could have seen nothing.
+
+My passport is finally _en règle_. It has cost the labors of myself and an
+able-bodied valet-de-place since yesterday morning, and the expenditure of
+five dollars and a half, to accomplish this great work. I have just been
+righteously abusing the Neapolitan Government to a native merchant whom,
+from his name, I took to be a Frenchman, but as I am off in an hour or
+two, hope to escape arrest. Perdition to all Tyranny!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXII.
+
+Gibraltar.
+
+
+  Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
+  Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
+  Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
+  Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock.
+
+
+  ------"to the north-west, Cape St. Vincent died away,
+  Sunset ran, a burning blood-red, blushing into Cadiz Bay.
+  In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray."
+
+  Browning.
+
+
+Gibraltar, _Saturday, November_ 6, 1852.
+
+I leave unrecorded the links of travel which connected Messina and
+Gibraltar. They were over the well-trodden fields of Europe, where little
+ground is left that is not familiar. In leaving Sicily I lost the
+Saracenic trail, which I had been following through the East, and first
+find it again here, on the rock of Calpe, whose name, _Djebel el-Tarik_
+(the Mountain of Tarik), still speaks of the fiery race whose rule
+extended from the unknown ocean of the West to "Ganges and Hydaspes,
+Indian streams." In Malta and Sicily, I saw their decaying watch-towers,
+and recognized their sign-manual in the deep, guttural, masculine words
+and expressions which they have left behind them. I now design following
+their footsteps through the beautiful _Belàd-el-Andaluz_, which, to the
+eye of the Melek Abd-er-rahmàn, was only less lovely than the plains of
+Damascus.
+
+While in Constantinople, I received letters which opened to me wider and
+richer fields of travel than I had already traversed. I saw a possibility
+of exploring the far Indian realms, the shores of farthest Cathay and the
+famed Zipango of Marco Polo. Before entering on this new sphere of
+experiences, however, it was necessary for me to visit Italy, Germany, and
+England. I sailed from Messina to Leghorn, and travelled thence, by way of
+Florence, Venice, and the Tyrol, to Munich. After three happy weeks at
+Gotha, and among the valleys of she Thüringian Forest, I went to London,
+where business and the preparation for my new journeys detained me two or
+three weeks longer. Although the comforts of European civilization were
+pleasant, as a change, after the wild life of the Orient, the autumnal
+rains of England soon made me homesick for the sunshine I had left. The
+weather was cold, dark, and dreary, and the oppressive, sticky atmosphere
+of the bituminous metropolis weighed upon me like a nightmare. Heartily
+tired of looking at a sun that could show nothing brighter than a red
+copper disk, and of breathing an air that peppered my face with particles
+of soot, I left on the 28th of October. It was one of the dismalest days
+of autumn; the meadows of Berkshire were flooded with broad, muddy
+streams, and the woods on the hills of Hampshire looked brown and sodden,
+as if slowly rotting away. I reached Southampton at dusk, but there the
+sky was neither warmer nor clearer, so I spent the evening over a coal
+fire, all impatience for the bright beloved South, towards which my face
+was turned once more.
+
+The _Madras_ left on the next day, at 2 P.M., in the midst of a cheerless
+rain, which half blotted out the pleasant shores of Southampton Water, and
+the Isle of Wight. The _Madras_ was a singularly appropriate vessel for
+one bound on such a journey as mine. The surgeon was Dr. Mungo Park, and
+one of my room-mates was Mr. R. Crusoe. It was a Friday, which boded no
+good for the voyage; but then my journey commenced with my leaving London
+the day previous, and Thursday is a lucky day among the Arabs. I caught a
+watery view of the gray cliffs of the Needles, when dinner was announced,
+but many were those (and I among them) who commenced that meal, and did
+not stay to finish it.
+
+Is there any piece of water more unreasonably, distressingly, disgustingly
+rough and perverse than the British Channel? Yes: there is one, and but
+one--the Bay of Biscay. And as the latter succeeds the former, without a
+pause between, and the head-winds never ceased, and the rain continually
+poured, I leave you to draw the climax of my misery. Four days and four
+nights in a berth, lying on your back, now dozing dull hour after hour,
+now making faint endeavors to eat, or reading the feeblest novel ever
+written, because the mind cannot digest stronger aliment--can there be a
+greater contrast to the wide-awake life, the fiery inspiration, of the
+Orient? My blood became so sluggish and my mind so cloudy and befogged,
+that I despaired of ever thinking clearly or feeling vividly again. "The
+winds are rude" in Biscay, Byron says. They are, indeed: very rude. They
+must have been raised in some most disorderly quarter of the globe. They
+pitched the waves right over our bulwarks, and now and then dashed a
+bucketful of water down the cabin skylight, swamping the ladies' cabin,
+and setting scores of bandboxes afloat. Not that there was the least
+actual danger; but Mrs. ---- would not be persuaded that we were not on
+the brink of destruction, and wrote to friends at home a voluminous
+account of her feelings. There was an Irishman on board, bound to Italy,
+with his sister. It was his first tour, and when asked why he did not go
+direct, through France, he replied, with brotherly concern, that he was
+anxious his sister should see the Bay of Biscay.
+
+This youth's perceptions were of such an emerald hue, that a lot of wicked
+Englishmen had their own fun out of him. The other day, he was trying to
+shave, to the great danger of slicing off his nose, as the vessel was
+rolling fearfully. "Why don't you have the ship headed to the wind?" said
+one of the Englishmen, who heard his complaints; "she will then lie
+steady, and you can shave beautifully." Thereupon the Irishman sent one of
+the stewards upon deck with a polite message to the captain, begging him
+to put the vessel about for five minutes.
+
+Towards noon of the fifth day, we saw the dark, rugged mountains that
+guard the north-western corner of the Spanish Peninsula. We passed the Bay
+of Corunna, and rounding the bold headland of Finisterre, left the
+Biscayan billows behind us. But the sea was still rough and the sky
+clouded, although the next morning the mildness of the air showed the
+change in our latitude. About noon that day, we made the Burlings, a
+cluster of rocks forty miles north of Lisbon, and just before sunset, a
+transient lifting of the clouds revealed the Rock of Cintra, at the mouth
+of the Tagus. The tall, perpendicular cliffs, and the mountain slopes
+behind, covered with gardens, orchards, and scattered villas and hamlets,
+made a grand though dim picture, which was soon hidden from our view.
+
+On the 4th, we were nearly all day crossing the mouth of the Bay of
+Cadiz, and only at sunset saw Cape Trafalgar afar off, glimmering through
+the reddish haze. I remained on deck, as there were patches of starlight
+in the sky. After passing the light-house at Tarifa, the Spanish shore
+continued to be visible. In another hour, there was a dim, cloudy outline
+high above the horizon, on our right. This was the Lesser Atlas, in
+Morocco. And now, right ahead, distinctly visible, though fifteen miles
+distant, lay a colossal lion, with his head on his outstretched paws,
+looking towards Africa. If I had been brought to the spot blindfolded, I
+should have known what it was. The resemblance is certainly very striking,
+and the light-house on Europa Point seemed to be a lamp held in his paws.
+The lights of the city and fortifications rose one by one, glittering
+along the base, and at midnight we dropped anchor before them on the
+western side.
+
+I landed yesterday morning. The mists, which had followed me from England,
+had collected behind the Rock, and the sun, still hidden by its huge bulk,
+shone upwards through them, making a luminous background, against which
+the lofty walls and jagged ramparts of this tremendous natural
+fortification were clearly defined. I announced my name, and the length of
+time I designed remaining, at a little office on the quay, and was then
+allowed to pass into the city. A number of familiar white turbans met me
+on entering, and I could not resist the temptation of cordially saluting
+the owners in their own language. The town is long and narrow, lying
+steeply against the Rock. The houses are white, yellow and pink, as in
+Spanish towns, but the streets are clean and well paved. There is a
+square, about the size of an ordinary building-lot, where a sort of
+market of dry goods and small articles is held The "Club-House Hotel"
+occupies one side of it; and, as I look out of my window upon it, I see
+the topmost cliffs of the Rock above me, threatening to topple down from a
+height of 1,500 feet.
+
+My first walk in Gibraltar was in search of a palm-tree. After threading
+the whole length of the town, I found two small ones in a garden, in the
+bottom of the old moat. The sun was shining, and his rays seemed to fall
+with double warmth on their feathery crests. Three brown Spaniards,
+bare-armed, were drawing water with a pole and bucket, and filling the
+little channels which conveyed it to the distant vegetables. The sea
+glittered blue below; an Indian fig-tree shaded me; but, on the rock
+behind, an aloe lifted its blossoming stem, some twenty feet high, into
+the sunshine. To describe what a weight was lifted from my heart would
+seem foolish to those who do not know on what little things the whole tone
+of our spirits sometimes depends.
+
+But if an even balance was restored yesterday, the opposite scale kicked
+the beam this morning. Not a speck of vapor blurred the spotless crystal
+of the sky, as I walked along the hanging paths of the Alameda. The sea
+was dazzling ultra-marine, with a purple lustre; every crag and notch of
+the mountains across the bay, every shade of brown or gray, or the green
+of grassy patches, was drawn and tinted with a pencil so exquisitely
+delicate as almost to destroy the perspective. The white houses of
+Algeciras, five miles off, appeared close at hand: a little toy-town,
+backed by miniature hills. Apes' Hill, the ancient Abyla, in Africa,
+advanced to meet Calpe, its opposing pillar, and Atlas swept away to the
+east ward, its blue becoming paler and paler, till the powers of vision
+finally failed. From the top of the southern point of the Rock, I saw the
+mountain-shore of Spain, as far as Malaga, and the snowy top of one of the
+Sierra Nevada. Looking eastward to the horizon line of the Mediterranean,
+my sight extended so far, in the wonderful clearness of the air, that the
+convexity of the earth's surface was plainly to be seen. The sea, instead
+of being a plane, was slightly convex, and the sky, instead of resting
+upon it at the horizon, curved down beyond it, as the upper side of a horn
+curves over the lower, when one looks into the mouth. There is none of the
+many aspects of Nature more grand than this, which is so rarely seen, that
+I believe the only person who has ever described it is Humboldt, who saw
+it, looking from the Silla de Caraccas over the Caribbean Sea. It gives
+you the impression of standing on the edge of the earth, and looking off
+into space. From the mast-head, the ocean appears either flat or slightly
+concave, and æronauts declare that this apparent concavity becomes more
+marked, the higher they ascend. It is only at those rare periods when the
+air is so miraculously clear as to produce the effect of _no
+air_--rendering impossible the slightest optical illusion--that our eyes
+can see things as they really are. So pure was the atmosphere to-day,
+that, at meridian, the moon, although a thin sickle, three days distant
+from the sun, shone perfectly white and clear.
+
+As I loitered in the Alameda, between thick hedges of ever-blooming
+geraniums, clumps of heliotrope three feet high, and luxuriant masses of
+ivy, around whose warm flowers the bees clustered and hummed, I could only
+think of the voyage as a hideous dream. The fog and gloom had been in my
+own eyes and in my own brain, and now the blessed sun, shining full in my
+face, awoke me. I am a worshipper of the Sun. I took off my hat to him, as
+I stood there, in a wilderness of white, crimson, and purple flowers, and
+let him blaze away in my face for a quarter of an hour. And as I walked
+home with my back to him, I often turned my face from side to side that I
+might feel his touch on my cheek. How a man can live, who is sentenced to
+a year's imprisonment, is more than I can understand.
+
+But all this (you will say) gives you no picture of Gibraltar. The Rock is
+so familiar to all the world, in prints and descriptions, that I find
+nothing new to say of it, except that it is by no means so barren a rock
+as the island of Malta, being clothed, in many places, with beautiful
+groves and the greenest turf; besides, I have not yet seen the
+rock-galleries, having taken passage for Cadiz this afternoon. When I
+return--as I hope to do in twenty days, after visiting Seville and
+Granada--I shall procure permission to view all the fortifications, and
+likewise to ascend to the summit.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII.
+
+Cadiz And Seville.
+
+
+  Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
+  Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
+  House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
+  Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar-Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
+  House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
+  Evening in Seville.
+
+
+  "The walls of Cadiz front the shore,
+      And shimmer o'er the sea."
+
+  R. H. Stoddard.
+
+
+               "Beautiful Seville!
+  Of which I've dreamed, until I saw its towers
+  In every cloud that hid the setting sun."
+
+  George H. Boker.
+
+
+Seville, _November_ 10, 1852.
+
+I left Gibraltar on the evening of the 6th, in the steamer Iberia. The
+passage to Cadiz was made in nine hours, and we came to anchor in the
+harbor before day-break. It was a cheerful picture that the rising sun
+presented to us. The long white front of the city, facing the East, glowed
+with a bright rosy lustre, on a ground of the clearest blue. The tongue of
+land on which Cadiz stands is low, but the houses are lifted by the heavy
+sea-wall which encompasses them. The main-land consists of a range of low
+but graceful hills, while in the south-east the mountains of Ronda rise at
+some distance. I went immediately on shore, where my carpet-bag was seized
+upon by a boy, with the rich brown complexion of one Murillo's beggars,
+who trudged off with it to the gate. After some little detention there, I
+was conducted to a long, deserted, barn-like building, where I waited half
+an hour before the proper officer came. When the latter had taken his
+private toll of my contraband cigars, the brown imp conducted me to
+Blanco's English Hotel, a neat and comfortable house on the Alameda.
+
+Cadiz is soon seen. Notwithstanding its venerable age of three thousand
+years--having been founded by Hercules, who figures on its
+coat-of-arms--it is purely a commercial city, and has neither antiquities,
+nor historic associations that interest any but Englishmen. It is
+compactly built, and covers a smaller space than accords with my ideas of
+its former splendor. I first walked around the sea-ramparts, enjoying the
+glorious look-off over the blue waters. The city is almost insulated, the
+triple line of fortifications on the land side being of but trifling
+length. A rocky ledge stretches out into the sea from the northern point,
+and at its extremity rises the massive light-house tower, 170 feet high.
+The walls toward the sea were covered with companies of idle anglers,
+fishing with cane rods of enormous length. On the open, waste spaces
+between the bastions, boys had spread their limed cords to catch singing
+birds, with chirping decoys placed here and there in wicker cages. Numbers
+of boatmen and peasants, in their brown jackets, studded with tags and
+bugles, and those round black caps which resemble smashed bandboxes,
+loitered about the walls or lounged on the grass in the sun.
+
+Except along the Alameda, which fronts the bay, the exterior of the city
+has an aspect of neglect and desertion. The interior, however, atones for
+this in the gay and lively air of its streets, which, though narrow, are
+regular and charmingly clean. The small plazas are neatness itself, and
+one is too content with this to ask for striking architectural effects.
+The houses are tall and stately, of the most dazzling whiteness, and
+though you could point out no one as a pattern of style, the general
+effect is chaste and harmonious. In fact, there are two or three streets
+which you would almost pronounce faultless. The numbers of hanging
+balconies and of court-yards paved with marble and surrounded with elegant
+corridors, show the influence of Moorish taste. There is not a
+mean-looking house to be seen, and I have no doubt that Cadiz is the best
+built city of its size in the world. It lies, white as new-fallen snow,
+like a cluster of ivory palaces, between sea and sky. Blue and silver are
+its colors, and, as everybody knows, there can be no more charming
+contrast.
+
+I visited both the old and new cathedrals, neither of which is
+particularly interesting. The latter is unfinished, and might have been a
+fine edifice had the labor and money expended on its construction been
+directed by taste. The interior, rich as it is in marbles and sculpture,
+has a heavy, confused effect. The pillars dividing the nave from the
+side-aisles are enormous composite masses, each one consisting of six
+Corinthian columns, stuck around and against a central shaft. More
+satisfactory to me was the Opera-House, which I visited in the evening,
+and where the dazzling array of dark-eyed Gaditanas put a stop to
+architectural criticism. The women of Cadiz are noted for their beauty and
+their graceful gait. Some of them are very beautiful, it is true; but
+beauty is not the rule among them. Their gait, however, is the most
+graceful possible, because it is perfectly free and natural. The
+commonest serving-maid who walks the streets of Cadiz would put to shame a
+whole score of our mincing and wriggling belles.
+
+Honest old Blanco prepared me a cup of chocolate by sunrise next morning,
+and accompanied me down to the quay, to embark for Seville. A furious wind
+was blowing from the south-east, and the large green waves raced and
+chased one another incessantly over the surface of the bay. I took a heavy
+craft, which the boatmen pushed along under cover of the pier, until they
+reached the end, when the sail was dropped in the face of the wind, and
+away we shot into the watery tumult. The boat rocked and bounced over the
+agitated surface, running with one gunwale on the waves, and sheets of
+briny spray broke over me. I felt considerably relieved when I reached the
+deck of the steamer, but it was then diversion enough to watch those who
+followed. The crowd of boats pitching tumultuously around the steamer,
+jostling against each other, their hulls gleaming with wet, as they rose
+on the beryl-colored waves, striped with long, curded lines of wind-blown
+foam, would have made a fine subject for the pencil of Achenbach.
+
+At last we pushed off, with a crowd of passengers fore and aft, and a
+pyramid of luggage piled around the smoke-pipe. There was a party of four
+Englishmen on board, and, on making their acquaintance, I found one of
+them to be a friend to some of my friends--Sir John Potter, the
+progressive ex-Mayor of Manchester. The wind being astern, we ran rapidly
+along the coast, and in two hours entered the mouth of the Guadalquivir.
+[This name comes from the Arabic _wadi el-kebeer_--literally, the Great
+Valley.] The shores are a dead flat. The right bank is a dreary forest of
+stunted pines, abounding with deer and other game; on the left is the
+dilapidated town of San Lucar, whence Magellan set sail on his first
+voyage around the world. A mile further is Bonanza, the port of Xeres,
+where we touched and took on board a fresh lot of passengers. Thenceforth,
+for four hours, the scenery of the Guadalquivir had a most distressing
+sameness. The banks were as flat as a board, with here and there a
+straggling growth of marshy thickets. Now and then we passed a herdsman's
+hut, but there were no human beings to be seen, except the peasants who
+tended the large flocks of sheep and cattle. A sort of breakfast was
+served in the cabin, but so great was the number of guests that I had much
+difficulty in getting anything to eat. The waiters were models of calmness
+and deliberation.
+
+As we approached Seville, some low hills appeared on the left, near the
+river. Dazzling white villages were planted at their foot, and all the
+slopes were covered with olive orchards, while the banks of the stream
+were bordered with silvery birch trees. This gave the landscape, in spite
+of the African warmth and brightness of the day, a gray and almost wintry
+aspect. Soon the graceful Giralda, or famous Tower of Seville, arose in
+the distance; but, from the windings of the river, we were half an hour in
+reaching the landing-place. One sees nothing of the far-famed beauty of
+Seville, on approaching it. The boat stops below the Alameda, where the
+passengers are received by Custom-House officers, who, in my case, did not
+verify the stories told of them in Cadiz. I gave my carpet-bag to a boy,
+who conducted me along the hot and dusty banks to the bridge over the
+Guadalquivir, where he turned into the city. On passing the gate, two
+loafer-like guards stopped my baggage, notwithstanding it had already been
+examined. "What!" said I, "do you examine twice on entering Seville?"
+"Yes," answered one; "twice, and even three times;" but added in a lower
+tone, "it depends entirely on yourself." With that he slipped behind me,
+and let one hand fall beside my pocket. The transfer of a small coin was
+dexterously made, and I passed on without further stoppage to the Fonda de
+Madrid.
+
+Sir John Potter engaged Antonio Bailli, the noted guide of Seville, who
+professes to have been the cicerone of all distinguished travellers, from
+Lord Byron and Washington Irving down to Owen Jones, and I readily
+accepted his invitation to join the party. Bailli is recommended by Ford
+as "fat and good-humored" Fat he certainly is, and very good-humored when
+speaking of himself, but he has been rather spoiled by popularity, and is
+much too profuse in his critical remarks on art and architecture.
+Nevertheless, as my stay in Seville is limited, I have derived no slight
+advantage from his services.
+
+On the first morning I took an early stroll through the streets. The
+houses are glaringly white, like those of Cadiz, but are smaller and have
+not the same stately exteriors. The windows are protected by iron
+gratings, of florid patterns, and, as many of these are painted green, the
+general effect is pleasing. Almost every door opens upon a _patio_, or
+courtyard, paved with black and white marble and adorned with flowers and
+fountains. Many of these remain from the time of the Moors, and are still
+surrounded by the delicate arches and brilliant tile-work of that period.
+The populace in the streets are entirely Spanish--the jaunty _majo_ in
+his queer black cap, sash, and embroidered jacket, and the nut-brown,
+dark-eyed damsel, swimming along in her mantilla, and armed with the
+irresistible fan.
+
+We went first to the Cathedral, built on the site of the great mosque of
+Abou Youssuf Yakoub. The tall Giralda beckoned to us over the tops of the
+intervening buildings, and finally a turn in the street brought us to the
+ancient Moorish gateway on the northern side. This is an admirable
+specimen of the horse-shoe arch, and is covered with elaborate tracery. It
+originally opened into the court, or _hàram_, of the mosque, which still
+remains, and is shaded by a grove of orange trees. The Giralda, to my eye,
+is a more perfect tower than the Campanile of Florence, or that of San
+Marco, at Venice, which is evidently an idea borrowed from it. The Moorish
+structure, with a base of fifty feet square, rises to the height of two
+hundred and fifty feet. It is of a light pink color, and the sides, which
+are broken here and there by exquisitely proportioned double Saracenic
+arches, are covered from top to bottom with arabesque tracery, cut in
+strong relief. Upon this tower, a Spanish architect has placed a tapering
+spire, one hundred feet high, which fortunately harmonizes with the
+general design, and gives the crowning grace to the work.
+
+The Cathedral of Seville may rank as one of the grandest Gothic piles in
+Europe. The nave lacks but five feet of being as high as that of St.
+Peter's, while the length and breadth of the edifice are on a commensurate
+scale. The ninety-three windows of stained glass fill the interior with a
+soft and richly-tinted light, mellower and more gentle than the sombre
+twilight of the Gothic Cathedrals of Europe. The wealth lavished on the
+smaller chapels and shrines is prodigious, and the high altar, inclosed
+within a gilded railing fifty feet high, is probably the most enormous
+mass of wood-carving in existence. The Cathedral, in fact, is encumbered
+with its riches. While they bewilder you as monuments of human labor and
+patience, they detract from the grand simplicity of the building. The
+great nave, on each side of the transept, is quite blocked up, so that the
+choir and magnificent royal chapel behind it have almost the effect of
+detached edifices.
+
+We returned again this morning, remaining two hours, and succeeded in
+making a thorough survey, including a number of trashy pictures and
+barbarously rich shrines. Murillo's "Guardian Angel" and the "Vision of
+St. Antonio" are the only gems. The treasury contains a number of sacred
+vessels of silver, gold and jewels--among other things, the keys of
+Moorish Seville, a cross made of the first gold brought from the New-World
+by Columbus, and another from that robbed in Mexico by Cortez. The
+Cathedral won my admiration more and more. The placing of the numerous
+windows, and their rich coloring, produce the most glorious effects of
+light in the lofty aisles, and one is constantly finding new vistas, new
+combinations of pillar, arch and shrine. The building is in itself a
+treasury of the grandest Gothic pictures.
+
+From the Cathedral we went to the Alcazar _(El-Kasr),_ or Palace of the
+Moorish Kings. We entered by a long passage, with round arches on either
+side, resting on twin pillars, placed at right angles to the line of the
+arch, as one sees both in Saracenic and Byzantine structures. Finally, old
+Bailli brought us into a dull, deserted court-yard, where we were
+surprised by the sight of an entire Moorish façade, with its pointed
+arches, its projecting roof, its rich sculptured ornaments and its
+illuminations of red, blue, green and gold. It has been lately restored,
+and now rivals in freshness and brilliancy any of the rich houses of
+Damascus. A doorway, entirely too low and mean for the splendor of the
+walls above it, admitted us into the first court. On each side of the
+passage are the rooms of the guard and the Moorish nobles. Within, all is
+pure Saracenic, and absolutely perfect in its grace and richness. It is
+the realization of an Oriental dream; it is the poetry and luxury of the
+East in tangible forms. Where so much depends on the proportion and
+harmony of the different parts--on those correspondences, the union of
+which creates that nameless soul of the work, which cannot be expressed in
+words--it is useless to describe details. From first to last--the chambers
+of state; the fringed arches; the open tracery, light and frail as the
+frost-stars crystallized on a window-pane; the courts, fit to be
+vestibules to Paradise; the audience-hall, with its wondrous sculptures,
+its columns and pavement of marble, and its gilded dome; the garden,
+gorgeous with its palm, banana, and orange-trees--all were in perfect
+keeping, all jewels of equal lustre, forming a diadem which still lends a
+royal dignity to the phantom of Moorish power.
+
+We then passed into the gardens laid out by the Spanish monarchs--trim,
+mathematical designs, in box and myrtle, with concealed fountains
+springing up everywhere unawares in the midst of the paven walks; yet
+still made beautiful by the roses and jessamines that hung in rank
+clusters over the marble balustrades, and by the clumps of tall orange
+trees, bending to earth under the weight of their fruitage. We afterward
+visited Pilate's House, as it is called--a fine Spanish-Moresco palace,
+now belonging to the Duke of Medina Coeli. It is very rich and elegant,
+but stands in the same relation to the Alcazar as a good copy does to the
+original picture. The grand staircase, nevertheless, is a marvel of tile
+work, unlike anything else in Seville, and exhibits a genius in the
+invention of elaborate ornamental patterns, which is truly wonderful. A
+number of workmen were busy in restoring the palace, to fit it for the
+residence of the young Duke. The Moorish sculptures are reproduced in
+plaster, which, at least, has a better effect than the fatal whitewash
+under which the original tints of the Alcazar are hidden. In the courts
+stand a number of Roman busts--Spanish antiquities, and therefore not of
+great merit--singularly out of place in niches surrounded by Arabic
+devices and sentences from the Koran.
+
+This morning, I climbed the Giralda. The sun had just risen, and the clay
+was fresh and crystal-clear. A little door in the Cathedral, near the foot
+of the tower, stood open, and I entered. A rather slovenly Sevillaña had
+just completed her toilet, but two children were still in undress.
+However, she opened a door in the tower, and I went up without hindrance.
+The ascent is by easy ramps, and I walked four hundred yards, or nearly a
+quarter of a mile, before reaching the top of the Moorish part. The
+panoramic view was superb. To the east and west, the Great Valley made a
+level line on a far-distant horizon. There were ranges of hills in the
+north and south, and those rising near the city, clothed in a gray mantle
+of olive-trees, were picturesquely crowned with villages. The
+Guadalquivir, winding in the most sinuous mazes, had no longer a turbid
+hue; he reflected the blue morning sky, and gleamed brightly between his
+borders of birch and willow. Seville sparkled white and fair under my
+feet, her painted towers and tiled domes rising thickly out of the mass of
+buildings. The level sun threw shadows into the numberless courts,
+permitting the mixture of Spanish and Moorish architecture to be plainly
+discerned, even at that height. A thin golden vapor softened the features
+of the landscape, towards the sun, while, on the opposite side, every
+object stood out in the sharpest and clearest outlines.
+
+On our way to the Muséo, Bailli took us to the house of a friend of his,
+in order that we might taste real Manzanilla wine. This is a pale,
+straw-colored vintage, produced in the valley of the Guadalquivir. It is
+flavored with camomile blossoms, and is said to be a fine tonic for weak
+stomachs. The master then produced a dark-red wine, which he declared to
+be thirty years old. It was almost a syrup in consistence, and tasted more
+of sarsaparilla than grapes. None of us relished it, except Bailli, who
+was so inspired by the draught, that he sang us two Moorish songs and an
+Andalusian catch, full of fun and drollery.
+
+The Muséo contains a great amount of bad pictures, but it also contains
+twenty-three of Murillo's works, many of them of his best period. To those
+who have only seen his tender, spiritual "Conceptions" and "Assumptions,"
+his "Vision of St. Francis" in this gallery reveals a mastery of the
+higher walks of his art, which they would not have anticipated. But it is
+in his "Cherubs" and his "Infant Christs" that he excels. No one ever
+painted infantile grace and beauty with so true a pencil. There is but one
+Velasquez in the collection, and the only thing that interested me, in two
+halls filled with rubbish, was a "Conception" by Murillo's mulatto pupil,
+said by some to have been his slave. Although an imitation of the great
+master, it is a picture of much sweetness and beauty. There is no other
+work of the artist in existence, and this, as the only production of the
+kind by a painter of mixed African blood, ought to belong to the Republic
+of Liberia.
+
+Among the other guests at the Fonda de Madrid is Mr. Thomas Hobhouse,
+brother of Byron's friend. We had a pleasant party in the Court this
+evening, listening to blind Pépé, who sang to his guitar a medley of merry
+Andalusian refrains. Singing made the old man courageous, and, at the
+close, he gave us the radical song of Spain, which is now strictly
+prohibited. The air is charming, but too gay; one would sooner dance than
+fight to its measures. It does not bring the hand to the sword, like the
+glorious Marseillaise.
+
+_Adios_, beautiful Seville!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIV.
+
+Journey in a Spanish Diligence.
+
+
+  Spanish Diligence Lines--Leaving Seville--An Unlucky Start--Alcalà of
+  the Bakers--Dinner at Carmona--A Dehesa--The Mayoral and his
+  Team--Ecija--Night Journey--Cordova--The Cathedral-Mosque--Moorish
+  Architecture--The Sierra Morena--A Rainy Journey--A Chapter of
+  Accidents--Baylen--The Fascination of Spain--Jaen--The Vega of Granada.
+
+
+Granada, _November_ 14, 1852.
+
+It is an enviable sensation to feel for the first time that you are in
+Granada. No amount of travelling can weaken the romantic interest which
+clings about this storied place, or take away aught from the freshness of
+that emotion with which you first behold it, I sit almost at the foot of
+the Alhambra, whose walls I can see from my window, quite satisfied for
+to-day with being here. It has been raining since I arrived, the thunder
+is crashing overhead, and the mountains are covered with clouds, so I am
+kept in-doors, with the luxury of knowing that all the wonders of the
+place are within my reach. And now let me beguile the dull weather by
+giving you a sketch of my journey from Seville hither.
+
+There are three lines of stages from Seville to Madrid, and their
+competition has reduced the fare to $12, which, for a ride of 350 miles,
+is remarkably cheap. The trip is usually made in three days and a half. A
+branch line from Baylen--nearly half-way--strikes southward to Granada,
+and as there is no competition on this part of the road, I was charged $15
+for a through seat in the _coupé_. On account of the lateness of the
+season, and the limited time at my command, this was preferable to taking
+horses and riding across the country from Seville to Cordova. Accordingly,
+at an early hour on Thursday morning last, furnished with a travelling
+ticket inscribed: "Don Valtar de Talor" (myself!), I took leave of my
+English friends at the Fonda de Madrid, got into an immense, lumbering
+yellow vehicle, drawn by ten mules, and started, trusting to my good luck
+and bad Spanish to get safely through. The commencement, however, was
+unpropitious, and very often a stumble at starting makes the whole journey
+limp. The near mule in the foremost span was a horse, ridden by our
+postillion, and nothing could prevent that horse from darting into all
+sorts of streets and alleys where we had no desire to go. As all mules
+have implicit faith in horses, of course the rest of the animals followed.
+We were half an hour in getting out of Seville, and when at last we
+reached the open road and dashed off at full gallop, one of the mules in
+the traces fell and was dragged in the dust some twenty or thirty yards
+before we could stop. My companions in the coupé were a young Spanish
+officer and his pretty Andalusian bride, who was making her first journey
+from home, and after these mishaps was in a state of constant fear and
+anxiety.
+
+The first stage across the valley of the Guadalquivir took us to the town
+of Alcalà, which lies in the lap of the hills above the beautiful little
+river Guadaira. It is a picturesque spot; the naked cliffs overhanging the
+stream have the rich, red hue of cinnabar, and the trees and shrubbery in
+the meadows, and on the hill-sides are ready grouped to the artist's
+hand. The town is called Alcalà de los Panadores (of the Bakers) from its
+hundreds of flour mills and bake-ovens, which supply Seville with those
+white, fine, delicious twists, of which Spain may be justly proud. They
+should have been sent to the Exhibition last year, with the Toledo blades
+and the wooden mosaics. We left the place and its mealy-headed population,
+and turned eastward into wide, rolling tracts, scattered here and there
+with gnarled olive trees. The soil was loose and sandy, and hedges of
+aloes lined the road. The country is thinly populated, and very little of
+it under cultivation.
+
+About noon we reached Carmona, which was founded by the Romans, as,
+indeed, were nearly all the towns of Southern Spain. It occupies the crest
+and northern slope of a high hill, whereon the ancient Moorish castle
+still stands. The Alcazar, or palace, and the Moorish walls also remain,
+though in a very ruinous condition. Here we stopped to dinner, for the
+"Nueva Peninsular," in which I was embarked, has its hotels all along the
+route, like that of Zurutuza, in Mexico. We were conducted into a small
+room adjoining the stables, and adorned with colored prints illustrating
+the history of Don John of Austria. The table-cloths, plates and other
+appendages were of very ordinary quality, but indisputably clean; we
+seated ourselves, and presently the dinner appeared. First, a vermicelli
+_pilaff_, which I found palatable, then the national _olla_, a dish of
+enormous yellow peas, sprinkled with bits of bacon and flavored with oil;
+then three successive courses of chicken, boiled, stewed and roasted, but
+in every case done to rags, and without a particle of the original
+flavor. This was the usual style of our meals on the road, whether
+breakfast, dinner or supper, except that kid was sometimes substituted for
+fowl, and that the oil employed, being more or less rancid, gave different
+flavors to the dishes, A course of melons, grapes or pomegranates wound up
+the repast, the price of which varied from ten to twelve reals--a real
+being about a half-dime. In Seville, at the Fonda de Madrid, the cooking
+is really excellent; but further in the interior, judging from what I have
+heard, it is even worse than I have described.
+
+Continuing our journey, we passed around the southern brow of the hill,
+under the Moorish battlements. Here a superb view opened to the south and
+east over the wide Vega of Carmona, as far as the mountain chain which
+separates it from the plain of Granada. The city has for a coat of arms a
+silver star in an azure field, with the pompous motto: "As Lucifer shines
+in the morning, so shines Carmona in Andalusia." If it shines at all, it
+is because it is a city set upon a hill; for that is the only splendor I
+could find about the place. The Vega of Carmona is partially cultivated,
+and now wears a sombre brown hue, from its tracts of ploughed land.
+
+Cultivation soon ceased, however, and we entered on a _dehesa_, a
+boundless plain of waste land, covered with thickets of palmettos. Flocks
+of goats and sheep, guarded by shepherds in brown cloaks, wandered here
+and there, and except their huts and an isolated house, with its group of
+palm-trees, there was no sign of habitation. The road was a deep, red
+sand, and our mules toiled along slowly and painfully, urged by the
+incessant cries of the _mayoral_, or conductor, and his _mozo_. As the
+mayoral's whip could only reach the second span, the business of the
+latter was to jump down every ten minutes, run ahead and belabor the
+flanks of the foremost mules, uttering at the same time a series of sharp
+howls, which seemed to strike the poor beasts with quite as much severity
+as his whip. I defy even a Spanish ear to distinguish the import of these
+cries, and the great wonder was how they could all come out of one small
+throat. When it came to a hard pull, they cracked and exploded like
+volleys of musketry, and flew like hail-stones about the ears of the
+_machos_ (he-mules). The postillion, having only the care of the foremost
+span, is a silent man, but he has contracted a habit of sleeping in the
+saddle, which I mention for the benefit of timid travellers, as it adds to
+the interest of a journey by night.
+
+The clouds which had been gathering all day, now settled down upon the
+plain, and night came on with a dull rain. At eight o'clock we reached the
+City of Ecija, where we had two hours' halt and supper. It was so dark and
+rainy that I saw nothing, not even the classic Xenil, the river of
+Granada, which flows through the city on its way to the Guadalquivir, The
+night wore slowly away, and while the _mozo_ drowsed on his post, I caught
+snatches of sleep between his cries. As the landscape began to grow
+distinct in the gray, cloudy dawn, we saw before us Cordova, with the dark
+range of the Sierra Morena rising behind it. This city, once the glory of
+Moorish Spain, the capital of the great Abd-er-Rahman, containing, when in
+its prime, a million of inhabitants, is now a melancholy wreck. It has not
+a shadow of the art, science, and taste which then distinguished it, and
+the only interest it now possesses is from these associations, and the
+despoiled remnant of its renowned Mosque.
+
+We crossed the Guadalquivir on a fine bridge built on Roman foundations,
+and drove slowly down the one long, rough, crooked street. The diligence
+stops for an hour, to allow passengers to breakfast, but my first thought
+was for the Cathedral-mosque, _la Mezquita_, as it is still called. "It is
+closed," said the ragged crowd that congregated about us; "you cannot get
+in until eight o'clock." But I remembered that a silver key will open
+anything in Spain, and taking a mozo as a guide we hurried off as fast as
+the rough pavements would permit. We had to retrace the whole length of
+the city, but on reaching the Cathedral, found it open. The exterior is
+low, and quite plain, though of great extent. A Moorish gateway admitted
+me into the original court-yard, or _hàram_, of the mosque, which is
+planted with orange trees and contains the fountain, for the ablutions of
+Moslem worshippers, in the centre. The area of the Mosque proper,
+exclusive of the court-yard, is about 400 by 350 feet. It was built on the
+plan of the great Mosque of Damascus, about the end of the eighth century.
+The materials--including twelve hundred columns of marble, jasper and
+porphyry, from the ruins of Carthage, and the temples of Asia
+Minor---belonged to a Christian basilica, of the Gothic domination, which
+was built upon the foundations of a Roman temple of Janus; so that the
+three great creeds of the world have here at different times had their
+seat. The Moors considered this mosque as second in holiness to the Kaaba
+of Mecca, and made pilgrimages to it from all parts of Moslem Spain and
+Barbary. Even now, although shorn of much of its glory, it surpasses any
+Oriental mosque into which I have penetrated, except St. Sophia, which is
+a Christian edifice.
+
+All the nineteen original entrances--beautiful horse-shoe arches--are
+closed, except the central one. I entered by a low door, in one corner of
+the corridor. A wilderness of columns connected by double arches (one
+springing above the other, with an opening between), spread their dusky
+aisles before me in the morning twilight. The eight hundred and fifty
+shafts of this marble forest formed labyrinths and mazes, which at that
+early hour appeared boundless, for their long vistas disappeared in the
+shadows. Lamps were burning before distant shrines, and a few worshippers
+were kneeling silently here and there. The sound of my own footsteps, as I
+wandered through the ranks of pillars, was all that I heard. In the centre
+of the wood (for such it seemed) rises the choir, a gaudy and tasteless
+excrescence added by the Christians. Even Charles V., who laid a merciless
+hand on the Alhambra, reproved the Bishop of Cordova for this barbarous
+and unnecessary disfigurement.
+
+The sacristan lighted lamps in order to show me the Moorish chapels.
+Nothing but the precious materials of which these exquisite structures are
+composed could have saved them from the holy hands of the Inquisition,
+which intentionally destroyed all the Roman antiquities of Cordova. Here
+the fringed arches, the lace-like filigrees, the wreathed inscriptions,
+and the domes of pendent stalactites which enchant you in the Alcazar of
+Seville, are repeated, not in stucco, but in purest marble, while the
+entrance to the "holy of holies" is probably the most glorious piece of
+mosaic in the world. The pavement of the interior is deeply worn by the
+knees of the Moslem pilgrims, who compassed it seven times, kneeling, as
+they now do in the Kaaba, at Mecca. The sides are embroidered with
+sentences from the Koran, in Cufic characters, and the roof is in the
+form of a fluted shell, of a single piece of pure white marble, fifteen
+feet in diameter. The roof of the vestibule is a wonderful piece of
+workmanship, formed of pointed arches, wreathed and twined through each
+other, like basket-work. No people ever wrought poetry into stone so
+perfectly as the Saracens. In looking on these precious relics of an
+elegant and refined race, I cannot help feeling a strong regret that their
+kingdom ever passed into other hands.
+
+Leaving Cordova, our road followed the Guadalquivir, along the foot of the
+Sierra Morena, which rose dark and stern, a barrier to the central
+table-lands of La Mancha. At Alcolea, we crossed the river on a noble
+bridge of black marble, out of all keeping with the miserable road. It
+rained incessantly, and the scenery through which we passed had a wild and
+gloomy character. The only tree to be seen was the olive, which covered
+the hills far and near, the profusion of its fruit showing the natural
+richness of the soil. This part of the road is sometimes infested with
+robbers, and once, when I saw two individuals waiting for us in a lonely
+defile, with gun-barrels thrust out from under their black cloaks, I
+anticipated a recurrence of a former unpleasant experience. But they
+proved to be members of the _guardia civil_, and therefore our protectors.
+
+The ruts and quagmires, made by the rain, retarded our progress, and it
+was dark when we reached Andujar, fourteen leagues from Cordova. To
+Baylen, where I was to quit the diligence, and take another coming down
+from Madrid to Granada, was four leagues further. We journeyed on in the
+dark, in a pouring rain, up and down hill for some hours, when all at
+once the cries of the mozo ceased, and the diligence came to a dead stop.
+There was some talk between our conductors, and then the mayoral opened
+the door and invited us to get out. The postillion had fallen asleep, and
+the mules had taken us into a wrong road. An attempt was made to turn the
+diligence, but failed, leaving it standing plump against a high bank of
+mud. We stood, meanwhile, shivering in the cold and wet, and the fair
+Andalusian shed abundance of tears. Fortunately, Baylen was close at hand,
+and, after some delay, two men came with lanterns and escorted us to the
+_posada_, or inn, where we arrived at midnight. The diligence from Madrid,
+which was due six hours before, had not made its appearance, and we passed
+the rest of the night in a cold room, fasting, for the meal was only to be
+served when the other passengers came. At day-break, finally, a single
+dish of oily meat was vouchsafed to us, and, as it was now certain that
+some accident had happened, the passengers to Madrid requested the
+_Administrador_ to send them on in an extra conveyance. This he refused,
+and they began to talk about getting up a pronunciamento, when a messenger
+arrived with the news that the diligence had broken down at midnight,
+about two leagues off. Tools were thereupon dispatched, nine hours after
+the accident happened, and we might hope to be released from our
+imprisonment in four or five more.
+
+Baylen is a wretched place, celebrated for having the first palm-tree
+which those see who come from Madrid, and for the victory gained by
+Castaños over the French forces under Dupont, which occasioned the flight
+of Joseph Buonaparte from Madrid, and the temporary liberation of Spain
+from the French yoke. Castaños, who received the title of Duke de Baylen,
+and is compared by the Spaniards to Wellington, died about three months
+ago. The battle-field I passed in the night; the palm-tree I found, but it
+is now a mere stump, the leaves having been stripped off to protect the
+houses of the inhabitants from lightning. Our posada had one of them hung
+at the window. At last, the diligence came, and at three P.M., when I
+ought to have been in sight of Granada, I left the forlorn walls of
+Baylen. My fellow-passengers were a young sprig of the Spanish nobility
+and three chubby-faced nuns.
+
+The rest of the journey that afternoon was through a wide, hilly region,
+entirely bare of trees and habitations, and but partially cultivated.
+There was something sublime in its very nakedness and loneliness, and I
+felt attracted to it as I do towards the Desert. In fact, although I have
+seen little fine scenery since leaving Seville, have had the worst of
+weather, and no very pleasant travelling experiences, the country has
+exercised a fascination over me, which I do not quite understand. I find
+myself constantly on the point of making a vow to return again. Much to my
+regret, night set in before we reached Jaen, the capital of the Moorish
+kingdom of that name. We halted for a short time in the large plaza of the
+town, where the dash of fountains mingled with the sound of the rain, and
+the black, jagged outline of a mountain overhanging the place was visible
+through the storm.
+
+All night we journeyed on through the mountains, sometimes splashing
+through swollen streams, sometimes coming almost to a halt in beds of deep
+mud. When this morning dawned, we were ascending through wild, stony
+hills, overgrown with shrubbery, and the driver said we were six leagues
+from Granada. Still on, through a lonely country, with now and then a
+large _venta_, or country inn, by the road-side, and about nine o'clock,
+as the sky became more clear, I saw in front of us, high up under the
+clouds, the snow-fields of the Sierra Nevada. An hour afterwards we were
+riding between gardens, vineyards, and olive orchards, with the
+magnificent Vega of Granada stretching far away on the right, and the
+Vermilion Towers of the Alhambra crowning the heights before us.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXV.
+
+Granada And The Alhambra.
+
+
+  Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish
+  Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs
+  of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The
+  Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la
+  Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the
+  Fish-pond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the
+  Architecture--Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The
+  Moorish Dynasty in Spain.
+
+
+  "Who has not in Granada been,
+  Verily, he has nothing seen."
+
+  _Andalusian Proverb_.
+
+
+Granada, _Wednesday, Nov._ 17, 1852.
+
+Immediately on reaching here, I was set upon by an old gentleman who
+wanted to act as guide, but the mozo of the hotel put into my hand a card
+inscribed "Don Mateo Ximenez, Guide to the celebrated Washington Irving,"
+and I dismissed the other applicant. The next morning, as the mozo brought
+me my chocolate, he said; "Señor, _el chico_ is waiting for you." The
+"little one" turned out to be the son of old Mateo, "honest Mateo," who
+still lives up in the Alhambra, but is now rather too old to continue his
+business, except on great occasions. I accepted the young Mateo, who spoke
+with the greatest enthusiasm of Mr. Irving, avowing that the whole family
+was devoted to him, in life and death. It was still raining furiously,
+and the golden Darro, which roars in front of the hotel, was a swollen
+brown flood. I don't wonder that he sometimes threatens, as the old
+couplet says, to burst up the Zacatin, and bear it down to his bride, the
+Xenil.
+
+Towards noon, the clouds broke away a little, and we sallied out. Passing
+through the gate and square of Vivarrambla (may not this name come from
+the Arabic _bob er-raml,_ the "gate of the sand?"), we soon reached the
+Cathedral. This massive structure, which makes a good feature in the
+distant view of Granada, is not at all imposing, near at hand. The
+interior is a mixture of Gothic and Roman, glaring with whitewash, and
+broken, like that of Seville, by a wooden choir and two grand organs,
+blocking up the nave. Some of the side chapels, nevertheless, are splendid
+masses of carving and gilding. In one of them, there are two full-length
+portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, supposed to be by Alonzo Cano. The
+Cathedral contains some other good pictures by the same master, but all
+its former treasures were carried off by the French.
+
+We next went to the Picture Gallery, which is in the Franciscan Convent.
+There are two small Murillos, much damaged, some tolerable Alonzo Canos, a
+few common-place pictures by Juan de Sevilla, and a hundred or more by
+authors whose names I did not inquire, for a more hideous collection of
+trash never met my eye. One of them represents a miracle performed by two
+saints, who cut off the diseased leg of a sick white man, and replace it
+by the sound leg of a dead negro, whose body is seen lying beside the bed.
+Judging from the ghastly face of the patient, the operation is rather
+painful, though the story goes that the black leg grew fast, and the man
+recovered. The picture at least illustrates the absence of "prejudice of
+color" among the Saints.
+
+We went into the adjoining Church of Santo Domingo, which has several very
+rich shrines of marble and gold. A sort of priestly sacristan opened the
+Church of the Madonna del Rosario---a glittering mixture of marble, gold,
+and looking-glasses, which has rather a rich effect. The beautiful yellow
+and red veined marbles are from the Sierra Nevada. The sacred Madonna--a
+big doll with staring eyes and pink cheeks--has a dress of silver, shaped
+like an extinguisher, and encrusted with rubies and other precious stones.
+The utter absence of taste in most Catholic shrines is an extraordinary
+thing. It seems remarkable that a Church which has produced so many
+glorious artists should so constantly and grossly violate the simplest
+rules of art. The only shrine which I have seen, which was in keeping with
+the object adored, is that of the Virgin, at Nazareth, where there is
+neither picture nor image, but only vases of fragrant flowers, and
+perfumed oil in golden lamps, burning before a tablet of spotless marble.
+
+Among the decorations of the chapel, there are a host of cherubs frescoed
+on the ceiling, and one of them is represented in the act of firing off a
+blunderbuss. "Is it true that the angels carry blunderbusses?" I asked the
+priest. He shrugged his shoulders with a sort of half-smile, and said
+nothing. In the Cathedral, on the plinths of the columns in the outer
+aisles, are several notices to the effect that "whoever speaks to women,
+either in the nave or the aisles, thereby puts himself in danger of
+excommunication." I could not help laughing, as I read this monkish and
+yet most _un_monk-like statute. "Oh," said Mateo, "all that was in the
+despotic times; it is not so now."
+
+A deluge of rain put a stop to my sight-seeing until the next morning,
+when I set out with Mateo to visit the Royal Chapel. A murder had been
+committed in the night, near the entrance of the Zacatin, and the
+paving-stones were still red with the blood of the victim. A _funcion_ of
+some sort was going on in the Chapel, and we went into the sacristy to
+wait. The priests and choristers were there, changing their robes; they
+saluted me good-humoredly, though there was an expression in their faces
+that plainly said: "a heretic!" When the service was concluded, I went
+into the chapel and examined the high altar, with its rude wood-carvings,
+representing the surrender of Granada. The portraits of Ferdinand and
+Isabella, Cardinal Ximenez, Gonzalvo of Cordova, and King Boabdil, are
+very curious. Another tablet represents the baptism of the conquered
+Moors.
+
+In the centre of the chapel stand the monuments erected to Ferdinand and
+Isabella, and their successors Philip L, and Maria, by Charles V. They are
+tall catafalques of white marble, superbly sculptured, with the full
+length effigies of the monarchs upon them. The figures are admirable; that
+of Isabella, especially, though the features are settled in the repose of
+death, expresses all the grand and noble traits which belonged to her
+character. The sacristan removed the matting from a part of the floor,
+disclosing an iron grating underneath, A damp, mouldly smell, significant
+of death and decay, came up through the opening. He lighted two long waxen
+tapers, lifted the grating, and I followed him down the narrow steps into
+the vault where lie the coffins of the Catholic Sovereigns. They were
+brought here from the Alhambra, in 1525. The leaden sarcophagi, containing
+the bodies of Ferdinand and Isabella, lie, side by side, on stone slabs;
+and as I stood between the two, resting a hand on each, the sacristan
+placed the tapers in apertures in the stone, at the head and foot. They
+sleep, as they wished, in their beloved Granada, and no profane hand has
+ever disturbed the repose of their ashes.
+
+After visiting the Church of San Jeronimo, founded by Gonzalvo of Cordova,
+I went to the adjoining Church and Hospital of San Juan de Dios. A fat
+priest, washing his hands in the sacristy, sent a boy to show me the
+Chapel of San Juan, and the relics. The remains of the Saint rest in a
+silver chest, standing in the centre of a richly-adorned chapel. Among the
+relics is a thorn from the crown of Christ, which, as any botanist may
+see, must have grown on a different plant from the other thorn they show
+at Seville; and neither kind is found in Palestine. The true _spina
+christi_, the nebbuk, has very small thorns; but nothing could be more
+cruel, as I found when riding through patches of it near Jericho. The boy
+also showed me a tooth of San Lorenzo, a crooked brown _bicuspis_, from
+which I should infer that the saint was rather an ill-favored man. The
+gilded chapel of San Juan is in singular contrast with one of the garments
+which he wore when living--a cowl of plaited reeds, looking like an old
+fish basket--which is kept in a glass case. His portrait is also to be
+seen--a mild and beautiful face, truly that of one who went about doing
+good. He was a sort of Spanish John Howard, and deserved canonization, if
+anybody ever did.
+
+I ascended the street of the Darro to the Albaycin, which we entered by
+one of the ancient gates. This suburb is still surrounded by the original
+fortifications, and undermined by the capacious cisterns of the Moors. It
+looks down on Granada; and from the crumbling parapets there are superb
+views over the city, the Vega, and its inclosing mountains. The Alhambra
+rose opposite, against the dark-red and purple background of the Sierra
+Nevada, and a canopy of heavy rain-clouds rested on all the heights. A
+fitful gleam of sunshine now and then broke through and wandered over the
+plain, touching up white towers and olive groves and reaches of the
+winding Xenil, with a brilliancy which suggested the splendor of the whole
+picture, if once thus restored to its proper light. I could see Santa Fé
+in the distance, toward Loxa; nearer, and more eastward, the Sierra de
+Elvira, of a deep violet color, with the woods of the Soto de Roma, the
+Duke of Wellington's estate, at its base; and beyond it the Mountain of
+Parapanda, the weather-guage of Granada, still covered with clouds. There
+is an old Granadian proverb which says:--"When Parapanda wears his bonnet,
+it will rain whether God wills it or no." From the chapel of San Miguel,
+above the Albaycin, there is a very striking view of the deep gorge of the
+Darro, at one's feet, with the gardens and white walls of the Generalife
+rising beyond, and the Silla del Moro and the Mountain of the Sun towering
+above it. The long, irregular lines of the Alhambra, with the huge red
+towers rising here and there, reminded me somewhat of a distant view of
+Karnak; and, like Karnak, the Alhambra is picturesque from whatever point
+it is viewed.
+
+We descended through wastes of cactus to the Darro, in whose turbid stream
+a group of men were washing for gold. I watched one of them, as he
+twirled his bowl in precisely the California style, but got nothing for
+his pains. Mateo says that they often make a dollar a day, each. Passing
+under the Tower of Comares and along the battlements of the Alhambra, we
+climbed up to the Generalife. This charming villa is still in good
+preservation, though its exquisite filigree and scroll-work have been
+greatly injured by whitewash. The elegant colonnades surround gardens rich
+in roses, myrtles and cypresses, and the fountains that lulled the Moorish
+Kings in their summer idleness still pour their fertilizing streams. In
+one of the rooms is a small and bad portrait gallery, containing a
+supposed portrait of Boabdil. It is a mild, amiable face, but wholly lacks
+strength of character.
+
+To-day I devoted to the Alhambra. The storm, which, as the people say, has
+not been equalled for several years, showed no signs of breaking up, and
+in the midst of a driving shower I ascended to the Vermilion Towers, which
+are supposed to be of Phoenician origin. They stand on the extremity of a
+long, narrow ledge, which stretches out like an arm from the hill of the
+Alhambra. The _paséo_ lies between, and is shaded by beautiful elms, which
+the Moors planted.
+
+I entered the Alhambra by the Gate of Justice, which is a fine specimen of
+Moorish architecture, though of common red brick and mortar. It is
+singular what a grace the horse-shoe arch gives to the most heavy and
+lumbering mass of masonry. The round arches of the Christian edifices of
+Granada seem tame and inelegant, in comparison. Over the arch of the
+vestibule of this gate is the colossal hand, and over the inner entrance
+the key, celebrated in the tales of Washington Irving and the
+superstitions of the people. I first ascended the Torre de la Vela, where
+the Christian flag was first planted on the 2d of January, 1492. The view
+of the Vega and City of Granada was even grander than from the Albaycin.
+Parapanda was still bonneted in clouds, but patches of blue sky began to
+open above the mountains of Loxa. A little boy accompanied us, to see that
+I did not pull the bell, the sound of which would call together all the
+troops in the city. While we stood there, the funeral procession of the
+man murdered two nights before came up the street of Gomerez, and passed
+around the hill under the Vermilion Towers.
+
+I made the circuit of the walls before entering the Palace. In the Place
+of the Cisterns, I stopped to take a drink of the cool water of the Darro,
+which is brought thither by subterranean channels from the hills. Then,
+passing the ostentatious pile commenced by Charles V., but which was never
+finished, and never will be, nor ought to be, we walked along the southern
+ramparts to the Tower of the Seven Floors, amid the ruins of winch I
+discerned the top of the arch by which the unfortunate Boabdil quitted
+Granada, and which was thenceforth closed for ever. In the Tower of the
+Infantas, a number of workmen were busy restoring the interior, which has
+been cruelly damaged. The brilliant _azulejo_, or tile-work, the delicate
+arches and filigree sculpture of the walls, still attest its former
+elegance, and give some color to the tradition that it was the residence
+of the Moorish Princesses.
+
+As we passed through the little village which still exists among the ruins
+of the fortress, Mateo invited me to step in and see his father, the
+genuine "honest Mateo," immortalized in the "Tales of the Alhambra." The
+old man has taken up the trade of silk-weaving, and had a number of
+gay-colored ribbons on his loom. He is more than sixty years old and now
+quite gray-headed, but has the same simple manners, the same honest face
+that attracted his temporary master. He spoke with great enthusiasm of Mr.
+Irving, and brought out from a place of safety the "Alhambra" and the
+"Chronicles of the Conquest," which he has carefully preserved. He then
+produced an Andalusian sash, the work of his own hands, which he insisted
+on binding around my waist, to see how it would look. I must next take off
+my coat and hat, and put on his Sunday jacket and jaunty sombrero. "_Por
+Dios_!" he exclaimed: "_que buen mozo_! Senor, you are a legitimate
+Andalusian!" After this, of course, I could do no less than buy the sash.
+"You must show it to Washington Irving," said he, "and tell him it was
+made by Mateo's own hands;" which I promised. I must then go into the
+kitchen, and eat a pomegranate from his garden--a glorious pomegranate,
+with kernels of crimson, and so full of blood that you could not touch
+them but it trickled through your fingers. El Marques, a sprightly dog,
+and a great slate-colored cat, took possession of my legs, and begged for
+a share of every mouthful I took, while old Mateo sat beside me, rejoicing
+in the flavor of a Gibraltar cigar which I gave him. But my time was
+precious, and so I let the "Son of the Alhambra" go back to his loom, and
+set out for the Palace of the Moorish Kings.
+
+This palace is so hidden behind the ambitious shell of that of Charles V.
+that I was at a loss where it could be. I thought I had compassed the
+hill, and yet had seen no indications of the renowned magnificence of the
+Alhambra. But a little door in a blank wall ushered me into a true Moorish
+realm, the Court of the Fishpond, or of the Myrtles, as it is sometimes
+called. Here I saw again the slender pillars, the fringed and embroidered
+arches, and the perforated, lace-like tracery of the fairy corridors.
+Here, hedges of roses and myrtles still bloomed around the ancient tank,
+wherein hundreds of gold-fish disported. The noises of the hill do not
+penetrate here, and the solitary porter who admitted me went back to his
+post, and suffered me to wander at will through the enchanted halls.
+
+I passed out of this court by an opposite door, and saw, through the
+vistas of marble pillars and the wonderful fret-work which seems a thing
+of air rather than of earth, the Fountain of the Lions. Thence I entered
+in succession the Hall of the Abencerrages, the Hall of the Two Sisters,
+the apartments of the Sultanas, the Mosque, and the Hall of the
+Ambassadors. These places--all that is left of the renowned palace--are
+now well kept, and carefully guarded. Restorations are going on, here and
+there, and the place is scrupulously watched, that no foreign Vandal, may
+further injure what the native Goths have done their best to destroy. The
+rubbish has been cleared away; the rents in the walls have been filled up,
+and, for the first time since it passed into Spanish hands, there seems a
+hope that the Alhambra will be allowed to stand. What has been already
+destroyed we can only partially conjecture; but no one sees what remains
+without completing the picture in his own imagination, and placing it
+among the most perfect and marvellous creations of human genius.
+
+Nothing can exceed the richness of invention which, in this series of
+halls, corridors, and courts, never repeats the same ornaments, but, from
+the simplest primitive forms and colors, produces a thousand
+combinations, not one of which is in discord with the grand design. It is
+useless to attempt a detailed description of this architecture; and it is
+so unlike anything else in the world, that, like Karnak and Baalbec, those
+only know the Alhambra who see it. When you can weave stone, and hang your
+halls with marble tapestry, you may rival it. It is nothing to me that
+these ornaments are stucco; to sculpture them in marble is only the work
+of the hands. Their great excellence is in the design, which, like all
+great things, suggests even more than it gives. If I could create all that
+the Court of Lions suggested to me for its completion, it would fulfil the
+dream of King Sheddad, and surpass the palaces of the Moslem Paradise.
+
+The pavilions of the Court of Lions, and the halls which open into it, on
+either side, approach the nearest to their original perfection. The floors
+are marble, the wainscoting of painted tiles, the walls of embroidery,
+still gleaming with the softened lustre of their original tints, and the
+lofty conical domes seem to be huge sparry crystalizations, hung with
+dropping stalactites, rather than any work of the human hand. Each of
+these domes is composed of five thousand separate pieces, and the pendent
+prismatic blocks, colored and gilded, gradually resolve themselves, as you
+gaze, into the most intricate and elegant designs. But you must study long
+ere you have won all the secret of their beauty. To comprehend them, one
+should spend a whole day, lying on his back, under each one. Mateo spread
+his cloak for me in the fountain in the Hall of the Abencerrages, over the
+blood-stains made by the decapitation of those gallant chiefs, and I lay
+half an hour looking upward: and this is what I made out of the dome. From
+its central pinnacle hung the chalice of a flower with feathery petals,
+like the "crape myrtle" of our Southern States Outside of this, branched
+downward the eight rays of a large star, whose points touched the base of
+the dome; yet the star was itself composed of flowers, while between its
+rays and around its points fell a shower of blossoms, shells, and sparry
+drops. From the base of the dome hung a gorgeous pattern of lace, with a
+fringe of bugles, projecting into eight points so as to form a star of
+drapery, hanging from the points of the flowery star in the dome. The
+spaces between the angles were filled with masses of stalactites, dropping
+one below the other, till they tapered into the plain square sides of the
+hall.
+
+In the Hall of the Two Sisters, I lay likewise for a considerable time,
+resolving its misty glories into shape. The dome was still more suggestive
+of flowers. The highest and central piece was a deep trumpet-flower, whose
+mouth was cleft into eight petals. It hung in the centre of a superb
+lotus-cup, the leaves of which were exquisitely veined and chased. Still
+further below swung a mass of mimosa blossoms, intermixed with pods and
+lance-like leaves, and around the base of the dome opened the bells of
+sixteen gorgeous tulips. These pictures may not be very intelligible, but
+I know not how else to paint the effect of this fairy architecture.
+
+In Granada, as in Seville and Cordova, one's sympathies are wholly with
+the Moors. The few mutilated traces which still remain of their power,
+taste, and refinement, surpass any of the monuments erected by the race
+which conquered them. The Moorish Dynasty in Spain was truly, as Irving
+observes, a splendid exotic, doomed never to take a lasting root in the
+soil It was choked to death by the native weeds; and, in place of lands
+richly cultivated and teeming with plenty, we now have barren and-almost
+depopulated wastes--in place of education, industry, and the cultivation
+of the arts and sciences, an enslaved, ignorant and degenerate race.
+Andalusia would be far more prosperous at this day, had she remained in
+Moslem hands. True, she would not have received that Faith which is yet
+destined to be the redemption of the world, but the doctrines of Mahomet
+are more acceptable to God, and more beneficial to Man than those of that
+Inquisition, which, in Spain alone, has shed ten times as much Christian
+blood as all the Moslem races together for the last six centuries. It is
+not from a mere romantic interest that I lament the fate of Boabdil, and
+the extinction of his dynasty. Had he been a king worthy to reign in those
+wonderful halls, he never would have left them. Had he perished there,
+fighting to the last, he would have been freed from forty years of weary
+exile and an obscure death. Well did Charles V. observe, when speaking of
+him: "Better a tomb in the Alhambra than a palace in the Alpujanas!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVI.
+
+The Bridle-Roads of Andalusia.
+
+
+  Change of Weather--Napoleon and his Horses--Departure from Granada--My
+  Guide, José Garcia--His Domestic Troubles--The Tragedy of the
+  Umbrella--The Vow against Aguardiente--Crossing the Vega--The Sierra
+  Nevada--The Baths of Alhama--"Woe is Me, Alhama!"--The Valley of the
+  River Vélez--Vélez Malaga--The Coast Road--The Fisherman and his
+  Donkey--Malaga--Summer Scenery--The Story of Don Pedro, without Fear and
+  without Care--The Field of Monda--A Lonely Venta.
+
+
+Venta de Villalon, _November_ 20, 1852.
+
+The clouds broke away before I had been two hours in the Alhambra, and the
+sunshine fell broad and warm into its courts. They must be roofed with
+blue sky, in order to give the full impression of their brightness and
+beauty. Mateo procured me a bottle of _vino rancio_, and we drank it
+together in the Court of Lions. Six hours had passed away before I knew
+it, and I reluctantly prepared to leave. The clouds by this time had
+disappeared; the Vega slept in brilliant sunshine, and the peaks of the
+Sierra Nevada shone white and cold against the sky.
+
+On reaching the hotel, I found a little man, nicknamed Napoleon, awaiting
+me. He was desirous to furnish me with horses, and, having a prophetic
+knowledge of the weather, promised me a bright sky as far as Gibraltar. "I
+furnish all the señors," said he; "they know me, and never complain of me
+or my horses;" but, by way of security, on making the bargain, I
+threatened to put up a card in the hotel at Gibraltar, warning all
+travellers against him, in case I was not satisfied. My contract was for
+two horses and a guide, who were to be ready at sunrise the next morning.
+Napoleon was as good as his word; and before I had finished an early cup
+of chocolate, there was a little black Andalusian stallion awaiting me.
+The _alforjas_, or saddle-bags, of the guide were strengthened by a stock
+of cold provisions, the leathern bota hanging beside it was filled with
+ripe Granada wine; and now behold me ambling over the Vega, accoutred in a
+gay Andalusian jacket, a sash woven by Mateo Ximenes, and one of those
+bandboxy sombreros, which I at first thought so ungainly, but now consider
+quite picturesque and elegant.
+
+My guide, a short but sinewy and well-knit son of the mountains, named
+José Garcia, set off at a canter down the banks of the Darro. "Don't ride
+so fast!" cried Napoleon, who watched our setting out, from the door of
+the fonda; but José was already out of hearing. This guide is a companion
+to my liking. Although he is only twenty-seven, he has been for a number
+of years a _correo_, or mail-rider, and a guide for travelling parties.
+His olive complexion is made still darker by exposure to the sun and wind,
+and his coal-black eyes shine with Southern heat and fire. He has one of
+those rare mouths which are born with a broad smile in each corner, and
+which seem to laugh even in the midst of grief. We had not been two hours
+together, before I knew his history from beginning to end. He had already
+been married eight years, and his only trouble was a debt of twenty-four
+dollars, which the illness of his wife had caused him. This money was
+owing to the pawnbroker, who kept his best clothes in pledge until he
+could pay it. "Señor," said he, "if I had ten million dollars, I would
+rather give them all away than have a sick wife." He had a brother in
+Puerto Principe, Cuba, who sent over money enough to pay the rent of the
+house, but he found that children were a great expense. "It is most
+astonishing," he said, "how much children can eat. From morning till
+night, the bread is never out of their mouths."
+
+José has recently been travelling with some Spaniards, one of whom made
+him pay two dollars for an umbrella which was lost on the road. This
+umbrella is a thorn in his side. At every venta where we stop, the story
+is repeated, and he is not sparing of his maledictions. The ghost of that
+umbrella is continually raised, and it will be a long time before he can
+shut it. "One reason why I like to travel with foreign Señors," said he to
+me, "is, that when I lose anything, they never make me pay for it." "For
+all that," I answered, "take care you don't lose my umbrella: it cost
+three dollars." Since then, nothing can exceed José's attention to that
+article. He is at his wit's end how to secure it best. It appears
+sometimes before, sometimes behind him, lashed to the saddle with
+innumerable cords; now he sticks it into the alforja, now carries it in
+his hand, and I verily believe that he sleeps with it in his arms. Every
+evening, as he tells his story to the muleteers, around the kitchen fire,
+he always winds up by triumphantly appealing to me with: "Well, Señor,
+have I lost _your_ umbrella yet?"
+
+Our bargain is that I shall feed him on the way, and as we travel in the
+primitive style of the country, we always sit down together to the same
+dish. To his supervision, the olla is often indebted for an additional
+flavor, and no "thorough-bred" gentleman could behave at table with more
+ease and propriety. He is as moderate as a Bedouin in his wants, and never
+touches the burning aguardiente which the muleteers are accustomed to
+drink. I asked him the reason of this. "I drink wine. Senor," he replied,
+"because that, you know, is like meat and bread; but I have made a vow
+never to drink aguardiente again. Two of us got drunk on it, four or five
+years ago, in Granada, and we quarrelled. My comrade drew his knife and
+stabbed me here, in the left shoulder. I was furious and cut him across
+the breast. We both went to the hospital--I for three months and he for
+six--and he died in a few days after getting out. It cost my poor father
+many a thousand reals; and when I was able to go to work, I vowed before
+the Virgin that I would never touch aguardiente again."
+
+For the first league, our road lay over the rich Vega of Granada, but
+gradually became wilder and more waste. Passing the long, desert ridge,
+known as the "Last Sigh of the Moor," we struck across a region of low
+hills. The road was very deep, from the recent rains, and studded, at
+short intervals, by rude crosses, erected to persons who had been
+murdered. José took a grim delight in giving me the history of each.
+Beyond the village of Lamala, which lies with its salt-pans in a basin of
+the hills, we ascended the mountain ridge which forms the southern
+boundary of the Vega. Granada, nearly twenty miles distant, was still
+visible. The Alhambra was dwindled to a speck, and I took my last view of
+it and the magnificent landscape which lies spread out before it. The
+Sierra Nevada, rising to the height of 13,000 feet above the sea, was
+perfectly free from clouds, and the whole range was visible at one
+glance. All its chasms were filled with snow, and for nearly half-way down
+its sides there was not a speck of any other color. Its summits were
+almost wholly devoid of shadow, and their notched and jagged outlines
+rested flatly against the sky, like ivory inlaid on a table of
+lapis-lazuli.
+
+From these waste hills, we descended into the valley of Cacia, whose
+poplar-fringed river had been so swollen by the rains that the _correo_
+from Malaga had only succeeded in passing it that morning. We forded it
+without accident, and, crossing a loftier and bleaker range, came down
+into the valley of the Marchan. High on a cliff over the stream stood
+Alhama, my resting-place for the night. The natural warm baths, on account
+of which this spot was so beloved by the Moors, are still resorted to in
+the summer. They lie in the bosom of a deep and rugged gorge, half a mile
+further down the river. The town occupies the crest of a narrow
+promontory, bounded, on all sides but one, by tremendous precipices. It is
+one of the most picturesque spots imaginable, and reminded me--to continue
+the comparison between Syria and Andalusia, which I find so striking--of
+the gorge of the Barrada, near Damascus. Alhama is now a poor,
+insignificant town, only visited by artists and muleteers. The population
+wear long brown cloaks and slouched hats, like the natives of La Mancha.
+
+I found tolerable quarters in a house on the plaza, and took the remaining
+hour of daylight to view the town. The people looked at me with curiosity,
+and some boys, walking on the edge of the _tajo_, or precipice, threw over
+stones that I might see how deep it was. The rock, in some places, quite
+overhung the bed of the Marchan, which half-girdles its base. The close
+scrutiny to which I was subjected by the crowd in the plaza called to mind
+all I had heard of Spanish spies and robbers. At the venta, I was well
+treated, but received such an exorbitant bill in the morning that I was
+ready to exclaim, with King Boabdil, "Woe is me, Alhama!" On comparing
+notes with José, I found that he had been obliged to pay, in addition, for
+what he received--a discovery which so exasperated that worthy that he
+folded his hands, bowed his head, made three kisses in the air, and cried
+out: "I swear before the Virgin that I will never again take a traveller
+to that inn."
+
+We left Alhama an hour before daybreak, for we had a rough journey of more
+than forty miles before us. The bridle-path was barely visible in the
+darkness, but we continued ascending to a height of probably 5,000 feet
+above the sea, and thus met the sunrise half-way. Crossing the _llano_ of
+Ace faraya, we reached a tremendous natural portal in the mountains, from
+whence, as from a door, we looked down on all the country lying between us
+and the sea. The valley of the River Vélez, winding among the hills,
+pointed out the course of our road. On the left towered over us the barren
+Sierra Tejeda, an isolated group of peaks, about 8,000 feet in height. For
+miles, the road was a rocky ladder, which we scrambled down on foot,
+leading our horses. The vegetation gradually became of a warmer and more
+luxuriant cast; the southern slopes were planted with the vine that
+produces the famous Malaga raisins, and the orange groves in the sunny
+depths of the valleys were as yellow as autumnal beeches, with their
+enormous loads of fruit. As the bells of Vélez Malaga were ringing noon,
+we emerged from the mountains, near the mouth of the river, and rode into
+the town to breakfast.
+
+We halted at a queer old inn, more like a Turkish khan than a Christian
+hostlery. It was kept by a fat landlady, who made us an olla of kid and
+garlic, which, with some coarse bread and the red Malaga wine, soon took
+off the sharp edge of our mountain appetites. While I was washing my hands
+at a well in the court-yard, the _mozo_ noticed the pilgrim-seal of
+Jerusalem, which is stamped indelibly on my left arm. His admiration and
+reverence were so great that he called the fat landlady, who, on learning
+that it had been made in Jerusalem, and that I had visited the Holy
+Sepulchre, summoned her children to see it. "Here, my children!" she said;
+"cross yourselves, kneel down, and kiss this holy seal; for, as long as
+you live, you may never see the like of it again." Thus I, a Protestant
+heretic, became a Catholic shrine. The children knelt and kissed my arm
+with touching simplicity; and the seal will henceforth be more sacred to
+me than ever.
+
+The remaining twenty miles or more of the road to Malaga follow the line
+of the coast, passing headlands crowned by the _atalayas_, or
+watch-towers, of the Moors. It is a new road, and practicable for
+carriages, so that, for Spain, it may be considered an important
+achievement. The late rains have, however, already undermined it in a
+number of places. Here, as among the mountains, we met crowds of
+muleteers, all of whom greeted me with: "_Vaya usted con Dios,
+caballero_!"--("May you go with God, cavalier!") By this time, all my
+forgotten Spanish had come back again, and a little experience of the
+simple ways of the people made me quite at home among them. In almost
+every instance, I was treated precisely as a Spaniard would have been,
+and less annoyed by the curiosity of the natives than I have been in
+Germany, and even America.
+
+We were still two leagues from Malaga, at sunset, The fishermen along the
+coast were hauling in their nets, and we soon began to overtake companies
+of them, carrying their fish to the city on donkeys. One stout, strapping
+fellow, with flesh as hard and yellow as a sturgeon's, was seated sideways
+on a very small donkey, between two immense panniers of fish, As he
+trotted before us, shouting, and slapping the flanks of the sturdy little
+beast, José and I began to laugh, whereupon the fellow broke out into the
+following monologue, addressed to the donkey: "Who laughs at this
+_burrico_? Who says he's not fine gold from head to foot? What is it that
+he can't do? If there was a mountain ever so high, he would gallop over
+it. If there was a river ever so deep, he would swim through it If he
+could but speak, I might send him to market alone with the fish, and not a
+_chavo_ of the money would he spend on the way home. Who says he can't go
+as far as that limping horse? Arrrre, burrico! punate--ar-r-r-r-r-e-e!"
+
+We reached Malaga, at last, our horses sorely fagged. At the Fonda de la
+Alameda, a new and very elegant hotel, I found a bath and a good dinner,
+both welcome things to a tired traveller. The winter of Malaga is like
+spring in other lands and on that account it is much visited by invalids,
+especially English. It is a lively commercial town of about 80,000
+inhabitants, and, if the present scheme of railroad communication with
+Madrid is carried out, must continue to increase in size and importance. A
+number of manufacturing establishments have lately been started, and in
+this department it bids fair to rival Barcelona. The harbor is small, but
+good, and the country around rich in all the productions of temperate and
+even tropical climates. The city contains little to interest the tourist.
+I visited the Cathedral, an immense unfinished mass, without a particle of
+architectural taste outwardly, though the interior has a fine effect from
+its large dimensions.
+
+At noon to-day we were again in the saddle, and took the road to the Baths
+of Caratraca. The tall factory chimneys of Malaga, vomiting forth streams
+of black smoke, marred the serenity of the sky; but the distant view of
+the city is very fine. The broad Vega, watered by the Guadaljorce, is rich
+and well cultivated, and now rejoices in the verdure of spring. The
+meadows are clothed with fresh grass, butter-cups and daisies are in
+blossom, and larks sing in the olive-trees. Now and then, we passed a
+_casa del campo_, with its front half buried in orange-trees, over which
+towered two or three sentinel palms. After two leagues of this delightful
+travel, the country became more hilly, and the groups of mountains which
+inclosed us assumed the most picturesque and enchanting forms. The soft
+haze in which the distant peaks were bathed, the lovely violet shadows
+filling up their chasms and gorges, and the fresh meadows, vineyards, and
+olive groves below, made the landscape one of the most beautiful I have
+seen in Spain.
+
+As we were trotting along through the palmetto thickets, José asked me if
+I should not like to hear an Andalusian story. "Nothing would please me
+better," I replied. "Ride close beside me, then," said he, "that you may
+understand every word of it." I complied, and he gave me the following,
+just as I repeat it: "There was once a very rich man, who had thousands of
+cattle in the Sierra Nevada, and hundreds of houses in the city. Well:
+this man put a plate, with his name on it, on the door of the great house
+in which he lived, and the name was this: Don Pedro, without Fear and
+without Care. Now, when the King was making his _paséo_, he happened to
+ride by this house in his carriage, and saw the plate on the door. 'Read
+me the name on that plate!' said he to his officer. Then the officer read
+the name: Don Pedro, without Fear and without Care. 'I will see whether
+Don Pedro is without Fear and without Care,' said the King. The next day
+came a messenger to the house, and, when he saw Don Pedro, said he to him;
+'Don Pedro, without Fear and without Care, the King wants you!' 'What does
+the King want with me?' said Don Pedro. 'He sends you four questions which
+you must answer within four days, or he will have you shot; and the
+questions are:--How can the Sierra Nevada be cleared of snow? How can the
+sea be made smaller? How many arrobas does the moon weigh? And: How many
+leagues from here to the Land of Heavenly Glory?' Then Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care began to sweat from fright, and knew not what he
+should do. He called some of his arrieros and loaded twenty mules with
+money, and went up into the Sierra Nevada, where his herdsmen tended his
+flocks; for, as I said, he had many thousand cattle. 'God keep you, my
+master!' said the chief herdsman, who was young, and _buen mozo_, and had
+as good a head as ever was set on two shoulders. '_Anda, hombre!_ said Don
+Pedro, 'I am a dead man;' and so he told the herdsman all that the King
+had said. 'Oh, is that all?' said the knowing mozo. 'I can get you out of
+the scrape. Let me go and answer the questions in your name, my master!'
+'Ah, you fool! what can you do?' said Don Pedro without Fear and without
+Care, throwing himself upon the earth, and ready to die.
+
+"But, nevertheless, the herdsman dressed himself up as a _caballero_, went
+down to the city, and, on the fourth day, presented himself at the King's
+palace. 'What do you want?' said the officers. 'I am Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care, come to answer the questions which the King sent to
+me.' 'Well,' said the King, when he was brought before him, 'let me hear
+your answers, or I will have you shot this day.' 'Your Majesty,' said the
+herdsman, 'I think I can do it. If you were to set a million of children
+to playing among the snow of the Sierra Nevada, they would soon clear it
+all away; and if you were to dig a ditch as wide and as deep as all Spain,
+you would make the sea that much smaller,' 'But,' said the King, 'that
+makes only two questions; there are two more yet,' 'I think I can answer
+those, also,' said the herdsman: 'the moon contains four quarters, and
+therefore weighs only one arroba; and as for the last question, it is not
+even a single league to the Land of Heavenly Glory--for, if your Majesty
+were to die after breakfast, you would get there before you had an
+appetite for dinner,' 'Well done! said the King; and he then made him
+Count, and Marquez, and I don't know how many other titles. In the
+meantime, Don Pedro without Fear and without Care had died of his fright;
+and, as he left no family, the herdsman took possession of all his
+estates, and, until the day of his death, was called Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care."
+
+I write, sitting by the grated window of this lonely inn, looking out on
+the meadows of the Guadaljorce. The chain of mountains which rises to the
+west of Malaga is purpled by the light of the setting sun, and the houses
+and Castle of Carlama hang on its side, in full view. Further to the
+right, I see the smoke of Monda, where one of the greatest battles of
+antiquity was fought--that which overthrew the sons of Pompey, and gave
+the Roman Empire to Cæsar. The mozo of the venta is busy, preparing my kid
+and rice, and José is at his elbow, gently suggesting ingredients which
+may give the dish a richer flavor. The landscape is softened by the hush
+of coming evening; a few birds are still twittering among the bushes, and
+the half-moon grows whiter and clearer in mid-heaven. The people about me
+are humble, but appear honest and peaceful, and nothing indicates that I
+am in the wild _Serrania de Ronda_, the country of robbers,
+contrabandistas, and assassins.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVII.
+
+The Mountains of Ronda.
+
+
+
+  Orange Valleys--Climbing the Mountains--José's Hospitality--El
+  Burgo--The Gate of the Wind--The Cliff and Cascades of Ronda--The
+  Mountain Region--Traces of the Moors--Haunts of Robbers--A Stormy
+  Ride--The Inn at Gaucin--Bad News--A Boyish Auxiliary--Descent from the
+  Mountains--The Ford of the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
+  Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with José--Travelling
+  in Spain--Conclusion.
+
+
+Gibraltar, _Thursday, November_ 25, 1852.
+
+I passed an uncomfortable night at the Venta de Villalon, lying upon a bag
+stuffed with equal quantities of wool and fleas. Starting before dawn, we
+followed a path which led into the mountains, where herdsmen and boys were
+taking out their sheep and goats to pasture; then it descended into the
+valley of a stream, bordered with rich bottom-lands. I never saw the
+orange in a more flourishing state. We passed several orchards of trees
+thirty feet high, and every bough and twig so completely laden with fruit,
+that the foliage was hardly to be seen.
+
+At the Venta del Vicario, we found a number of soldiers just setting out
+for Ronda. They appeared to be escorting a convoy of goods, for there were
+twenty or thirty laden mules gathered at the door. We now ascended a most
+difficult and stony path, winding through bleak wastes of gray rock, till
+we reached a lofty pass in the mountain range. The wind swept through the
+narrow gateway with a force that almost unhorsed us. From the other side,
+a sublime but most desolate landscape opened to my view. Opposite, at ten
+miles' distance, rose a lofty ridge of naked rock, overhung with clouds.
+The country between was a chaotic jumble of stony hills, separated by deep
+chasms, with just a green patch here and there, to show that it was not
+entirely forsaken by man. Nevertheless as we descended into it, we found
+valleys with vineyards and olive groves, which were invisible from above.
+As we were both getting hungry, José stopped at a ventorillo and ordered
+two cups of wine, for which he insisted on paying. "If I had as many
+horses as my master, Napoleon," said he, "I would regale the Señors
+whenever I travelled with them. I would have _puros_, and sweetmeats, with
+plenty of Malaga or Valdepeñas in the bota, and they should never complain
+of their fare." Part of our road was studded with gray cork-trees, at a
+distance hardly to be distinguished from olives, and José dismounted to
+gather the mast, which was as sweet and palatable as chestnuts, with very
+little of the bitter quercine flavor. At eleven o'clock, we reached El
+Burgo, so called, probably, from its ancient Moorish fortress. It is a
+poor, starved village, built on a barren hill, over a stream which is
+still spanned by a lofty Moorish bridge of a single arch.
+
+The remaining three leagues to Ronda were exceedingly rough and difficult.
+Climbing a barren ascent of nearly a league in length, we reached the
+_Puerto del Viento_, or Gate of the Wind, through which drove such a
+current that we were obliged to dismount; and even then it required all my
+strength to move against it. The peaks around, far and near, faced with
+precipitous cliffs, wore the most savage and forbidding aspect: in fact,
+this region is almost a counterpart of the wilderness lying between
+Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, Very soon, we touched the skirt of a cloud,
+and were enveloped in masses of chill, whirling vapor, through which we
+travelled for three or four miles to a similar gate on the western side of
+the chain. Descending again, we emerged into a clearer atmosphere, and saw
+below us a wide extent of mountain country, but of a more fertile and
+cheerful character. Olive orchards and wheat-fields now appeared; and, at
+four o'clock, we rode into the streets of Ronda.
+
+No town can surpass this in the grandeur and picturesqueness of its
+position. It is built on the edge of a broad shelf of the mountains, which
+falls away in a sheer precipice of from six to eight hundred feet in
+height, and, from the windows of many of the houses you can look down the
+dizzy abyss. This shelf, again, is divided in the centre by a tremendous
+chasm, three hundred feet wide, and from four to six hundred feet in
+depth, in the bed of which roars the Guadalvin, boiling in foaming
+whirlpools or leaping in sparkling cascades, till it reaches the valley
+below. The town lies on both sides of the chasm, which is spanned by a
+stone bridge of a single arch, with abutments nearly four hundred feet in
+height. The view of this wonderful cleft, either from above or below, is
+one of the finest of its kind in the world. Honda is as far superior to
+Tivoli, as Tivoli is to a Dutch village, on the dead levels of Holland.
+The panorama which it commands is on the grandest scale. The valley below
+is a garden of fruit and vines; bold yet cultivated hills succeed, and in
+the distance rise the lofty summits of another chain of the Serrania de
+Honda. Were these sublime cliffs, these charming cascades of the
+Guadalvin, and this daring bridge, in Italy instead of in Spain, they
+would be sketched and painted every day in the year; but I have yet to
+know where a good picture of Ronda may be found.
+
+In the bottom of the chasm are a number of corn-mills as old as the time
+of the Moors. The water, gushing out from the arches of one, drives the
+wheel of that below, so that a single race supplies them all. I descended
+by a very steep zig-zag path nearly to the bottom. On a little point or
+promontory overhanging the black depths, there is a Moorish gateway still
+standing. The sunset threw a lovely glow over the brown cliffs and the
+airy town above; but they were far grander when the cascades glittered in
+the moonlight, and the gulf out of which they leap was lost in profound
+shadow. The window of my bed-room hung over the chasm.
+
+Honda was wrapped in fog, when José awoke me on the morning of the 22d. As
+we had but about twenty-four miles to ride that day, we did not leave
+until sunrise. We rode across the bridge, through the old town and down
+the hill, passing the triple lines of the Moorish walls by the original
+gateways. The road, stony and rugged beyond measure, now took to the
+mountains. From the opposite height, there was a fine view of the town,
+perched like an eagle's nest on the verge of its tremendous cliffs; but a
+curtain of rain soon fell before it, and the dense dark clouds settled
+around us, and filled up the gorges on either hand. Hour after hour, we
+toiled along the slippery paths, scaling the high ridges by rocky ladders,
+up which our horses climbed with the greatest difficulty. The scenery,
+whenever I could obtain a misty glimpse of it, was sublime. Lofty mountain
+ridges rose on either hand; bleak jagged summits of naked rock pierced
+the clouds, and the deep chasms which separated them sank far below us,
+dark and indistinct through the rain. Sometimes I caught sight of a little
+hamlet, hanging on some almost inaccessible ledge, the home of the
+lawless, semi-Moorish mountaineers who inhabit this wild region. The faces
+of those we met exhibited marked traces of their Moslem ancestry,
+especially in the almond-shaped eye and the dusky olive complexion. Their
+dialect retains many Oriental forms of expression, and I was not a little
+surprised at finding the Arabic "_eiwa_" (yes) in general use, instead of
+the Spanish "_si_."
+
+About eleven o'clock, we reached the rude village of Atajate, where we
+procured a very good breakfast of kid, eggs, and white Ronda wine. The
+wind and rain increased, but I had no time to lose, as every hour swelled
+the mountain floods and made the journey more difficult. This district is
+in the worst repute of any in Spain; it is a very nest of robbers and
+contrabandistas. At the venta in Atajate, they urged us to take a guard,
+but my valiant José declared that he had never taken one, and yet was
+never robbed; so I trusted to his good luck. The weather, however, was our
+best protection. In such a driving rain, we could bid defiance to the
+flint locks of their escopettes, if, indeed, any could be found, so fond
+of their trade, as to ply it in a storm
+
+  "Wherein the cub-drawn bear would crouch,
+  The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
+  Keep their furs dry."
+
+Nevertheless, I noticed that each of the few convoys of laden mules which
+we met, had one or more of the _guardia cicia_ accompanying it. Besides
+these, the only persons abroad were some wild-looking individuals, armed
+to the teeth, and muffled in long cloaks, towards whom, as they passed,
+José would give his head a slight toss, and whisper to me: "more
+contrabandistas."
+
+We were soon in a condition to defy the weather. The rain beat furiously
+in our faces, especially when threading the wind-blown passes between the
+higher peaks. I raised my umbrella as a defence, but the first blast
+snapped it in twain. The mountain-sides were veined with rills, roaring
+downward into the hollows, and smaller rills soon began to trickle down my
+own sides. During the last part of our way, the path was notched along
+precipitous steeps, where the storm was so thick that we could see nothing
+either above or below. It was like riding along the outer edge of the
+world, When once you are thoroughly wet, it is a great satisfaction to
+know that you can be no wetter; and so José and I went forward in the best
+possible humor, finding so much diversion in our plight that the dreary
+leagues were considerably shortened.
+
+At the venta of Gaucin, where we stopped, the people received us kindly.
+The house consisted of one room--stable, kitchen, and dining-room all in
+one. There was a small apartment in a windy loft, where a bed (much too
+short) was prepared for me. A fire of dry heather was made in the wide
+fire-place, and the ruddy flames, with a change of clothing and a draught
+of the amber vintage of Estepona, soon thawed out the chill of the
+journey. But I received news which caused me a great deal of anxiety. The
+River Guadiaro was so high that nobody could cross, and two forlorn
+muleteers had been waiting eight days at the inn, for the waters to
+subside. Augmented by the rain which had fallen, and which seemed to
+increase as night came on, how could I hope to cross it on the morrow? In
+two days, the India steamer would be at Gibraltar; my passage was already
+taken, and I _must_ be there. The matter was discussed for some time; it
+was pronounced impossible to travel by the usual road, but the landlord
+knew a path among the hills which led to a ferry on the Guadiaro, where
+there was a boat, and from thence we could make our way to San Roque,
+which is in sight of Gibraltar. He demanded rather a large fee for
+accompanying me, but there was nothing else to be done. José and I sat
+down in great tribulation to our accustomed olla, but neither of us could
+do justice to it, and the greater part gladdened the landlord's two
+boys--beautiful little imps, with faces like Murillo's cherubs.
+
+Nevertheless, I passed rather a merry evening, chatting with some of the
+villagers over a brazier of coals; and one of the aforesaid boys, who,
+although only eight years old, already performed the duties of mozo,
+lighted me to my loft. When he had put down the lamp, he tried' the door,
+and asked me: "Have you the key?" "No," said I, "I don't want one; I am
+not afraid." "But," he rejoined, "perhaps you may get afraid in the night;
+and if you do, strike on this part of the wall (suiting the action to the
+word)--_I_ sleep on that side." I willingly promised to call him to my
+aid, if I should get alarmed. I slept but little, for the wind was howling
+around the tiles over my head, and I was busy with plans for constructing
+rafts and swimming currents with a rope around my waist. Finally, I found
+a little oblivion, but it seemed that I had scarcely closed my eyes, when
+José pushed open the door. "Thanks be to God, senor!" said he, "it begins
+to dawn, and the sky is clear: we shall certainly get to Gibraltar
+to-day."
+
+The landlord was ready, so we took some bread and a basket of olives, and
+set out at once. Leaving Gaucin, we commenced descending the mountain
+staircase by which the Serrania of Ronda is scaled, on the side towards
+Gibraltar. "The road," says Mr. Ford, "seems made by the Evil One in a
+hanging garden of Eden." After four miles of frightfully rugged descent,
+we reached an orange grove on the banks of the Xenar, and then took a wild
+path leading along the hills on the right of the stream. We overtook a few
+muleteers, who were tempted out by the fine weather, and before long the
+_correo_, or mail-rider from Ronda to San Roque, joined us. After eight
+miles more of toilsome travel we reached the valley of the Guadiaro. The
+river was not more than twenty yards wide, flowing with a deep, strong
+current, between high banks. Two ropes were stretched across, and a large,
+clumsy boat was moored to the shore. We called to the ferrymen, but they
+hesitated, saying that nobody had yet been able to cross. However, we all
+got in, with our horses, and two of the men, with much reluctance, drew us
+over. The current was very powerful, although the river had fallen a
+little during the night, but we reached the opposite bank without
+accident.
+
+We had still another river, the Guargante, to pass, but we were cheered by
+some peasants whom we met, with the news that the ferry-boat had resumed
+operations. After this current lay behind us, and there was now nothing
+but firm land all the way to Gibraltar, José declared with much
+earnestness that he was quite as glad, for my sake, as if somebody had
+given him a million of dollars. Our horses, too, seemed to feel that
+something had been achieved, and showed such a fresh spirit that we
+loosened the reins and let them gallop to their hearts' content over the
+green meadows. The mountains were now behind us, and the Moorish castle of
+Gaucin crested a peak blue with the distance. Over hills covered with
+broom and heather in blossom, and through hollows grown with oleander,
+arbutus and the mastic shrub, we rode to the cork-wood forests of San
+Roque, the sporting-ground of Gibraltar officers. The barking of dogs, the
+cracking of whips, and now and then a distant halloo, announced that a
+hunt was in progress, and soon we came upon a company of thirty or forty
+horsemen, in caps, white gloves and top-boots, scattered along the crest
+of a hill. I had no desire to stop and witness the sport, for the
+Mediterranean now lay before me, and the huge gray mass of "The Rock"
+loomed in the distance.
+
+At San Roque, which occupies the summit of a conical hill, about half-way
+between Gibraltar and Algeciras, the landlord left us, and immediately
+started on his return. Having now exchanged the rugged bridle-paths of
+Ronda for a smooth carriage-road, José and I dashed on at full gallop, to
+the end of our journey. We were both bespattered with mud from head to
+foot, and our jackets and sombreros had lost something of their spruce
+air. We met a great many ruddy, cleanly-shaven Englishmen, who reined up
+on one side to let us pass, with a look of wonder at our Andalusian
+impudence. Nothing diverted José more than to see one of these Englishmen
+rising in his stirrups, as he went by on a trot. "Look, look, Señor!" he
+exclaimed; "did you ever see the like?" and then broke into a fresh
+explosion of laughter. Passing the Spanish Lines, which stretch across the
+neck of the sandy little peninsula, connecting Gibraltar with the main
+land, we rode under the terrible batteries which snarl at Spain from this
+side of the Rock. Row after row of enormous guns bristle the walls, or
+look out from the galleries hewn in the sides of inaccessible cliffs An
+artificial moat is cut along the base of the Rock, and a simple
+bridge-road leads into the fortress and town. After giving up my passport
+I was allowed to enter, José having already obtained a permit from the
+Spanish authorities.
+
+I clattered up the long street of the town to the Club House, where I
+found a company of English friends. In the evening, José made his
+appearance, to settle our accounts and take his leave of me. While
+scrambling down the rocky stair-way of Gaucin, José had said to me: "Look
+you, Señor, I am very fond of English beer, and if I get you to Gibraltar
+to day you must give me a glass of it." When, therefore, he came in the
+evening, his eyes sparkled at the sight of a bottle of Alsop's Ale, and a
+handful of good Gibraltar cigars. "Ah, Señor," said he, after our books
+were squared, and he had pocketed his _gratification_, "I am sorry we are
+going to part; for we are good friends, are we not, Señor?" "Yes, José,"
+said I; "if I ever come to Granada again, I shall take no other guide than
+José Garcia; and I will have you for a longer journey than this. We shall
+go over all Spain together, _mi amigo_!" "May God grant it!" responded
+José, crossing himself; "and now, Señor, I must go. I shall travel back to
+Granada, _muy triste_, Señor, _muy triste_" The faithful fellows eyes were
+full of tears, and, as he lifted my hand twice to his lips, some warm
+drops fell upon it. God bless his honest heart; wherever he goes!
+
+And now a word as to travelling in Spain, which is not attended with half
+the difficulties and annoyances I had been led to expect. My experience,
+of course, is limited to the provinces of Andalusia, but my route included
+some of the roughest roads and most dangerous robber-districts in the
+Peninsula. The people with whom I came in contact were invariably friendly
+and obliging, and I was dealt with much more honestly than I should have
+been in Italy. With every disposition to serve you, there is nothing like
+servility among the Spaniards. The native dignity which characterizes
+their demeanor prepossesses me very strongly in their favor. There is but
+one dialect of courtesy, and the muleteers and common peasants address
+each other with the same grave respect as the Dons and Grandees. My friend
+José was a model of good-breeding.
+
+I had little trouble either with passport-officers or custom-houses. My
+passport, in fact, was never once demanded, although I took the precaution
+to have it visèd in all the large cities. In Seville and Malaga, it was
+signed by the American Consuls, without the usual fee of two
+dollars--almost the only instances which have come under my observation.
+The regulations of the American Consular System, which gives the Consuls
+no salary, but permits them, instead, to get their pay out of travellers,
+is a disgrace to our government. It amounts, in effect, to _a direct tax
+on travel_, and falls heavily on the hundreds of young men of limited
+means, who annually visit Europe for the purpose of completing their
+education. Every American citizen who travels in Italy pays a passport tax
+of ten dollars. In all the ports of the Mediterranean, there is an
+American Vice-Consul, who does not even get the postage paid on his
+dispatches, and to whom the advent of a traveller is of course a welcome
+sight. Misled by a false notion of economy, our government is fast
+becoming proverbial for its meanness. If those of our own citizens who
+represent us abroad only worked as they are paid, and if the foreigners
+who act as Vice-Consuls without pay did not derive some petty trading
+advantages from their position, we should be almost without protection.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With my departure from Spain closes the record of my journey in the Lands
+of the Saracen; for, although I afterwards beheld more perfect types of
+Saracenic Art on the banks of the Jumna and the Ganges, they grew up under
+the great Empire of the descendants of Tamerlane, and were the creations
+of artists foreign to the soil. It would, no doubt, be interesting to
+contrast the remains of Oriental civilization and refinement, as they
+still exist at the extreme eastern and western limits of the Moslem sway,
+and to show how that Art, which had its birth in the capitals of the
+Caliphs--Damascus and Baghdad--attained its most perfect development in
+Spain and India; but my visit to the latter country connects itself
+naturally with my voyage to China, Loo-Choo, and Japan, forming a separate
+and distinct field of travel.
+
+On the 27th of November, the Overland Mail Steamer arrived at Gibraltar,
+and I embarked in her for Alexandria, entering upon another year of even
+more varied, strange, and adventurous experiences, than that which had
+closed. I am almost afraid to ask those patient readers, who have
+accompanied me thus far, to travel with me through another volume; but
+next to the pleasure of seeing the world, comes the pleasure of telling of
+it, and I must needs finish my story.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Lands of the Saracen, by Bayard Taylor
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10924 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10924 ***</div>
+
+<h1 class="title">The Lands of the Saracen</h1>
+
+<h2 class="subtitle">or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain.</h2>
+
+<p style="text-align:center" class="smallcaps">by</p>
+
+<h2 class="author">Bayard Taylor.</h2>
+
+<h3>Twentieth Edition.</h3>
+
+
+
+<h4 style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-variant: small-caps">New York:<br />
+G. P. Putnam, 532 Broadway.<br />
+1863</h4>
+
+
+
+
+<p style="text-align: center">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by<br /> <span class="smallcaps">G. P. Putnam &amp;
+Co.</span>,<br /> In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
+the Southern District of New York.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="dedication">
+<h2>To Washington Irving,</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>This book--the chronicle of my travels through lands once occupied by the
+Saracens--naturally dedicates itself to you, who, more than any other
+American author, have revived the traditions, restored the history, and
+illustrated the character of that brilliant and heroic people. Your
+cordial encouragement confirmed me in my design of visiting the East, and
+making myself familiar with Oriental life; and though I bring you now but
+imperfect returns, I can at least unite with you in admiration of a field
+so rich in romantic interest, and indulge the hope that I may one day
+pluck from it fruit instead of blossoms. In Spain, I came upon your track,
+and I should hesitate to exhibit my own gleanings where you have
+harvested, were it not for the belief that the rapid sketches I have given
+will but enhance, by the contrast, the charm of your finished picture.</p>
+
+<p>Bayard Taylor.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="preface">
+<h2>Preface.</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>This volume comprises the second portion of a series of travels, of which
+the "Journey to Central Africa," already published, is the first part. I
+left home, intending to spend a winter in Africa, and to return during the
+following summer; but circumstances afterwards occurred, which prolonged
+my wanderings to nearly two years and a half, and led me to visit many
+remote and unexplored portions of the globe. To describe this journey in a
+single work, would embrace too many incongruous elements, to say nothing
+of its great length, and as it falls naturally into three parts, or
+episodes, of very distinct character, I have judged it best to group my
+experiences under three separate heads, merely indicating the links which
+connect them. This work includes my travels in Palestine, Syria, Asia
+Minor, Sicily and Spain, and will be followed by a third and concluding
+volume, containing my adventures in India, China, the Loo-Choo Islands,
+and Japan. Although many of the letters, contained in this volume,
+describe beaten tracks of travel, I have always given my own individual
+impressions, and may claim for them the merit of entire sincerity. The
+journey from Aleppo to Constantinople, through the heart of Asia Minor,
+illustrates regions rarely traversed by tourists, and will, no doubt, be
+new to most of my readers. My aim, throughout the work, has been to give
+correct pictures of Oriental life and scenery, leaving antiquarian
+research and speculation to abler hands. The scholar, or the man of
+science, may complain with reason that I have neglected valuable
+opportunities for adding something to the stock of human knowledge: but if
+a few of the many thousands, who can only travel by their firesides,
+should find my pages answer the purpose of a series of cosmoramic
+views--should in them behold with a clearer inward eye the hills of
+Palestine, the sun-gilded minarets of Damascus, or the lonely pine-forests
+of Phrygia--should feel, by turns, something of the inspiration and the
+indolence of the Orient--I shall have achieved all I designed, and more
+than I can justly hope.</p>
+
+<p>New York, <i>October</i>, 1854.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="toc">
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch01">Chapter I.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Life in a Syrian Quarantine.</p>
+
+<p class="abs">  Voyage from Alexandria to Beyrout--Landing at Quarantine--The
+  Guardians--Our Quarters--Our Companions--Famine and Feasting--The
+  Morning--The Holy Man of Timbuctoo--Sunday in Quarantine--Islamism--We
+  are Registered--Love through a Grating--Trumpets--The Mystery
+  Explained--Delights of Quarantine--Oriental <i>vs.</i> American
+  Exaggeration--A Discussion of Politics--Our
+  Release--Beyrout--Preparations for the Pilgrimage</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch02">Chapter II.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Coast of Palestine.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Pilgrimage Commences--The Muleteers--The Mules--The Donkey--Journey
+  to Sidon--The Foot of Lebanon--Pictures--The Ruins of Tyre--A Wild
+  Morning--The Tyrian Surges--Climbing the Ladder of Tyre--Panorama of the
+  Bay of Acre--The Plain of Esdraelon--Camp in a Garden--Acre--the Shore
+  of the Bay--Haifa--Mount Carmel and its Monastery--A Deserted Coast--The
+  Ruins of C&aelig;sarea--The Scenery of Palestine--We become Robbers--El
+  Haram--Wrecks--the Harbor and Town of Jaffa.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch03">Chapter III.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>From Jaffa to Jerusalem.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Garden of Jaffa--Breakfast at a Fountain--The Plain of Sharon--The
+  Ruined Mosque of Ramleh--A Judean Landscape--The Streets Ramleh--Am I in
+  Palestine?--A Heavenly Morning--The Land of Milk and Honey--Entering
+  the Hill Country--The Pilgrim's Breakfast--The Father of Lies--A Church
+  of the Crusaders--The Agriculture of the Hills--The Valley of
+  Elah--Day-Dreams--The Wilderness--The Approach--We See the Holy City</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch04">Chapter IV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Dead Sea and the River Jordan.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Bargaining for a Guard---Departure from Jerusalem--The Hill of
+  Offence--Bethany--The Grotto of Lazarus--The Valley of Fire--Scenery of
+  the Wilderness--The Hills of Engaddi--The shore of the Dead Sea--A
+  Bituminous Bath--Gallop to the Jordan--A watch for Robbers--The
+  Jordan--Baptism--The Plains of Jericho--The Fountain of Elisha--The
+  Mount of Temptation--Return to Jerusalem</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch05">Chapter V.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The City of Christ.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Modern Jerusalem--The Site of the City--Mount Zion--Mount Moriah--The
+  Temple--The Valley of Jehosaphat--The Olives of Gethsemane--The Mount
+  of Olives--Moslem Tradition--Panorama from the Summit--The Interior of
+  the City--The Population--Missions and Missionaries--Christianity in
+  Jerusalem--Intolerance--The Jews of Jerusalem--The Face of Christ--The
+  Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Holy of Holies--The Sacred
+  Localities--Visions of Christ--The Mosque of Omar--The Holy Man of
+  Timbuctoo--Preparations for Departure.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch06">Chapter VI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Hill-Country of Palestine.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Leaving Jerusalem--The Tombs of the Kings--El Bireh--The
+  Hill-Country--First View of Mount Hermon--The Tomb of Joseph--Ebal and
+  Gerizim--The Gardens of Nablous--The Samaritans--The Sacred Book--A
+  Scene in the Synagogue--Mentor and Telemachus--Ride to Samaria--The
+  Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
+  Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
+  Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
+  the Annunciation--The Holy Places.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch07">Chapter VII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Country of Galilee.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Departure from Nazareth--A Christian Guide--Ascent of Mount
+  Tabor--Wallachian Hermits--The Panorama of Tabor--Ride to Tiberias--A
+  Bath in Genesareth--The Flowers of Galilee--The Mount of
+  Beatitude--Magdala--Joseph's Well--Meeting with a Turk--The Fountain of
+  the Salt-Works--The Upper Valley of the Jordan--Summer Scenery--The
+  Rivers of Lebanon--Tell el-Kadi--An Arcadian Region--The Fountains of
+  Banias</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch08">Chapter VIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Harmless Guard--C&aelig;sarea Philippi--The Valley of the Druses--The
+  Sides of Mount Hermon--An Alarm--Threading a Defile--Distant view of
+  Djebel Hauaran--Another Alarm--Camp at Katana--We Ride into Damascus</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch09">Chapter IX.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Pictures of Damascus.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
+  Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
+  Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
+  Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
+  of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch10">Chapter X.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Visions of Hasheesh.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch11">Chapter XI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>A Dissertation on Bathing and Bodies.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch12">Chapter XII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Baalbec and Lebanon.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Departure from Damascus--The Fountains of the Pharpar--Pass of the
+  Anti-Lebanon--Adventure with the Druses--The Range of Lebanon--The
+  Demon of Hasheesh departs--Impressions of Baalbec--The Temple of the
+  Sun--Titanic Masonry--The Ruined Mosque--Camp on Lebanon--Rascality of
+  the Guide--The Summit of Lebanon--The Sacred Cedars--The Christians of
+  Lebanon--An Afternoon in Eden--Rugged Travel--We Reach the Coast--Return
+  to Beyrout</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch13">Chapter XIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Pipes and Coffee</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch14">Chapter XIV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Journey to Antioch and Aleppo.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Change of Plans--Routes to Baghdad--Asia Minor--We sail from
+  Beyrout--Yachting on the Syrian Coast--Tartus and Latakiyeh--The Coasts
+  of Syria--The Bay of Suediah--The Mouth of the Orontes--Landing--The
+  Garden of Syria--Ride to Antioch--The Modern City--The Plains of the
+  Orontes--Remains of the Greek Empire--The Ancient Road--The Plain of
+  Keftin--Approach to Aleppo.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch15">Chapter XV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Life in Aleppo.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Our Entry into Aleppo--We are conducted to a House--Our Unexpected
+  Welcome--The Mystery Explained--Aleppo--Its Name--Its Situation--The
+  Trade of Aleppo--The Christians--The Revolt of 1850--Present Appearance
+  of the City--Visit to Osman Pasha--The Citadel--View from the
+  Battlements--Society in Aleppo--Etiquette and Costume--Jewish Marriage
+  Festivities--A Christian Marriage Procession--Ride around the
+  Town--Nightingales--The Aleppo Button--A Hospital for Cats--Ferhat.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch16">Chapter XVI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Through the Syrian Gates.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
+  Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
+  Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
+  Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
+  Town--A Land of Gardens.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch17">Chapter XVII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Adana and Tarsus.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Black Gate--The Plain of Cilicia--A Koord Village--Missis--Cilician
+  Scenery--Arrival at Adana--Three days in Quarantine--We receive
+  Pratique--A Landscape--The Plain of Tarsus--The River Cydnus--A Vision
+  of Cleopatra--Tarsus and its Environs--The <i>Duniktash</i>--The Moon of
+  Ramazan.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch18">Chapter XVIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Pass of Mount Taurus.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">We enter the Taurus--Turcomans--Forest Scenery--the Palace of Pan--Khan
+  Mezarluk--Morning among the Mountains--The Gorge of the Cydnus--The
+  Crag of the Fortress--The Cilician Grate--Deserted Forts--A Sublime
+  Landscape--The Gorge of the Sihoon--The Second Gate--Camp in the
+  Defile--Sunrise--Journey up the Sihoon--A Change of Scenery--A Pastoral
+  Valley--Kol&uuml; Kushla--A Deserted Khan--A Guest in Ramazan--Flowers--The
+  Plain of Karamania--Barren Hills--The Town of Eregli--The Hadji again</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch19">Chapter XIX.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Plains of Karamania.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Plains of Karamania--Afternoon Heat--A Well--Volcanic
+  Phenomena--Karamania--A Grand Ruined Khan--Moonlight Picture--A
+  Landscape of the Plains--Mirages--A Short Interview--The Village of
+  Ismil--Third Day on the Plains--Approach to Konia</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch20">Chapter XX.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Scenes in Konia.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Approach to Konia--Tomb of Hazret Mevlana--Lodgings in a Khan--An
+  American Luxury--A Night-Scene in Ramazan--Prayers in the
+  Mosque--Remains of the Ancient City--View from the Mosque--The
+  Interior--A Leaning Minaret--The Diverting History of the Muleteers</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch21">Chapter XXI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Heart of Asia Minor.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Scenery of the Hills--Ladik, the Ancient Laodicea--The Plague of
+  Gad-Flies--Camp at Ilg&uuml;n--A Natural Warm Bath--The Gad-Flies Again--A
+  Summer Landscape--Ak-Sheher--The Base of Sultan Dagh--The Fountain of
+  Midas--A Drowsy Journey--The Town of Bolawad&uuml;n</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch22">Chapter XXII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Forests of Phrygia.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Frontier of Phrygia--Ancient Quarries and Tombs--We Enter the Pine
+  Forests--A Guard-House--Encampments of the Turcomans--Pastoral
+  Scenery--A Summer Village--The Valley of the Tombs--Rock Sepulchres of
+  the Phrygian Kings--The Titan's Camp--The Valley of K&uuml;mbeh--A Land of
+  Flowers--Turcoman Hospitality--The Exiled Effendis--The Old Turcoman--A
+  Glimpse of Arcadia--A Landscape--Interested Friendship--The Valley of
+  the Pursek--Arrival at Kiutahya</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch23">Chapter XXIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Kiutahya, and the Ruins of &OElig;zani.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Entrance into Kiutahya--The New Khan--An Unpleasant
+  Discovery--Kiutahya--The Citadel--Panorama from the Walls--The Gorge of
+  the Mountains--Camp in a Meadow--The Valley of the
+  Rhyndacus--Chavd&uuml;r--The Ruins of &OElig;zani--The Acropolis and
+  Temple--The Theatre and Stadium--Ride down the Valley--Camp at Daghjk&ouml;i</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch24">Chapter XXIV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Mysian Olympus.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
+  of Taushanl&uuml;--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
+  Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
+  Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
+  of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghi&ouml;l--A Showery Ride--The
+  Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
+  Furled</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch25">Chapter XXV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
+  Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
+  Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
+  the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
+  Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Ca&iuml;que--Breakfast with
+  the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
+  View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch26">Chapter XXVI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Night of Predestination.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Constantinople in Ramazan--The Origin of the Fast--Nightly
+  Illuminations--The Night of Predestination--The Golden Horn at
+  Night--Illumination of the Shores---The Cannon of Constantinople--A
+  Fiery Panorama--The Sultan's Ca&iuml;que--Close of the Celebration--A Turkish
+  Mob--The Dancing Dervishes</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch27">Chapter XXVII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Solemnities of Bairam.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Appearance of the New Moon--The Festival of Bairam--The Interior of
+  the Seraglio--The Pomp of the Sultan's Court--Reschid Pasha--The
+  Sultan's Dwarf--Arabian Stallions--The Imperial Guard--Appearance of the
+  Sultan--The Inner Court--Return of the Procession--The Sultan on his
+  Throne--The Homage of the Pashas--An Oriental Picture--Kissing the
+  Scarf--The Shekh el-Isl&agrave;m--The Descendant of the Caliphs--Bairam
+  Commences</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch28">Chapter XXVIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Mosques of Constantinople.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Sojourn at Constantinople--Semi-European Character of the City--The
+  Mosque--Procuring a Firman--The Seraglio--The Library--The Ancient
+  Throne-Room--Admittance to St. Sophia--Magnificence of the Interior--The
+  Marvellous Dome--The Mosque of Sultan Achmed--The Sulemanye--Great
+  Conflagrations--Political Meaning of the Fires--Turkish Progress--Decay
+  of the Ottoman Power</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch29">Chapter XXIX.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Farewell to the Orient--Malta.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Embarcation--Farewell to the Orient--Leaving Constantinople--A
+  Wreck--The Dardanelles--Homeric Scenery--Smyrna Revisited--The Grecian
+  Isles--Voyage to Malta--Detention--La Valetta--The Maltese--The
+  Climate--A Boat for Sicily</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch30">Chapter XXX.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Festival of St. Agatha.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Departure from Malta--The Speronara--Our Fellow-Passengers--The First
+  Night on Board--Sicily--Scarcity of Provisions--Beating in the Calabrian
+  Channel--The Fourth Morning--The Gulf of Catania--A Sicilian
+  Landscape--The Anchorage--The Suspected List--The Streets of
+  Catania--Biography of St. Agatha--The Illuminations--The Procession of
+  the Veil--The Biscari Palace--The Antiquities of Catania--The Convent of
+  St. Nicola</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch31">Chapter XXXI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Eruption of Mount Etna.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Mountain Threatens--The Signs Increase--We Leave Catania--Gardens
+  Among the Lava--Etna Labors--Aci Reale--The Groans of Etna--The
+  Eruption--Gigantic Tree of Smoke--Formation of the New Crater--We Lose
+  Sight of the Mountain--Arrival at Messina--Etna is Obscured--Departure</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch32">Chapter XXXII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Gibraltar.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
+  Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
+  Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
+  Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch33">Chapter XXXIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Cadiz and Seville.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
+  Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
+  House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
+  Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar--Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
+  House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
+  Evening in Seville</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch34">Chapter XXXIV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Journey in a Spanish Diligence.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Spanish Diligence Lines--Leaving Seville--An Unlucky Start--Alcal&agrave; of
+  the Bakers--Dinner at Carmona--A Dehesa--The Mayoral and his
+  Team--Ecija--Night Journey--Cordova--The Cathedral-Mosque--Moorish
+  Architecture--The Sierra Morena--A Rainy Journey--A Chapter of
+  Accidents--Baylen--The Fascination of Spain--Jaen--The Vega of Granada</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch35">Chapter XXXV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Granada and the Alhambra.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish
+  Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs
+  of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The
+  Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la
+  Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the
+  Fishpond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the Architecture--
+  Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The Moorish Dynasty
+  in Spain</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch36">Chapter XXXVI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Bridle-Roads of Andalusia.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Change of Weather--Napoleon and his Horses--Departure from Granada--My
+  Guide, Jos&eacute; Garcia--His Domestic Troubles--The Tragedy of the
+  Umbrella--The Vow against Aguardiente--Crossing the Vega--The Sierra
+  Nevada--The Baths of Alhama--"Woe is Me, Alhama!"--The Valley of the
+  River V&eacute;lez--V&eacute;lez Malaga--The Coast Road--The Fisherman and his
+  Donkey--Malaga--Summer Scenery--The Story of Don Pedro, without Fear and
+  without Care--The Field of Monda--A Lonely Venta</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch37">Chapter XXXVII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Mountains of Fonda.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Orange Valleys--Climbing the Mountains--Jos&eacute;'s Hospitality--El
+  Burgo--The Gate of the Wind--The Cliff and Cascades of Ronda--The
+  Mountain Region--Traces of the Moors--Haunts of Robbers--A Stormy
+  Ride--The Inn at Gaucin--Bad News--A Boyish Auxiliary--Descent from the
+  Mountains--The Ford of the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
+  Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with Jos&eacute;--Travelling
+  in Spain--Conclusion</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h1>The Lands of the Saracen</h1>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch01">
+<h2>Chapter I.</h2>
+
+<h3>Life in a Syrian Quarantine.</h3>
+
+<p class="abs">  Voyage from Alexandria to Beyrout--Landing at Quarantine--The
+  Guardiano--Our Quarters--Our Companions--Famine and Feasting--The
+  Morning--The Holy Man of Timbuctoo--Sunday in Quarantine--Islamism--We
+  are Registered--Love through a Grating--Trumpets--The Mystery
+  Explained--Delights of Quarantine--Oriental <i>vs</i>. American
+  Exaggeration--A Discussion of Politics--Our
+  Release--Beyrout--Preparations for the Pilgrimage.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "The mountains look on Quarantine,
+  And Quarantine looks on the sea."</p>
+
+<p>  Quarantine MS.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>In Quarantine, Beyrout, <i>Saturday, April</i> 17, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Everybody has heard of Quarantine, but in our favored country there are
+many untravelled persons who do not precisely know what it is, and who no
+doubt wonder why it should be such a bugbear to travellers in the Orient.
+I confess I am still somewhat in the same predicament myself, although I
+have already been twenty-four hours in Quarantine. But, as a peculiarity
+of the place is, that one can do nothing, however good a will he has, I
+propose to set down my experiences each day, hoping that I and my readers
+may obtain some insight into the nature of Quarantine, before the term of
+my probation is over.</p>
+
+<p>I left Alexandria on the afternoon of the 14th inst., in company with Mr.
+Carter Harrison, a fellow-countryman, who had joined me in Cairo, for the
+tour through Palestine. We had a head wind, and rough sea, and I remained
+in a torpid state during most of the voyage. There was rain the second
+night; but, when the clouds cleared away yesterday morning, we were
+gladdened by the sight of Lebanon, whose summits glittered with streaks of
+snow. The lower slopes of the mountains were green with fields and
+forests, and Beyrout, when we ran up to it, seemed buried almost out of
+sight, in the foliage of its mulberry groves. The town is built along the
+northern side of a peninsula, which projects about two miles from the main
+line of the coast, forming a road for vessels. In half an hour after our
+arrival, several large boats came alongside, and we were told to get our
+baggage in order and embark for Quarantine. The time necessary to purify a
+traveller arriving from Egypt from suspicion of the plague, is five days,
+but the days of arrival and departure are counted, so that the durance
+amounts to but three full days. The captain of the Osiris mustered the
+passengers together, and informed them that each one would be obliged to
+pay six piastres for the transportation of himself and his baggage. Two
+heavy lighters are now drawn up to the foot of the gangway, but as soon as
+the first box tumbles into them, the men tumble out. They attach the craft
+by cables to two smaller boats, in which they sit, to tow the infected
+loads. We are all sent down together, Jews, Turks, and Christians--a
+confused pile of men, women, children, and goods. A little boat from the
+city, in which there are representatives from the two hotels, hovers
+around us, and cards are thrown to us. The zealous agents wish to supply
+us immediately with tables, beds, and all other household appliances; but
+we decline their help until we arrive at the mysterious spot. At last we
+float off--two lighters full of infected, though respectable, material,
+towed by oarsmen of most scurvy appearance, but free from every suspicion
+of taint.</p>
+
+<p>The sea is still rough, the sun is hot, and a fat Jewess becomes sea-sick.
+An Italian Jew rails at the boatmen ahead, in the Neapolitan patois, for
+the distance is long, the Quarantine being on the land-side of Beyrout. We
+see the rows of little yellow houses on the cliff, and with great apparent
+risk of being swept upon the breakers, are tugged into a small cove, where
+there is a landing-place. Nobody is there to receive us; the boatmen jump
+into the water and push the lighters against the stone stairs, while we
+unload our own baggage. A tin cup filled with sea-water is placed before
+us, and we each drop six piastres into it--for money, strange as it may
+seem, is infectious. By this time, the <i>guardianos</i> have had notice of our
+arrival, and we go up with them to choose our habitations. There are
+several rows of one-story houses overlooking the sea, each containing two
+empty rooms, to be had for a hundred piastres; but a square two-story
+dwelling stands apart from them, and the whole of it may be had for thrice
+that sum. There are seven Frank prisoners, and we take it for ourselves.
+But the rooms are bare, the kitchen empty, and we learn the important
+fact, that Quarantine is durance vile, without even the bread and water.
+The guardiano says the agents of the hotel are at the gate, and we can
+order from them whatever we want. Certainly; but at their own price, for
+we are wholly at their mercy. However, we go down stairs, and the chief
+officer, who accompanies us, gets into a corner as we pass, and holds a
+stick before him to keep us off. He is now clean, but if his garments
+brush against ours, he is lost. The people we meet in the grounds step
+aside with great respect to let us pass, but if we offer them our hands,
+no one would dare to touch a finger's tip.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the gate: a double screen of wire, with an interval between, so
+that contact is impossible. There is a crowd of individuals outside, all
+anxious to execute commissions. Among them is the agent of the hotel, who
+proposes to fill our bare rooms with furniture, send us a servant and
+cook, and charge us the same as if we lodged with him. The bargain is
+closed at once, and he hurries off to make the arrangements. It is now
+four o'clock, and the bracing air of the headland gives a terrible
+appetite to those of us who, like me, have been sea-sick and fasting for
+forty-eight hours. But there is no food within the Quarantine except a
+patch of green wheat, and a well in the limestone rock. We two Americans
+join company with our room-mate, an Alexandrian of Italian parentage, who
+has come to Beyrout to be married, and make the tour of our territory.
+There is a path along the cliffs overhanging the sea, with glorious views
+of Lebanon, up to his snowy top, the pine-forests at his base, and the
+long cape whereon the city lies at full length, reposing beside the waves.
+The Mahommedans and Jews, in companies of ten (to save expense), are
+lodged in the smaller dwellings, where they have already aroused millions
+of fleas from their state of torpid expectancy. We return, and take a
+survey of our companions in the pavilion: a French woman, with two ugly
+and peevish children (one at the breast), in the next room, and three
+French gentlemen in the other--a merchant, a young man with hair of
+extraordinary length, and a <i>filateur</i>, or silk-manufacturer, middle-aged
+and cynical. The first is a gentleman in every sense of the word, the
+latter endurable, but the young Absalom is my aversion, I am subject to
+involuntary likings and dislikings, for which I can give no reason, and
+though the man may be in every way amiable, his presence is very
+distasteful to me.</p>
+
+<p>We take a pipe of consolation, but it only whets our appetites. We give up
+our promenade, for exercise is still worse; and at last the sun goes down,
+and yet no sign of dinner. Our pavilion becomes a Tower of Famine, and the
+Italian recites Dante. Finally a strange face appears at the door. By
+Apicius! it is a servant from the hotel, with iron bedsteads, camp-tables,
+and some large chests, which breathe an odor of the Commissary Department.
+We go stealthily down to the kitchen, and watch the unpacking. Our dinner
+is there, sure enough, but alas! it is not yet cooked. Patience is no
+more; my companion manages to filch a raw onion and a crust of bread,
+which we share, and roll under our tongues as a sweet morsel, and it gives
+us strength for another hour. The Greek dragoman and cook, who are sent
+into Quarantine for our sakes, take compassion on us; the fires are
+kindled in the cold furnaces; savory steams creep up the stairs; the
+preparations increase, and finally climax in the rapturous announcement:
+"Messieurs, dinner is ready." The soup is liquified bliss; the <i>cotelettes
+d'agneau</i> are <i>cotelettes de bonheur</i>; and as for that broad dish of
+Syrian larks--Heaven forgive us the regret, that more songs had not been
+silenced for our sake! The meal is all nectar and ambrosia, and now,
+filled and contented, we subside into sleep on comfortable couches. So
+closes the first day of our incarceration.</p>
+
+<p>This morning dawned clear and beautiful. Lebanon, except his snowy crest,
+was wrapped in the early shadows, but the Mediterranean gleamed like a
+shield of sapphire, and Beyrout, sculptured against the background of its
+mulberry groves, was glorified beyond all other cities. The turf around
+our pavilion fairly blazed with the splendor of the yellow daisies and
+crimson poppies that stud it. I was satisfied with what I saw, and felt no
+wish to leave Quarantine to-day. Our Italian friend, however, is more
+impatient. His betrothed came early to see him, and we were edified by the
+great alacrity with which he hastened to the grate, to renew his vows at
+two yards' distance from her. In the meantime, I went down to the Turkish
+houses, to cultivate the acquaintance of a singular character I met on
+board the steamer. He is a negro of six feet four, dressed in a long
+scarlet robe. His name is Mahommed Senoosee, and he is a <i>fakeer</i>, or holy
+man, from Timbuctoo. He has been two years absent from home, on a
+pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and is now on his way to Jerusalem and
+Damascus. He has travelled extensively in all parts of Central Africa,
+from Dar-Fur to Ashantee, and professes to be on good terms with the
+Sultans of Houssa and Bornou. He has even been in the great kingdom of
+Waday, which has never been explored by Europeans, and as far south as
+Iola, the capital of Adamowa. Of the correctness of his narrations I have
+not the least doubt, as they correspond geographically with all that we
+know of the interior of Africa. In answer to my question whether a
+European might safely make the same tour, he replied that there would be
+no difficulty, provided he was accompanied by a native, and he offered to
+take me even to Timbuctoo, if I would return with him. He was very curious
+to obtain information about America, and made notes of all that I told
+him, in the quaint character used by the Mughrebbins, or Arabs of the
+West, which has considerable resemblance to the ancient Cufic. He wishes
+to join company with me for the journey to Jerusalem, and perhaps I shall
+accept him.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>Sunday, April</i> 18.</h4>
+
+<p>As Quarantine is a sort of limbo, without the pale of civilized society,
+we have no church service to-day. We have done the best we could, however,
+in sending one of the outside dragomen to purchase a Bible, in which we
+succeeded. He brought us a very handsome copy, printed by the American
+Bible Society in New York. I tried vainly in Cairo and Alexandria to find
+a missionary who would supply my heathenish destitution of the Sacred
+Writings; for I had reached the East through Austria, where they are
+prohibited, and to travel through Palestine without them, would be like
+sailing without pilot or compass. It gives a most impressive reality to
+Solomon's "house of the forest of Lebanon," when you can look up from the
+page to those very forests and those grand mountains, "excellent with the
+cedars." Seeing the holy man of Timbuctoo praying with his face towards
+Mecca, I went down to him, and we conversed for a long time on religious
+matters. He is tolerably well informed, having read the Books of Moses and
+the Psalms of David, but, like all Mahommedans, his ideas of religion
+consist mainly of forms, and its reward is a sensual paradise. The more
+intelligent of the Moslems give a spiritual interpretation to the nature
+of the Heaven promised by the Prophet, and I have heard several openly
+confess their disbelief in the seventy houries and the palaces of pearl
+and emerald. Shekh Mahommed Senoosee scarcely ever utters a sentence in
+which is not the word "Allah," and "La illah il' Allah" is repeated at
+least every five minutes. Those of his class consider that there is a
+peculiar merit in the repetition of the names and attributes of God. They
+utterly reject the doctrine of the Trinity, which they believe implies a
+sort of partnership, or God-firm (to use their own words), and declare
+that all who accept it are hopelessly damned. To deny Mahomet's
+prophetship would excite a violent antagonism, and I content myself with
+making them acknowledge that God is greater than all Prophets or Apostles,
+and that there is but one God for all the human race. I have never yet
+encountered that bitter spirit of bigotry which is so frequently ascribed
+to them; but on the contrary, fully as great a tolerance as they would
+find exhibited towards them by most of the Christian sects.</p>
+
+<p>This morning a paper was sent to us, on which we were requested to write
+our names, ages, professions, and places of nativity. We conjectured that
+we were subjected to the suspicion of political as well as physical taint,
+but happily this was not the case. I registered myself as a <i>voyageur</i>,
+the French as <i>negocians</i> and when it came to the woman's turn, Absalom,
+who is a partisan of female progress, wished to give her the same
+profession as her husband--a machinist. But she declared that her only
+profession was that of a "married woman," and she was so inscribed. Her
+peevish boy rejoiced in the title of "<i>pleuricheur</i>," or "weeper," and the
+infant as "<i>titeuse</i>," or "sucker." While this was going on, the
+guardiano of our room came in very mysteriously, and beckoned to my
+companion, saying that "Mademoiselle was at the gate." But it was the
+Italian who was wanted, and again, from the little window of our pavilion,
+we watched his hurried progress over the lawn. No sooner had she departed,
+than he took his pocket telescope, slowly sweeping the circuit of the bay
+as she drew nearer and nearer Beyrout. He has succeeded in distinguishing,
+among the mass of buildings, the top of the house in which she lives, but
+alas! it is one story too low, and his patient espial has only been
+rewarded by the sight of some cats promenading on the roof.</p>
+
+<p>I have succeeded in obtaining some further particulars in relation to
+Quarantine. On the night of our arrival, as we were about getting into our
+beds, a sudden and horrible gush of brimstone vapor came up stairs, and we
+all fell to coughing like patients in a pulmonary hospital. The odor
+increased till we were obliged to open the windows and sit beside them in
+order to breathe comfortably. This was the preparatory fumigation, in
+order to remove the ranker seeds of plague, after which the milder
+symptoms will of themselves vanish in the pure air of the place. Several
+times a day we are stunned and overwhelmed with the cracked brays of three
+discordant trumpets, as grating and doleful as the last gasps of a dying
+donkey. At first I supposed the object of this was to give a greater
+agitation to the air, and separate and shake down the noxious exhalations
+we emit; but since I was informed that the soldiers outside would shoot us
+in case we attempted to escape, I have concluded that the sound is meant
+to alarm us, and prevent our approaching too near the walls. On inquiring
+of our guardiano whether the wheat growing within the grounds was subject
+to Quarantine, he informed me that it did not ecovey infection, and that
+three old geese, who walked out past the guard with impunity, were free to
+go and come, as they had never been known to have the plague. Yesterday
+evening the medical attendant, a Polish physician, came in to inspect us,
+but he made a very hasty review, looking down on us from the top of a high
+horse.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>Monday, April</i> 19.</h4>
+
+<p>Eureka! the whole thing is explained. Talking to day with the guardiano,
+he happened to mention that he had been three years in Quarantine, keeping
+watch over infected travellers. "What!" said I, "you have been sick three
+years." "Oh no," he replied; "I have never been sick at all." "But are not
+people sick in Quarantine?" "<i>Stafferillah!</i>" he exclaimed; "they are
+always in better health than the people outside." "What is Quarantine for,
+then?" I persisted. "What is it for?" he repeated, with a pause of blank
+amazement at my ignorance, "why, to get money from the travellers!"
+Indiscreet guardiano! It were better to suppose ourselves under suspicion
+of the plague, than to have such an explanation of the mystery. Yet, in
+spite of the unpalatable knowledge, I almost regret that this is our last
+day in the establishment. The air is so pure and bracing, the views from
+our windows so magnificent, the colonized branch of the Beyrout Hotel so
+comfortable, that I am content to enjoy this pleasant idleness--the more
+pleasant since, being involuntary, it is no weight on the conscience. I
+look up to the Maronite villages, perched on the slopes of Lebanon, with
+scarce a wish to climb to them, or turning to the sparkling Mediterranean,
+view</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "The speronara's sail of snowy hue<br />
+  Whitening and brightening on that field of blue,"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>and have none of that unrest which the sight of a vessel in motion
+suggests.</p>
+
+<p>To-day my friend from Timbuctoo came up to have another talk. He was
+curious to know the object of my travels, and as he would not have
+comprehended the exact truth, I was obliged to convey it to him through
+the medium of fiction. I informed him that I had been dispatched by the
+Sultan of my country to obtain information of the countries of Africa;
+that I wrote in a book accounts of everything I saw, and on my return,
+would present this book to the Sultan, who would reward me with a high
+rank--perhaps even that of Grand Vizier. The Orientals deal largely in
+hyperbole, and scatter numbers and values with the most reckless
+profusion. The Arabic, like the Hebrew, its sister tongue, and other old
+original tongues of Man, is a language of roots, and abounds with the
+boldest metaphors. Now, exaggeration is but the imperfect form of
+metaphor. The expression is always a splendid amplification of the simple
+fact. Like skilful archers, in order to hit the mark, they aim above it.
+When you have once learned his standard of truth, you can readily gauge an
+Arab's expressions, and regulate your own accordingly. But whenever I have
+attempted to strike the key-note myself, I generally found that it was
+below, rather than above, the Oriental pitch.</p>
+
+<p>The Shekh had already informed me that the King of Ashantee, whom he had
+visited, possessed twenty-four houses full of gold, and that the Sultan of
+Houssa had seventy thousand horses always standing saddled before his
+palace, in order that he might take his choice, when he wished to ride
+out. By this he did not mean that the facts were precisely so, but only
+that the King was very rich, and the Sultan had a great many horses. In
+order to give the Shekh an idea of the great wealth and power of the
+American Nation, I was obliged to adopt the same plan. I told him,
+therefore, that our country was two years' journey in extent, that the
+Treasury consisted of four thousand houses filled to the roof with gold,
+and that two hundred thousand soldiers on horseback kept continual guard
+around Sultan Fillmore's palace. He received these tremendous statements
+with the utmost serenity and satisfaction, carefully writing them in his
+book, together with the name of Sultan Fillmore, whose fame has ere this
+reached the remote regions of Timbuctoo. The Shekh, moreover, had the
+desire of visiting England, and wished me to give him a letter to the
+English Sultan. This rather exceeded my powers, but I wrote a simple
+certificate explaining who he was, and whence he came, which I sealed with
+an immense display of wax, and gave him. In return, he wrote his name in
+my book, in the Mughrebbin character, adding the sentence: "There is no
+God but God."</p>
+
+<p>This evening the forbidden subject of politics crept into our quiet
+community, and the result was an explosive contention which drowned even
+the braying of the agonizing trumpets outside. The gentlemanly Frenchman
+is a sensible and consistent republican, the old <i>filateur</i> a violent
+monarchist, while Absalom, as I might have foreseen, is a Red, of the
+schools of Proudhon and Considerant. The first predicted a Republic in
+France, the second a Monarchy in America, and the last was in favor of a
+general and total demolition of all existing systems. Of course, with such
+elements, anything like a serious discussion was impossible; and, as in
+most French debates, it ended in a bewildering confusion of cries and
+gesticulations. In the midst of it, I was struck by the cordiality with
+which the Monarchist and the Socialist united in their denunciations of
+England and the English laws. As they sat side by side, pouring out
+anathemas against "perfide Albion," I could not help exclaiming: "<i>Voil&agrave;,
+comme les extr&ecirc;mes se rencontrent</i>!" This turned the whole current of
+their wrath against me, and I was glad to make a hasty retreat.</p>
+
+<p>The physician again visited us to-night, to promise a release to-morrow
+morning. He looked us all in the faces, to be certain that there were no
+signs of pestilence, and politely regretted that he could not offer us his
+hand. The husband of the "married woman" also came, and relieved the other
+gentlemen from the charge of the "weeper." He was a stout, ruddy
+Proven&ccedil;al, in a white blouse, and I commiserated him sincerely for having
+such a disagreeable wife.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, being the last of our imprisonment, we have received many tokens
+of attention from dragomen, who have sent their papers through the grate
+to us, to be returned to-morrow after our liberation. They are not very
+prepossessing specimens of their class, with the exception of Yusef Badra,
+who brings a recommendation from my friend, Ross Browne. Yusef is a
+handsome, dashing fellow, with something of the dandy in his dress and
+air, but he has a fine, clear, sparkling eye, with just enough of the
+devil in it to make him attractive. I think, however, that, the Greek
+dragoman, who has been our companion in Quarantine, will carry the day. He
+is by birth a Boeotian, but now a citizen of Athens, and calls himself
+Fran&ccedil;ois Vitalis. He speaks French, German, and Italian, besides Arabic
+and Turkish, and as he has been for twelve or fifteen years vibrating
+between Europe and the East, he must by this time have amassed sufficient
+experience to answer the needs of rough-and-tumble travellers like
+ourselves. He has not asked us for the place, which displays so much
+penetration on his part, that we shall end by offering it to him. Perhaps
+he is content to rest his claims upon the memory of our first Quarantine
+dinner. If so, the odors of the cutlets and larks--even of the raw onion,
+which we remember with tears--shall not plead his cause in vain.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Beyrout (out of Quarantine), <i>Wednesday, May</i> 21.</h4>
+
+<p>The handsome Greek, Diamanti, one of the proprietors of the "Hotel de
+Belle Vue," was on hand bright and early yesterday morning, to welcome us
+out of Quarantine. The gates were thrown wide, and forth we issued between
+two files of soldiers, rejoicing in our purification. We walked through
+mulberry orchards to the town, and through its steep and crooked streets
+to the hotel, which stands beyond, near the extremity of the Cape, or Ras
+Beyrout. The town is small, but has an active population, and a larger
+commerce than any other port in Syria. The anchorage, however, is an open
+road, and in stormy weather it is impossible for a boat to land. There are
+two picturesque old castles on some rocks near the shore, but they were
+almost destroyed by the English bombardment in 1841. I noticed two or
+three granite columns, now used as the lintels of some of the arched ways
+in the streets, and other fragments of old masonry, the only remains of
+the ancient Berytus.</p>
+
+<p>Our time, since our release, has been occupied by preparations for the
+journey to Jerusalem. We have taken Fran&ccedil;ois as dragoman, and our
+<i>mukkairee</i>, or muleteers, are engaged to be in readiness to-morrow
+morning. I learn that the Druses are in revolt in Djebel Hauaran and parts
+of the Anti-Lebanon, which will prevent my forming any settled plan for
+the tour through Palestine and Syria. Up to this time, the country has
+been considered quite safe, the only robbery this winter having been that
+of the party of Mr. Degen, of New York, which was plundered near Tiberias.
+Dr. Robinson left here two weeks ago for Jerusalem, in company with Dr.
+Eli Smith, of the American Mission at this place.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch02">
+<h2>Chapter II.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Coast of Palestine.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Pilgrimage Commences--The Muleteers--The Mules--The Donkey--Journey
+  to Sidon--The Foot of Lebanon--Pictures--The Ruins of Tyre--A Wild
+  Morning--The Tyrian Surges--Climbing the Ladder of Tyre--Panorama of the
+  Bay of Acre--The Plain of Esdraelon--Camp in a Garden--Acre--the Shore
+  of the Bay--Haifa--Mount Carmel and its Monastery--A Deserted Coast--The
+  Ruins of C&aelig;sarea--The Scenery of Palestine--We become Robbers--El
+  Haram--Wrecks--the Harbor and Town of Jaffa.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Along the line of foam, the jewelled chain,
+  The largesse of the ever-giving main."</p>
+
+<p>R. H. Stoddard.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Ramleh, <i>April</i> 27, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We left Beyrout on the morning of the 22d. Our caravan consisted of three
+horses, three mules, and a donkey, in charge of two men--Dervish, an
+erect, black-bearded, and most impassive Mussulman, and Mustapha, who is
+the very picture of patience and good-nature. He was born with a smile on
+his face, and has never been able to change the expression. They are both
+masters of their art, and can load a mule with a speed and skill which I
+would defy any Santa F&eacute; trader to excel. The animals are not less
+interesting than their masters. Our horses, to be sure, are slow, plodding
+beasts, with considerable endurance, but little spirit; but the two
+baggage mules deserve gold medals from the Society for the Promotion of
+Industry. I can overlook any amount of waywardness in the creatures, in
+consideration of the steady, persevering energy, the cheerfulness and even
+enthusiasm with which they perform their duties. They seem to be conscious
+that they are doing well, and to take a delight in the consciousness. One
+of them has a band of white shells around his neck, fastened with a tassel
+and two large blue beads; and you need but look at him to see that he is
+aware how becoming it is. He thinks it was given to him for good conduct,
+and is doing his best to merit another. The little donkey is a still more
+original animal. He is a practical humorist, full of perverse tricks, but
+all intended for effect, and without a particle of malice. He generally
+walks behind, running off to one side or the other to crop a mouthful of
+grass, but no sooner does Dervish attempt to mount him, than he sets off
+at full gallop, and takes the lead of the caravan. After having performed
+one of his feats, he turns around with a droll glance at us, as much as to
+say: "Did you see that?" If we had not been present, most assuredly he
+would never have done it. I can imagine him, after his return to Beyrout,
+relating his adventures to a company of fellow-donkeys, who every now and
+then burst into tremendous brays at some of his irresistible dry sayings.</p>
+
+<p>I persuaded Mr. Harrison to adopt the Oriental costume, which, from five
+months' wear in Africa, I greatly preferred to the Frank. We therefore
+rode out of Beyrout as a pair of Syrian Beys, while Fran&ccedil;ois, with his
+belt, sabre, and pistols had much the aspect of a Greek brigand. The road
+crosses the hill behind the city, between the Forest of Pines and a long
+tract of red sand-hills next the sea. It was a lovely morning, not too
+bright and hot, for light, fleecy vapors hung along the sides of Lebanon.
+Beyond the mulberry orchards, we entered on wild, half-cultivated tracts,
+covered with a bewildering maze of blossoms. The hill-side and stony
+shelves of soil overhanging the sea fairly blazed with the brilliant dots
+of color which were rained upon them. The pink, the broom, the poppy, the
+speedwell, the lupin, that beautiful variety of the cyclamen, called by
+the Syrians "<i>deek e-djebel</i>" (cock o' the mountain), and a number of
+unknown plants dazzled the eye with their profusion, and loaded the air
+with fragrance as rare as it was unfailing. Here and there, clear, swift
+rivulets came down from Lebanon, coursing their way between thickets of
+blooming oleanders. Just before crossing the little river Damoor, Fran&ccedil;ois
+pointed out, on one of the distant heights, the residence of the late Lady
+Hester Stanhope. During the afternoon we crossed several offshoots of the
+Lebanon, by paths incredibly steep and stony, and towards evening reached
+Sa&iuml;da, the ancient Sidon, where we obtained permission to pitch our tent
+in a garden. The town is built on a narrow point of land, jutting out from
+the centre of a bay, or curve in the coast, and contains about five
+thousand inhabitants. It is a quiet, sleepy sort of a place, and contains
+nothing of the old Sidon except a few stones and the fragments of a mole,
+extending into the sea. The fortress in the water, and the Citadel, are
+remnants of Venitian sway. The clouds gathered after nightfall, and
+occasionally there was a dash of rain on our tent. But I heard it with the
+same quiet happiness, as when, in boyhood, sleeping beneath the rafters, I
+have heard the rain beating all night upon the roof. I breathed the sweet
+breath of the grasses whereon my carpet was spread, and old Mother Earth,
+welcoming me back to her bosom, cradled me into calm and refreshing
+sleep. There is no rest more grateful than that which we take on the turf
+or the sand, except the rest below it.</p>
+
+<p>We rose in a dark and cloudy morning, and continued our way between fields
+of barley, completely stained with the bloody hue of the poppy, and
+meadows turned into golden mosaic by a brilliant yellow daisy. Until noon
+our road was over a region of alternate meadow land and gentle though
+stony elevations, making out from Lebanon. We met continually with
+indications of ancient power and prosperity. The ground was strewn with
+hewn blocks, and the foundations of buildings remain in many places.
+Broken sarcophagi lie half-buried in grass, and the gray rocks of the
+hills are pierced with tombs. The soil, though stony, appeared to be
+naturally fertile, and the crops of wheat, barley, and lentils were very
+flourishing. After rounding the promontory which forms the southern
+boundary of the Gulf of Sidon, we rode for an hour or two over a plain
+near the sea, and then came down to a valley which ran up among the hills,
+terminating in a natural amphitheatre. An ancient barrow, or tumulus,
+nobody knows of whom, stands near the sea. During the day I noticed two
+charming little pictures. One, a fountain gushing into a broad square
+basin of masonry, shaded by three branching cypresses. Two Turks sat on
+its edge, eating their bread and curdled milk, while their horses drank
+out of the stone trough below. The other, an old Mahommedan, with a green
+turban and white robe, seated at the foot of a majestic sycamore, over the
+high bank of a stream that tumbled down its bed of white marble rock to
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The plain back of the narrow, sandy promontory on which the modern Soor
+is built, is a rich black loam, which a little proper culture would turn
+into a very garden. It helped me to account for the wealth of ancient
+Tyre. The approach to the town, along a beach on which the surf broke with
+a continuous roar, with the wreck of a Greek vessel in the foreground, and
+a stormy sky behind, was very striking. It was a wild, bleak picture, the
+white minarets of the town standing out spectrally against the clouds. We
+rode up the sand-hills, back of the town, and selected a good
+camping-place among the ruins of Tyre. Near us there was an ancient square
+building, now used as a cistern, and filled with excellent fresh water.
+The surf roared tremendously on the rocks, on either hand, and the boom of
+the more distant breakers came to my ear like the wind in a pine forest.
+The remains of the ancient sea-wall are still to be traced for the entire
+circuit of the city, and the heavy surf breaks upon piles of shattered
+granite columns. Along a sort of mole, protecting an inner harbor on the
+north side, are great numbers of these columns. I counted fifteen in one
+group, some of them fine red granite, and some of the marble of Lebanon.
+The remains of the pharos and the fortresses strengthening the sea-wall,
+were pointed out by the Syrian who accompanied us as a guide, but his
+faith was a little stronger than mine. He even showed us the ruins of the
+jetty built by Alexander, by means of which the ancient city, then
+insulated by the sea, was taken. The remains of the causeway gradually
+formed the promontory by which the place is now connected with the main
+land. These are the principal indications of Tyre above ground, but the
+guide informed us that the Arabs, in digging among the sand-hills for the
+stones of the old buildings, which they quarry out and ship to Beyrout,
+come upon chambers, pillars, arches, and other objects. The Tyrian purple
+is still furnished by a muscle found upon the coast, but Tyre is now only
+noted for its tobacco and mill-stones. I saw many of the latter lying in
+the streets of the town, and an Arab was selling a quantity at auction in
+the square, as we passed. They are cut out from a species of dark volcanic
+rock, by the Bedouins of the mountains. There were half a dozen small
+coasting vessels lying in the road, but the old harbors are entirely
+destroyed. Isaiah's prophecy is literally fulfilled: "Howl, ye ships of
+Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering
+in."</p>
+
+<p>On returning from our ramble we passed the house of the Governor, Daood
+Agha, who was dispensing justice in regard to a lawsuit then before him.
+He asked us to stop and take coffee, and received us with much grace and
+dignity. As we rose to leave, a slave brought me a large bunch of choice
+flowers from his garden.</p>
+
+<p>We set out from Tyre at an early hour, and rode along the beach around the
+head of the bay to the Ras-el-Abiad, the ancient Promontorium Album. The
+morning was wild and cloudy, with gleams of sunshine that flashed out over
+the dark violet gloom of the sea. The surf was magnificent, rolling up in
+grand billows, which broke and formed again, till the last of the long,
+falling fringes of snow slid seething up the sand. Something of ancient
+power was in their shock and roar, and every great wave that plunged and
+drew back again, called in its solemn bass: "Where are the ships of Tyre?
+where are the ships of Tyre?" I looked back on the city, which stood
+advanced far into the sea, her feet bathed in thunderous spray. By and by
+the clouds cleared away, the sun came out bold and bright, and our road
+left the beach for a meadowy plain, crossed by fresh streams, and sown
+with an inexhaustible wealth of flowers. Through thickets of myrtle and
+mastic, around which the rue and lavender grew in dense clusters, we
+reached the foot of the mountain, and began ascending the celebrated
+Ladder of Tyre. The road is so steep as to resemble a staircase, and
+climbs along the side of the promontory, hanging over precipices of naked
+white rock, in some places three hundred feet in height. The mountain is a
+mass of magnesian limestone, with occasional beds of marble. The surf has
+worn its foot into hollow caverns, into which the sea rushes with a dull,
+heavy boom, like distant thunder. The sides are covered with thickets of
+broom, myrtle, arbutus, ilex, mastic and laurel, overgrown with woodbine,
+and interspersed with patches of sage, lavender, hyssop, wild thyme, and
+rue. The whole mountain is a heap of balm; a bundle of sweet spices.</p>
+
+<p>Our horses' hoofs clattered up and down the rounds of the ladder, and we
+looked our last on Tyre, fading away behind the white hem of the breakers,
+as we turned the point of the promontory. Another cove of the
+mountain-coast followed, terminated by the Cape of Nakhura, the northern
+point of the Bay of Acre. We rode along a stony way between fields of
+wheat and barley, blotted almost out of sight by showers of scarlet
+poppies and yellow chrysanthemums. There were frequent ruins: fragments of
+sarcophagi, foundations of houses, and about half way between the two
+capes, the mounds of Alexandro-Sch&oelig;n&aelig;. We stopped at a khan, and
+breakfasted under a magnificent olive tree, while two boys tended our
+horses to see that they ate only the edges of the wheat field. Below the
+house were two large cypresses, and on a little tongue of land the ruins
+of one of those square towers of the corsairs, which line all this coast.
+The intense blue of the sea, seen close at hand over a broad field of
+goldening wheat, formed a dazzling and superb contrast of color. Early in
+the afternoon we climbed the Ras Nakhura, not so bold and grand, though
+quite as flowery a steep as the Promontorium Album. We had been jogging
+half an hour over its uneven summit, when the side suddenly fell away
+below us, and we saw the whole of the great gulf and plain of Acre, backed
+by the long ridge of Mount Carmel. Behind the sea, which makes a deep
+indentation in the line of the coast, extended the plain, bounded on the
+east, at two leagues' distance, by a range of hills covered with luxuriant
+olive groves, and still higher, by the distant mountains of Galilee. The
+fortifications of Acre were visible on a slight promontory near the middle
+of the Gulf. From our feet the line of foamy surf extended for miles along
+the red sand-beach, till it finally became like a chalk-mark on the edge
+of the field of blue.</p>
+
+<p>We rode down the mountain and continued our journey over the plain of
+Esdraelon--a picture of summer luxuriance and bloom. The waves of wheat
+and barley rolled away from our path to the distant olive orchards; here
+the water gushed from a stone fountain and flowed into a turf-girdled
+pool, around which the Syrian women were washing their garments; there, a
+garden of orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees in blossom, was a
+spring of sweet odors, which overflowed the whole land. We rode into some
+of these forests, for they were no less, and finally pitched our tent in
+one of them, belonging to the palace of the former Abdallah Pasha, within
+a mile of Acre. The old Saracen aqueduct, which still conveys water to
+the town, overhung our tent. For an hour before reaching our destination,
+we had seen it on the left, crossing the hollows on light stone arches. In
+one place I counted fifty-eight, and in another one hundred and three of
+these arches, some of which were fifty feet high. Our camp was a charming
+place: a nest of deep herbage, under two enormous fig-trees, and
+surrounded by a balmy grove of orange and citron. It was doubly beautiful
+when the long line of the aqueduct was lit up by the moon, and the orange
+trees became mounds of ambrosial darkness.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning we rode to Acre, the fortifications of which have been
+restored on the land-side. A ponderous double gateway of stone admitted us
+into the city, through what was once, apparently, the court-yard of a
+fortress. The streets of the town are narrow, terribly rough, and very
+dirty, but the bazaars are extensive and well stocked. The principal
+mosque, whose heavy dome is visible at some distance from the city, is
+surrounded with a garden, enclosed by a pillared corridor, paved with
+marble. All the houses of the city are built in the most massive style, of
+hard gray limestone or marble, and this circumstance alone prevented their
+complete destruction during the English bombardment in 1841. The marks of
+the shells are everywhere seen, and the upper parts of the lofty buildings
+are completely riddled with cannon-balls, some of which remain embedded in
+the stone. We made a rapid tour of the town on horseback, followed by the
+curious glances of the people, who were in doubt whether to consider us
+Turks or Franks. There were a dozen vessels in the harbor, which is
+considered the best in Syria.</p>
+
+<p>The baggage-mules had gone on, so we galloped after them along the hard
+beach, around the head of the bay. It was a brilliant morning; a
+delicious south-eastern breeze came to us over the flowery plain of
+Esdraelon; the sea on our right shone blue, and purple, and violet-green,
+and black, as the shadows or sunshine crossed it, and only the long lines
+of roaring foam, for ever changing in form, did not vary in hue. A
+fisherman stood on the beach in a statuesque attitude, his handsome bare
+legs bathed in the frothy swells, a bag of fish hanging from his shoulder,
+and the large square net, with its sinkers of lead in his right hand,
+ready for a cast. He had good luck, for the waves brought up plenty of
+large fish, and cast them at our feet, leaving them to struggle back into
+the treacherous brine. Between Acre and Haifa we passed six or eight
+wrecks, mostly of small trading vessels. Some were half buried in sand,
+some so old and mossy that they were fast rotting away, while a few had
+been recently hurled there. As we rounded the deep curve of the bay, and
+approached the line of palm-trees girding the foot of Mount Carmel, Haifa,
+with its wall and Saracenic town in ruin on the hill above, grew more
+clear and bright in the sun, while Acre dipped into the blue of the
+Mediterranean. The town of Haifa, the ancient Caiapha, is small, dirty,
+and beggarly looking; but it has some commerce, sharing the trade of Acre
+in the productions of Syria. It was Sunday, and all the Consular flags
+were flying. It was an unexpected delight to find the American colors in
+this little Syrian town, flying from one of the tallest poles. The people
+stared at us as we passed, and I noticed among them many bright Frankish
+faces, with eyes too clear and gray for Syria. O ye kind brothers of the
+monastery of Carmel! forgive me if I look to you for an explanation of
+this phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>We ascended to Mount Carmel. The path led through a grove of carob trees,
+from which the beans, known in Germany as St. John's bread, are produced.
+After this we came into an olive grove at the foot of the mountain, from
+which long fields of wheat, giving forth a ripe summer smell, flowed down
+to the shore of the bay. The olive trees were of immense size, and I can
+well believe, as Fra Carlo informed us, that they were probably planted by
+the Roman colonists, established there by Titus. The gnarled, veteran
+boles still send forth vigorous and blossoming boughs. There were all
+manner of lovely lights and shades chequered over the turf and the winding
+path we rode. At last we reached the foot of an ascent, steeper than the
+Ladder of Tyre. As our horses slowly climbed to the Convent of St. Elijah,
+whence we already saw the French flag floating over the shoulder of the
+mountain, the view opened grandly to the north and east, revealing the bay
+and plain of Acre, and the coast as far as Ras Nakhura, from which we
+first saw Mount Carmel the day previous. The two views are very similar in
+character, one being the obverse of the other. We reached the
+Convent--Dayr Mar Elias, as the Arabs call it--at noon, just in time to
+partake of a bountiful dinner, to which the monks had treated themselves.
+Fra Carlo, the good Franciscan who receives strangers, showed us the
+building, and the Grotto of Elijah, which is under the altar of the
+Convent Church, a small but very handsome structure of Italian marble. The
+sanctity of the Grotto depends on tradition entirely, as there is no
+mention in the Bible of Elijah having resided on Carmel, though it was
+from this mountain that he saw the cloud, "like a man's hand," rising from
+the sea. The Convent, which is quite new--not yet completed, in fact--is a
+large, massive building, and has the aspect of a fortress.</p>
+
+<p>As we were to sleep at Tantura, five hours distant, we were obliged to
+make a short visit, in spite of the invitation of the hospitable Fra Carlo
+to spend the night there. In the afternoon we passed the ruins of Athlit,
+a town of the Middle Ages, and the Castel Pellegrino of the Crusaders. Our
+road now followed the beach, nearly the whole distance to Jaffa, and was
+in many places, for leagues in extent, a solid layer of white, brown,
+purple and rosy shells, which cracked and rattled under our horses' feet.
+Tantura is a poor Arab village, and we had some difficulty in procuring
+provisions. The people lived in small huts of mud and stones, near the
+sea. The place had a thievish look, and we deemed it best to be careful in
+the disposal of our baggage for the night.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning we took the coast again, riding over millions of shells. A
+line of sandy hills, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, shut off
+the view of the plain and meadows between the sea and the hills of
+Samaria. After three hours' ride we saw the ruins of ancient C&aelig;sarea, near
+a small promontory. The road turned away from the sea, and took the wild
+plain behind, which is completely overgrown with camomile, chrysanthemum
+and wild shrubs. The ruins of the town are visible at a considerable
+distance along the coast. The principal remains consist of a massive wall,
+flanked with pyramidal bastions at regular intervals, and with the traces
+of gateways, draw-bridges and towers. It was formerly surrounded by a deep
+moat. Within this space, which may be a quarter of a mile square, are a
+few fragments of buildings, and toward the sea, some high arches and
+masses of masonry. The plain around abounds with traces of houses,
+streets, and court-yards. C&aelig;sarea was one of the Roman colonies, but owed
+its prosperity principally to Herod. St. Paul passed through it on his
+way from Macedon to Jerusalem, by the very road we were travelling.</p>
+
+<p>During the day the path struck inland over a vast rolling plain, covered
+with sage, lavender and other sweet-smelling shrubs, and tenanted by herds
+of gazelles and flocks of large storks. As we advanced further, the
+landscape became singularly beautiful. It was a broad, shallow valley,
+swelling away towards the east into low, rolling hills, far back of which
+rose the blue line of the mountains--the hill-country of Judea. The soil,
+where it was ploughed, was the richest vegetable loam. Where it lay fallow
+it was entirely hidden by a bed of grass and camomile. Here and there
+great herds of sheep and goats browsed on the herbage. There was a quiet
+pastoral air about the landscape, a soft serenity in its forms and colors,
+as if the Hebrew patriarchs still made it their abode. The district is
+famous for robbers, and we kept our arms in readiness, never suffering the
+baggage to be out of our sight.</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening, as Mr. H. and myself, with Fran&ccedil;ois, were riding in
+advance of the baggage mules, the former with his gun in his hand, I with
+a pair of pistols thrust through the folds of my shawl, and Fran&ccedil;ois with
+his long Turkish sabre, we came suddenly upon a lonely Englishman, whose
+companions were somewhere in the rear. He appeared to be struck with
+terror on seeing us making towards him, and, turning his horse's head,
+made an attempt to fly. The animal, however, was restive, and, after a few
+plunges, refused to move. The traveller gave himself up for lost; his arms
+dropped by his side; he stared wildly at us, with pale face and eyes
+opened wide with a look of helpless fright. Restraining with difficulty a
+shout of laughter, I said to him: "Did you leave Jaffa to-day?" but so
+completely was his ear the fool of his imagination, that he thought I was
+speaking Arabic, and made a faint attempt to get out the only word or two
+of that language which he knew. I then repeated, with as much distinctness
+as I could command: "Did--you--leave--Jaffa--to-day?" He stammered
+mechanically, through his chattering teeth, "Y-y-yes!" and we immediately
+dashed off at a gallop through the bushes. When we last saw him, he was
+standing as we left him, apparently not yet recovered from the shock.</p>
+
+<p>At the little village of El Haram, where we spent the night, I visited the
+tomb of Sultan Ali ebn-Aleym, who is now revered as a saint. It is
+enclosed in a mosque, crowning the top of a hill. I was admitted into the
+court-yard without hesitation, though, from the porter styling me
+"Effendi," he probably took me for a Turk. At the entrance to the inner
+court, I took off my slippers and walked to the tomb of the Sultan--a
+square heap of white marble, in a small marble enclosure. In one of the
+niches in the wall, near the tomb, there is a very old iron box, with a
+slit in the top. The porter informed me that it contained a charm,
+belonging to Sultan Ali, which was of great use in producing rain in times
+of drouth.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning we sent our baggage by a short road across the country to
+this place, and then rode down the beach towards Jaffa. The sun came out
+bright and hot as we paced along the line of spray, our horses' feet
+sinking above the fetlocks in pink and purple shells, while the droll
+sea-crabs scampered away from our path, and the blue gelatinous
+sea-nettles were tossed before us by the surge. Our view was confined to
+the sand-hills--sometimes covered with a flood of scarlet poppies--on one
+hand; and to the blue, surf-fringed sea on the other. The terrible coast
+was still lined with wrecks, and just before reaching the town, we passed
+a vessel of some two hundred tons, recently cast ashore, with her strong
+hull still unbroken. We forded the rapid stream of El Anjeh, which comes
+down from the Plain of Sharon, the water rising to our saddles. The low
+promontory in front now broke into towers and white domes, and great
+masses of heavy walls. The aspect of Jaffa is exceedingly picturesque. It
+is built on a hill, and the land for many miles around it being low and
+flat, its topmost houses overlook all the fields of Sharon. The old
+harbor, protected by a reef of rocks, is on the north side of the town,
+but is now so sanded up that large vessels cannot enter. A number of small
+craft were lying close to the shore. The port presented a different scene
+when the ships of Hiram, King of Tyre, came in with the materials for the
+Temple of Solomon. There is but one gate on the land side, which is rather
+strongly fortified. Outside of this there is an open space, which we found
+filled with venders of oranges and vegetables, camel-men and the like,
+some vociferating in loud dispute, some given up to silence and smoke,
+under the shade of the sycamores.</p>
+
+<p>We rode under the heavily arched and towered gateway, and entered the
+bazaar. The street was crowded, and there was such a confusion of camels,
+donkeys, and men, that we made our way with difficulty along the only
+practicable street in the city, to the sea-side, where Fran&ccedil;ois pointed
+out a hole in the wall as the veritable spot where Jonah was cast ashore
+by the whale. This part of the harbor is the receptacle of all the offal
+of the town; and I do not wonder that the whale's stomach should have
+turned on approaching it. The sea-street was filled with merchants and
+traders, and we were obliged to pick our way between bars of iron, skins
+of oil, heaps of oranges, and piles of building timber. At last we reached
+the end, and, as there was no other thoroughfare, returned the same way we
+went, passed out the gate, and took the road to Ramleh and Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>But I hear the voice of Fran&ccedil;ois, announcing, "<i>Messieurs, le diner est
+pr&ecirc;t.</i>" We are encamped just beside the pool of Ramleh, and the mongrel
+children of the town are making a great noise in the meadow below it. Our
+horses are enjoying their barley; and Mustapha stands at the tent-door
+tying up his sacks. Dogs are barking and donkeys braying all along the
+borders of the town, whose filth and dilapidation are happily concealed by
+the fig and olive gardens which surround it. I have not curiosity enough
+to visit the Greek and Latin Convents embedded in its foul purlieus, but
+content myself with gazing from my door upon the blue hills of Palestine,
+which we must cross to-morrow, on our way to Jerusalem.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch03">
+<h2>Chapter III.</h2>
+
+<h3>From Jaffa to Jerusalem.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Garden of Jaffa--Breakfast at a Fountain--The Plain of Sharon--The
+  Ruined Mosque of Ramleh--A Judean Landscape--The Streets of Ramleh--Am I
+  in Palestine?--A Heavenly Morning--The Land of Milk and Honey--Entering
+  the Hill-Country--The Pilgrim's Breakfast--The Father of Lies--A Church
+  of the Crusaders--The Agriculture of the Hills--The Valley of
+  Elah--Day-Dreams--The Wilderness--The Approach--We see the Holy City.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--"Through the air sublime,<br />
+Over the wilderness and o'er the plain;<br />
+Till underneath them fair Jerusalem,<br />
+The Holy City, lifted high her towers."</p>
+
+<p>  Paradise Regained.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Jerusalem, <i>Thursday, April</i> 29, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Leaving the gate of Jaffa, we rode eastward between delightful gardens of
+fig, citron, orange, pomegranate and palm. The country for several miles
+around the city is a complete level--part of the great plain of
+Sharon--and the gray mass of building crowning the little promontory, is
+the only landmark seen above the green garden-land, on looking towards the
+sea. The road was lined with hedges of giant cactus, now in blossom, and
+shaded occasionally with broad-armed sycamores. The orange trees were in
+bloom, and at the same time laden down with ripe fruit. The oranges of
+Jaffa are the finest in Syria, and great numbers of them are sent to
+Beyrout and other ports further north. The dark foliage of the
+pomegranate fairly blazed with its heavy scarlet blossoms, and here and
+there a cluster of roses made good the Scriptural renown of those of
+Sharon. The road was filled with people, passing to and fro, and several
+families of Jaffa Jews were having a sort of pic-nic in the choice shady
+spots.</p>
+
+<p>Ere long we came to a fountain, at a point where two roads met. It was a
+large square structure of limestone and marble, with a stone trough in
+front, and a delightful open chamber at the side. The space in front was
+shaded with immense sycamore trees, to which we tied our horses, and then
+took our seats in the window above the fountain, where the Greek brought
+us our breakfast. The water was cool and delicious, as were our Jaffa
+oranges. It was a charming spot, for as we sat we could look under the
+boughs of the great trees, and down between the gardens to Jaffa and the
+Mediterranean. After leaving the gardens, we came upon the great plain of
+Sharon, on which we could see the husbandmen at work far and near,
+ploughing and sowing their grain. In some instances, the two operations
+were made simultaneously, by having a sort of funnel attached to the
+plough-handle, running into a tube which entered the earth just behind the
+share. The man held the plough with one hand, while with the other he
+dropped the requisite quantity of seed through the tube into the furrow.
+The people are ploughing now for their summer crops, and the wheat and
+barley which they sowed last winter are already in full head. On other
+parts of the plain, there were large flocks of sheep and goats, with their
+attendant shepherds. So ran the rich landscape, broken only by belts of
+olive trees, to the far hills of Judea.</p>
+
+<p>Riding on over the long, low swells, fragrant with wild thyme and
+camomile, we saw at last the tower of Ramleh, and down the valley, an
+hour's ride to the north-east, the minaret of Ludd, the ancient Lydda.
+Still further, I could see the houses of the village of Sharon, embowered
+in olives. Ramleh is built along the crest and on the eastern slope of a
+low hill, and at a distance appears like a stately place, but this
+impression is immediately dissipated on entering it. West of the town is a
+large square tower, between eighty and ninety feet in height. We rode up
+to it through an orchard of ancient olive trees, and over a field of
+beans. The tower is evidently a minaret, as it is built in the purest
+Saracenic style, and is surrounded by the ruins of a mosque. I have rarely
+seen anything more graceful than the ornamental arches of the upper
+portions. Over the door is a lintel of white marble, with an Arabic
+inscription. The mosque to which the tower is attached is almost entirely
+destroyed, and only part of the arches of a corridor around three sides of
+a court-yard, with the fountain in the centre, still remain. The
+subterranean cisterns, under the court-yard, amazed me with their extent
+and magnitude. They are no less than twenty-four feet deep, and covered by
+twenty-four vaulted ceilings, each twelve feet square, and resting on
+massive pillars. The mosque, when entire, must have been one of the finest
+in Syria.</p>
+
+<p>We clambered over the broken stones cumbering the entrance, and mounted
+the steps to the very summit. The view reached from Jaffa and the sea to
+the mountains near Jerusalem, and southward to the plain of Ascalon--a
+great expanse of grain and grazing land, all blossoming as the rose, and
+dotted, especially near the mountains, with dark, luxuriant olive-groves.
+The landscape had something of the green, pastoral beauty of England,
+except the mountains, which were wholly of Palestine. The shadows of
+fleecy clouds, drifting slowly from east to west, moved across the
+landscape, which became every moment softer and fairer in the light of the
+declining sun.</p>
+
+<p>I did not tarry in Ramleh. The streets are narrow, crooked, and filthy as
+only an Oriental town can be. The houses have either flat roofs or domes,
+out of the crevices in which springs a plentiful crop of weeds. Some
+yellow dogs barked at us as we passed, children in tattered garments
+stared, and old turbaned heads were raised from the pipe, to guess who the
+two brown individuals might be, and why they were attended by such a
+fierce <i>cawass</i>. Passing through the eastern gate, we were gladdened by
+the sight of our tents, already pitched in the meadow beside the cistern.
+Dervish had arrived an hour before us, and had everything ready for the
+sweet lounge of an hour, to which we treat ourselves after a day's ride. I
+watched the evening fade away over the blue hills before us, and tried to
+convince myself that I should reach Jerusalem on the morrow. Reason said:
+"You certainly will!"---but to Faith the Holy City was as far off as ever.
+Was it possible that I was in Judea? Was this the Holy Land of the
+Crusades, the soil hallowed by the feet of Christ and his Apostles? I must
+believe it. Yet it seemed once that if I ever trod that earth, then
+beneath my feet, there would be thenceforth a consecration in my life, a
+holy essence, a purer inspiration on the lips, a surer faith in the heart.
+And because I was not other than I had been, I half doubted whether it was
+the Palestine of my dreams.</p>
+
+<p>A number of Arab cameleers, who had come with travellers across the
+Desert from Egypt, were encamped near us. Fran&ccedil;ois was suspicious of some
+of them, and therefore divided the night into three watches, which were
+kept by himself and our two men. Mustapha was the last, and kept not only
+himself, but myself, wide awake by his dolorous chants of love and
+religion. I fell sound asleep at dawn, but was roused before sunrise by
+Fran&ccedil;ois, who wished to start betimes, on account of the rugged road we
+had to travel. The morning was mild, clear, and balmy, and we were soon
+packed and in motion. Leaving the baggage to follow, we rode ahead over
+the fertile fields. The wheat and poppies were glistening with dew, birds
+sang among the fig-trees, a cool breeze came down from the hollows of the
+hills, and my blood leaped as nimbly and joyously as a young hart on the
+mountains of Bether.</p>
+
+<p>Between Ramleh and the hill-country, a distance of about eight miles, is
+the rolling plain of Arimathea, and this, as well as the greater part of
+the plain of Sharon, is one of the richest districts in the world. The
+soil is a dark-brown loam, and, without manure, produces annually superb
+crops of wheat and barley. We rode for miles through a sea of wheat,
+waving far and wide over the swells of land. The tobacco in the fields
+about Ramleh was the most luxuriant I ever saw, and the olive and fig
+attain a size and lusty strength wholly unknown in Italy. Judea cursed of
+God! what a misconception, not only of God's mercy and beneficence, but of
+the actual fact! Give Palestine into Christian hands, and it will again
+flow with milk and honey. Except some parts of Asia Minor, no portion of
+the Levant is capable of yielding such a harvest of grain, silk, wool,
+fruits, oil, and wine. The great disadvantage under which the country
+labors, is its frequent drouths, but were the soil more generally
+cultivated, and the old orchards replanted, these would neither be so
+frequent nor so severe.</p>
+
+<p>We gradually ascended the hills, passing one or two villages, imbedded in
+groves of olives. In the little valleys, slanting down to the plains, the
+Arabs were still ploughing and sowing, singing the while an old love-song,
+with its chorus of "<i>ya, ghazalee! ya, ghazalee!</i>" (oh, gazelle! oh,
+gazelle!) The valley narrowed, the lowlands behind us spread out broader,
+and in half an hour more we were threading a narrow pass, between stony
+hills, overgrown with ilex, myrtle, and dwarf oak. The wild purple rose of
+Palestine blossomed on all sides, and a fragrant white honeysuckle in some
+places hung from the rocks. The path was terribly rough, and barely wide
+enough for two persons on horseback to pass each other. We met a few
+pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, and a straggling company of armed
+Turks, who had such a piratical air, that without the solemn asseveration
+of Fran&ccedil;ois that the road was quite safe, I should have felt uneasy about
+our baggage. Most of the persons we passed were Mussulmen, few of whom
+gave the customary "Peace be with you!" but once a Syrian Christian
+saluted me with, "God go with you, O Pilgrim!" For two hours after
+entering the mountains, there was scarcely a sign of cultivation. The rock
+was limestone, or marble, lying in horizontal strata, the broken edges of
+which rose like terraces to the summits. These shelves were so covered
+with wild shrubs--in some places even with rows of olive trees---that to
+me they had not the least appearance of that desolation so generally
+ascribed to them.</p>
+
+<p>In a little dell among the hills there is a small ruined mosque, or
+chapel (I could not decide which), shaded by a group of magnificent
+terebinth trees. Several Arabs were resting in its shade, and we hoped to
+find there the water we were looking for, in order to make breakfast. But
+it was not to be found, and we climbed nearly to the summit of the first
+chain of hills, where in a small olive orchard, there was a cistern,
+filled by the late rains. It belonged to two ragged boys, who brought us
+an earthen vessel of the water, and then asked, "Shall we bring you milk,
+O Pilgrims!" I assented, and received a small jug of thick buttermilk, not
+remarkably clean, but very refreshing. My companion, who had not recovered
+from his horror at finding that the inhabitants of Ramleh washed
+themselves in the pool which supplied us and them, refused to touch it. We
+made but a short rest, for it was now nearly noon, and there were yet many
+rough miles between us and Jerusalem. We crossed the first chain of
+mountains, rode a short distance over a stony upland, and then descended
+into a long cultivated valley, running to the eastward. At the end nearest
+us appeared the village of Aboo 'l Ghosh (the Father of Lies), which takes
+its name from a noted Bedouin shekh, who distinguished himself a few years
+ago by levying contributions on travellers. He obtained a large sum of
+money in this way, but as he added murder to robbery, and fell upon Turks
+as well as Christians, he was finally captured, and is now expiating his
+offences in some mine on the coast of the Black Sea.</p>
+
+<p>Near the bottom of the village there is a large ruined building, now used
+as a stable by the inhabitants. The interior is divided into a nave and
+two side-aisles by rows of square pillars, from which spring pointed
+arches. The door-way is at the side, and is Gothic, with a dash of
+Saracenic in the ornamental mouldings above it. The large window at the
+extremity of the nave is remarkable for having round arches, which
+circumstance, together with the traces of arabesque painted ornaments on
+the columns, led me to think it might have been a mosque; but Dr.
+Robinson, who is now here, considers it a Christian church, of the time of
+the Crusaders. The village of Aboo 'l Ghosh is said to be the site of the
+birth-place of the Prophet Jeremiah, and I can well imagine it to have
+been the case. The aspect of the mountain-country to the east and
+north-east would explain the savage dreariness of his lamentations. The
+whole valley in which the village stands, as well as another which joins
+it on the east, is most assiduously cultivated. The stony mountain sides
+are wrought into terraces, where, in spite of soil which resembles an
+American turnpike, patches of wheat are growing luxuriantly, and olive
+trees, centuries old, hold on to the rocks with a clutch as hard and bony
+as the hand of Death. In the bed of the valley the fig tree thrives, and
+sometimes the vine and fig grow together, forming the patriarchal arbor of
+shade familiar to us all. The shoots of the tree are still young and
+green, but the blossoms of the grape do not yet give forth their goodly
+savor. I did not hear the voice of the turtle, but a nightingale sang in
+the briery thickets by the brook side, as we passed along.</p>
+
+<p>Climbing out of this valley, we descended by a stony staircase, as rugged
+as the Ladder of Tyre, into the Wady Beit-Hanineh. Here were gardens of
+oranges in blossom, with orchards of quince and apple, overgrown with
+vines, and the fragrant hawthorn tree, snowy with its bloom. A stone
+bridge, the only one on the road, crosses the dry bed of a winter stream,
+and, looking up the glen, I saw the Arab village of Kulonieh, at the
+entrance of the valley of Elah, glorious with the memories of the
+shepherd-boy, David. Our road turned off to the right, and commenced
+ascending a long, dry glen between mountains which grew more sterile the
+further we went. It was nearly two hours past noon, the sun fiercely hot,
+and our horses were nigh jaded out with the rough road and our impatient
+spurring. I began to fancy we could see Jerusalem from the top of the
+pass, and tried to think of the ancient days of Judea. But it was in vain.
+A newer picture shut them out, and banished even the diviner images of Our
+Saviour and His Disciples. Heathen that I was, I could only think of
+Godfrey and the Crusaders, toiling up the same path, and the ringing lines
+of Tasso vibrated constantly in my ear:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "Ecco apparir Gierusalemm' si vede;<br />
+Ecco additar Gierusalemm' si scorge;<br />
+Ecco da mille voci unitamente,<br />
+Gierusalemme salutar si sente!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Palestine of the Bible--the Land of Promise to the Israelites, the
+land of Miracle and Sacrifice to the Apostles and their followers--still
+slept in the unattainable distance, under a sky of bluer and more tranquil
+loveliness than that to whose cloudless vault I looked up. It lay as far
+and beautiful as it once seemed to the eye of childhood, and the swords of
+Seraphim kept profane feet from its sacred hills. But these rough rocks
+around me, these dry, fiery hollows, these thickets of ancient oak and
+ilex, had heard the trumpets of the Middle Ages, and the clang and
+clatter of European armor--I could feel and believe that. I entered the
+ranks; I followed the trumpets and the holy hymns, and waited breathlessly
+for the moment when every mailed knee should drop in the dust, and every
+bearded and sunburned cheek be wet with devotional tears.</p>
+
+<p>But when I climbed the last ridge, and looked ahead with a sort of painful
+suspense, Jerusalem did not appear. We were two thousand feet above the
+Mediterranean, whose blue we could dimly see far to the west, through
+notches in the chain of hills. To the north, the mountains were gray,
+desolate, and awful. Not a shrub or a tree relieved their frightful
+barrenness. An upland tract, covered with white volcanic rock, lay before
+us. We met peasants with asses, who looked (to my eyes) as if they had
+just left Jerusalem. Still forward we urged our horses, and reached a
+ruined garden, surrounded with hedges of cactus, over which I saw domes
+and walls in the distance. I drew a long breath and looked at Fran&ccedil;ois. He
+was jogging along without turning his head; he could not have been so
+indifferent if that was really the city. Presently, we reached another
+slight rise in the rocky plain. He began to urge his panting horse, and at
+the same instant we both lashed the spirit into ours, dashed on at a
+break-neck gallop, round the corner of an old wall on the top of the hill,
+and lo! the Holy City! Our Greek jerked both pistols from his holsters,
+and fired them into the air, as we reined up on the steep.</p>
+
+<p>From the descriptions of travellers, I had expected to see in Jerusalem an
+ordinary modern Turkish town; but that before me, with its walls,
+fortresses, and domes, was it not still the City of David? I saw the
+Jerusalem of the New Testament, as I had imagined it. Long lines of walls
+crowned with a notched parapet and strengthened by towers; a few domes and
+spires above them; clusters of cypress here and there; this was all that
+was visible of the city. On either side the hill sloped down to the two
+deep valleys over which it hangs. On the east, the Mount of Olives,
+crowned with a chapel and mosque, rose high and steep, but in front, the
+eye passed directly over the city, to rest far away upon the lofty
+mountains of Moab, beyond the Dead Sea. The scene was grand in its
+simplicity. The prominent colors were the purple of those distant
+mountains, and the hoary gray of the nearer hills. The walls were of the
+dull yellow of weather-stained marble, and the only trees, the dark
+cypress and moonlit olive. Now, indeed, for one brief moment, I knew that
+I was in Palestine; that I saw Mount Olivet and Mount Zion; and--I know
+not how it was--my sight grew weak, and all objects trembled and wavered
+in a watery film. Since we arrived, I have looked down upon the city from
+the Mount of Olives, and up to it from the Valley of Jehosaphat; but I
+cannot restore the illusion of that first view.</p>
+
+<p>We allowed our horses to walk slowly down the remaining half-mile to the
+Jaffa gate. An Englishman, with a red silk shawl over his head, was
+sketching the city, while an Arab held an umbrella over him. Inside the
+gate we stumbled upon an Italian shop with an Italian sign, and after
+threading a number of intricate passages under dark archways, and being
+turned off from one hotel, which was full of travellers, reached another,
+kept by a converted German Jew, where we found Dr. Robinson and Dr. Ely
+Smith, who both arrived yesterday. It sounds strange to talk of a hotel
+in Jerusalem, but the world is progressing, and there are already three. I
+leave to-morrow for Jericho, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea, and shall have
+more to say of Jerusalem on my return.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch04">
+<h2>Chapter IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Dead Sea and the Jordan River.</h3>
+
+<p class="abs">  Bargaining for a Guard--Departure from Jerusalem--The Hill of
+  Offence--Bethany--The Grotto of Lazarus--The Valley of Fire--Scenery of
+  the Wilderness--The Hills of Engaddi--The shore of the Dead Sea--A
+  Bituminous Bath--Gallop to the Jordan--A watch for Robbers--The
+  Jordan--Baptism--The Plains of Jericho--The Fountain of Elisha--The
+  Mount of Temptation--Return to Jerusalem.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"And the spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape;
+  the valley also shall perish and the plain shall be destroyed, as the
+  Lord hath spoken."</p>
+
+<p>  --Jeremiah, xlviii. 8.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Jerusalem, <i>May</i> 1, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>I returned this after noon from an excursion to the Dead Sea, the River
+Jordan, and the site of Jericho. Owing to the approaching heats, an early
+visit was deemed desirable, and the shekhs, who have charge of the road,
+were summoned to meet us on the day after we arrived. There are two of
+these gentlemen, the Shekh el-Ar&agrave;b (of the Bedouins), and the Shekh
+el-Fellaheen (of the peasants, or husbandmen), to whom each traveller is
+obliged to pay one hundred piastres for an escort. It is, in fact, a sort
+of compromise, by which the shekhs agree not to rob the traveller, and to
+protect him against other shekhs. If the road is not actually safe, the
+Turkish garrison here is a mere farce, but the arrangement is winked at by
+the Pasha, who, of course, gets his share of the 100,000 piastres which
+the two scamps yearly levy upon travellers. The shekhs came to our rooms,
+and after trying to postpone our departure, in order to attach other
+tourists to the same escort, and thus save a little expense, took half the
+pay and agreed to be ready the next morning. Unfortunately for my original
+plan, the Convent of San Saba has been closed within two or three weeks,
+and no stranger is now admitted. This unusual step was caused by the
+disorderly conduct of some Frenchmen who visited San Saba. We sent to the
+Bishop of the Greek Church, asking a simple permission to view the
+interior of the Convent; but without effect.</p>
+
+<p>We left the city yesterday morning by St. Stephen's Gate, descended to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat, rode under the stone wall which encloses the
+supposed Gethsemane, and took a path leading along the Mount of Olives,
+towards the Hill of Offence, which stands over against the southern end of
+the city, opposite the mouth of the Vale of Hinnon. Neither of the shekhs
+made his appearance, but sent in their stead three Arabs, two of whom were
+mounted and armed with sabres and long guns. Our man, Mustapha, had charge
+of the baggage-mule, carrying our tent and the provisions for the trip. It
+was a dull, sultry morning; a dark, leaden haze hung over Jerusalem, and
+the <i>khamseen</i>, or sirocco-wind, came from the south-west, out of the
+Arabian Desert. We had again resumed the Oriental costume, but in spite of
+an ample turban, my face soon began to scorch in the dry heat. From the
+crest of the Hill of Offence there is a wide view over the heights on both
+sides of the valley of the Brook Kedron. Their sides are worked into
+terraces, now green with springing grain, and near the bottom planted with
+olive and fig trees. The upland ridge or watershed of Palestine is
+cultivated for a considerable distance around Jerusalem. The soil is light
+and stony, yet appears to yield a good return for the little labor
+bestowed upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the southern flank of Mount Olivet, in half an hour we reached
+the village of Bethany, hanging on the side of the hill. It is a miserable
+cluster of Arab huts, with not a building which appears to be more than a
+century old. The Grotto of Lazarus is here shown, and, of course, we
+stopped to see it. It belongs to an old Mussulman, who came out of his
+house with a piece of waxed rope, to light us down. An aperture opens from
+the roadside into the hill, and there is barely room enough for a person
+to enter. Descending about twenty steps at a sharp angle, we landed in a
+small, damp vault, with an opening in the floor, communicating with a
+short passage below. The vault was undoubtedly excavated for sepulchral
+purposes, and the bodies were probably deposited (as in many Egyptian
+tombs) in the pit under it. Our guide, however, pointed to a square mass
+of masonry in one corner as the tomb of Lazarus, whose body, he informed
+us, was still walled up there. There was an arch in the side of the vault,
+once leading to other chambers, but now closed up, and the guide stated
+that seventy-four Prophets were interred therein. There seems to be no
+doubt that the present Arab village occupies the site of Bethany; and if
+it could be proved that this pit existed at the beginning of the Christian
+Era, and there never had been any other, we might accept it as the tomb of
+Lazarus. On the crest of a high hill, over against Bethany, is an Arab
+village on the site of Bethpage.</p>
+
+<p>We descended into the valley of a winter stream, now filled with patches
+of sparse wheat, just beginning to ripen. The mountains grew more bleak
+and desolate as we advanced, and as there is a regular descent in the
+several ranges over which one must pass, the distant hills of the lands of
+Moab and Ammon were always in sight, rising like a high, blue wall against
+the sky. The Dead Sea is 4,000 feet below Jerusalem, but the general slope
+of the intervening district is so regular that from the spires of the
+city, and the Mount of Olives, one can look down directly upon its waters.
+This deceived me as to the actual distance, and I could scarcely credit
+the assertion of our Arab escort, that it would require six hours to reach
+it. After we had ridden nearly two hours, we left the Jericho road,
+sending Mustapha and a staunch old Arab direct to our resting-place for
+the night, in the Valley of the Jordan. The two mounted Bedouins
+accompanied us across the rugged mountains lying between us and the Dead
+Sea.</p>
+
+<p>At first, we took the way to the Convent of Mar Saba, following the course
+of the Brook Kedron down the Wady en-Nar (Valley of Fire). In half an hour
+more we reached two large tanks, hewn out under the base of a limestone
+cliff, and nearly filled with rain. The surface was covered with a
+greenish vegetable scum, and three wild and dirty Arabs of the hills were
+washing themselves in the principal one. Our Bedouins immediately
+dismounted and followed their example, and after we had taken some
+refreshment, we had the satisfaction of filling our water-jug from the
+same sweet pool. After this, we left the San Saba road, and mounted the
+height east of the valley. From that point, all signs of cultivation and
+habitation disappeared. The mountains were grim, bare, and frightfully
+rugged. The scanty grass, coaxed into life by the winter rains, was
+already scorched out of all greenness; some bunches of wild sage,
+gnaphalium, and other hardy aromatic herbs spotted the yellow soil, and in
+sheltered places the scarlet poppies burned like coals of fire among the
+rifts of the gray limestone rock. Our track kept along the higher ridges
+and crests of the hills, between the glens and gorges which sank on either
+hand to a dizzy depth below, and were so steep as to be almost
+inaccessible. The region is so scarred, gashed and torn, that no work of
+man's hand can save it from perpetual desolation. It is a wilderness more
+hopeless than the Desert. If I were left alone in the midst of it, I
+should lie down and await death, without thought or hope of rescue.</p>
+
+<p>The character of the day was peculiarly suited to enhance the impression
+of such scenery. Though there were no clouds, the sun was invisible: as
+far as we could see, beyond the Jordan, and away southward to the
+mountains of Moab and the cliffs of Engaddi, the whole country was covered
+as with the smoke of a furnace; and the furious sirocco, that threatened
+to topple us down the gulfs yawning on either hand, had no coolness on its
+wings. The horses were sure-footed, but now and then a gust would come
+that made them and us strain against it, to avoid being dashed against the
+rock on one side, or hurled off the brink on the other. The atmosphere was
+painfully oppressive, and by and by a dogged silence took possession of
+our party. After passing a lofty peak which Fran&ccedil;ois called Djebel Nuttar,
+the Mountain of Rain, we came to a large Moslem building, situated on a
+bleak eminence, overlooking part of the valley of the Jordan. This is the
+tomb called Nebbee Moussa by the Arabs, and believed by them to stand
+upon the spot where Moses died. We halted at the gate, but no one came to
+admit us, though my companion thought he saw a man's head at one of the
+apertures in the wall. Arab tradition here is as much at fault as
+Christian tradition in many other places. The true Nebo is somewhere in
+the chain of Pisgah; and though, probably, I saw it, and all see it who go
+down to the Jordan, yet "no man knoweth its place unto this day."</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Nebbee Moussa, we came out upon the last heights overlooking the
+Dead Sea, though several miles of low hills remained to be passed. The
+head of the sea was visible as far as the Ras-el-Feshka on the west; and
+the hot fountains of Callirho&euml; on the eastern shore. Farther than this,
+all was vapor and darkness. The water was a soft, deep purple hue,
+brightening into blue. Our road led down what seemed a vast sloping
+causeway from the mountains, between two ravines, walled by cliffs several
+hundred feet in height. It gradually flattened into a plain, covered with
+a white, saline incrustation, and grown with clumps of sour willow,
+tamarisk, and other shrubs, among which I looked in vain for the osher, or
+Dead Sea apple. The plants appeared as if smitten with leprosy; but there
+were some flowers growing almost to the margin of the sea. We reached the
+shore about 2 P.M. The heat by this time was most severe, and the air so
+dense as to occasion pains in my ears. The Dead Sea is 1,300 feet below
+the Mediterranean, and without doubt the lowest part of the earth's
+surface. I attribute the oppression I felt to this fact and to the
+sultriness of the day, rather than to any exhalation from the sea itself.
+Fran&ccedil;ois remarked, however, that had the wind--which by this time was
+veering round to the north-east--blown from the south, we could scarcely
+have endured it. The sea resembles a great cauldron, sunk between
+mountains from three to four thousand feet in height; and probably we did
+not experience more than a tithe of the summer heat.</p>
+
+<p>I proposed a bath, for the sake of experiment, but Fran&ccedil;ois endeavored to
+dissuade us. He had tried it, and nothing could be more disagreeable; we
+risked getting a fever, and, besides, there were four hours of dangerous
+travel yet before us. But by this time we were half undressed, and soon
+were floating on the clear bituminous waves. The beach was fine gravel and
+shelved gradually down. I kept my turban on my head, and was careful to
+avoid touching the water with my face. The sea was moderately warm and
+gratefully soft and soothing to the skin. It was impossible to sink; and
+even while swimming, the body rose half out of the water. I should think
+it possible to dive for a short distance, but prefer that some one else
+would try the experiment. With a log of wood for a pillow, one might sleep
+as on one of the patent mattresses. The taste of the water is salty and
+pungent, and stings the tongue like saltpetre. We were obliged to dress in
+all haste, without even wiping off the detestable liquid; yet I
+experienced very little of that discomfort which most travellers have
+remarked. Where the skin had been previously bruised, there was a slight
+smarting sensation, and my body felt clammy and glutinous, but the bath
+was rather refreshing than otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>We turned our horses' heads towards the Jordan, and rode on over a dry,
+barren plain. The two Bedouins at first dashed ahead at full gallop,
+uttering cries, and whirling their long guns in the air. The dust they
+raised was blown in our faces, and contained so much salt that my eyes
+began to smart painfully. Thereupon I followed them at an equal rate of
+speed, and we left a long cloud of the accursed soil whirling behind us.
+Presently, however, they fell to the rear, and continued to keep at some
+distance from us. The reason of this was soon explained. The path turned
+eastward, and we already saw a line of dusky green winding through the
+wilderness. This was the Jordan, and the mountains beyond, the home of
+robber Arabs, were close at hand. Those robbers frequently cross the river
+and conceal themselves behind the sand-hills on this side. Our brave
+escort was, therefore, inclined to put us forward as a forlorn-hope, and
+secure their own retreat in case of an attack. But as we were all well
+armed, and had never considered their attendance as anything more than a
+genteel way of buying them off from robbing us, we allowed them to lag as
+much as they chose. Finally, as we approached the Pilgrims' Ford, one of
+them took his station at some distance from the river, on the top of a
+mound, while the other got behind some trees near at hand; in order, as
+they said, to watch the opposite hills, and alarm us whenever they should
+see any of the Beni Sukrs, or the Beni Adwams, or the Tyakh, coming down
+upon us.</p>
+
+<p>The Jordan at this point will not average more than ten yards in breadth.
+It flows at the bottom of a gully about fifteen feet deep, which traverses
+the broad valley in a most tortuous course. The water has a white, clayey
+hue, and is very swift. The changes of the current have formed islands and
+beds of soil here and there, which are covered with a dense growth of ash,
+poplar, willow, and tamarisk trees. The banks of the river are bordered
+with thickets, now overgrown with wild vines, and fragrant with flowering
+plants. Birds sing continually in the cool, dark coverts of the trees. I
+found a singular charm in the wild, lonely, luxuriant banks, the tangled
+undergrowth, and the rapid, brawling course of the sacred stream, as it
+slipped in sight and out of sight among the trees. It is almost impossible
+to reach the water at any other point than the Ford of the Pilgrims, the
+supposed locality of the passage of the Israelites and the baptism of
+Christ. The plain near it is still blackened by the camp-fires of the ten
+thousand pilgrims who went down from Jerusalem three weeks ago, to bathe.
+We tied our horses to the trees, and prepared to follow their example,
+which was necessary, if only to wash off the iniquitous slime of the Dead
+Sea. Fran&ccedil;ois, in the meantime, filled two tin flasks from the stream and
+stowed them in the saddle-bags. The current was so swift, that one could
+not venture far without the risk of being carried away; but I succeeded in
+obtaining a complete and most refreshing immersion. The taint of Gomorrah
+was not entirely washed away, but I rode off with as great a sense of
+relief as if the baptism had been a moral one, as well, and had purified
+me from sin.</p>
+
+<p>We rode for nearly two hours, in a north-west direction, to the Bedouin
+village of Rihah, near the site of ancient Jericho. Before reaching it,
+the gray salt waste vanishes, and the soil is covered with grass and
+herbs. The barren character of the first region is evidently owing to
+deposits from the vapors of the Dead Sea, as they are blown over the plain
+by the south wind. The channels of streams around Jericho are filled with
+nebbuk trees, the fruit of which is just ripening. It is apparently
+indigenous, and grows more luxuriantly than on the White Nile. It is a
+variety of the <i>rhamnus</i>, and is set down by botanists as the Spina
+Christi, of which the Saviour's mock crown of thorns was made. I see no
+reason to doubt this, as the twigs are long and pliant, and armed with
+small, though most cruel, thorns. I had to pay for gathering some of the
+fruit, with a torn dress and bleeding fingers. The little apples which it
+bears are slightly acid and excellent for alleviating thirst. I also
+noticed on the plain a variety of the nightshade with large berries of a
+golden color. The spring flowers, so plentiful now in all other parts of
+Palestine, have already disappeared from the Valley of the Jordan.</p>
+
+<p>Rihah is a vile little village of tents and mud-huts, and the only relic
+of antiquity near it is a square tower, which may possibly be of the time
+of Herod. There are a few gardens in the place, and a grove of superb
+fig-trees. We found our tent already pitched beside a rill which issues
+from the Fountain of Elisha. The evening was very sultry, and the
+musquitoes gave us no rest. We purchased some milk from an old man who
+came to the tent, but such was his mistrust of us that he refused to let
+us keep the earthen vessel containing it until morning. As we had already
+paid the money to his son, we would not let him take the milk away until
+he had brought the money back. He then took a dagger from his waist and
+threw it before us as security, while he carried off the vessel and
+returned the price. I have frequently seen the same mistrustful spirit
+exhibited in Egypt. Our two Bedouins, to whom I gave some tobacco in the
+evening, manifested their gratitude by stealing the remainder of our stock
+during the night.</p>
+
+<p>This morning we followed the stream to its source, the Fountain of
+Elisha, so called as being probably that healed by the Prophet. If so, the
+healing was scarcely complete. The water, which gushes up strong and free
+at the foot of a rocky mound, is warm and slightly brackish. It spreads
+into a shallow pool, shaded by a fine sycamore tree. Just below, there are
+some remains of old walls on both sides, and the stream goes roaring away
+through a rank jungle of canes fifteen feet in height. The precise site of
+Jericho, I believe, has not been fixed, but "the city of the palm trees,"
+as it was called, was probably on the plain, near some mounds which rise
+behind the Fountain. Here there are occasional traces of foundation walls,
+but so ruined as to give no clue to the date of their erection. Further
+towards the mountain there are some arches, which appear to be Saracenic.
+As we ascended again into the hill-country, I observed several traces of
+cisterns in the bottoms of ravines, which collect the rains. Herod, as is
+well known, built many such cisterns near Jericho, where he had a palace.
+On the first crest, to which we climbed, there is part of a Roman tower
+yet standing. The view, looking back over the valley of Jordan, is
+magnificent, extending from the Dead Sea to the mountains of Gilead,
+beyond the country of Ammon. I thought I could trace the point where the
+River Yabbok comes down from Mizpeh of Gilead to join the Jordan.</p>
+
+<p>The wilderness we now entered was fully as barren, but less rugged than
+that through which we passed yesterday. The path ascended along the brink
+of a deep gorge, at the bottom of which a little stream foamed over the
+rocks. The high, bleak summits towards which we were climbing, are
+considered by some Biblical geographers to be Mount Quarantana, the scene
+of Christ's fasting and temptation. After two hours we reached the ruins
+of a large khan or hostlery, under one of the peaks, which Fran&ccedil;ois stated
+to be the veritable "high mountain" whence the Devil pointed out all the
+kingdoms of the earth. There is a cave in the rock beside the road, which
+the superstitious look upon as the orifice out of which his Satanic
+Majesty issued. We met large numbers of Arab families, with their flocks,
+descending from the mountains to take up their summer residence near the
+Jordan. They were all on foot, except the young children and goats, which
+were stowed together on the backs of donkeys. The men were armed, and
+appeared to be of the same tribe as our escort, with whom they had a good
+understanding.</p>
+
+<p>The morning was cold and cloudy, and we hurried on over the hills to a
+fountain in the valley of the Brook Kedron, where we breakfasted. Before
+we had reached Bethany a rain came down, and the sky hung dark and
+lowering over Jerusalem, as we passed the crest of Mount Olivet. It still
+rains, and the filthy condition of the city exceeds anything I have seen,
+even in the Orient.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch05">
+<h2>Chapter V.</h2>
+
+<h3>The City of Christ.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Modern Jerusalem--The Site of the City--Mount Zion--Mount Moriah--The
+  Temple--the Valley of Jehosaphat--The Olives of Gethsemane--The Mount of
+  Olives--Moslem Tradition--Panorama from the Summit--The Interior of the
+  City--The Population--Missions and Missionaries--Christianity in
+  Jerusalem--Intolerance--The Jews of Jerusalem--The Face of Christ--The
+  Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Holy of Holies--The Sacred
+  Localities--Visions of Christ--The Mosque of Omar--The Holy Man of
+  Timbuctoo--Preparations for Departure.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Cut off thy hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a
+  lamentation in high places; for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the
+  generation of his wrath."--Jeremiah vii. 29.</p>
+
+<p>"Here pilgrims roam, that strayed so far to seek<br />
+  In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heaven."</p>
+
+<p>  Milton.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Jerusalem, <i>Monday, May</i> 3, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Since travel is becoming a necessary part of education, and a journey
+through the East is no longer attended with personal risk, Jerusalem will
+soon be as familiar a station on the grand tour as Paris or Naples. The
+task of describing it is already next to superfluous, so thoroughly has
+the topography of the city been laid down by the surveys of Robinson and
+the drawings of Roberts. There is little more left for Biblical research.
+The few places which can be authenticated are now generally accepted, and
+the many doubtful ones must always be the subjects of speculation and
+conjecture. There is no new light which can remove the cloud of
+uncertainties wherein one continually wanders. Yet, even rejecting all
+these with the most skeptical spirit, there still remains enough to make
+the place sacred in the eyes of every follower of Christ. The city stands
+on the ancient site; the Mount of Olives looks down upon it; the
+foundations of the Temple of Solomon are on Mount Moriah; the Pool of
+Siloam has still a cup of water for those who at noontide go down to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat; the ancient gate yet looketh towards Damascus, and
+of the Palace of Herod, there is a tower which Time and Turk and Crusader
+have spared.</p>
+
+<p>Jerusalem is built on the summit ridge of the hill-country of Palestine,
+just where it begins to slope eastward. Not half a mile from the Jaffa
+Gate, the waters run towards the Mediterranean. It is about 2,700 feet
+above the latter, and 4,000 feet above the Dead Sea, to which the descent
+is much more abrupt. The hill, or rather group of small mounts, on which
+Jerusalem stands, slants eastward to the brink of the Valley of
+Jehosaphat, and the Mount of Olives rises opposite, from the sides and
+summit of which, one sees the entire city spread out like a map before
+him. The Valley of Hinnon, the bed of which is on a much higher level than
+that of Jehosaphat, skirts the south-western and southern part of the
+walls, and drops into the latter valley at the foot of Mount Zion, the
+most southern of the mounts. The steep slope at the junction of the two
+valleys is the site of the city of the Jebusites, the most ancient part of
+Jerusalem. It is now covered with garden-terraces, the present wall
+crossing from Mount Zion on the south to Mount Moriah on the east. A
+little glen, anciently called the Tyropeon, divides the mounts, and winds
+through to the Damascus Gate, on the north, though from the height of the
+walls and the position of the city, the depression which it causes in the
+mass of buildings is not very perceptible, except from the latter point,
+Moriah is the lowest of the mounts, and hangs directly over the Valley of
+Jehosaphat. Its summit was built up by Solomon so as to form a
+quadrangular terrace, five hundred by three hundred yards in dimension.
+The lower courses of the grand wall, composed of huge blocks of gray
+conglomerate limestone, still remain, and there seems to be no doubt that
+they are of the time of Solomon. Some of the stones are of enormous size;
+I noticed several which were fifteen, and one twenty-two feet in length.
+The upper part of the wall was restored by Sultan Selim, the conqueror of
+Egypt, and the level of the terrace now supports the great Mosque of Omar,
+which stands on the very site of the temple. Except these foundation
+walls, the Damascus Gate and the Tower of Hippicus, there is nothing left
+of the ancient city. The length of the present wall of circumference is
+about two miles, but the circuit of Jerusalem, in the time of Herod, was
+probably double that distance.</p>
+
+<p>The best views of the city are from the Mount of Olives, and the hill
+north of it, whence Titus directed the siege which resulted in its total
+destruction. The Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon encamped on the same
+hill. My first walk after reaching here, was to the summit of the Mount of
+Olives. Not far from the hotel we came upon the Via Dolorosa, up which,
+according to Catholic tradition, Christ toiled with the cross upon his
+shoulders. I found it utterly impossible to imagine that I was walking in
+the same path, and preferred doubting the tradition. An arch is built
+across the street at the spot where they say he was shown to the populace.
+(<i>Ecce Homo</i>.) The passage is steep and rough, descending to St. Stephen's
+Gate by the Governor's Palace, which stands on the site of the house of
+Pontius Pilate. Here, in the wall forming the northern part of the
+foundation of the temple, there are some very fine remains of ancient
+workmanship. From the city wall, the ground descends abruptly to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat. The Turkish residents have their tombs on the city
+side, just under the terrace of the mosque, while thousands of Jews find a
+peculiar beatitude in having themselves interred on the opposite slope of
+the Mount of Olives, which is in some places quite covered with their
+crumbling tombstones. The bed of the Brook Kedron is now dry and stony. A
+sort of chapel, built in the bottom of the valley, is supposed by the
+Greeks to cover the tomb of the Virgin--a claim which the Latins consider
+absurd. Near this, at the very foot of the Mount of Olives, the latter
+sect have lately built a high stone wall around the Garden of Gethsemane,
+for the purpose, apparently, of protecting the five aged olives. I am
+ignorant of the grounds wherefore Gethsemane is placed here. Most
+travellers have given their faith to the spot, but Dr. Robinson, who is
+more reliable than any amount of mere tradition, does not coincide with
+them. The trees do not appear as ancient as some of those at the foot of
+Mount Carmel, which are supposed to date from the Roman colony established
+by Titus. Moreover, it is well known that at the time of the taking of
+Jerusalem by that Emperor, all the trees, for many miles around, were
+destroyed. The olive-trees, therefore, cannot be those under which Christ
+rested, even supposing this to be the true site of Gethseniane.</p>
+
+<p>The Mount of Olives is a steep and rugged hill, dominating over the city
+and the surrounding heights. It is still covered with olive orchards, and
+planted with patches of grain, which do not thrive well on the stony soil.
+On the summit is a mosque, with a minaret attached, which affords a grand
+panoramic view. As we reached it, the Chief of the College of Dervishes,
+in the court of the Mosque of Omar, came out with a number of attendants.
+He saluted us courteously, which would not have been the case had he been
+the Superior of the Latin Convent, and we Greek Monks. There were some
+Turkish ladies in the interior of the mosque, so that we could not gain
+admittance, and therefore did not see the rock containing the foot-prints
+of Christ, who, according to Moslem tradition, ascended to heaven from
+this spot. The Mohammedans, it may not be generally known, accept the
+history of Christ, except his crucifixion, believing that he passed to
+heaven without death, another person being crucified in his stead. They
+call him the <i>Roh-Allah,</i> or Spirit of God, and consider him, after
+Mahomet, as the holiest of the Prophets.</p>
+
+<p>We ascended to the gallery of the minaret. The city lay opposite, so
+fairly spread out to our view that almost every house might be separately
+distinguished. It is a mass of gray buildings, with dome-roofs, and but
+for the mosques of Omar and El Aksa, with the courts and galleries around
+them, would be exceedingly tame in appearance. The only other prominent
+points are the towers of the Holy Sepulchre, the citadel, enclosing
+Herod's Tower, and the mosque on mount Zion. The Turkish wall, with its
+sharp angles, its square bastions, and the long, embrasured lines of its
+parapet, is the most striking feature of the view. Stony hills stretch
+away from the city on all sides, at present cheered with tracts of
+springing wheat, but later in the season, brown and desolate. In the
+south, the convent of St. Elias is visible, and part of the little town of
+Bethlehem. I passed to the eastern side of the gallery, and looking
+thence, deep down among the sterile mountains, beheld a long sheet of blue
+water, its southern extremity vanishing in a hot, sulphury haze. The
+mountains of Ammon and Moab, which formed the background of my first view
+of Jerusalem, leaned like a vast wall against the sky, beyond the
+mysterious sea and the broad valley of the Jordan. The great depression of
+this valley below the level of the Mediterranean gives it a most
+remarkable character. It appears even deeper than is actually the case,
+and resembles an enormous chasm or moat, separating two different regions
+of the earth. The <i>khamseen</i> was blowing from the south, from out the
+deserts of Edom, and threw its veil of fiery vapor over the landscape. The
+muezzin pointed out to me the location of Jericho, of Kerak in Moab, and
+Es-Salt in the country of Ammon. Ere long the shadow of the minaret
+denoted noon, and, placing his hands on both sides of his mouth, he cried
+out, first on the South side, towards Mecca, and then to the West, and
+North, and East: "God is great: there is no God but God, and Mohammed is
+His Prophet! Let us prostrate ourselves before Him: and to Him alone be
+the glory!"</p>
+
+<p>Jerusalem, internally, gives no impression but that of filth, ruin,
+poverty, and degradation. There are two or three streets in the western or
+higher portion of the city which are tolerably clean, but all the others,
+to the very gates of the Holy Sepulchre, are channels of pestilence. The
+Jewish Quarter, which is the largest, so sickened and disgusted me, that I
+should rather go the whole round of the city walls than pass through it a
+second time. The bazaars are poor, compared with those of other Oriental
+cities of the same size, and the principal trade seems to be in rosaries,
+both Turkish and Christian, crosses, seals, amulets, and pieces of the
+Holy Sepulchre. The population, which may possibly reach 20,000, is
+apparently Jewish, for the most part; at least, I have been principally
+struck with the Hebrew face, in my walks. The number of Jews has increased
+considerably within a few years, and there is also quite a number who,
+having been converted to Protestantism, were brought hither at the expense
+of English missionary societies for the purpose of forming a Protestant
+community. Two of the hotels are kept by families of this class. It is
+estimated that each member of the community has cost the Mission about
+&pound;4,500: a sum which would have Christianized tenfold the number of English
+heathen. The Mission, however, is kept up by its patrons, as a sort of
+religious luxury. The English have lately built a very handsome church
+within the walls, and the Rev. Dr. Gobat, well known by his missionary
+labors in Abyssinia, now has the title of Bishop of Jerusalem. A friend of
+his in Central Africa gave me a letter of introduction for him, and I am
+quite disappointed in finding him absent. Dr. Barclay, of Virginia, a most
+worthy man in every respect, is at the head of the American Mission here.
+There is, besides, what is called the "American Colony," at the village of
+Artos, near Bethlehem: a little community of religious enthusiasts, whose
+experiments in cultivation have met with remarkable success, and are much
+spoken of at present.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever good the various missions here may, in time, accomplish (at
+present, it does not amount to much), Jerusalem is the last place in the
+world where an intelligent heathen would be converted to Christianity.
+Were I cast here, ignorant of any religion, and were I to compare the
+lives and practices of the different sects as the means of making my
+choice--in short, to judge of each faith by the conduct of its
+professors--I should at once turn Mussulman. When you consider that in the
+Holy Sepulchre there are <i>nineteen</i> chapels, each belonging to a different
+sect, calling itself Christian, and that a Turkish police is always
+stationed there to prevent the bloody quarrels which often ensue between
+them, you may judge how those who call themselves followers of the Prince
+of Peace practice the pure faith he sought to establish. Between the Greek
+and Latin churches, especially, there is a deadly feud, and their
+contentions are a scandal, not only to the few Christians here, but to the
+Moslems themselves. I believe there is a sort of truce at present, owing
+to the settlement of some of the disputes--as, for instance, the
+restoration of the silver star, which the Greeks stole from the shrine of
+the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The Latins, however, not long since,
+demolished, <i>vi et armis</i>, a chapel which the Greeks commenced building on
+Mount Zion. But, if the employment of material weapons has been abandoned
+for the time, there is none the less a war of words and of sounds still
+going on. Go into the Holy Sepulchre, when mass is being celebrated, and
+you can scarcely endure the din. No sooner does the Greek choir begin its
+shrill chant, than the Latins fly to the assault. They have an organ, and
+terribly does that organ strain its bellows and labor its pipes to drown
+the rival singing. You think the Latins will carry the day, when suddenly
+the cymbals of the Abyssinians strike in with harsh brazen clang, and, for
+the moment, triumph. Then there are Copts, and Maronites, and Armenians,
+and I know not how many other sects, who must have their share; and the
+service that should be a many-toned harmony pervaded by one grand spirit
+of devotion, becomes a discordant orgie, befitting the rites of Belial.</p>
+
+<p>A long time ago--I do not know the precise number of years--the Sultan
+granted a firman, in answer to the application of both Jews and
+Christians, allowing the members of each sect to put to death any person
+belonging to the other sect, who should be found inside of their churches
+or synagogues. The firman has never been recalled, though in every place
+but Jerusalem it remains a dead letter. Here, although the Jews freely
+permit Christians to enter their synagogue, a Jew who should enter the
+Holy Sepulchre would be lucky if he escaped with his life. Not long since,
+an English gentleman, who was taken by the monks for a Jew, was so
+severely beaten that he was confined to his bed for two months. What worse
+than scandal, what abomination, that the spot looked upon by so many
+Christians as the most awfully sacred on earth, should be the scene of
+such brutish intolerance! I never pass the group of Turkish officers,
+quietly smoking their long pipes and sipping their coffee within the
+vestibule of the Church, without a feeling of humiliation. Worse than the
+money-changers whom Christ scourged out of the Temple, the guardians of
+this edifice make use of His crucifixion and resurrection as a means of
+gain. You may buy a piece of the stone covering the Holy Sepulchre, duly
+certified by the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, for about $7. At Bethlehem,
+which I visited this morning, the Latin monk who showed us the manger, the
+pit where 12,000 innocents were buried, and other things, had much less to
+say of the sacredness or authenticity of the place, than of the injustice
+of allowing the Greeks a share in its possession.</p>
+
+<p>The native Jewish families in Jerusalem, as well as those in other parts
+of Palestine, present a marked difference to the Jews of Europe and
+America. They possess the same physical characteristics--the dark, oblong
+eye, the prominent nose, the strongly-marked cheek and jaw--but in the
+latter, these traits have become harsh and coarse. Centuries devoted to
+the lowest and most debasing forms of traffic, with the endurance of
+persecution and contumely, have greatly changed and vulgarized the
+appearance of the race. But the Jews of the Holy City still retain a noble
+beauty, which proved to my mind their descent from the ancient princely
+houses of Israel The forehead is loftier, the eye larger and more frank in
+its expression, the nose more delicate in its prominence, and the face a
+purer oval. I have remarked the same distinction in the countenances of
+those Jewish families of Europe, whose members have devoted themselves to
+Art or Literature. Mendelssohn's was a face that might have belonged to
+the House of David.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of my arrival in the city, as I set out to walk through the
+bazaars, I encountered a native Jew, whose face will haunt me for the rest
+of my life. I was sauntering slowly along, asking myself "Is this
+Jerusalem?" when, lifting my eyes, they met those of Christ! It was the
+very face which Raphael has painted--the traditional features of the
+Saviour, as they are recognised and accepted by all Christendom. The
+waving brown hair, partly hidden by a Jewish cap, fell clustering about
+the ears; the face was the most perfect oval, and almost feminine in the
+purity of its outline; the serene, child-like mouth was shaded with a
+light moustache, and a silky brown beard clothed the chin; but the
+eyes--shall I ever look into such orbs again? Large, dark, unfathomable,
+they beamed with an expression of divine love and divine sorrow, such as I
+never before saw in human face. The man had just emerged from a dark
+archway, and the golden glow of the sunset, reflected from a white wall
+above, fell upon his face. Perhaps it was this transfiguration which made
+his beauty so unearthly; but, during the moment that I saw him, he was to
+me a revelation of the Saviour. There are still miracles in the Land of
+Judah. As the dusk gathered in the deep streets, I could see nothing but
+the ineffable sweetness and benignity of that countenance, and my friend
+was not a little astonished, if not shocked, when I said to him, with the
+earnestness of belief, on my return: "I have just seen Christ."</p>
+
+<p>I made the round of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday, while the monks were
+celebrating the festival of the Invention of the Cross, in the chapel of
+the Empress Helena. As the finding of the cross by the Empress is almost
+the only authority for the places inclosed within the Holy Sepulchre, I
+went there inclined to doubt their authenticity, and came away with my
+doubt vastly strengthened. The building is a confused labyrinth of
+chapels, choirs, shrines, staircases, and vaults--without any definite
+plan or any architectural beauty, though very rich in parts and full of
+picturesque effects. Golden lamps continually burn before the sacred
+places, and you rarely visit the church without seeing some procession of
+monks, with crosses, censers, and tapers, threading the shadowy passages,
+from shrine to shrine It is astonishing how many localities are assembled
+under one roof. At first, you are shown, the stone on which Christ rested
+from the burden of the cross; then, the place where the soldiers cast lots
+for His garments, both of them adjoining the Sepulchre. After seeing this,
+you are taken to the Pillar of Flagellation; the stocks; the place of
+crowning with thorns; the spot where He met His mother; the cave where the
+Empress Helena found the cross; and, lastly, the summit of Mount Calvary.
+The Sepulchre is a small marble building in the centre of the church. We
+removed our shoes at the entrance, and were taken by a Greek monk, first
+into a sort of ante-chamber, lighted with golden lamps, and having in the
+centre, inclosed in a case of marble, the stone on which the angel sat.
+Stooping through a low door, we entered the Sepulchre itself. Forty lamps
+of gold burn unceasingly above the white marble slab, which, as the monks
+say, protects the stone whereon the body of Christ was laid. As we again
+emerged, our guide led us up a flight of steps to a second story, in which
+stood a shrine, literally blazing with gold. Kneeling on the marble floor,
+he removed a golden shield, and showed us the hole in the rock of Calvary,
+where the cross was planted. Close beside it was the fissure produced by
+the earthquake which followed the Crucifixion. But, to my eyes, aided by
+the light of the dim wax taper, it was no violent rupture, such as an
+earthquake would produce, and the rock did not appear to be the same as
+that of which Jerusalem is built. As we turned to leave, a monk appeared
+with a bowl of sacred rose-water, which he sprinkled on our hands,
+bestowing a double portion on a rosary of sandal-wood which I carried But
+it was a Mohammedan rosary, brought from Mecca, and containing the sacred
+number of ninety-nine beads.</p>
+
+<p>I have not space here to state all the arguments for and against the
+localities in the Holy Sepulchre, I came to the conclusion that none of
+them were authentic, and am glad to have the concurrence of such
+distinguished authority as Dr. Robinson. So far from this being a matter
+of regret, I, for one, rejoice that those sacred spots are lost to the
+world. Christianity does not need them, and they are spared a daily
+profanation in the name of religion. We know that Christ has walked on the
+Mount of Olives, and gone down to the Pool of Siloam, and tarried in
+Bethany; we know that here, within the circuit of our vision, He has
+suffered agony and death, and that from this little point went out all the
+light that has made the world greater and happier and better in its later
+than in its earlier days.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, I must frankly confess, in wandering through this city--revered
+alike by Christians, Jews and Turks as one of the holiest in the world--I
+have been reminded of Christ, the Man, rather, than of Christ, the God. In
+the glory which overhangs Palestine afar off, we imagine emotions which
+never come, when we tread the soil and walk over the hallowed sites. As I
+toiled up the Mount of Olives, in the very footsteps of Christ, panting
+with the heat and the difficult ascent, I found it utterly impossible to
+conceive that the Deity, in human form, had walked there before me. And
+even at night, as I walk on the terraced roof, while the moon, "the balmy
+moon of blessed Israel," restores the Jerusalem of olden days to my
+imagination, the Saviour who then haunts my thoughts is the Man Jesus, in
+those moments of trial when He felt the weaknesses of our common humanity;
+in that agony of struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, in that still more
+bitter cry of human doubt and human appeal from the cross: "My God, my
+God, why hast Thou forsaken me!" Yet there is no reproach for this
+conception of the character of Christ. Better the divinely-inspired Man,
+the purest and most perfect of His race, the pattern and type of all that
+is good and holy in Humanity, than the Deity for whose intercession we
+pray, while we trample His teachings under our feet. It would be well for
+many Christian sects, did they keep more constantly before their eyes the
+sublime humanity of Christ. How much bitter intolerance and persecution
+might be spared the world, if, instead of simply adoring Him as a Divine
+Mediator, they would strive to walk the ways He trod on earth. But
+Christianity is still undeveloped, and there is yet no sect which
+represents its fall and perfect spirit.</p>
+
+<p>It is my misfortune if I give offence by these remarks. I cannot assume
+emotions I do not feel, and must describe Jerusalem as I found it. Since
+being here, I have read the accounts of several travellers, and in many
+cases the devotional rhapsodies--the ecstacies of awe and reverence--in
+which they indulge, strike me as forced and affected. The pious writers
+have described what was expected of them, not what they found. It was
+partly from reading such accounts that my anticipations were raised too
+high, for the view of the city from the Jaffa road and the panorama from
+the Mount of Olives are the only things wherein I have been pleasantly
+disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>By far the most interesting relic left to the city is the foundation wall
+of Solomon's Temple. The Mosque of Omar, according to the accounts of the
+Turks, and Mr. Gather wood's examination, rests on immense vaults, which
+are believed to be the substructions of the Temple itself. Under the dome
+of the mosque there is a large mass of natural rock, revered by the
+Moslems as that from which Mahomet mounted the beast Borak when he visited
+the Seven Heavens, and believed by Mr. Catherwood to have served as part
+of the foundation of the Holy of Holies. No Christian is allowed to enter
+the mosque, or even its enclosure, on penalty of death, and even the
+firman of the Sultan has failed to obtain admission for a Frank. I have
+been strongly tempted to make the attempt in my Egyptian dress, which
+happens to resemble that of a mollah or Moslem priest, but the Dervishes
+in the adjoining college have sharp eyes, and my pronunciation of Arabic
+would betray me in case I was accosted. I even went so far as to buy a
+string of the large beads usually carried by a mollah, but unluckily I do
+not know the Moslem form of prayer, or I might carry out the plan under
+the guise of religious abstraction. This morning we succeeded in getting a
+nearer view of the mosque from the roof of the Governor's palace.
+Fran&ccedil;ois, by assuming the character of a Turkish <i>cawass, </i> gained us
+admission. The roof overlooks the entire enclosure of the Haram, and gives
+a complete view of the exterior of the mosque and the paved court
+surrounding it. There is no regularity in the style of the buildings in
+the enclosure, but the general effect is highly picturesque. The great
+dome of the mosque is the grandest in all the Orient, but the body of the
+edifice, made to resemble an octagonal tent, and covered with blue and
+white tiles, is not high enough to do it justice. The first court is paved
+with marble, and has four porticoes, each of five light Saracenic arches,
+opening into the green park, which occupies the rest of the terrace. This
+park is studded with cypress and fig trees, and dotted all over with the
+tombs of shekhs. As we were looking down on the spacious area, behold! who
+should come along but Shekh Mohammed Senoosee, the holy man of Timbuctoo,
+who had laid off his scarlet robe and donned a green one. I called down to
+him, whereupon he looked up and recognised us. For this reason I regret
+our departure from Jerusalem, as I am sure a little persuasion would
+induce the holy man to accompany me within the mosque.</p>
+
+<p>We leave to-morrow for Damascus, by way of Nazareth and Tiberius. My
+original plan was to have gone to Djerash, the ancient Geraza, in the land
+of Gilead, and thence to Bozrah, in Djebel Hauaran. But Djebel Adjeloun,
+as the country about Djerash is called, is under a powerful Bedouin shekh,
+named Abd-el Azeez, and without an escort from him, which involves
+considerable delay and a fee of $150, it would be impossible to make the
+journey. We are therefore restricted to the ordinary route, and in case we
+should meet with any difficulty by the way, Mr. Smith, the American
+Consul, who is now here, has kindly procured us a firman from the Pasha of
+Jerusalem. All the travellers here are making preparations to leave, but
+there are still two parties in the Desert.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch06">
+<h2>Chapter VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Hill-Country of Palestine.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Leaving Jerusalem--The Tombs of the Kings--El Bireh--The
+  Hill-Country--First View of Mount Hermon--The Tomb of Joseph--Ebal and
+  Gerizim--The Gardens of Nablous--The Samaritans--The Sacred Book--A
+  Scene in the Synagogue--Mentoi and Telemachus--Ride to Samaria--The
+  Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
+  Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
+  Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
+  the Annunciation--The Holy Places.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song,<br />
+Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng:<br />
+In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,<br />
+On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee!"</p>
+
+<p>J. G. Whittier.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Latin Convent, Nazareth, <i>Friday May</i> 7, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We left Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate, because within a few months neither
+travellers nor baggage are allowed to pass the Damascus Gate, on account
+of smuggling operations having been carried on there. Not far from the
+city wall there is a superb terebinth tree, now in the full glory of its
+shining green leaves. It appears to be bathed in a perpetual dew; the
+rounded masses of foliage sparkle and glitter in the light, and the great
+spreading boughs flood the turf below with a deluge of delicious shade. A
+number of persons were reclining on the grass under it, and one of them, a
+very handsome Christian boy, spoke to us in Italian and English. I
+scarcely remember a brighter and purer day than that of our departure.
+The sky was a sheet of spotless blue; every rift and scar of the distant
+hills was retouched with a firmer pencil, and all the outlines, blurred
+away by the haze of the previous few days, were restored with wonderful
+distinctness. The temperature was hot, but not sultry, and the air we
+breathed was an elixir of immortality.</p>
+
+<p>Through a luxuriant olive grove we reached the Tombs of the Kings,
+situated in a small valley to the north of the city. Part of the valley,
+if not the whole of it, has been formed by quarrying away the crags of
+marble and conglomerate limestone for building the city. Near the edge of
+the low cliffs overhanging it, there are some illustrations of the ancient
+mode of cutting stone, which, as well as the custom of excavating tombs in
+the rock, was evidently borrowed from Egypt. The upper surface of the
+rocks, was first made smooth, after which the blocks were mapped out and
+cut apart by grooves chiselled between them. I visited four or five tombs,
+each of which had a sort of vestibule or open portico in front. The door
+was low, and the chambers which I entered, small and black, without
+sculptures of any kind. The tombs bear some resemblance in their general
+plan to those of Thebes, except that they are without ornaments, either
+sculptured or painted. There are fragments of sarcophagi in some of them.
+On the southern side of the valley is a large quarry, evidently worked for
+marble, as the blocks have been cut out from below, leaving a large
+overhanging mass, part of which has broken off and fallen down. Some
+pieces which I picked up were of a very fine white marble, somewhat
+resembling that of Carrara. The opening of the quarry made a striking
+picture, the soft pink hue of the weather-stained rock contrasting
+exquisitely with the vivid green of the vines festooning the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>From the long hill beyond the Tombs, we took our last view of Jerusalem,
+far beyond whose walls I saw the Church of the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The
+Jewish synagogue on the top of the mountain called Nebbee Samwil, the
+highest peak in Palestine, was visible at some distance to the west.
+Notwithstanding its sanctity, I felt little regret at leaving Jerusalem,
+and cheerfully took the rough road northward, over the stony hills. There
+were few habitations in sight, yet the hill-sides were cultivated,
+wherever it was possible for anything to grow. The wheat was just coming
+into head, and the people were at work, planting maize. After four hours'
+ride, we reached El Bireh, a little village on a hill, with the ruins of a
+convent and a large khan. The place takes its name from a fountain of
+excellent water, beside which we found our tents already pitched. In the
+evening, two Englishmen, an ancient Mentor, with a wild young Telemachus
+in charge, arrived, and camped near us. The night was calm and cool, and
+the full moon poured a flood of light over the bare and silent hills.</p>
+
+<p>We rose long before sunrise, and rode off in the brilliant morning--the
+sky unstained by a speck of vapor. In the valley, beyond El Bireh, the
+husbandmen were already at their ploughs, and the village boys were on
+their way to the uncultured parts of the hills, with their flocks of sheep
+and goats. The valley terminated in a deep gorge, with perpendicular walls
+of rock on either side. Our road mounted the hill on the eastern side, and
+followed the brink of the precipice through the pass, where an enchanting
+landscape opened upon us. The village of Yebrood crowned a hill which rose
+opposite, and the mountain slopes leaning towards it on all sides were
+covered with orchards of fig trees; and either rustling with wheat or
+cleanly ploughed for maize. The soil was a dark brown loam, and very rich.
+The stones have been laboriously built into terraces; and, even where
+heavy rocky boulders almost hid the soil, young fig and olive trees were
+planted in the crevices between them. I have never seen more thorough and
+patient cultivation. In the crystal of the morning air, the very hills
+laughed with plenty, and the whole landscape beamed with the signs of
+gladness on its countenance.</p>
+
+<p>The site of ancient Bethel was not far to the right of our road. Over
+hills laden with the olive, fig, and vine, we passed to Ain el-Haramiyeh,
+or the Fountain of the Bobbers. Here there are tombs cut in the rock on
+both sides of the valley. Over another ridge, we descended to a large,
+bowl-shaped valley, entirely covered with wheat, and opening eastward
+towards the Jordan. Thence to Nablous (the Shechem of the Old and Sychar
+of the New Testament) is four hours through a winding dell of the richest
+harvest land; On the way, we first caught sight of the snowy top of Mount
+Hermon, distant at least eighty miles in a straight line. Before reaching
+Nablous, I stopped to drink at a fountain of clear and sweet water, beside
+a square pile of masonry, upon which sat two Moslem dervishes. This, we
+were told, was the Tomb of Joseph, whose body, after having accompanied
+the Israelites in all their wanderings, was at last deposited near
+Shechem. There is less reason to doubt this spot than most of the sacred
+places of Palestine, for the reason that it rests, not on Christian, but
+on Jewish tradition. The wonderful tenacity with which the Jews cling to
+every record or memento of their early history, and the fact that from
+the time of Joseph a portion of them have always lingered near the spot,
+render it highly probable that the locality of a spot so sacred should
+have been preserved from generation to generation to the present time. It
+has been recently proposed to open this tomb, by digging under it from the
+side. If the body of Joseph was actually deposited here, there are, no
+doubt, some traces of it remaining. It must have been embalmed, according
+to the Egyptian custom, and placed in a coffin of the Indian sycamore, the
+wood of which is so nearly incorruptible, that thirty-five centuries would
+not suffice for its decomposition. The singular interest of such a
+discovery would certainly justify the experiment. Not far from the tomb is
+Jacob's Well, where Christ met the Woman of Samaria. This place is also
+considered as authentic, for the same reasons. If not wholly convincing to
+all, there is, at least, so much probability in them that one is freed
+from that painful coldness and incredulity with which he beholds the
+sacred shows of Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the Tomb of Joseph, the road turned to the west, and entered the
+narrow pass between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. The former is a steep, barren
+peak, clothed with terraces of cactus, standing on the northern side of
+the pass. Mount Gerizim is cultivated nearly to the top, and is truly a
+mountain of blessing, compared with its neighbor. Through an orchard of
+grand old olive-trees, we reached Nablous, which presented a charming
+picture, with its long mass of white, dome-topped stone houses, stretching
+along the foot of Gerizim through a sea of bowery orchards. The bottom of
+the valley resembles some old garden run to waste. Abundant streams,
+poured from the generous heart of the Mount of Blessing, leap and gurgle
+with pleasant noises through thickets of orange, fig, and pomegranate,
+through bowers of roses and tangled masses of briars and wild vines. We
+halted in a grove of olives, and, after our tent was pitched, walked
+upward through the orchards to the Ras-el-Ain (Promontory of the
+Fountain), on the side of Mount Gerizim. A multitude of beggars sat at the
+city gate; and, as they continued to clamor after I had given sufficient
+alms, I paid them with "<i>Allah deelek</i>!"--(God give it to you!)--the
+Moslem's reply to such importunity--and they ceased in an instant. This
+exclamation, it seems, takes away from them the power of demanding a
+second time.</p>
+
+<p>From under the Ras-el-Ain gushes forth the Fountain of Honey, so called
+from the sweetness and purity of the water. We drank of it, and I found
+the taste very agreeable, but my companion declared that it had an
+unpleasant woolly flavor. When we climbed a little higher, we found that
+the true source from which the fountain is supplied was above, and that an
+Arab was washing a flock of sheep in it! We continued our walk along the
+side of the mountain to the other end of the city, through gardens of
+almond, apricot, prune, and walnut-trees, bound each to each by great
+vines, whose heavy arms they seemed barely able to support. The interior
+of the town is dark and filthy; but it has a long, busy bazaar extending
+its whole length, and a caf&eacute;, where we procured the best coffee in Syria.</p>
+
+<p>Nablous is noted for the existence of a small remnant of the ancient
+Samaritans. The stock has gradually dwindled away, and amounts to only
+forty families, containing little more than a hundred and fifty
+individuals. They live in a particular quarter of the city, and are
+easily distinguished from the other inhabitants by the cast of their
+features. After our guide, a native of Nablous, had pointed out three or
+four, I had no difficulty in recognising all the others we met. They have
+long, but not prominent noses, like the Jews; small, oblong eyes, narrow
+lips, and fair complexions, most of them having brown hair. They appear to
+be held in considerable obloquy by the Moslems. Our attendant, who was of
+the low class of Arabs, took the boys we met very unceremoniously by the
+head, calling out: "Here is another Samaritan!" He then conducted us to
+their synagogue, to see the celebrated Pentateuch, which is there
+preserved. We were taken to a small, open court, shaded by an
+apricot-tree, where the priest, an old man in a green robe and white
+turban, was seated in meditation. He had a long grey beard, and black
+eyes, that lighted up with a sudden expression of eager greed when we
+promised him backsheesh for a sight of the sacred book. He arose and took
+us into a sort of chapel, followed by a number of Samaritan boys. Kneeling
+down at a niche in the wall, he produced from behind a wooden case a piece
+of ragged parchment, written with Hebrew characters. But the guide was
+familiar with this deception, and rated him so soundly that, after a
+little hesitation, he laid the fragment away, and produced a large tin
+cylinder, covered with a piece of green satin embroidered in gold. The
+boys stooped down and reverently kissed the blazoned cover, before it was
+removed. The cylinder, sliding open by two rows of hinges, opened at the
+same time the parchment scroll, which was rolled at both ends. It was,
+indeed, a very ancient manuscript, and in remarkable preservation. The
+rents have been carefully repaired and the scroll neatly stitched upon
+another piece of parchment, covered on the outside with violet satin. The
+priest informed me that it was written by the son of Aaron; but this does
+not coincide with the fact that the Samaritan Pentateuch is different from
+that of the Jews. It is, however, no doubt one of the oldest parchment
+records in the world, and the Samaritans look upon it with unbounded faith
+and reverence. The Pentateuch, according to their version, contains their
+only form of religion. They reject everything else which the Old Testament
+contains. Three or four days ago was their grand feast of sacrifice, when
+they made a burnt offering of a lamb, on the top of Mount Gerizim. Within
+a short time, it is said they have shown some curiosity to become
+acquainted with the New Testament, and the High Priest sent to Jerusalem
+to procure Arabic copies.</p>
+
+<p>I asked one of the wild-eyed boys whether he could read the sacred book.
+"Oh, yes," said the priest, "all these boys can read it;" and the one I
+addressed immediately pulled a volume from his breast, and commenced
+reading in fluent Hebrew. It appeared to be a part of their church
+service, for both the priest and <i>boab</i>, or door-keeper, kept up a running
+series of responses, and occasionally the whole crowd shouted out some
+deep-mouthed word in chorus. The old man leaned forward with an expression
+as fixed and intense as if the text had become incarnate in him, following
+with his lips the sound of the boy's voice. It was a strange picture of
+religious enthusiasm, and was of itself sufficient to convince me of the
+legitimacy of the Samaritan's descent. When I rose to leave I gave him the
+promised fee, and a smaller one to the boy who read the service. This was
+the signal for a general attack from the door-keeper and all the boys who
+were present. They surrounded me with eyes sparkling with the desire of
+gain, kissed the border of my jacket, stroked my beard coaxingly with
+their hands, which they then kissed, and, crowding up with a boisterous
+show of affection, were about to fall on my neck in a heap, after the old
+Hebrew fashion. The priest, clamorous for more, followed with glowing
+face, and the whole group had a riotous and bacchanalian character, which
+I should never have imagined could spring from such a passion as avarice.</p>
+
+<p>On returning to our camp, we found Mentor and Telemachus arrived, but not
+on such friendly terms as their Greek prototypes. We were kept awake for a
+long time that night by their high words, and the first sound I heard the
+next morning came from their tent. Telemachus, I suspect, had found some
+island of Calypso, and did not relish the cold shock of the plunge into
+the sea, by which Mentor had forced him away. He insisted on returning to
+Jerusalem, but as Mentor would not allow him a horse, he had not the
+courage to try it on foot. After a series of altercations, in which he
+took a pistol to shoot the dragoman, and applied very profane terms to
+everybody in the company, his wrath dissolved into tears, and when we
+left, Mentor had decided to rest a day at Nablous, and let him recover
+from the effects of the storm.</p>
+
+<p>We rode down the beautiful valley, taking the road to Sebaste (Samaria),
+while our luggage-mules kept directly over the mountains to Jenin. Our
+path at first followed the course of the stream, between turfy banks and
+through luxuriant orchards. The whole country we overlooked was planted
+with olive-trees, and, except the very summits of the mountains, covered
+with grain-fields. For two hours our course was north-east, leading over
+the hills, and now and then dipping into beautiful dells. In one of these
+a large stream gushes from the earth in a full fountain, at the foot of a
+great olive-tree. The hill-side above it was a complete mass of foliage,
+crowned with the white walls of a Syrian village. Descending the valley,
+which is very deep, we came in sight of Samaria, situated on the summit of
+an isolated hill. The sanctuary of the ancient Christian church of St.
+John towers high above the mud walls of the modern village. Riding between
+olive-orchards and wheat-fields of glorious richness and beauty, we passed
+the remains of an acqueduct, and ascended the hill The ruins of the church
+occupy the eastern summit. Part of them have been converted into a mosque,
+which the Christian foot is not allowed to profane. The church, which is
+in the Byzantine style, is apparently of the time of the Crusaders. It had
+originally a central and two side-aisles, covered with groined Gothic
+vaults. The sanctuary is semi-circular, with a row of small arches,
+supported by double pillars. The church rests on the foundations of some
+much more ancient building--probably a temple belonging to the Roman
+city.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the modern village, the hill terminates in a long, elliptical
+mound, about one-third of a mile in length. We made the tour of it, and
+were surprised at finding a large number of columns, each of a single
+piece of marble. They had once formed a double colonnade, extending from
+the church to a gate on the western side of the summit. Our native guide
+said they had been covered with an arch, and constituted a long market or
+bazaar--a supposition in which he may be correct. From the gate, which is
+still distinctly marked, we overlooked several deep valleys to the west,
+and over them all, the blue horizon of the Mediterranean, south of
+C&aelig;sarea. On the northern side of the hill there are upwards of twenty more
+pillars standing, besides a number hurled down, and the remains of a
+quadrangular colonnade, on the side of the hill below. The total number of
+pillars on the summit cannot be less than one hundred, from twelve to
+eighteen feet in height. The hill is strewn, even to its base, with large
+hewn blocks and fragments of sculptured stone. The present name of the
+city was given to it by Herod, and it must have been at that time a most
+stately and beautiful place.</p>
+
+<p>We descended to a valley on the east, climbed a long ascent, and after
+crossing the broad shoulder of a mountain beyond, saw below us a landscape
+even more magnificent than that of Nablous. It was a great winding valley,
+its bottom rolling in waves of wheat and barley, while every hill-side, up
+to the bare rock, was mantled with groves of olive. The very summits which
+looked into this garden of Israel, were green with fragrant plants--wild
+thyme and sage, gnaphalium and camomile. Away to the west was the sea, and
+in the north-west the mountain chain of Carmel. We went down to the
+gardens and pasture-land, and stopped to rest at the Village of Geba,
+which hangs on the side of the mountain. A spring of whitish but delicious
+water gushed out of the soil, in the midst of a fig orchard. The women
+passed us, going back and forth with tall water-jars on their heads. Some
+herd-boys brought down a flock of black goats, and they were all given
+drink in a large wooden bowl. They were beautiful animals, with thick
+curved horns, white eyes, and ears a foot long. It was a truly Biblical
+picture in every feature.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this valley we passed a circular basin, which has no outlet, so
+that in winter the bottom of it must be a lake. After winding among the
+hills an hour more, we came out upon the town of Jenin, a Turkish village,
+with a tall white minaret, at the head of the great plain of Esdraelon. It
+is supposed to be the ancient Jezreel, where the termagant Jezebel was
+thrown out of the window. We pitched our tent in a garden near the town,
+under a beautiful mulberry tree, and, as the place is in very bad repute,
+engaged a man to keep guard at night. An English family was robbed there
+two or three weeks ago. Our guard did his duty well, pacing back and
+forth, and occasionally grounding his musket to keep up his courage by the
+sound. In the evening, Fran&ccedil;ois caught a chameleon, a droll-looking little
+creature, which changed color in a marvellous manner.</p>
+
+<p>Our road, next day, lay directly across the Plain of Esdraelon, one of the
+richest districts in the world. It is now a green sea, covered with fields
+of wheat and barley, or great grazing tracts, on which multitudes of sheep
+and goats are wandering. In some respects it reminded me of the Valley of
+San Jos&eacute;, and if I were to liken Palestine to any other country I have
+seen, it would be California. The climate and succession of the seasons
+are the same, the soil is very similar in quality, and the landscapes
+present the same general features. Here, in spring, the plains are covered
+with that deluge of floral bloom, which makes California seem a paradise.
+Here there are the same picturesque groves, the same rank fields of wild
+oats clothing the mountain-sides, the same aromatic herbs impregnating the
+air with balm, and above all, the same blue, cloudless days and dewless
+nights. While travelling here, I am constantly reminded of our new Syria
+on the Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>Towards noon, Mount Tabor separated itself from the chain of hills before
+us, and stood out singly, at the extremity of the plain. We watered our
+horses at a spring in a swamp, were some women were collected, beating
+with sticks the rushes they had gathered to make mats. After reaching the
+mountains on the northern side of the plain, an ascent of an hour and
+a-half, through a narrow glen, brought us to Nazareth, which is situated
+in a cul-de-sac, under the highest peaks of the range. As we were passing
+a rocky part of the road, Mr. Harrison's horse fell with him and severely
+injured his leg. We were fortunately near our destination, and on reaching
+the Latin Convent, Fra Joachim, to whose surgical abilities the
+traveller's book bore witness, took him in charge. Many others besides
+ourselves have had reason to be thankful for the good offices of the Latin
+monks in Palestine. I have never met with a class more kind, cordial, and
+genial. All the convents are bound to take in and entertain all
+applicants--of whatever creed or nation--for the space of three days.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, Fra Joachim accompanied me to the Church of the Virgin,
+which is inclosed within the walls of the convent. It is built over the
+supposed site of the house in which the mother of Christ was living, at
+the time of the angelic annunciation. Under the high altar, a flight of
+steps leads down to the shrine of the Virgin, on the threshold of the
+house, where the Angel Gabriel's foot rested, as he stood, with a lily in
+his hand, announcing the miraculous conception. The shrine, of white
+marble and gold, gleaming in the light of golden lamps, stands under a
+rough arch of the natural rock, from the side of which hangs a heavy
+fragment of a granite pillar, suspended, as the devout believe, by divine
+power. Fra Joachim informed me that, when the Moslems attempted to
+obliterate all tokens of the holy place, this pillar was preserved by a
+miracle, that the locality might not be lost to the Christians. At the
+same time, he said, the angels of God carried away the wooden house which
+stood at the entrance of the grotto; and, after letting it drop in
+Marseilles, while they rested, picked it up again and set it down in
+Loretto, where it still remains. As he said this, there was such entire,
+absolute belief in the good monk's eyes, and such happiness in that
+belief, that not for ten times the gold on the shrine would I have
+expressed a doubt of the story. He then bade me kneel, that I might see
+the spot where the angel stood, and devoutly repeated a paternoster while
+I contemplated the pure plate of snowy marble, surrounded with vases of
+fragrant flowers, between which hung cressets of gold, wherein perfumed
+oils were burning. All the decorations of the place conveyed the idea of
+transcendent purity and sweetness; and, for the first time in Palestine, I
+wished for perfect faith in the spot. Behind the shrine, there are two or
+three chambers in the rock, which served as habitations for the family of
+the Virgin.</p>
+
+<p>A young Christian Nazarene afterwards conducted me to the House of Joseph,
+the Carpenter, which is now inclosed in a little chapel. It is merely a
+fragment of wall, undoubtedly as old as the time of Christ, and I felt
+willing to consider it a genuine relic. There was an honest roughness
+about the large stones, inclosing a small room called the carpenter's
+shop, which I could not find it in my heart to doubt. Besides, in a quiet
+country town like Nazareth, which has never knows such vicissitudes as
+Jerusalem, much more dependence can be placed on popular tradition. For
+the same reason, I looked with reverence on the Table of Christ, also
+inclosed within a chapel. This is a large, natural rock, about nine feet
+by twelve, nearly square, and quite flat on the top. It is said that it
+once served as a table for Christ and his Disciples. The building called
+the School of Christ, where he went with other children of his age, is now
+a church of the Syrian Christians, who were performing a doleful mass, in
+Arabic, at the time of my visit. It is a vaulted apartment, about forty
+feet long, and only the lower part of the wall is ancient. At each of
+these places, the Nazarene put into my hand a piece of pasteboard, on
+which was printed a prayer in Latin, Italian, and Arabic, with the
+information that whoever visited the place, and made the prayer, would be
+entitled to seven years' indulgence. I duly read all the prayers, and,
+accordingly, my conscience ought to be at rest for twenty-one years.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch07">
+<h2>Chapter VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Country of Galilee.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Departure from Nazareth--A Christian Guide--Ascent of Mount
+  Tabor--Wallachian Hermits--The Panorama of Tabor--Ride to Tiberias--A
+  Bath in Genesareth--The Flowers of Galilee--The Mount of
+  Beatitude--Magdala--Joseph's Well--Meeting with a Turk--The Fountain of
+  the Salt-Works--The Upper Valley of the Jordan--Summer Scenery--The
+  Rivers of Lebanon--Tell el-Kadi--An Arcadian Region--The Fountains of
+  Banias.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,<br />
+And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene;<br />
+And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see<br />
+The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee!"--Whittier.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Banias (C&aelig;sarea Philippi), <i>May</i> 10, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We left Nazareth on the morning of the 8th inst. My companion had done so
+well under the care of Fra Joachim that he was able to ride, and our
+journey was not delayed by his accident. The benedictions of the good
+Franciscans accompanied us as we rode away from the Convent, past the
+Fountain of the Virgin, and out of the pleasant little valley where the
+boy Jesus wandered for many peaceful years. The Christian guide we engaged
+for Mount Tabor had gone ahead, and we did not find him until we had
+travelled for more than two hours among the hills. As we approached the
+sacred mountain, we came upon the region of oaks--the first oak I had seen
+since leaving Europe last autumn. There are three or four varieties, some
+with evergreen foliage, and in their wild luxuriance and the
+picturesqueness of their forms and groupings, they resemble those of
+California. The sea of grass and flowers in which they stood was sprinkled
+with thick tufts of wild oats--another point of resemblance to the latter
+country. But here, there is no gold; there, no sacred memories.</p>
+
+<p>The guide was waiting for us beside a spring, among the trees. He was a
+tall youth of about twenty, with a mild, submissive face, and wore the
+dark-blue turban, which appears to be the badge of a native Syrian
+Christian. I found myself involuntarily pitying him for belonging to a
+despised sect. There is no disguising the fact that one feels much more
+respect for the Mussulman rulers of the East, than for their oppressed
+subjects who profess his own faith. The surest way to make a man
+contemptible is to treat him contemptuously, and the Oriental Christians,
+who have been despised for centuries, are, with some few exceptions,
+despicable enough. Now, however, since the East has become a favorite
+field of travel, and the Frank possesses an equal dignity with the Moslem,
+the native Christians are beginning to hold up their heads, and the return
+of self-respect will, in the course of time, make them respectable.</p>
+
+<p>Mount Tabor stands a little in advance of the hill-country, with which it
+is connected only by a low spur or shoulder, its base being the Plain of
+Esdraelon. This is probably the reason why it has been fixed upon as the
+place of the Transfiguration, as it is not mentioned by name in the New
+Testament. The words are: "an high mountain apart," which some suppose to
+refer to the position of the mountain, and not to the remoteness of Christ
+and the three Disciples from men. The sides of the mountain are covered
+with clumps of oak, hawthorn and other trees, in many places overrun with
+the white honeysuckle, its fingers dropping with odor of nutmeg and
+cloves. The ascent, by a steep and winding path, occupied an hour. The
+summit is nearly level, and resembles some overgrown American field, or
+"oak opening." The grass is more than knee-deep; the trees grow high and
+strong, and there are tangled thickets and bowers of vines without end.
+The eastern and highest end of the mountain is covered with the remains of
+an old fortress-convent, once a place of great strength, from the
+thickness of its walls. In a sort of cell formed among the ruins we found
+two monk-hermits. I addressed them in all languages of which I know a
+salutation, without effect, but at last made out that they were
+Wallachians. They were men of thirty-five, with stupid faces, dirty
+garments, beards run to waste, and fur caps. Their cell was a mere hovel,
+without furniture, except a horrid caricature of the Virgin and Child, and
+four books of prayers in the Bulgarian character. One of them walked about
+knitting a stocking, and paid no attention to us; but the other, after
+giving us some deliciously cold water, got upon a pile of rubbish, and
+stood regarding us with open mouth while we took breakfast. So far from
+this being a cause of annoyance, I felt really glad that our presence had
+agitated the stagnant waters of his mind.</p>
+
+<p>The day was hazy and sultry, but the panoramic view from Mount Tabor was
+still very fine. The great Plain of Esdraelon lay below us like a vast
+mosaic of green and brown--jasper and verd-antique. On the west, Mount
+Carmel lifted his head above the blue horizon line of the Mediterranean.
+Turning to the other side, a strip of the Sea of Galilee glimmered deep
+down among the hills, and the Ghor, or the Valley of the Jordan,
+stretched like a broad gash through them. Beyond them, the country of
+Djebel Adjeloun, the ancient Decapolis, which still holds the walls of
+Gadara and the temples and theatres of Djerash, faded away into vapor,
+and, still further to the south, the desolate hills of Gilead, the home of
+Jephthah. Mount Hermon is visible when the atmosphere is clear but we were
+not able to see it.</p>
+
+<p>From the top of Mount Tabor to Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, is a
+journey of five hours, through a wild country, with but one single
+miserable village on the road. At first we rode through lonely dells,
+grown with oak and brilliant with flowers, especially the large purple
+mallow, and then over broad, treeless tracts of rolling land, but
+partially cultivated. The heat was very great; I had no thermometer, but
+should judge the temperature to have been at least 95&deg; in the shade. From
+the edge of the upland tract, we looked down on the Sea of Galilee--a
+beautiful sheet of water sunk among the mountains, and more than 300 feet
+below the level of the Mediterranean. It lay unruffled in the bottom of
+the basin, reflecting the peaks of the bare red mountains beyond it.
+Tiberias was at our very feet, a few palm trees alone relieving the
+nakedness of its dull walls. After taking a welcome drink at the Fountain
+of Fig-trees, we descended to the town, which has a desolate and forlorn
+air. Its walls have been partly thrown down by earthquakes, and never
+repaired. We found our tents already pitched on the bank above the lake,
+and under one of the tottering towers.</p>
+
+<p>Not a breath of air was stirring; the red hills smouldered in the heat,
+and the waters of Genesareth at our feet glimmered with an oily
+smoothness, unbroken by a ripple. We untwisted our turbans, kicked off our
+baggy trowsers, and speedily releasing ourselves from the barbarous
+restraints of dress, dipped into the tepid sea and floated lazily out
+until we could feel the exquisite coldness of the living springs which
+sent up their jets from the bottom. I was lying on my back, moving my fins
+just sufficiently to keep afloat, and gazing dreamily through half-closed
+eyes on the forlorn palms of Tiberias, when a shrill voice hailed me with:
+"O Howadji, get out of our way!" There, at the old stone gateway below our
+tent, stood two Galilean damsels, with heavy earthen jars upon their
+heads. "Go away yourselves, O maidens!" I answered, "if you want us to
+come out of the water." "But we must fill our pitchers," one of them
+replied. "Then fill them at once, and be not afraid; or leave them, and we
+will fill them for you." Thereupon they put the pitchers down, but
+remained watching us very complacently while we sank the vessels to the
+bottom of the lake, and let them fill from the colder and purer tide of
+the springs. In bringing them back through the water to the gate, the one
+I propelled before me happened to strike against a stone, and its fair
+owner, on receiving it, immediately pointed to a crack in the side, which
+she declared I had made, and went off lamenting. After we had resumed our
+garments, and were enjoying the pipe of indolence and the coffee of
+contentment, she returned and made such an outcry, that I was fain to
+purchase peace by the price of a new pitcher. I passed the first hours
+of-the night in looking out of my tent-door, as I lay, on the stars
+sparkling in the bosom of Galilee, like the sheen of Assyrian spears, and
+the glare of the great fires kindled on the opposite shore.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, we travelled northward along the lake, passing through
+continuous thickets of oleander, fragrant with its heavy pink blossoms.
+The thistles were more abundant and beautiful than ever. I noticed, in
+particular, one with a superb globular flower of a bright blue color,
+which would make a choice ornament for our gardens at home. At the
+north-western head of the lake, the mountains fall back and leave a large
+tract of the richest meadow-land, which narrows away into a deep dell,
+overhung by high mountain headlands, faced with naked cliffs of red rock.
+The features of the landscape are magnificent. Up the dell, I saw plainly
+the Mount of Beatitude, beyond which lies the village of Cana of Galilee.
+In coming up the meadow, we passed a miserable little village of thatched
+mud huts, almost hidden by the rank weeds which grew around them. A
+withered old crone sat at one of the doors, sunning herself. "What is the
+name of this village?" I asked. "It is Mejdel," was her reply. This was
+the ancient Magdala, the home of that beautiful but sinful Magdalene,
+whose repentance has made her one of the brightest of the Saints. The
+crystal waters of the lake here lave a shore of the cleanest pebbles. The
+path goes winding through oleanders, nebbuks, patches of hollyhock,
+anise-seed, fennel, and other spicy plants, while, on the west, great
+fields of barley stand ripe for the cutting. In some places, the Fellahs,
+men and women, were at work, reaping and binding the sheaves. After
+crossing this tract, we came to the hill, at the foot of which was a
+ruined khan, and on the summit, other undistinguishable ruins, supposed by
+some to be those of Capernaum. The site of that exalted town, however, is
+still a matter of discussion.</p>
+
+<p>We journeyed on in a most sweltering atmosphere over the ascending hills,
+the valley of the Upper Jordan lying deep on our right. In a shallow
+hollow, under one of the highest peaks, there stands a large deserted
+khan; over a well of very cold; sweet water, called <i>Bir Youssuf</i> by the
+Arabs. Somewhere near it, according to tradition, is the field where
+Joseph was sold by his brethren; and the well is, no doubt, looked upon by
+many as the identical pit into which he was thrown. A stately Turk of
+Damascus, with four servants behind him, came riding up as we were resting
+in the gateway of the khan, and, in answer to my question, informed me
+that the well was so named from Nebbee Youssuf (the Prophet Joseph), and
+not from Sultan Joseph Saladin. He took us for his countrymen, accosting
+me first in Turkish, and, even after I had talked with him some time in
+bad Arabic, asked me whether I had been making a pilgrimage to the tombs
+of certain holy Moslem saints, in the neighborhood of Jaffa. He joined
+company with us, however, and shared his pipe with me, as we continued our
+journey. We rode for two hours more over hills bare of trees, but covered
+thick with grass and herbs, and finally lost our way. Fran&ccedil;ois went ahead,
+dashing through the fields of barley and lentils, and we reached the path
+again, as the Waters of Merom came in sight. We then descended into the
+Valley of the Upper Jordan, and encamped opposite the lake, at Ain
+el-Mellaha (the Fountain of the Salt-Works), the first source of the
+sacred river. A stream of water, sufficient to turn half-a-dozen mills,
+gushes and gurgles up at the foot of the mountain. There are the remains
+of an ancient dam, by which a large pool was formed for the irrigation of
+the valley. It still supplies a little Arab mill below the fountain. This
+is a frontier post, between the jurisdictions of the Pashas of Jerusalem
+and Damascus, and the <i>mukkairee</i> of the Greek Caloyer, who left us at
+Tiberias, was obliged to pay a duty of seven and a half piastres on
+fifteen mats, which he had bought at Jerusalem for one and a half piastres
+each. The poor man will perhaps make a dozen piastres (about half a
+dollar) on these mats at Damascus, after carrying them on his mule for
+more than two hundred miles.</p>
+
+<p>We pitched our tents on the grassy meadow below the mill--a charming spot,
+with Tell el-Khanzir (the hill of wild boars) just in front, over the
+Waters of Merom, and the snow-streaked summit of Djebel esh-Shekh--the
+great Mount Hermon--towering high above the valley. This is the loftiest
+peak of the Anti-Lebanon, and is 10,000 feet above the sea. The next
+morning, we rode for three hours before reaching the second spring of the
+Jordan, at a place which Fran&ccedil;ois called Tell el-Kadi, but which did not
+at all answer with the description given me by Dr. Robinson, at Jerusalem.
+The upper part of the broad valley, whence the Jordan draws his waters, is
+flat, moist, and but little cultivated. There are immense herds of sheep,
+goats, and buffaloes wandering over it. The people are a dark Arab tribe,
+and live in tents and miserable clay huts. Where the valley begins to
+slope upward towards the hills, they plant wheat, barley, and lentils. The
+soil is the fattest brown loam, and the harvests are wonderfully rich. I
+saw many tracts of wheat, from half a mile to a mile in extent, which
+would average forty bushels to the acre. Yet the ground is never manured,
+and the Arab plough scratches up but a few inches of the surface. What a
+paradise might be made of this country, were it in better hands!</p>
+
+<p>The second spring is not quite so large as Ain el-Mellaha but, like it,
+pours out a strong stream from a single source The pool was filled with
+women, washing the heavy fleeces of their sheep, and beating the dirt out
+of their striped camel's hair abas with long poles. We left it, and
+entered on a slope of stony ground, forming the head of the valley. The
+view extended southward, to the mountains closing the northern cove of the
+Sea of Galilee. It was a grand, rich landscape--so rich that its
+desolation seems forced and unnatural. High on the summit of a mountain to
+the west, the ruins of a large Crusader fortress looked down upon us. The
+soil, which slowly climbs upward through a long valley between Lebanon and
+Anti-Lebanon, is cut with deep ravines. The path is very difficult to
+find; and while we were riding forward at random, looking in all
+directions for our baggage mules, we started up a beautiful gazelle. At
+last, about noon, hot, hungry, and thirsty, we reached a swift stream,
+roaring at the bottom of a deep ravine, through a bed of gorgeous foliage.
+The odor of the wild grape-blossoms, which came up to us, as we rode along
+the edge, was overpowering in its sweetness. An old bridge of two arches
+crossed the stream. There was a pile of rocks against the central pier,
+and there we sat and took breakfast in the shade of the maples, while the
+cold green waters foamed at our feet. By all the Naiads and Tritons, what
+a joy there is in beholding a running stream! The rivers of Lebanon are
+miracles to me, after my knowledge of the Desert. A company of Arabs,
+seven in all, were gathered under the bridge; and, from a flute which one
+of them blew, I judged they were taking a pastoral holiday. We kept our
+pistols beside us; for we did not like their looks. Before leaving, they
+told us that the country was full of robbers, and advised us to be on the
+lookout. We rode more carefully, after this, and kept with our baggage on
+reaching it, An hour after leaving the bridge, we came to a large
+circular, or rather annular mound, overgrown with knee-deep grass and
+clumps of oak-trees. A large stream, of a bright blue color, gushed down
+the north side, and after half embracing the mound swept off across the
+meadows to the Waters of Merom. There could be no doubt that this was Tell
+el-Kadi, the site of Dan, the most northern town of ancient Israel. The
+mound on which it was built is the crater of an extinct volcano. The
+Hebrew word <i>Dan </i> signifies "judge," and Tell el-Kadi, in Arabic, is "The
+Hill of the Judge."</p>
+
+<p>The Anti-Lebanon now rose near us, its northern and western slopes green
+with trees and grass. The first range, perhaps 5,000 feet in height, shut
+out the snowy head of Hermon; but still the view was sublime in its large
+and harmonious outlines. Our road was through a country resembling
+Arcadia--the earth hidden by a dense bed of grass and flowers; thickets of
+blossoming shrubs; old, old oaks, with the most gnarled of trunks, the
+most picturesque of boughs, and the glossiest of green leaves; olive-trees
+of amazing antiquity; and, threading and enlivening all, the clear-cold
+floods of Lebanon. This was the true haunt of Pan, whose altars are now
+before me, graven on the marble crags of Hermon. Looking on those altars,
+and on the landscape, lovely as a Grecian dream, I forget that the lament
+has long been sung:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Pan, Pan is dead!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In another hour, we reached this place, the ancient C&aelig;sarea Philippi, now
+a poor village, embowered in magnificent trees, and washed by glorious
+waters. There are abundant remains of the old city: fragments of immense
+walls; broken granite columns; traces of pavements; great blocks of hewn
+stone; marble pedestals, and the like. In the rock at the foot of the
+mountain, there are several elegant niches, with Greek inscriptions,
+besides a large natural grotto. Below them, the water gushes up through
+the stones, in a hundred streams, forming a flood of considerable size. We
+have made our camp in an olive grove near the end of the village, beside
+an immense terebinth tree, which is inclosed in an open court, paved with
+stone. This is the town-hall of Banias, where the Shekh dispenses justice,
+and at the same time, the resort of all the idlers of the place. We went
+up among them, soon after our arrival, and were given seats of honor near
+the Shekh, who talked with me a long time about America. The people
+exhibit a very sensible curiosity, desiring to know the extent of our
+country, the number of inhabitants, the amount of taxation, the price of
+grain, and other solid information.</p>
+
+<p>The Shekh and the men of the place inform us that the Druses are infesting
+the road to Damascus. This tribe is in rebellion in Djebel Hauaran, on
+account of the conscription, and some of them, it appears, have taken
+refuge in the fastnesses of Hermon, where they are beginning to plunder
+travellers. While I was talking with the Shekh, a Druse came down from the
+mountains, and sat for half an hour among the villagers, under the
+terebinth, and we have just heard that he has gone back the way he came.
+This fact has given us some anxiety, as he may have been a spy sent down
+to gather news and, if so, we are almost certain to be waylaid. If we were
+well armed, we should not fear a dozen, but all our weapons consist of a
+sword and four pistols. After consulting together, we decided to apply to
+the Shekh for two armed men, to accompany us. I accordingly went to him
+again, and exhibited the firman of the Pasha of Jerusalem, which he read,
+stating that, even without it, he would have felt it his duty to grant our
+request. This is the graceful way in which the Orientals submit to a
+peremptory order. He thinks that one man will be sufficient, as we shall
+probably not meet with any large party.</p>
+
+<p>The day has been, and still is, excessively hot. The atmosphere is
+sweltering, and all around us, over the thick patches of mallow and wild
+mustard, the bees are humming with a continuous sultry sound. The Shekh,
+with a number of lazy villagers, is still seated under the terebinth, in a
+tent of shade, impervious to the sun. I can hear the rush of the fountains
+of Banias--the holy springs of Hermon, whence Jordan is born. But what is
+this? The odor of the velvety weed of Shiraz meets my nostrils; a
+dark-eyed son of Pan places the narghileh at my feet; and, bubbling more
+sweetly than the streams of Jordan, the incense most dear to the god dims
+the crystal censer, and floats from my lips in rhythmic ejaculations. I,
+too, am in Arcadia!</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch08">
+<h2>Chapter VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Harmless Guard--C&aelig;sarea Philippi--The Valley of the Druses--The
+  Sides of Mount Hermon--An Alarm--Threading a Defile--Distant view of
+  Djebel Hauaran--Another Alarm--Camp at Katana--We Ride into Damascus.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Damascus, <i>May</i> 12, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We rose early, so as to be ready for a long march. The guard came--a
+mild-looking Arab--without arms; but on our refusing to take him thus, he
+brought a Turkish musket, terrible to behold, but quite guiltless of any
+murderous intent. We gave ourselves up to fate, with true
+Arab-resignation, and began ascending the Anti-Lebanon. Up and up, by
+stony paths, under the oaks, beside the streams, and between the
+wheat-fields, we climbed for two hours, and at last reached a comb or
+dividing ridge, whence we could look into a valley on the other side, or
+rather inclosed between the main chain and the offshoot named Djebel
+Heish, which stretches away towards the south-east. About half-way up the
+ascent, we passed the ruined acropolis of C&aelig;sarea Philippi, crowning the
+summit of a lower peak. The walls and bastions cover a great extent of
+ground, and were evidently used as a stronghold in the Middle Ages.</p>
+
+<p>The valley into which we descended lay directly under one of the peaks of
+Hermon and the rills that watered it were fed from his snow-fields. It was
+inhabited by Druses, but no men were to be seen, except a few poor
+husbandmen, ploughing on the mountain-sides. The women, wearing those
+enormous horns on their heads which distinguish them from the Mohammedan
+females, were washing at a pool below. We crossed the valley, and slowly
+ascended the height on the opposite side, taking care to keep with the
+baggage-mules. Up to this time, we met very few persons; and we forgot the
+anticipated perils in contemplating the rugged scenery of the
+Anti-Lebanon. The mountain-sides were brilliant with flowers, and many new
+and beautiful specimens arrested our attention. The asphodel grew in
+bunches beside the streams, and the large scarlet anemone outshone even
+the poppy, whose color here is the quintessence of flame. Five hours after
+leaving Banias, we reached the highest part of the pass--a dreary volcanic
+region, covered with fragments of lava. Just at this place, an old Arab
+met us, and, after scanning us closely, stopped and accosted Dervish. The
+latter immediately came running ahead, quite excited with the news that
+the old man had seen a company of about fifty Druses descend from the
+sides of Mount Hermon, towards the road we were to travel. We immediately
+ordered the baggage to halt, and Mr. Harrison, Fran&ccedil;ois, and myself rode
+on to reconnoitre. Our guard, the valiant man of Banias, whose teeth
+already chattered with fear, prudently kept with the baggage. We crossed
+the ridge and watched the stony mountain-sides for some time; but no spear
+or glittering gun-barrel could we see. The caravan was then set in motion;
+and we had not proceeded far before we met a second company of Arabs, who
+informed us that the road was free.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the heights, we descended cautiously into a ravine with walls of
+rough volcanic rock on each side. It was a pass where three men might have
+stood their ground against a hundred; and we did not feel thoroughly
+convinced of our safety till we had threaded its many windings and emerged
+upon a narrow valley. A village called Beit Jenn nestled under the rocks;
+and below it, a grove of poplar-trees shaded the banks of a rapid stream.
+We had now fairly crossed the Anti-Lebanon. The dazzling snows of Mount
+Hermon overhung us on the west; and, from the opening of the valley, we
+looked across a wild, waste country, to the distant range of Djebel
+Hauaran, the seat of the present rebellion, and one of the most
+interesting regions of Syria. I regretted more than ever not being able to
+reach it. The ruins of Bozrah, Ezra, and other ancient cities, would well
+repay the arduous character of the journey, while the traveller might
+succeed in getting some insight into the life and habits of that singular
+people, the Druses. But now, and perhaps for some time to come, there is
+no chance of entering the Hauaran.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the middle of the afternoon, we reached a large village, which is
+usually the end of the first day's journey from Banias. Our men wanted to
+stop here, but we considered that to halt then would be to increase the
+risk, and decided to push on to Katana, four hours' journey from Damascus.
+They yielded with a bad grace; and we jogged on over the stony road,
+crossing the long hills which form the eastern base of the Anti-Lebanon.
+Before long, another Arab met us with the news that there was an
+encampment of Druses on the plain between us and Katana. At this, our
+guard, who had recovered sufficient spirit to ride a few paces in advance,
+fell back, and the impassive Dervish became greatly agitated. Where there
+is an uncertain danger, it is always better to go ahead than to turn back;
+and we did so. But the guard reined up on the top of the first ridge,
+trembling as he pointed to a distant hill, and cried out: <i>"Ah&ograve;, ah&ograve;
+hen&agrave;k!"</i> (There they are!) There were, in fact, the shadows of some rocks,
+which bore a faint resemblance to tents. Before sunset, we reached the
+last declivity of the mountains, and saw far in the dusky plain, the long
+green belt of the gardens of Damascus, and here and there the indistinct
+glimmer of a minaret. Katana, our resting-place for the night, lay below
+us, buried in orchards of olive and orange. We pitched our tents on the
+banks of a beautiful stream, enjoyed the pipe of tranquillity, after our
+long march, and soon forgot the Druses, in a slumber that lasted unbroken
+till dawn.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning we sent back the man of Banias, left the baggage to take
+care of itself, and rode on to Damascus, as fast as our tired horses could
+carry us. The plain, at first barren and stony, became enlivened with
+vineyards and fields of wheat, as we advanced. Arabs were everywhere at
+work, ploughing and directing the water-courses. The belt of living green,
+the bower in which the great city, the Queen of the Orient, hides her
+beauty, drew nearer and nearer, stretching out a crescent of foliage for
+miles on either hand, that gradually narrowed and received us into its
+cool and fragrant heart. We sank into a sea of olive, pomegranate, orange,
+plum, apricot, walnut, and plane trees, and were lost. The sun sparkled in
+the rolling surface above; but we swam through the green depths, below
+his reach, and thus, drifted on through miles of shade, entered the city.</p>
+
+<p>Since our arrival, I find that two other parties of travellers, one of
+which crossed the Anti-Lebanon on the northern side of Mount Hermon, were
+obliged to take guards, and saw several Druse spies posted on the heights,
+as they passed. A Russian gentleman travelling from here to Tiberias, was
+stopped three times on the road, and only escaped being plundered from the
+fact of his having a Druse dragoman. The disturbances are more serious
+than I had anticipated. Four regiments left here yesterday, sent to the
+aid of a company of cavalry, which is surrounded by the rebels in a valley
+of Dejebel Hauaran, and unable to get out.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch09">
+<h2>Chapter IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>Pictures of Damascus.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
+  Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
+  Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
+  Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
+  of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the
+  waters of Israel?"--2 Kings, v. 12.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Damascus, <i>Wednesday, May</i> 19, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Damascus is considered by many travellers as the best remaining type of an
+Oriental city. Constantinople is semi-European; Cairo is fast becoming so;
+but Damascus, away from the highways of commerce, seated alone between the
+Lebanon and the Syrian Desert, still retains, in its outward aspect and in
+the character of its inhabitants, all the pride and fancy and fanaticism
+of the times of the Caliphs. With this judgment, in general terms, I
+agree; but not to its ascendancy, in every respect, over Cairo. True, when
+you behold Damascus from the Salahiyeh, the last slope of the
+Anti-Lebanon, it is the realization of all that you have dreamed of
+Oriental splendor; the world has no picture more dazzling. It is Beauty
+carried to the Sublime, as I have felt when overlooking some boundless
+forest of palms within the tropics. From the hill, whose ridges heave
+behind you until in the south they rise to the snowy head of Mount Hermon,
+the great Syrian plain stretches away to the Euphrates, broken at
+distances of ten and fifteen miles, by two detached mountain chains. In a
+terrible gorge at your side, the river Barrada, the ancient Pharpar,
+forces its way to the plain, and its waters, divided into twelve different
+channels, make all between you and those blue island-hills of the desert,
+one great garden, the boundaries of which your vision can barely
+distinguish. Its longest diameter cannot be less than twenty miles. You
+look down on a world of foliage, and fruit, and blossoms, whose hue, by
+contrast with the barren mountains and the yellow rim of the desert which
+incloses it, seems brighter than all other gardens in the world. Through
+its centre, following the course of the river, lies Damascus; a line of
+white walls, topped with domes and towers and tall minarets, winding away
+for miles through the green sea. Nothing less than a city of palaces,
+whose walls are marble and whose doors are ivory and pearl, could keep up
+the enchantment of that distant view.</p>
+
+<p>We rode for an hour through the gardens before entering the gate. The
+fruit-trees, of whatever variety---walnut, olive, apricot, or fig--were
+the noblest of their kind. Roses and pomegranates in bloom starred the
+dark foliage, and the scented jasmine overhung the walls. But as we
+approached the city, the view was obscured by high mud walls on either
+side of the road, and we only caught glimpses now and then of the fragrant
+wilderness. The first street we entered was low and mean, the houses of
+clay. Following this, we came to an uncovered bazaar, with rude shops on
+either side, protected by mats stretched in front and supported by poles.
+Here all sorts of common stuns and utensils were sold, and the street was
+filled with crowds of Fellahs and Desert Arabs. Two large sycamores shaded
+it, and the Seraglio of the Pasha of Damascus, a plain two-story building,
+faced the entrance of the main bazaar, which branched off into the city.
+We turned into this, and after passing through several small bazaars
+stocked with dried fruits, pipes and pipe-bowls, groceries, and all the
+primitive wares of the East, reached a large passage, covered with a steep
+wooden roof, and entirely occupied by venders of silk stuffs. Out of this
+we passed through another, devoted to saddles and bridles; then another,
+full of spices, and at last reached the grand bazaar, where all the
+richest stuffs of Europe and the East were displayed in the shops. We rode
+slowly along through the cool twilight, crossed here and there by long
+pencils of white light, falling through apertures in the roof, and
+illuminating the gay turbans and silk caftans of the lazy merchants. But
+out of this bazaar, at intervals, opened the grand gate of a khan, giving
+us a view of its marble court, its fountains, and the dark arches of its
+storerooms; or the door of a mosque, with its mosaic floor and pillared
+corridor. The interminable lines of bazaars, with their atmospheres of
+spice and fruit and fragrant tobacco, the hushed tread of the slippered
+crowds; the plash of falling fountains and the bubbling of innumerable
+narghilehs; the picturesque merchants and their customers, no longer in
+the big trowsers of Egypt, but the long caftans and abas of Syria; the
+absence of Frank faces and dresses--in all these there was the true spirit
+of the Orient, and so far, we were charmed with Damascus.</p>
+
+<p>At the hotel in the Soog el-Har&agrave;b, or Frank quarter, the illusion was not
+dissipated. It had once been the house of some rich merchant. The court
+into which we were ushered is paved with marble, with a great stone basin,
+surrounded with vases of flowering plants, in the centre. Two large lemon
+trees shade the entrance, and a vine, climbing to the top of the house,
+makes a leafy arbor over the flat roof. The walls of the house are painted
+in horizontal bars of blue, white, orange and white--a gay grotesqueness
+of style which does not offend the eye under an eastern sun. On the
+southern side of the court is the <i>liwan</i>, an arrangement for which the
+houses of Damascus are noted. It is a vaulted apartment, twenty feet high,
+entirely open towards the court, except a fine pointed arch at the top,
+decorated with encaustic ornaments of the most brilliant colors. In front,
+a tesselated pavement of marble leads to the doors of the chambers on each
+side. Beyond this is a raised floor covered with matting, and along the
+farther end a divan, whose piled cushions are the most tempting trap ever
+set to catch a lazy man. Although not naturally indolent, I find it
+impossible to resist the fascination of this lounge. Leaning back,
+cross-legged, against the cushions, with the inseparable pipe in one's
+hand, the view of the court, the water-basin, the flowers and lemon trees,
+the servants and dragomen going back and forth, or smoking their
+narghilehs in the shade--all framed in the beautiful arched entrance, is
+so perfectly Oriental, so true a tableau from the times of good old Haroun
+Al-Raschid, that one is surprised to find how many hours have slipped away
+while he has been silently enjoying it.</p>
+
+<p>Opposite the <i>liwan</i> is a large room paved with marble, with a handsome
+fountain in the centre. It is the finest in the hotel, and now occupied
+by Lord Dalkeith and his friends. Our own room is on the upper floor, and
+is so rich in decorations that I have not yet finished the study of them.
+Along the side, looking down on the court, we have a mosaic floor of
+white, red, black and yellow marble. Above this is raised a second floor,
+carpeted and furnished in European style. The walls, for a height of ten
+feet, are covered with wooden panelling, painted with arabesque devices in
+the gayest colors, and along the top there is a series of Arabic
+inscriptions in gold. There are a number of niches or open closets in the
+walls, whose arched tops are adorned with pendent wooden ornaments,
+resembling stalactites, and at the corners of the room the heavy gilded
+and painted cornice drops into similar grotesque incrustations. A space of
+bare white wall intervenes between this cornice and the ceiling, which is
+formed of slim poplar logs, laid side by side, and so covered with paint
+and with scales and stripes and network devices in gold and silver, that
+one would take them to be clothed with the skins of the magic serpents
+that guard the Valley of Diamonds. My most satisfactory remembrance of
+Damascus will be this room.</p>
+
+<p>My walks through the city have been almost wholly confined to the bazaars,
+which are of immense extent. One can walk for many miles, without going
+beyond the cover of their peaked wooden roofs, and in all this round will
+find no two precisely alike. One is devoted entirely to soap; another to
+tobacco, through which you cough and sneeze your way to the bazaar of
+spices, and delightedly inhale its perfumed air. Then there is the bazaar
+of sweetmeats; of vegetables; of red slippers; of shawls; of caftans; of
+bakers and ovens; of wooden ware; of jewelry---a great stone building,
+covered with vaulted passages; of Aleppo silks; of Baghdad carpets; of
+Indian stuffs; of coffee; and so on, through a seemingly endless variety.
+As I have already remarked, along the line of the bazaars are many khans,
+the resort of merchants from all parts of Turkey and Persia, and even
+India. They are large, stately buildings, and some of them have superb
+gateways of sculptured marble. The interior courts are paved with stone,
+with fountains in the centre, and many of them are covered with domes
+resting on massive pillars. The largest has a roof of nine domes,
+supported by four grand pillars, which inclose a fountain. The mosques,
+into which no Christian is allowed to enter, are in general inferior to
+those of Cairo, but their outer courts are always paved with marble,
+adorned with fountains, and surrounded by light and elegant corridors. The
+grand mosque is an imposing edifice, and is said to occupy the site of a
+former Christian church.</p>
+
+<p>Another pleasant feature of the city is its coffee shops, which abound in
+the bazaars and on the outskirts of the gardens, beside the running
+streams. Those in the bazaars are spacious rooms with vaulted ceilings,
+divans running around the four walls, and fountains in the centre. During
+the afternoon they are nearly always filled with Turks, Armenians and
+Persians, smoking the narghileh, or water-pipe, which is the universal
+custom in Damascus. The Persian tobacco, brought here by the caravans from
+Baghdad, is renowned for this kind of smoking. The most popular
+coffee-shop is near the citadel, on the banks and over the surface of the
+Pharpar. It is a rough wooden building, with a roof of straw mats, but the
+sight and sound of the rushing waters, as they shoot away with arrowy
+swiftness under your feet, the shade of the trees that line the banks,
+and the cool breeze that always visits the spot, beguile you into a second
+pipe ere you are aware. <i>"El m&agrave;, wa el kh&ograve;dra, wa el widj el
+hass&agrave;n</i>--water, verdure and a beautiful face," says an old Arab proverb,
+"are three things which delight the heart," and the Syrians avow that all
+three are to be found in Damascus. Not only on the three Sundays of each
+week, but every day, in the gardens about the city, you may see whole
+families (and if Jews or Christians, many groups of families) spending the
+day in the shade, beside the beautiful waters. There are several gardens
+fitted up purposely for these picnics, with kiosks, fountains and pleasant
+seats under the trees. You bring your pipes, your provisions and the like
+with you, but servants are in attendance to furnish fire and water and
+coffee, for which, on leaving, you give them a small gratuity. Of all the
+Damascenes I have yet seen, there is not one but declares his city to be
+the Garden of the World, the Pearl of the Orient, and thanks God and the
+Prophet for having permitted him to be born and to live in it. But, except
+the bazaars, the khans and the baths, of which there are several most
+luxurious establishments, the city itself is neither so rich nor so purely
+Saracenic in its architecture as Cairo. The streets are narrow and dirty,
+and the houses, which are never more than two low stories in height, are
+built of sun-dried bricks, coated with plaster. I miss the solid piles of
+stone, the elegant doorways, and, above all, the exquisite hanging
+balconies of carved wood, which meet one in the old streets of Cairo.
+Damascus is the representative of all that is gay, brilliant, and
+picturesque, in Oriental life; but for stately magnificence, Cairo, and, I
+suspect, Baghdad, is its superior.</p>
+
+<p>We visited the other day the houses of some of the richest Jews and
+Christians. Old Abou-Ibrahim, the Jewish servant of the hotel, accompanied
+and introduced us. It is customary for travellers to make these visits,
+and the families, far from being annoyed, are flattered by it. The
+exteriors of the houses are mean; but after threading a narrow passage, we
+emerged into a court, rivalling in profusion of ornament and rich contrast
+of colors one's early idea of the Palace of Aladdin. The floors and
+fountains are all of marble mosaic; the arches of the <i>liwan</i> glitter with
+gold, and the walls bewilder the eye with the intricacy of their
+adornments. In the first house, we were received by the family in a room
+of precious marbles, with niches in the walls, resembling grottoes of
+silver stalactites. The cushions of the divan were of the richest silk,
+and a chandelier of Bohemian crystal hung from the ceiling. Silver
+narghilehs were brought to us, and coffee was served in heavy silver
+<i>zerfs</i>. The lady of the house was a rather corpulent lady of about
+thirty-five, and wore a semi-European robe of embroidered silk and lace,
+with full trowsers gathered at the ankles, and yellow slippers. Her black
+hair was braided, and fastened at the end with golden ornaments, and the
+light scarf twisted around her head blazed with diamonds. The lids of her
+large eyes were stained with <i>kohl</i>, and her eyebrows were plucked out and
+shaved away so as to leave only a thin, arched line, as if drawn with a
+pencil, above each eye. Her daughter, a girl of fifteen, who bore the
+genuine Hebrew name of Rachel, had even bigger and blacker eyes than her
+mother; but her forehead was low, her mouth large, and the expression of
+her face exceedingly stupid. The father of the family was a middle-aged
+man, with a well-bred air, and talked with an Oriental politeness which
+was very refreshing. An English lady, who was of our party, said to him,
+through me, that if she possessed such a house she should be willing to
+remain in Damascus. "Why does she leave, then?" he immediately answered:
+"this is her house, and everything that is in it." Speaking of visiting
+Jerusalem, he asked me whether it was not a more beautiful city than
+Damascus. "It is not more beautiful," I said, "but it is more holy," an
+expression which the whole company received with great satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>The second house we visited was even larger and richer than the first, but
+had an air of neglect and decay. The slabs of rich marble were loose and
+broken, about the edges of the fountains; the rich painting of the
+wood-work was beginning to fade; and the balustrades leading to the upper
+chambers were broken off in places. We were ushered into a room, the walls
+and ceilings of which were composed entirely of gilded arabesque
+frame-work, set with small mirrors. When new, it must have had a gorgeous
+effect; but the gold is now tarnished, and the glasses dim. The mistress
+of the house was seated on the cushions, dividing her time between her
+pipe and her needle-work. She merely made a slight inclination of her head
+as we entered, and went on with her occupation. Presently her two
+daughters and an Abyssinian slave appeared, and took their places on the
+cushions at her feet, the whole forming a charming group, which I
+regretted some of my artist friends at home could not see. The mistress
+was so exceedingly dignified, that she bestowed but few words on us. She
+seemed to resent our admiration of the slave, who was a most graceful
+creature; yet her jealousy, it afterwards appeared, had reference to her
+own husband, for we had scarcely left, when a servant followed to inform
+the English lady that if she was willing to buy the Abyssinian, the
+mistress would sell her at once for two thousand piastres.</p>
+
+<p>The last visit we paid was to the dwelling of a Maronite, the richest
+Christian in Damascus. The house resembled those we had already seen,
+except that, having been recently built, it was in better condition, and
+exhibited better taste in the ornaments. No one but the lady was allowed
+to enter the female apartments, the rest of us being entertained by the
+proprietor, a man of fifty, and without exception the handsomest and most
+dignified person of that age I have ever seen. He was a king without a
+throne, and fascinated me completely by the noble elegance of his manner.
+In any country but the Orient, I should have pronounced him incapable of
+an unworthy thought: here, he may be exactly the reverse.</p>
+
+<p>Although Damascus is considered the oldest city in the world, the date of
+its foundation going beyond tradition, there are very few relics of
+antiquity in or near it. In the bazaar are three large pillars, supporting
+half the pediment, which are said to have belonged to the Christian Church
+of St. John, but, if so, that church must have been originally a Roman
+temple. Part of the Roman walls and one of the city gates remain; and we
+saw the spot where, according to tradition, Saul was let down from the
+wall in a basket. There are two localities pointed out as the scene of his
+conversion, which, from his own account, occurred near the city. I visited
+a subterranean chapel claimed by the Latin monks to be the cellar of the
+house of Ananias, in which the Apostle was concealed. The cellar is,
+undoubtedly, of great antiquity; but as the whole quarter was for many
+centuries inhabited wholly by Turks, it would be curious to know how the
+monks ascertained which was the house of Ananias. As for the "street
+called Straight," it would be difficult at present to find any in Damascus
+corresponding to that epithet.</p>
+
+<p>The famous Damascus blades, so renowned in the time of the Crusaders, are
+made here no longer. The art has been lost for three or four centuries.
+Yet genuine old swords, of the true steel, are occasionally to be found.
+They are readily distinguished from modern imitations by their clear and
+silvery ring when struck, and by the finely watered appearance of the
+blade, produced by its having been first made of woven wire, and then
+worked over and over again until it attained the requisite temper. A droll
+Turk, who is the <i>shekh ed-dell&agrave;l,</i> or Chief of the Auctioneers, and is
+nicknamed Abou-Anteeka (the Father of the Antiques), has a large
+collection of sabres, daggers, pieces of mail, shields, pipes, rings,
+seals, and other ancient articles. He demands enormous prices, but
+generally takes about one-third of what he first asks. I have spent
+several hours in his curiosity shop, bargaining for turquoise rings,
+carbuncles, Persian amulets, and Circassian daggers. While looking over
+some old swords the other day, I noticed one of exquisite temper, but with
+a shorter blade than usual. The point had apparently been snapped off in
+fight, but owing to the excellence of the sword, or the owner's affection
+for it, the steel had been carefully shaped into a new point. Abou-Anteeka
+asked five hundred piastres, and I, who had taken a particular fancy to
+possess it, offered him two hundred in an indifferent way, and then laid
+it aside to examine other articles. After his refusal to accept my offer,
+I said nothing more, and was leaving the shop, when the old fellow called
+me back, saying: "You have forgotten your sword,"--which I thereupon took
+at my own price. I have shown it to Mr. Wood, the British Consul, who
+pronounced it an extremely fine specimen of Damascus steel; and, on
+reading the inscription enamelled upon the blade, ascertains that it was
+made in the year of the Hegira, 181, which corresponds to A.D. 798. This
+was during the Caliphate of Haroun Al-Raschid, and who knows but the sword
+may have once flashed in the presence of that great and glorious
+sovereign--nay, been drawn by his own hand! Who knows but that the Milan
+armor of the Crusaders may have shivered its point, on the field of
+Askalon! I kiss the veined azure of thy blade, O Sword of Haroun! I hang
+the crimson cords of thy scabbard upon my shoulder, and thou shalt
+henceforth clank in silver music at my side, singing to my ear, and mine
+alone, thy chants of battle, thy rejoicing songs of slaughter!</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday evening, three gentlemen of Lord Dalkeith's party arrived from a
+trip to Palmyra. The road thither lies through a part of the Syrian Desert
+belonging to the Aneyzeh tribe, who are now supposed to be in league with
+the Druses, against the Government. Including this party, only six persons
+have succeeded in reaching Palmyra within a year, and two of them, Messrs.
+Noel and Cathcart, were imprisoned four days by the Arabs, and only
+escaped by the accidental departure of a caravan for Damascus. The present
+party was obliged to travel almost wholly by night, running the gauntlet
+of a dozen Arab encampments, and was only allowed a day's stay at Palmyra.
+They were all disguised as Bedouins, and took nothing with them but the
+necessary provisions. They made their appearance here last evening, in
+long, white abas, with the Bedouin <i>keffie</i> bound over their heads, their
+faces burnt, their eyes inflamed, and their frames feverish with seven
+days and nights of travel. The shekh who conducted them was not an
+Aneyzeh, and would have lost his life had they fallen in with any of that
+tribe.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch10">
+<h2>Chapter X.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Visions of Hasheesh.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,<br />
+Possessed beyond the Muse's painting."</p>
+
+<p>  Collins.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>During my stay in Damascus, that insatiable curiosity which leads me to
+prefer the acquisition of all lawful knowledge through the channels of my
+own personal experience, rather than in less satisfactory and less
+laborious ways, induced me to make a trial of the celebrated
+<i>Hasheesh</i>--that remarkable drug which supplies the luxurious Syrian with
+dreams more alluring and more gorgeous than the Chinese extracts from his
+darling opium pipe. The use of Hasheesh--which is a preparation of the
+dried leaves of the <i>cannabis indica</i>--has been familiar to the East for
+many centuries. During the Crusades, it was frequently used by the Saracen
+warriors to stimulate them to the work of slaughter, and from the Arabic
+term of "<i>Hashashe&euml;n,"</i> or Eaters of Hasheesh, as applied to them, the
+word "assassin" has been naturally derived. An infusion of the same plant
+gives to the drink called "<i>bhang</i>," which is in common use throughout
+India and Malaysia, its peculiar properties. Thus prepared, it is a more
+fierce and fatal stimulant than the paste of sugar and spices to which the
+Turk resorts, as the food of his voluptuous evening reveries. While its
+immediate effects seem to be more potent than those of opium, its
+habitual use, though attended with ultimate and permanent injury to the
+system, rarely results in such utter wreck of mind and body as that to
+which the votaries of the latter drug inevitably condemn themselves.</p>
+
+<p>A previous experience of the effects of hasheesh--which I took once, and
+in a very mild form, while in Egypt--was so peculiar in its character,
+that my curiosity, instead of being satisfied, only prompted me the more
+to throw myself, for once, wholly under its influence. The sensations it
+then produced were those, physically, of exquisite lightness and
+airiness--of a wonderfully keen perception of the ludicrous, in the most
+simple and familiar objects. During the half hour in which it lasted, I
+was at no time so far under its control, that I could not, with the
+clearest perception, study the changes through which I passed. I noted,
+with careful attention, the fine sensations which spread throughout the
+whole tissue of my nervous fibre, each thrill helping to divest my frame
+of its earthy and material nature, until my substance appeared to me no
+grosser than the vapors of the atmosphere, and while sitting in the calm
+of the Egyptian twilight, I expected to be lifted up and carried away by
+the first breeze that should ruffle the Nile. While this process was going
+on, the objects by which I was surrounded assumed a strange and whimsical
+expression. My pipe, the oars which my boatmen plied, the turban worn by
+the captain, the water-jars and culinary implements, became in themselves
+so inexpressibly absurd and comical, that I was provoked into a long fit
+of laughter. The hallucination died away as gradually as it came, leaving
+me overcome with a soft and pleasant drowsiness, from which I sank into a
+deep, refreshing sleep.</p>
+
+<p>My companion and an English gentleman, who, with his wife, was also
+residing in Antonio's pleasant caravanserai--agreed to join me in the
+experiment. The dragoman of the latter was deputed to procure a sufficient
+quantity of the drug. He was a dark Egyptian, speaking only the <i>lingua
+franca</i> of the East, and asked me, as he took the money and departed on
+his mission, whether he should get hasheesh "<i>per ridere, a per dormire?</i>"
+"Oh, <i>per ridere</i>, of course," I answered; "and see that it be strong and
+fresh." It is customary with the Syrians to take a small portion
+immediately before the evening meal, as it is thus diffused through the
+stomach and acts more gradually, as well as more gently, upon the system.
+As our dinner-hour was at sunset, I proposed taking hasheesh at that time,
+but my friends, fearing that its operation might be more speedy upon fresh
+subjects, and thus betray them into some absurdity in the presence of the
+other travellers, preferred waiting until after the meal. It was then
+agreed that we should retire to our room, which, as it rose like a tower
+one story higher than the rest of the building, was in a manner isolated,
+and would screen us from observation.</p>
+
+<p>We commenced by taking a tea-spoonful each of the mixture which Abdallah
+had procured. This was about the quantity I had taken in Egypt, and as the
+effect then had been so slight, I judged that we ran no risk of taking an
+over-dose. The strength of the drug, however, must have been far greater
+in this instance, for whereas I could in the former case distinguish no
+flavor but that of sugar and rose leaves, I now found the taste intensely
+bitter and repulsive to the palate. We allowed the paste to dissolve
+slowly on our tongues, and sat some time, quietly waiting the result. But,
+having been taken upon a full stomach, its operation was hindered, and
+after the lapse of nearly an hour, we could not detect the least change in
+our feelings. My friends loudly expressed their conviction of the humbug
+of hasheesh, but I, unwilling to give up the experiment at this point,
+proposed that we should take an additional half spoonful, and follow it
+with a cup of hot tea, which, if there were really any virtue in the
+preparation, could not fail to call it into action. This was done, though
+not without some misgivings, as we were all ignorant of the precise
+quantity which constituted a dose, and the limits within which the drug
+could be taken with safety. It was now ten o'clock; the streets of
+Damascus were gradually becoming silent, and the fair city was bathed in
+the yellow lustre of the Syrian moon. Only in the marble court-yard below
+us, a few dragomen and <i>mukkairee</i> lingered under the lemon-trees, and
+beside the fountain in the centre.</p>
+
+<p>I was seated alone, nearly in the middle of the room, talking with my
+friends, who were lounging upon a sofa placed in a sort of alcove, at the
+farther end, when the same fine nervous thrill, of which I have spoken,
+suddenly shot through me. But this time it was accompanied with a burning
+sensation at the pit of the stomach; and, instead of growing upon me with
+the gradual pace of healthy slumber, and resolving me, as before, into
+air, it came with the intensity of a pang, and shot throbbing along the
+nerves to the extremities of my body. The sense of limitation---of the
+confinement of our senses within the bounds of our own flesh and
+blood--instantly fell away. The walls of my frame were burst outward and
+tumbled into ruin; and, without thinking what form I wore--losing sight
+even of all idea of form--I felt that I existed throughout a vast extent
+of space. The blood, pulsed from my heart, sped through uncounted leagues
+before it reached my extremities; the air drawn into my lungs expanded
+into seas of limpid ether, and the arch of my skull was broader than the
+vault of heaven. Within the concave that held my brain, were the
+fathomless deeps of blue; clouds floated there, and the winds of heaven
+rolled them together, and there shone the orb of the sun. It was--though I
+thought not of that at the time--like a revelation of the mystery of
+omnipresence. It is difficult to describe this sensation, or the rapidity
+with which it mastered me. In the state of mental exaltation in which I
+was then plunged, all sensations, as they rose, suggested more or less
+coherent images. They presented themselves to me in a double form: one
+physical, and therefore to a certain extent tangible; the other spiritual,
+and revealing itself in a succession of splendid metaphors. The physical
+feeling of extended being was accompanied by the image of an exploding
+meteor, not subsiding into darkness, but continuing to shoot from its
+centre or nucleus--which corresponded to the burning spot at the pit of my
+stomach--incessant adumbrations of light that finally lost themselves in
+the infinity of space. To my mind, even now, this image is still the best
+illustration of my sensations, as I recall them; but I greatly doubt
+whether the reader will find it equally clear.</p>
+
+<p>My curiosity was now in a way of being satisfied; the Spirit (demon, shall
+I not rather say?) of Hasheesh had entire possession of me. I was cast
+upon the flood of his illusions, and drifted helplessly whithersoever they
+might choose to bear me. The thrills which ran through my nervous system
+became more rapid and fierce, accompanied with sensations that steeped my
+whole being in unutterable rapture. I was encompassed by a sea of light,
+through which played the pure, harmonious colors that are born of light.
+While endeavoring, in broken expressions, to describe my feelings to my
+friends, who sat looking upon me incredulously--not yet having been
+affected by the drug--I suddenly found myself at the foot of the great
+Pyramid of Cheops. The tapering courses of yellow limestone gleamed like
+gold in the sun, and the pile rose so high that it seemed to lean for
+support upon the blue arch of the sky. I wished to ascend it, and the wish
+alone placed me immediately upon its apex, lifted thousands of feet above
+the wheat-fields and palm-groves of Egypt. I cast my eyes downward, and,
+to my astonishment, saw that it was built, not of limestone, but of huge
+square plugs of Cavendish tobacco! Words cannot paint the overwhelming
+sense of the ludicrous which I then experienced. I writhed on my chair in
+an agony of laughter, which was only relieved by the vision melting away
+like a dissolving view; till, out of my confusion of indistinct images and
+fragments of images, another and more wonderful vision arose.</p>
+
+<p>The more vividly I recall the scene which followed, the more carefully I
+restore its different features, and separate the many threads of sensation
+which it wove into one gorgeous web, the more I despair of representing
+its exceeding glory. I was moving over the Desert, not upon the rocking
+dromedary, but seated in a barque made of mother-of-pearl, and studded
+with jewels of surpassing lustre. The sand was of grains of gold, and my
+keel slid through them without jar or sound. The air was radiant with
+excess of light, though no sun was to be seen. I inhaled the most
+delicious perfumes; and harmonies, such as Beethoven may have heard in
+dreams, but never wrote, floated around me. The atmosphere itself was
+light, odor, music; and each and all sublimated beyond anything the sober
+senses are capable of receiving. Before me--for a thousand leagues, as it
+seemed--stretched a vista of rainbows, whose colors gleamed with the
+splendor of gems--arches of living amethyst, sapphire, emerald, topaz, and
+ruby. By thousands and tens of thousands, they flew past me, as my
+dazzling barge sped down the magnificent arcade; yet the vista still
+stretched as far as ever before me. I revelled in a sensuous elysium,
+which was perfect, because no sense was left ungratified. But beyond all,
+my mind was filled with a boundless feeling of triumph. My journey was
+that of a conqueror--not of a conqueror who subdues his race, either by
+Love or by Will, for I forgot that Man existed--but one victorious over
+the grandest as well as the subtlest forces of Nature. The spirits of
+Light, Color, Odor, Sound, and Motion were my slaves; and, having these, I
+was master of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>Those who are endowed to any extent with the imaginative faculty, must
+have at least once in their lives experienced feelings which may give them
+a clue to the exalted sensuous raptures of my triumphal march. The view of
+a sublime mountain landscape, the hearing of a grand orchestral symphony,
+or of a choral upborne by the "full-voiced organ," or even the beauty and
+luxury of a cloudless summer day, suggests emotions similar in kind, if
+less intense. They took a warmth and glow from that pure animal joy which
+degrades not, but spiritualizes and ennobles our material part, and which
+differs from cold, abstract, intellectual enjoyment, as the flaming
+diamond of the Orient differs from the icicle of the North. Those finer
+senses, which occupy a middle ground between our animal and intellectual
+appetites, were suddenly developed to a pitch beyond what I had ever
+dreamed, and being thus at one and the same time gratified to the fullest
+extent of their preternatural capacity, the result was a single harmonious
+sensation, to describe which human language has no epithet. Mahomet's
+Paradise, with its palaces of ruby and emerald, its airs of musk and
+cassia, and its rivers colder than snow and sweeter than honey, would have
+been a poor and mean terminus for my arcade of rainbows. Yet in the
+character of this paradise, in the gorgeous fancies of the Arabian Nights,
+in the glow and luxury of all Oriental poetry, I now recognize more or
+less of the agency of hasheesh.</p>
+
+<p>The fulness of my rapture expanded the sense of time; and though the whole
+vision was probably not more than five minutes in passing through my mind,
+years seemed to have elapsed while I shot under the dazzling myriads of
+rainbow arches. By and by, the rainbows, the barque of pearl and jewels,
+and the desert of golden sand, vanished; and, still bathed in light and
+perfume, I found myself in a land of green and flowery lawns, divided by
+hills of gently undulating outline. But, although the vegetation was the
+richest of earth, there were neither streams nor fountains to be seen; and
+the people who came from the hills, with brilliant garments that shone in
+the sun, besought me to give them the blessing of water. Their hands were
+full of branches of the coral honeysuckle, in bloom. These I took; and,
+breaking off the flowers one by one, set them in the earth. The slender,
+trumpet-like tubes immediately became shafts of masonry, and sank deep
+into the earth; the lip of the flower changed into a circular mouth of
+rose-colored marble, and the people, leaning over its brink, lowered their
+pitchers to the bottom with cords, and drew them up again, filled to the
+brim, and dripping with honey.</p>
+
+<p>The most remarkable feature of these illusions was, that at the time when
+I was most completely under their influence, I knew myself to be seated in
+the tower of Antonio's hotel in Damascus, knew that I had taken hasheesh,
+and that the strange, gorgeous and ludicrous fancies which possessed me,
+were the effect of it. At the very same instant that I looked upon the
+Valley of the Nile from the pyramid, slid over the Desert, or created my
+marvellous wells in that beautiful pastoral country, I saw the furniture
+of my room, its mosaic pavement, the quaint Saracenic niches in the walls,
+the painted and gilded beams of the ceiling, and the couch in the recess
+before me, with my two companions watching me. Both sensations were
+simultaneous, and equally palpable. While I was most given up to the
+magnificent delusion, I saw its cause and felt its absurdity most clearly.
+Metaphysicians say that the mind is incapable of performing two operations
+at the same time, and may attempt to explain this phenomenon by supposing
+a rapid and incessant vibration of the perceptions between the two states.
+This explanation, however, is not satisfactory to me; for not more clearly
+does a skilful musician with the same breath blow two distinct musical
+notes from a bugle, than I was conscious of two distinct conditions of
+being in the same moment. Yet, singular as it may seem, neither conflicted
+with the other. My enjoyment of the visions was complete and absolute,
+undisturbed by the faintest doubt of their reality, while, in some other
+chamber of my brain, Reason sat coolly watching them, and heaping the
+liveliest ridicule on their fantastic features. One set of nerves was
+thrilled with the bliss of the gods, while another was convulsed with
+unquenchable laughter at that very bliss. My highest ecstacies could not
+bear down and silence the weight of my ridicule, which, in its turn, was
+powerless to prevent me from running into other and more gorgeous
+absurdities. I was double, not "swan and shadow," but rather, Sphinx-like,
+human and beast. A true Sphinx, I was a riddle and a mystery to myself.</p>
+
+<p>The drug, which had been retarded in its operation on account of having
+been taken after a meal, now began to make itself more powerfully felt.
+The visions were more grotesque than ever, but less agreeable; and there
+was a painful tension throughout my nervous system--the effect of
+over-stimulus. I was a mass of transparent jelly, and a confectioner
+poured me into a twisted mould. I threw my chair aside, and writhed and
+tortured myself for some time to force my loose substance into the mould.
+At last, when I had so far succeeded that only one foot remained outside,
+it was lifted off, and another mould, of still more crooked and intricate
+shape, substituted. I have no doubt that the contortions through which I
+went, to accomplish the end of my gelatinous destiny, would have been
+extremely ludicrous to a spectator, but to me they were painful and
+disagreeable. The sober half of me went into fits of laughter over them,
+and through that laughter, my vision shifted into another scene. I had
+laughed until my eyes overflowed profusely. Every drop that fell,
+immediately became a large loaf of bread, and tumbled upon the shop-board
+of a baker in the bazaar at Damascus. The more I laughed, the faster the
+loaves fell, until such a pile was raised about the baker, that I could
+hardly see the top of his head. "The man will be suffocated," I cried,
+"but if he were to die, I cannot stop!"</p>
+
+<p>My perceptions now became more dim and confused. I felt that I was in the
+grasp of some giant force; and, in the glimmering of my fading reason,
+grew earnestly alarmed, for the terrible stress under which my frame
+labored increased every moment. A fierce and furious heat radiated from my
+stomach throughout my system; my mouth and throat were as dry and hard as
+if made of brass, and my tongue, it seemed to me, was a bar of rusty iron.
+I seized a pitcher of water, and drank long and deeply; but I might as
+well have drunk so much air, for not only did it impart no moisture, but
+my palate and throat gave me no intelligence of having drunk at all. I
+stood in the centre of the room, brandishing my arms convulsively, an
+heaving sighs that seemed to shatter my whole being. "Will no one," I
+cried in distress, "cast out this devil that has possession of me?" I no
+longer saw the room nor my friends, but I heard one of them saying, "It
+must be real; he could not counterfeit such an expression as that. But it
+don't look much like pleasure." Immediately afterwards there was a scream
+of the wildest laughter, and my countryman sprang upon the floor,
+exclaiming, "O, ye gods! I am a locomotive!" This was his ruling
+hallucination; and, for the space of two or three hours, he continued to
+pace to and fro with a measured stride, exhaling his breath in violent
+jets, and when he spoke, dividing his words into syllables, each of which
+he brought out with a jerk, at the same time turning his hands at his
+sides, as if they were the cranks of imaginary wheels, The Englishman, as
+soon as he felt the dose beginning to take effect, prudently retreated to
+his own room, and what the nature of his visions was, we never learned,
+for he refused to tell, and, moreover, enjoined the strictest silence on
+his wife.</p>
+
+<p>By this time it was nearly midnight. I had passed through the Paradise of
+Hasheesh, and was plunged at once into its fiercest Hell. In my ignorance
+I had taken what, I have since learned, would have been a sufficient
+portion for six men, and was now paying a frightful penalty for my
+curiosity. The excited blood rushed through my frame with a sound like the
+roaring of mighty waters. It was projected into my eyes until I could no
+longer see; it beat thickly in my ears, and so throbbed in my heart, that
+I feared the ribs would give way under its blows. I tore open my vest,
+placed my hand over the spot, and tried to count the pulsations; but there
+were two hearts, one beating at the rate of a thousand beats a minute, and
+the other with a slow, dull motion. My throat, I thought, was filled to
+the brim with blood, and streams of blood were pouring from my ears. I
+felt them gushing warm down my cheeks and neck. With a maddened, desperate
+feeling, I fled from the room, and walked over the flat, terraced roof of
+the house. My body seemed to shrink and grow rigid as I wrestled with the
+demon, and my face to become wild, lean and haggard. Some lines which had
+struck me, years before, in reading Mrs. Browning's "Rhyme of the Duchess
+May," flashed into my mind:--</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "And the horse, in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;On the last verge, rears amain;<br />
+And he hangs, he rocks between--and his nostrils curdle in--<br />
+And he shivers, head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And his face grows fierce and thin."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That picture of animal terror and agony was mine. I was the horse,
+hanging poised on the verge of the giddy tower, the next moment to be
+borne sheer down to destruction. Involuntarily, I raised my hand to feel
+the leanness and sharpness of my face. Oh horror! the flesh had fallen
+from my bones, and it was a skeleton head that I carried on my shoulders!
+With one bound I sprang to the parapet, and looked down into the silent
+courtyard, then filled with the shadows thrown into it by the sinking
+moon. Shall I cast myself down headlong? was the question I proposed to
+myself; but though the horror of that skeleton delusion was greater than
+my fear of death, there was an invisible hand at my breast which pushed me
+away from the brink.</p>
+
+<p>I made my way back to the room, in a state of the keenest suffering. My
+companion was still a locomotive, rushing to and fro, and jerking out his
+syllables with the disjointed accent peculiar to a steam-engine. His mouth
+had turned to brass, like mine, and he raised the pitcher to his lips in
+the attempt to moisten it, but before he had taken a mouthful, set the
+pitcher down again with a yell of laughter, crying out: "How can I take
+water into my boiler, while I am letting off steam?"</p>
+
+<p>But I was now too far gone to feel the absurdity of this, or his other
+exclamations. I was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of unutterable
+agony and despair. For, although I was not conscious of real pain in any
+part of my body, the cruel tension to which my nerves had been subjected
+filled me through and through with a sensation of distress which was far
+more severe than pain itself. In addition to this, the remnant of will
+with which I struggled against the demon, became gradually weaker, and I
+felt that I should soon be powerless in his hands. Every effort to
+preserve my reason was accompanied by a pang of mortal fear, lest what I
+now experienced was insanity, and would hold mastery over me for ever. The
+thought of death, which also haunted me, was far less bitter than this
+dread. I knew that in the struggle which was going on in my frame, I was
+borne fearfully near the dark gulf, and the thought that, at such a time,
+both reason and will were leaving my brain, filled me with an agony, the
+depth and blackness of which I should vainly attempt to portray. I threw
+myself on my bed, with the excited blood still roaring wildly in my ears,
+my heart throbbing with a force that seemed to be rapidly wearing away my
+life, my throat dry as a pot-sherd, and my stiffened tongue cleaving to
+the roof of my mouth--resisting no longer, but awaiting my fate with the
+apathy of despair.</p>
+
+<p>My companion was now approaching the same condition, but as the effect of
+the drug on him had been less violent, so his stage of suffering was more
+clamorous. He cried out to me that he was dying, implored me to help him,
+and reproached me vehemently, because I lay there silent, motionless, and
+apparently careless of his danger. "Why will he disturb me?" I thought;
+"he thinks he is dying, but what is death to madness? Let him die; a
+thousand deaths were more easily borne than the pangs I suffer." While I
+was sufficiently conscious to hear his exclamations, they only provoked my
+keen anger; but after a time, my senses became clouded, and I sank into a
+stupor. As near as I can judge, this must have been three o'clock in the
+morning, rather more than five hours after the hasheesh began to take
+effect. I lay thus all the following day and night, in a state of gray,
+blank oblivion, broken only by a single wandering gleam of consciousness.
+I recollect hearing Fran&ccedil;ois' voice. He told me afterwards that I arose,
+attempted to dress myself, drank two cups of coffee, and then fell back
+into the same death-like stupor; but of all this, I did not retain the
+least knowledge. On the morning of the second day, after a sleep of thirty
+hours, I awoke again to the world, with a system utterly prostrate and
+unstrung, and a brain clouded with the lingering images of my visions. I
+knew where I was, and what had happened to me, but all that I saw still
+remained unreal and shadowy. There was no taste in what I ate, no
+refreshment in what I drank, and it required a painful effort to
+comprehend what was said to me and return a coherent answer. Will and
+Reason had come back, but they still sat unsteadily upon their thrones.</p>
+
+<p>My friend, who was much further advanced in his recovery, accompanied me
+to the adjoining bath, which I hoped would assist in restoring me. It was
+with great difficulty that I preserved the outward appearance of
+consciousness. In spite of myself, a veil now and then fell over my mind,
+and after wandering for years, as it seemed, in some distant world, I
+awoke with a shock, to find myself in the steamy halls of the bath, with a
+brown Syrian polishing my limbs. I suspect that my language must have been
+rambling and incoherent, and that the menials who had me in charge
+understood my condition, for as soon as I had stretched myself upon the
+couch which follows the bath, a glass of very acid sherbet was presented
+to me, and after drinking it I experienced instant relief. Still the spell
+was not wholly broken, and for two or three days I continued subject to
+frequent involuntary fits of absence, which made me insensible, for the
+time, to all that was passing around me. I walked the streets of Damascus
+with a strange consciousness that I was in some other place at the same
+time, and with a constant effort to reunite my divided perceptions.</p>
+
+<p>Previous to the experiment, we had decided on making a bargain with the
+shekh for the journey to Palmyra. The state, however, in which we now
+found ourselves, obliged us to relinquish the plan. Perhaps the excitement
+of a forced march across the desert, and a conflict with the hostile
+Arabs, which was quite likely to happen, might have assisted us in
+throwing off the baneful effects of the drug; but all the charm which lay
+in the name of Palmyra and the romantic interest of the trip, was gone. I
+was without courage and without energy, and nothing remained for me but to
+leave Damascus.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, fearful as my rash experiment proved to me, I did not regret having
+made it. It revealed to me deeps of rapture and of suffering which my
+natural faculties never could have sounded. It has taught me the majesty
+of human reason and of human will, even in the weakest, and the awful
+peril of tampering with that which assails their integrity. I have here
+faithfully and fully written out my experience, on account of the lesson
+which it may convey to others. If I have unfortunately failed in my
+design, and have but awakened that restless curiosity which I have
+endeavored to forestall, let me beg all who are thereby led to repeat the
+experiment upon themselves, that they be content to take the portion of
+hasheesh which is considered sufficient for one man, and not, like me,
+swallow enough for six.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch11">
+<h2>Chapter XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>A Dissertation on Bathing and Bodies.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "No swan-soft woman, rubbed with lucid oils,<br />
+The gift of an enamored god, more fair."</p>
+
+<p>  Browning.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>We shall not set out from Damascus--we shall not leave the Pearl of the
+Orient to glimmer through the seas of foliage wherein it lies
+buried--without consecrating a day to the Bath, that material agent of
+peace and good-will unto men. We have bathed in the Jordan, like Naaman,
+and been made clean; let us now see whether Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
+Damascus, are better than the waters of Israel.</p>
+
+<p>The Bath is the "peculiar institution" of the East. Coffee has become
+colonized in France and America; the Pipe is a cosmopolite, and his blue,
+joyous breath congeals under the Arctic Circle, or melts languidly into
+the soft airs of the Polynesian Isles; but the Bath, that sensuous elysium
+which cradled the dreams of Plato, and the visions of Zoroaster, and the
+solemn meditations of Mahomet, is only to be found under an Oriental sky.
+The naked natives of the Torrid Zone are amphibious; they do not bathe,
+they live in the water. The European and Anglo-American wash themselves
+and think they have bathed; they shudder under cold showers and perform
+laborious antics with coarse towels. As for the Hydropathist, the Genius
+of the Bath, whose dwelling is in Damascus, would be convulsed with
+scornful laughter, could he behold that aqueous Diogenes sitting in his
+tub, or stretched out in his wet wrappings, like a sodden mummy, in a
+catacomb of blankets and feather beds. As the rose in the East has a rarer
+perfume than in other lands, so does the Bath bestow a superior
+purification and impart a more profound enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>Listen not unto the lamentations of travellers, who complain of the heat,
+and the steam, and the dislocations of their joints. They belong to the
+stiff-necked generation, who resist the processes, whereunto the Oriental
+yields himself body and soul. He who is bathed in Damascus, must be as
+clay in the hands of a potter. The Syrians marvel how the Franks can walk,
+so difficult is it to bend their joints. Moreover, they know the
+difference between him who comes to the Bath out of a mere idle curiosity,
+and him who has tasted its delight and holds it in due honor. Only the
+latter is permitted to know all its mysteries. The former is carelessly
+hurried through the ordinary forms of bathing, and, if any trace of the
+cockney remain in him, is quite as likely to be disgusted as pleased.
+Again, there are many second and third-rate baths, whither cheating
+dragomen conduct their victims, in consideration of a division of spoils
+with the bath-keeper. Hence it is, that the Bath has received but partial
+justice at the hands of tourists in the East. If any one doubts this, let
+him clothe himself with Oriental passiveness and resignation, go to the
+Hamman el-Khyate&euml;n, at Damascus, or the Bath of Mahmoud Pasha, at
+Constantinople, and demand that he be perfectly bathed.</p>
+
+<p>Come with me, and I will show you the mysteries of the perfect bath. Here
+is the entrance, a heavy Saracenic arch, opening upon the crowded bazaar.
+We descend a few steps to the marble pavement of a lofty octagonal hall,
+lighted by a dome. There is a jet of sparkling water in the centre,
+falling into a heavy stone basin. A platform about five feet in height
+runs around the hall, and on this are ranged a number of narrow couches,
+with their heads to the wall, like the pallets in a hospital ward. The
+platform is covered with straw matting, and from the wooden gallery which
+rises above it are suspended towels, with blue and crimson borders. The
+master of the bath receives us courteously, and conducts us to one of the
+vacant couches. We kick off our red slippers below, and mount the steps to
+the platform. Yonder traveller, in Frank dress, who has just entered, goes
+up with his boots on, and we know, from that fact, what sort of a bath he
+will get.</p>
+
+<p>As the work of disrobing proceeds, a dark-eyed boy appears with a napkin,
+which he holds before us, ready to bind it about the waist, as soon as we
+regain our primitive form. Another attendant throws a napkin over our
+shoulders and wraps a third around our head, turban-wise. He then thrusts
+a pair of wooden clogs upon our feet, and, taking us by the arm, steadies
+our tottering and clattering steps, as we pass through a low door and a
+warm ante-chamber into the first hall of the bath. The light, falling
+dimly through a cluster of bull's-eyes in the domed ceiling, shows, first,
+a silver thread of water, playing in a steamy atmosphere; next, some dark
+motionless objects, stretched out on a low central platform of marble. The
+attendant spreads a linen sheet in one of the vacant places, places a
+pillow at one end, takes off our clogs, deposits us gently on our back,
+and leaves us. The pavement is warm beneath us, and the first breath we
+draw gives us a sense of suffocation. But a bit of burning aloe-wood has
+just been carried through the hall, and the steam is permeated with
+fragrance. The dark-eyed boy appears with a narghileh, which he places
+beside us, offering the amber mouth-piece to our submissive lips. The
+smoke we inhale has an odor of roses; and as the pipe bubbles with our
+breathing, we feel that the dews of sweat gather heavily upon us. The
+attendant now reappears, kneels beside us, and gently kneads us with
+dexterous hands. Although no anatomist, he knows every muscle and sinew
+whose suppleness gives ease to the body, and so moulds and manipulates
+them that we lose the rigidity of our mechanism, and become plastic in his
+hands. He turns us upon our face, repeats the same process upon the back,
+and leaves us a little longer to lie there passively, glistening in our
+own dew.</p>
+
+<p>We are aroused from a reverie about nothing by a dark-brown shape, who
+replaces the clogs, puts his arm around our waist and leads us into an
+inner hall, with a steaming tank in the centre. Here he slips us off the
+brink, and we collapse over head and ears in the fiery fluid.
+Once--twice--we dip into the delicious heat, and then are led into a
+marble alcove, and seated flat upon the floor. The attendant stands behind
+us, and we now perceive that his hands are encased in dark hair-gloves. He
+pounces upon an arm, which he rubs until, like a serpent, we slough the
+worn-out skin, and resume our infantile smoothness and fairness. No man
+can be called clean until he has bathed in the East. Let him walk directly
+from his accustomed bath and self-friction with towels, to the Hammam
+el-Khyate&euml;n, and the attendant will exclaim, as he shakes out his
+hair-gloves: "O Frank! it is a long time since you have bathed." The other
+arm follows, the back, the breast, the legs, until the work is complete,
+and we know precisely how a horse feels after he has been curried.</p>
+
+<p>Now the attendant turns two cocks at the back of the alcove, and holding a
+basin alternately under the cold and hot streams, floods us at first with
+a fiery dash, that sends a delicious warm shiver through every nerve;
+then, with milder applications, lessening the temperature of the water by
+semi-tones, until, from the highest key of heat which we can bear, we
+glide rapturously down the gamut until we reach the lowest bass of
+coolness. The skin has by this time attained an exquisite sensibility, and
+answers to these changes of temperature with thrills of the purest
+physical pleasure. In fact, the whole frame seems purged of its earthy
+nature and transformed into something of a finer and more delicate
+texture.</p>
+
+<p>After a pause, the attendant makes his appearance with a large wooden
+bowl, a piece of soap, and a bunch of palm-fibres. He squats down beside
+the bowl, and speedily creates a mass of snowy lather, which grows up to a
+pyramid and topples over the edge. Seizing us by the crown-tuft of hair
+upon our shaven head, he plants the foamy bunch of fibres full in our
+face. The world vanishes; sight, hearing, smell, taste (unless we open our
+mouth), and breathing, are cut off; we have become nebulous. Although our
+eyes are shut, we seem to see a blank whiteness; and, feeling nothing but
+a soft fleeciness, we doubt whether we be not the Olympian cloud which
+visited lo. But the cloud clears away before strangulation begins, and the
+velvety mass descends upon the body. Twice we are thus "slushed" from head
+to foot, and made more slippery than the anointed wrestlers of the Greek
+games. Then the basin comes again into play, and we glide once more
+musically through the scale of temperature.</p>
+
+<p>The brown sculptor has now nearly completed his task. The figure of clay
+which entered the bath is transformed into polished marble. He turns the
+body from side to side, and lifts the limbs to see whether the workmanship
+is adequate to his conception. His satisfied gaze proclaims his success. A
+skilful bath-attendant has a certain aesthetic pleasure in his occupation.
+The bodies he polishes become to some extent his own workmanship, and he
+feels responsible for their symmetry or deformity. He experiences a degree
+of triumph in contemplating a beautiful form, which has grown more airily
+light and beautiful under his hands. He is a great connoisseur of bodies,
+and could pick you out the finest specimens with as ready an eye as an
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>I envy those old Greek bathers, into whose hands were delivered Pericles,
+and Alcibiades, and the perfect models of Phidias. They had daily before
+their eyes the highest types of Beauty which the world has ever produced;
+for of all things that are beautiful, the human body is the crown. Now,
+since the delusion of artists has been overthrown, and we know that
+Grecian Art is but the simple reflex of Nature--that the old masterpieces
+of sculpture were no miraculous embodiments of a <i>beau ideal</i>, but copies
+of living forms--we must admit that in no other age of the world has the
+physical Man been so perfectly developed. The nearest approach I have ever
+seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of
+Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo.</p>
+
+<p>Oriental life is too full of repose, and the Ottoman race has become too
+degenerate through indulgence, to exhibit many striking specimens of
+physical beauty. The face is generally fine, but the body is apt to be
+lank, and with imperfect muscular development. The best forms I saw in the
+baths were those of laborers, who, with a good deal of rugged strength,
+showed some grace and harmony of proportion. It may be received as a
+general rule, that the physical development of the European is superior to
+that of the Oriental, with the exception of the Circassians and Georgians,
+whose beauty well entitles them to the distinction of giving their name to
+our race.</p>
+
+<p>So far as female beauty is concerned, the Circassian women have no
+superiors. They have preserved in their mountain home the purity of the
+Grecian models, and still display the perfect physical loveliness, whose
+type has descended to us in the Venus de Medici. The Frank who is addicted
+to wandering about the streets of Oriental cities can hardly fail to be
+favored with a sight of the faces of these beauties. More than once it has
+happened to me, in meeting a veiled lady, sailing along in her
+balloon-like feridjee, that she has allowed the veil to drop by a skilful
+accident, as she passed, and has startled me with the vision of her
+beauty, recalling the line of the Persian poet: "Astonishment! is this the
+dawn of the glorious sun, or is it the full moon?" The Circassian face is
+a pure oval; the forehead is low and fair, "an excellent thing in woman,"
+and the skin of an ivory whiteness, except the faint pink of the cheeks
+and the ripe, roseate stain of the lips. The hair is dark, glossy, and
+luxuriant, exquisitely outlined on the temples; the eyebrows slightly
+arched, and drawn with a delicate pencil; while lashes like "rays of
+darkness" shade the large, dark, humid orbs below them. The alabaster of
+the face, so pure as scarcely to show the blue branching of the veins on
+the temples, is lighted by those superb eyes--</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone,"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>--whose wells are so dark and deep, that you are cheated into the belief
+that a glorious soul looks out of them.</p>
+
+<p>Once, by an unforeseen chance, I beheld the Circassian form, in its most
+perfect development. I was on board an Austrian steamer in the harbor of
+Smyrna, when the harem of a Turkish pasha came out in a boat to embark for
+Alexandria. The sea was rather rough, and nearly all the officers of the
+steamer were ashore. There were six veiled and swaddled women, with a
+black eunuch as guard, in the boat, which lay tossing for some time at the
+foot of the gangway ladder, before the frightened passengers could summon
+courage to step out. At last the youngest of them--a Circassian girl of
+not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age--ventured upon the ladder,
+clasping the hand-rail with one hand, while with the other she held
+together the folds of her cumbrous feridjee. I was standing in the
+gangway, watching her, when a slight lurch of the steamer caused her to
+loose her hold of the garment, which, fastened at the neck, was blown back
+from her shoulders, leaving her body screened but by a single robe
+of-light, gauzy silk. Through this, the marble whiteness of her skin, the
+roundness, the glorious symmetry of her form, flashed upon me, as a vision
+of Aphrodite, seen</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "Through leagues of shimmering water, like a star."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was but a momentary glimpse; yet that moment convinced me that forms
+of Phidian perfection are still nurtured in the vales of Caucasus.</p>
+
+<p>The necessary disguise of dress hides from us much of the beauty and
+dignity of Humanity, I have seen men who appeared heroic in the freedom of
+nakedness, shrink almost into absolute vulgarity, when clothed. The soul
+not only sits at the windows of the eyes, and hangs upon the gateway of
+the lips; she speaks as well in the intricate, yet harmonious lines of the
+body, and the ever-varying play of the limbs. Look at the torso of
+Ilioneus, the son of Niobe, and see what an agony of terror and
+supplication cries out from that headless and limbless trunk! Decapitate
+Laoco&ouml;n, and his knotted muscles will still express the same dreadful
+suffering and resistance. None knew this better than the ancient
+sculptors; and hence it was that we find many of their statues of
+distinguished men wholly or partly undraped. Such a view of Art would be
+considered transcendental now-a-days, when our dress, our costumes, and
+our modes of speech either ignore the existence of our bodies, or treat
+them with little of that reverence which is their due.</p>
+
+<p>But, while we have been thinking these thoughts, the attendant has been
+waiting to give us a final plunge into the seething tank. Again we slide
+down to the eyes in the fluid heat, which wraps us closely about until we
+tingle with exquisite hot shiverings. Now comes the graceful boy, with
+clean, cool, lavendered napkins, which he folds around our waist and wraps
+softly about the head. The pattens are put upon our feet, and the brown
+arm steadies us gently through the sweating-room and ante-chamber into the
+outer hall, where we mount to our couch. We sink gently upon the cool
+linen, and the boy covers us with a perfumed sheet. Then, kneeling beside
+the couch, he presses the folds of the sheet around us, that it may absorb
+the lingering moisture and the limpid perspiration shed by the departing
+heat. As fast as the linen becomes damp, he replaces it with fresh,
+pressing the folds about us as tenderly as a mother arranges the drapery
+of her sleeping babe; for we, though of the stature of a man, are now
+infantile in our helpless happiness. Then he takes our passive hand and
+warms its palm by the soft friction of his own; after which, moving to the
+end of the couch, he lifts our feet upon his lap, and repeats the friction
+upon their soles, until the blood comes back to the surface of the body
+with a misty glow, like that which steeps the clouds of a summer
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>We have but one more process to undergo, and the attendant already stands
+at the head of our couch. This is the course of passive gymnastics, which
+excites so much alarm and resistance in the ignorant Franks. It is only
+resistance that is dangerous, completely neutralizing the enjoyment of the
+process. Give yourself with a blind submission into the arms of the brown
+Fate, and he will lead you to new chambers of delight. He lifts us to a
+sitting posture, places himself behind us, and folds his arms around our
+body, alternately tightening and relaxing his clasp, as if to test the
+elasticity of the ribs. Then seizing one arm, he draws it across the
+opposite shoulder, until the joint cracks like a percussion-cap. The
+shoulder-blades, the elbows, the wrists, and the finger-joints are all
+made to fire off their muffled volleys; and then, placing one knee between
+our shoulders, and clasping both hands upon our forehead, he draws our
+head back until we feel a great snap of the vertebral column. Now he
+descends to the hip-joints, knees, ankles, and feet, forcing each and all
+to discharge a salvo <i>de joie</i>. The slight languor left from the bath is
+gone, and an airy, delicate exhilaration, befitting the winged Mercury,
+takes its place.</p>
+
+<p>The boy, kneeling, presents us with <i>finjan</i> of foamy coffee, followed by
+a glass of sherbet cooled with the snows of Lebanon. He presently returns
+with a narghileh, which we smoke by the effortless inhalation of the
+lungs. Thus we lie in perfect repose, soothed by the fragrant weed, and
+idly watching the silent Orientals, who are undressing for the bath or
+reposing like ourselves. Through the arched entrance, we see a picture of
+the bazaars: a shadowy painting of merchants seated amid their silks and
+spices, dotted here and there with golden drops and splashes of sunshine,
+which have trickled through the roof. The scene paints itself upon our
+eyes, yet wakes no slightest stir of thought. The brain is a becalmed sea,
+without a ripple on its shores. Mind and body are drowned in delicious
+rest; and we no longer remember what we are. We only know that there is an
+Existence somewhere in the air, and that wherever it is, and whatever it
+may be, it is happy.</p>
+
+<p>More and more dim grows the picture. The colors fade and blend into each
+other, and finally merge into a bed of rosy clouds, flooded with the
+radiance of some unseen sun. Gentlier than "tired eyelids upon tired
+eyes," sleep lies upon our senses: a half-conscious sleep, wherein we know
+that we behold light and inhale fragrance. As gently, the clouds dissipate
+into air, and we are born again into the world. The Bath is at an end. We
+arise and put on our garments, and walk forth into the sunny streets of
+Damascus. But as we go homewards, we involuntarily look down to see
+whether we are really treading upon the earth, wondering, perhaps, that we
+should be content to do so, when it would be so easy to soar above the
+house-tops.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch12">
+<h2>Chapter XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Baalbec and Lebanon.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Departure from Damascus--The Fountains of the Pharpar--Pass of the
+  Anti-Lebanon--Adventure with the Druses--The Range of Lebanon--The Demon
+  of Hasheesh departs--Impressions of Baalbec--The Temple of the
+  Sun--Titanic Masonry--The Ruined Mosque--Camp on Lebanon--Rascality of
+  the Guide--The Summit of Lebanon--The Sacred Cedars--The Christians of
+  Lebanon--An Afternoon in Eden--Rugged Travel--We Reach the Coast--Return
+  to Beyrout.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Peor and Ba&auml;lim<br />
+Forsake their temples dim."</p>
+
+<p>  Milton.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "The cedars wave on Lebanon,<br />
+But Judah's statelier maids are gone."</p>
+
+<p>  Byron.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Beyrout, <i>Thursday, May</i> 27, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>After a stay of eight days in Damascus, we called our men, Dervish and
+Mustapha, again into requisition, loaded our enthusiastic mules, and
+mounted our despairing horses. There were two other parties on the way to
+Baalbec--an English gentleman and lady, and a solitary Englishman, so that
+our united forces made an imposing caravan. There is always a custom-house
+examination, not on entering, but on issuing from an Oriental city, but
+travellers can avoid it by procuring the company of a Consular Janissary
+as far as the gate. Mr. Wood, the British Consul, lent us one of his
+officers for the occasion, whom we found waiting, outside of the wall, to
+receive his private fee for the service. We mounted the long, barren hill
+west of the plain, and at the summit, near the tomb of a Moslem shekh,
+turned to take a last long look at the bowery plain, and the minarets of
+the city, glittering through the blue morning vapor.
+
+A few paces further on the rocky road, a different scene presented itself
+to us. There lay, to the westward, a long stretch of naked yellow
+mountains, basking in the hot glare of the sun, and through the centre,
+deep down in the heart of the arid landscape, a winding line of living
+green showed the course of the Barrada. We followed the river, until the
+path reached an impassable gorge, which occasioned a detour of two or
+three hours. We then descended to the bed of the dell, where the
+vegetation, owing to the radiated heat from the mountains and the
+fertilizing stimulus of the water below, was even richer than on the plain
+of Damascus. The trees were plethoric with an overplus of life. The boughs
+of the mulberries were weighed down with the burden of the leaves;
+pomegranates were in a violent eruption of blossoms; and the foliage of
+the fig and poplar was of so deep a hue that it shone black in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through a gateway of rock, so narrow that we were often obliged to
+ride in the bed of the stream, we reached a little meadow, beyond which
+was a small hamlet, almost hidden in the leaves. Here the mountains again
+approached each other, and from the side of that on the right hand, the
+main body of the Barrada, or Pharpar, gushed forth in one full stream. The
+fountain is nearly double the volume of that of the Jordan at Banias, and
+much more beautiful. The foundations of an ancient building, probably a
+temple, overhang it, and tall poplars and sycamores cover it with
+impenetrable shade. From the low aperture, where it bursts into the light,
+its waters, white with foam, bound away flashing in the chance rays of
+sunshine, until they are lost to sight in the dense, dark foliage. We sat
+an hour on the ruined walls, listening to the roar and rush of the flood,
+and enjoying the shade of the walnuts and sycamores. Soon after leaving,
+our path crossed a small stream, which comes down to the Barrada from the
+upper valleys of the Anti-Lebanon, and entered a wild pass, faced with
+cliffs of perpendicular rock. An old bridge, of one arch, spanned the
+chasm, out of which we climbed to a tract of high meadow land. In the pass
+there were some fragments of ancient columns, traces of an aqueduct, and
+inscriptions on the rocks, among which Mr. H. found the name of Antoninus.
+The place is not mentioned in any book of travel I have seen, as it is not
+on the usual road from Damascus to Baalbec.</p>
+
+<p>As we were emerging from the pass, we saw a company of twelve armed men
+seated in the grass, near the roadside. They were wild-looking characters,
+and eyed us somewhat sharply as we passed. We greeted them with the usual
+"salaam aleikoom!" which they did not return. The same evening, as we
+encamped at the village of Zebdeni, about three hours further up the
+valley, we were startled by a great noise and outcry, with the firing of
+pistols. It happened, as we learned on inquiring the cause of all this
+confusion, that the men we saw in the pass were rebel Druses, who were
+then lying in wait for the Shekh of Zebdeni, whom, with his son, they had
+taken captive soon after we passed. The news had by some means been
+conveyed to the village, and a company of about two hundred persons was
+then marching out to the rescue. The noise they made was probably to give
+the Druses intimation of their coming, and thus avoid a fight. I do not
+believe that any of the mountaineers of Lebanon would willingly take part
+against the Druses, who, in fact, are not fighting so much against the
+institution of the conscription law, as its abuse. The law ordains that
+the conscript shall serve for five years; but since its establishment, as
+I have been informed, there has not been a single instance of discharge.
+It amounts, therefore, to lifelong servitude, and there is little wonder
+that these independent sons of the mountains, as well as the tribes
+inhabiting the Syrian Desert, should rebel rather than submit.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, we crossed a pass in the Anti-Lebanon beyond Zebdeni,
+descended a beautiful valley on the western side, under a ridge which was
+still dotted with patches of snow, and after travelling for some hours
+over a wide, barren height, the last of the range, saw below us the plain
+of Baalbec. The grand ridge of Lebanon opposite, crowned with glittering
+fields of snow, shone out clearly through the pure air, and the hoary head
+of Hermon, far in the south, lost something of its grandeur by the
+comparison. Though there is a "divide," or watershed, between Husbeiya, at
+the foot of Mount Hermon, and Baalbec, whose springs join the Orontes,
+which flows northward to Antioch, the great natural separation of the two
+chains continues unbroken to the Gulf of Akaba, in the Red Sea. A little
+beyond Baalbec, the Anti-Lebanon terminates, sinking into the Syrian
+plain, while the Lebanon, though its name and general features are lost,
+about twenty miles further to the north is succeeded by other ranges,
+which, though broken at intervals, form a regular series, connecting with
+the Taurus, in Asia Minor.</p>
+
+<p>On leaving Damascus, the Demon of Hasheesh still maintained a partial
+control over me. I was weak in body and at times confused in my
+perceptions, wandering away from the scenes about me to some unknown
+sphere beyond the moon. But the healing balm of my sleep at Zebdeni, and
+the purity of the morning air among the mountains, completed my cure. As I
+rode along the valley, with the towering, snow-sprinkled ridge of the
+Anti-Lebanon on my right, a cloudless heaven above my head, and meads
+enamelled with the asphodel and scarlet anemone stretching before me, I
+felt that the last shadow had rolled away from my brain. My mind was now
+as clear as that sky--my heart as free and joyful as the elastic morning
+air. The sun never shone so brightly to my eyes; the fair forms of Nature
+were never penetrated with so perfect a spirit of beauty. I was again
+master of myself, and the world glowed as if new-created in the light of
+my joy and gratitude. I thanked God, who had led me out of a darkness more
+terrible than that of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and while my feet
+strayed among the flowery meadows of Lebanon, my heart walked on the
+Delectable Hills of His Mercy.</p>
+
+<p>By the middle of the afternoon, we reached Baalbec. The distant view of
+the temple, on descending the last slope of the Anti-Lebanon, is not
+calculated to raise one's expectations. On the green plain at the foot of
+the mountain, you see a large square platform of masonry, upon which stand
+six columns, the body of the temple, and a quantity of ruined walls. As a
+feature in the landscape, it has a fine effect, but you find yourself
+pronouncing the speedy judgment, that "Baalbec, without Lebanon, would be
+rather a poor show." Having come to this conclusion, you ride down the
+hill with comfortable feelings of indifference. There are a number of
+quarries on the left hand; you glance at them with an expression which
+merely says: "Ah! I suppose they got the stones here," and so you saunter
+on, cross a little stream that flows down from the modern village, pass a
+mill, return the stare of the quaint Arab miller who comes to the door to
+see you, and your horse is climbing a difficult path among the broken
+columns and friezes, before you think it worth while to lift your eyes to
+the pile above you. Now re-assert your judgment, if you dare! This is
+Baalbec: what have you to say? Nothing; but you amazedly measure the
+torsos of great columns which lie piled across one another in magnificent
+wreck; vast pieces which have dropped from the entablature, beautiful
+Corinthian capitals, bereft of the last graceful curves of their acanthus
+leaves, and blocks whose edges are so worn away that they resemble
+enormous natural boulders left by the Deluge, till at last you look up to
+the six glorious pillars, towering nigh a hundred feet above your head,
+and there is a sensation in your brain which would be a shout, if you
+could give it utterance, of faultless symmetry and majesty, such as no
+conception of yours and no other creation of art, can surpass.</p>
+
+<p>I know of nothing so beautiful in all remains of ancient Art as these six
+columns, except the colonnade of the Memnonium, at Thebes, which is of
+much smaller proportions. From every position, and with all lights of the
+day or night, they are equally perfect, and carry your eyes continually
+away from the peristyle of the smaller temple, which is better preserved,
+and from the exquisite architecture of the outer courts and pavilions.
+The two temples of Baalbec stand on an artificial platform of masonry, a
+thousand feet in length, and from fifteen to thirty feet (according to the
+depression of the soil) in height, The larger one, which is supposed to
+have been a Pantheon, occupies the whole length of this platform. The
+entrance was at the north, by a grand flight of steps, now broken away,
+between two lofty and elegant pavilions which are still nearly entire.
+Then followed a spacious hexagonal court, and three grand halls, parts of
+which, with niches for statues, adorned with cornices and pediments of
+elaborate design, still remain entire to the roof. This magnificent series
+of chambers was terminated at the southern extremity of the platform by
+the main temple, which had originally twenty columns on a side, similar to
+the six now standing.</p>
+
+<p>The Temple of the Sun stands on a smaller and lower platform, which
+appears to have been subsequently added to the greater one. The cella, or
+body of the temple, is complete except the roof, and of the colonnade
+surrounding it, nearly one-half of its pillars are still standing,
+upholding the frieze, entablature, and cornice, which altogether form
+probably the most ornate specimen of the Corinthian order of architecture
+now extant. Only four pillars of the superb portico remain, and the
+Saracens have nearly ruined these by building a sort of watch-tower upon
+the architrave. The same unscrupulous race completely shut up the portal
+of the temple with a blank wall, formed of the fragments they had hurled
+down, and one is obliged to creep through a narrow hole in order to reach
+the interior. Here the original doorway faces you--and I know not how to
+describe the wonderful design of its elaborate sculptured mouldings and
+cornices. The genius of Greek art seems to have exhausted itself in
+inventing ornaments, which, while they should heighten the gorgeous effect
+of the work, must yet harmonize with the grand design of the temple. The
+enormous keystone over the entrance has slipped down, no doubt from the
+shock of an earthquake, and hangs within six inches of the bottom of the
+two blocks which uphold it on either side. When it falls, the whole
+entablature of the portal will be destroyed. On its lower side is an eagle
+with outspread wings, and on the side-stones a genius with garlands of
+flowers, exquisitely sculptured in bas relief. Hidden among the wreaths of
+vines which adorn the jambs are the laughing heads of fauns. This portal
+was a continual study to me, every visit revealing new refinements of
+ornament, which I had not before observed. The interior of the temple,
+with its rich Corinthian pilasters, its niches for statues, surmounted by
+pediments of elegant design, and its elaborate cornice, needs little aid
+of the imagination to restore it to its original perfection. Like that of
+Dendera, in Egypt, the Temple of the Sun leaves upon the mind an
+impression of completeness which makes you forget far grander remains.</p>
+
+<p>But the most wonderful thing at Baalbec is the foundation platform upon
+which the temples stand. Even the colossal fabrics of Ancient Egypt
+dwindle before this superhuman masonry. The platform itself, 1,000 feet
+long, and averaging twenty feet in height, suggests a vast mass of stones,
+but when you come to examine the single blocks of which it is composed,
+you are crushed with their incredible bulk. On the western side is a row
+of eleven foundation stones, each of which is thirty-two feet in length,
+twelve in height, and ten in thickness, forming a wall three hundred and
+fifty-two feet long! But while you are walking on, thinking of the art
+which cut and raised these enormous blocks, you turn the southern corner
+and come upon <i>three</i> stones, the united length of which is <i>one hundred
+and eighty-seven feet</i>--two of them being sixty-two and the other
+sixty-three feet in length! There they are, cut with faultless exactness,
+and so smoothly joined to each other, that you cannot force a cambric
+needle into the crevice. There is one joint so perfect that it can only be
+discerned by the minutest search; it is not even so perceptible as the
+junction of two pieces of paper which have been pasted together. In the
+quarry, there still lies a finished block, ready for transportation, which
+is sixty-seven feet in length. The weight of one of these masses has been
+reckoned at near 9,000 tons, yet they do not form the base of the
+foundation, but are raised upon other courses, fifteen feet from the
+ground. It is considered by some antiquarians that they are of a date
+greatly anterior to that of the temples, and were intended as the basement
+of a different edifice.</p>
+
+<p>In the village of Baalbec there is a small circular Corinthian temple of
+very elegant design. It is not more than thirty feet in diameter, and may
+have been intended as a tomb. A spacious mosque, now roofless and
+deserted, was constructed almost entirely out of the remains of the
+temples. Adjoining the court-yard and fountain are five rows of ancient
+pillars, forty (the sacred number) in all, supporting light Saracenic
+arches. Some of them are marble, with Corinthian capitals, and eighteen
+are single shafts of red Egyptian granite. Beside the fountain lies a
+small broken pillar of porphyry, of a dark violet hue, and of so fine a
+grain that the stone has the soft rich lustre of velvet. This fragment is
+the only thing I would carry away if I had the power.</p>
+
+<p>After a day's sojourn, we left Baalbec at noon, and took the road for the
+Cedars, which lie on the other side of Lebanon, in the direction of
+Tripoli. Our English fellow-travellers chose the direct road to Beyrout.
+We crossed the plain in three hours; to the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, and
+then commenced ascending the lowest slopes of the great range, whose
+topmost ridge, a dazzling parapet of snow, rose high above us. For several
+hours, our path led up and down stony ridges, covered with thickets of oak
+and holly, and with wild cherry, pear, and olive-trees. Just as the sun
+threw the shadows of the highest Lebanon over us, we came upon a narrow,
+rocky glen at his very base. Streams that still kept the color and the
+coolness of the snow-fields from which they oozed, foamed over the stones
+into the chasm at the bottom. The glen descended into a mountain basin, in
+which lay the lake of Yemouni, cold and green under the evening shadows.
+But just opposite us, on a little shelf of soil, there was a rude mill,
+and a group of superb walnut-trees, overhanging the brink of the largest
+torrent. We had sent our baggage before us, and the men, with an eye to
+the picturesque which I should not have suspected in Arabs, had pitched
+our tents under those trees, where the stream poured its snow-cold beakers
+beside us, and the tent-door looked down on the plain of Baalbec and
+across to the Anti-Lebanon. The miller and two or three peasants, who were
+living in this lonely spot, were Christians.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning we commenced ascending the Lebanon. We had slept just
+below the snow-line, for the long hollows with which the ridge is cloven
+were filled up to within a short distance of the glen, out of which we
+came. The path was very steep, continually ascending, now around the
+barren shoulder of the mountain, now up some ravine, where the holly and
+olive still flourished, and the wild rhubarb-plant spread its large,
+succulent leaves over the soil. We had taken a guide, the day before, at
+the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, but as the way was plain before us, and he
+demanded an exorbitant sum, we dismissed him, We had not climbed far,
+however, before he returned, professing to be content with whatever we
+might give him, and took us into another road, the first, he said, being
+impracticable. Up and up we toiled, and the long hollows of snow lay below
+us, and the wind came cold from the topmost peaks, which began to show
+near at hand. But now the road, as we had surmised, turned towards that we
+had first taken, and on reaching the next height we saw the latter at a
+short distance from us. It was not only a better, but a shorter road, the
+rascal of a guide having led us out of it in order to give the greater
+effect to his services. In order to return to it, as was necessary, there
+were several dangerous snow-fields to be passed. The angle of their
+descent was so great that a single false step would have hurled our
+animals, baggage and all, many hundred feet below. The snow was melting,
+and the crust frozen over the streams below was so thin in places that the
+animals broke through and sank to their bellies.</p>
+
+<p>It were needless to state the number and character of the anathemas
+bestowed upon the guide. The impassive Dervish raved; Mustapha stormed;
+Fran&ccedil;ois broke out in a frightful eruption of Greek and Turkish oaths, and
+the two travellers, though not (as I hope and believe) profanely inclined,
+could not avoid using a few terse Saxon expressions. When the general
+indignation had found vent, the men went to work, and by taking each
+animal separately, succeeded, at imminent hazard, in getting them all
+over the snow. We then dismissed the guide, who, far from being abashed by
+the discovery of his trickery, had the impudence to follow us for some
+time, claiming his pay. A few more steep pulls, over deep beds of snow and
+patches of barren stone, and at length the summit ridge--a sharp, white
+wall, shining against the intense black-blue of the zenith--stood before
+us. We climbed a toilsome zig-zag through the snow, hurried over the
+stones cumbering the top, and all at once the mountains fell away, ridge
+below ridge, gashed with tremendous chasms, whose bottoms were lost in
+blue vapor, till the last heights, crowned with white Maronite convents,
+hung above the sea, whose misty round bounded the vision. I have seen many
+grander mountain views, but few so sublimely rugged and broken in their
+features. The sides of the ridges dropped off in all directions into sheer
+precipices, and the few villages we could see were built like eagles'
+nests on the brinks. In a little hollow at our feet was the sacred Forest
+of Cedars, appearing like a patch of stunted junipers. It is the highest
+speck of vegetation on Lebanon, and in winter cannot be visited, on
+account of the snow. The summit on which we stood was about nine thousand
+feet above the sea, but there were peaks on each side at least a thousand
+feet higher.</p>
+
+<p>We descended by a very steep path, over occasional beds of snow, and
+reached the Cedars in an hour and a half. Not until we were within a
+hundred yards of the trees, and below their level, was I at all impressed
+with their size and venerable aspect. But, once entered into the heart of
+the little wood, walking over its miniature hills and valleys, and
+breathing the pure, balsamic exhalations of the trees, all the
+disappointment rising to my mind was charmed away in an instant There are
+about three hundred trees, in all, many of which are of the last century's
+growth, but at least fifty of them would be considered grand in any
+forest. The patriarchs are five in number, and are undoubtedly as old as
+the Christian Era, if not the Age of Solomon. The cypresses in the Garden
+of Montezuma, at Chapultepec, are even older and grander trees, but they
+are as entire and shapely as ever, whereas these are gnarled and twisted
+into wonderful forms by the storms of twenty centuries, and shivered in
+some places by lightning. The hoary father of them all, nine feet in
+diameter, stands in the centre of the grove, on a little knoll, and
+spreads his ponderous arms, each a tree in itself, over the heads of the
+many generations that have grown up below, as if giving his last
+benediction before decay. He is scarred less with storm and lightning,
+than with the knives of travellers, and the marble crags of Lebanon do not
+more firmly retain their inscriptions than his stony trunk. Dates of the
+last century are abundant, and I recollect a tablet inscribed: "Souard,
+1670," around which the newer wood has grown to the height of three or
+four inches. The seclusion of the grove, shut in by peaks of barren snow,
+is complete. Only the voice of the nightingale, singing here by daylight
+in the solemn shadows, breaks the silence. The Maronite monk, who has
+charge of a little stone chapel standing in the midst, moves about like a
+shade, and, not before you are ready to leave, brings his book for you to
+register your name therein, I was surprised to find how few of the crowd
+that annually overrun Syria reach the Cedars, which, after Baalbec, are
+the finest remains of antiquity in the whole country.</p>
+
+<p>After a stay of three hours, we rode on to Eden, whither our men had
+already gone with the baggage. Our road led along the brink of a
+tremendous gorge, a thousand feet deep, the bottom of which was only
+accessible here and there by hazardous foot-paths. On either side, a long
+shelf of cultivated land sloped down to the top, and the mountain streams,
+after watering a multitude of orchards and grain-fields, tumbled over the
+cliffs in long, sparkling cascades, to join the roaring flood below. This
+is the Christian region of Lebanon, inhabited almost wholly by Maronites,
+who still retain a portion of their former independence, and are the most
+thrifty, industrious, honest, and happy people in Syria. Their villages
+are not concrete masses of picturesque filth, as are those of the Moslems,
+but are loosely scattered among orchards of mulberry, poplar, and vine,
+washed by fresh rills, and have an air of comparative neatness and
+comfort. Each has its two or three chapels, with their little belfries,
+which toll the hours of prayer. Sad and poetic as is the call from the
+minaret, it never touched me as when I heard the sweet tongues of those
+Christian bells, chiming vespers far and near on the sides of Lebanon.</p>
+
+<p>Eden merits its name. It is a mountain paradise, inhabited by people so
+kind and simple-hearted, that assuredly no vengeful angel will ever drive
+them out with his flaming sword. It hangs above the gorge, which is here
+nearly two thousand feet deep, and overlooks a grand wilderness of
+mountain-piles, crowded on and over each other, from the sea that gleams
+below, to the topmost heights that keep off the morning sun. The houses
+are all built of hewn stone, and grouped in clusters under the shade of
+large walnut-trees. In walking among them, we received kind greetings
+everywhere, and every one who was seated rose and remained standing as we
+passed. The women are beautiful, with sprightly, intelligent faces, quite
+different from the stupid Mahometan females.</p>
+
+<p>The children were charming creatures, and some of the girls of ten or
+twelve years were lovely as angels. They came timidly to our tent (which
+the men had pitched as before, under two superb trees, beside a fountain),
+and offered us roses and branches of fragrant white jasmine. They expected
+some return, of course, but did not ask it, and the delicate grace with
+which the offering was made was beyond all pay. It was Sunday, and the men
+and boys, having nothing better to do, all came to see and talk with us. I
+shall not soon forget the circle of gay and laughing villagers, in which
+we sat that evening, while the dark purple shadows gradually filled up the
+gorges, and broad golden lights poured over the shoulders of the hills.
+The men had much sport in inducing the smaller boys to come up and salute
+us. There was one whom they called "the Consul," who eluded them for some
+time, but was finally caught and placed in the ring before us. "Peace be
+with you, O Consul," I said, making him a profound inclination, "may your
+days be propitious! may your shadow be increased!" but I then saw, from
+the vacant expression on the boy's face, that he was one of those
+harmless, witless creatures, whom yet one cannot quite call idiots. "He is
+an unfortunate; he knows nothing; he has no protector but God," said the
+men, crossing themselves devoutly. The boy took off his cap, crept up and
+kissed my hand, as I gave him some money, which he no sooner grasped, than
+he sprang up like a startled gazelle, and was out of sight in an instant.</p>
+
+<p>In descending from Eden to the sea-coast, we were obliged to cross the
+great gorge of which I spoke. Further down, its sides are less steep, and
+clothed even to the very bottom with magnificent orchards of mulberry,
+fig, olive, orange, and pomegranate trees. We were three hours in reaching
+the opposite side, although the breadth across the top is not more than a
+mile. The path was exceedingly perilous; we walked down, leading our
+horses, and once were obliged to unload our mules to get them past a tree,
+which would have forced them off the brink of a chasm several hundred feet
+deep. The view from the bottom was wonderful. We were shut in by steeps of
+foliage and blossoms from two to three thousand feet high, broken by crags
+of white marble, and towering almost precipitously to the very clouds. I
+doubt if Melville saw anything grander in the tropical gorges of Typee.
+After reaching the other side, we had still a journey of eight hours to
+the sea, through a wild and broken, yet highly cultivated country.</p>
+
+<p>Beyrout was now thirteen hours distant, but by making a forced march we
+reached it in a day, travelling along the shore, past the towns of Jebeil,
+the ancient Byblus, and Joonieh. The hills about Jebeil produce the
+celebrated tobacco known in Egypt as the <i>Jebelee</i>, or "mountain" tobacco,
+which is even superior to the Latakiyeh.</p>
+
+<p>Near Beyrout, the mulberry and olive are in the ascendant. The latter tree
+bears the finest fruit in all the Levant, and might drive all other oils
+out of the market, if any one had enterprise enough to erect proper
+manufactories. Instead of this the oil of the country is badly prepared,
+rancid from the skins in which it is kept, and the wealthy natives import
+from France and Italy in preference to using it. In the bottoms near the
+sea, I saw several fields of the taro-plant, the cultivation of which I
+had supposed was exclusively confined to the Islands of the Pacific. There
+would be no end to the wealth of Syria were the country in proper hands.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch13">
+<h2>Chapter XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Pipes and Coffee.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>--"the kind nymph to Bacchus born<br />
+By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems<br />
+Gifted upon her natal morn<br />
+By him with fire, by her with dreams--<br />
+Nicotia, dearer to the Muse<br />
+Than all the grape's bewildering juice." Lowell.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>In painting the picture of an Oriental, the pipe and the coffee-cup are
+indispensable accessories. There is scarce a Turk, or Arab, or
+Persian--unless he be a Dervish of peculiar sanctity--but breathes his
+daily incense to the milder Bacchus of the moderns. The custom has become
+so thoroughly naturalized in the East, that we are apt to forget its
+comparatively recent introduction, and to wonder that no mention is made
+of the pipe in the Arabian Nights. The practice of smoking harmonizes so
+thoroughly with the character of Oriental life, that it is difficult for
+us to imagine a time when it never existed. It has become a part of that
+supreme patience, that wonderful repose, which forms so strong a contrast
+to the over-active life of the New World--the enjoyment of which no one
+can taste, to whom the pipe is not familiar. Howl, ye Reformers! but I
+solemnly declare unto you, that he who travels through the East without
+smoking, does not know the East.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange that our Continent, where the meaning of Rest is unknown,
+should have given to the world this great agent of Rest. There is nothing
+more remarkable in history than the colonization of Tobacco over the whole
+Earth. Not three centuries have elapsed since knightly Raleigh puffed its
+fumes into the astonished eyes of Spenser and Shakspeare; and now, find me
+any corner of the world, from Nova Zembla to the Mountains of the Moon,
+where the use of the plant is unknown! Tarshish (if India was Tarshish) is
+less distinguished by its "apes, ivory, and peacocks," than by its
+hookahs; the valleys of Luzon, beyond Ternate and Tidore, send us more
+cheroots than spices; the Gardens of Shiraz produce more velvety <i>toombek</i>
+than roses, and the only fountains which bubble in Samarcand are those of
+the narghilehs: Lebanon is no longer "excellent with the Cedars," as in
+the days of Solomon, but most excellent with its fields of Jebelee and
+Latakiyeh. On the unvisited plains of Central Africa, the table-lands of
+Tartary, and in the valleys of Japan, the wonderful plant has found a
+home. The naked negro, "panting at the Line," inhales it under the palms,
+and the Lapp and Samoyed on the shores of the Frozen Sea.</p>
+
+<p>It is idle for those who object to the use of Tobacco to attribute these
+phenomena wholly to a perverted taste. The fact that the custom was at
+once adopted by all the races of men, whatever their geographical position
+and degree of civilization, proves that there must be a reason for it in
+the physical constitution of man. Its effect, when habitually used, is
+slightly narcotic and sedative, not stimulating--or if so, at times, it
+stimulates only the imagination and the social faculties. It lulls to
+sleep the combative and destructive propensities, and hence--so far as a
+material agent may operate--it exercises a humanizing and refining
+influence. A profound student of Man, whose name is well known to the
+world, once informed me that he saw in the eagerness with which savage
+tribes adopt the use of Tobacco, a spontaneous movement of Nature towards
+Civilization.</p>
+
+<p>I will not pursue these speculations further, for the narghileh (bubbling
+softly at my elbow, as I write) is the promoter of repose and the begetter
+of agreeable reverie. As I inhale its cool, fragrant breath, and partly
+yield myself to the sensation of healthy rest which wraps my limbs as with
+a velvet mantle, I marvel how the poets and artists and scholars of olden
+times nursed those dreams which the world calls indolence, but which are
+the seeds that germinate into great achievements. How did Plato
+philosophize without the pipe? How did gray Homer, sitting on the
+temple-steps in the Grecian twilights, drive from his heart the bitterness
+of beggary and blindness? How did Phidias charm the Cerberus of his animal
+nature to sleep, while his soul entered the Elysian Fields and beheld the
+forms of heroes? For, in the higher world of Art, Body and Soul are sworn
+enemies, and the pipe holds an opiate more potent than all the drowsy
+syrups of the East, to drug the former into submission. Milton knew this,
+as he smoked his evening pipe at Chalfont, wandering, the while, among the
+palms of Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>But it is also our loss, that Tobacco was unknown to the Greeks. They
+would else have given us, in verse and in marble, another divinity in
+their glorious Pantheon--a god less drowsy than Morpheus and Somnus, less
+riotous than Bacchus, less radiant than Apollo, but with something of the
+spirit of each: a figure, beautiful with youth, every muscle in perfect
+repose, and the vague expression of dreams in his half-closed eyes. His
+temple would have been built in a grove of Southern pines, on the borders
+of a land-locked gulf, sheltered from the surges that buffet without,
+where service would have been rendered him in the late hours of the
+afternoon, or in the evening twilight. From his oracular tripod words of
+wisdom would have been spoken, and the fanes of Delphi and Dodona would
+have been deserted for his.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, non-smoking friends, who read these lines with pain and
+incredulity--and you, ladies, who turn pale at the thought of a pipe--let
+me tell you that you are familiar only with the vulgar form of tobacco,
+and have never passed between the wind and its gentility. The word conveys
+no idea to you but that of "long nines," and pig-tail, and cavendish.
+Forget these for a moment, and look upon this dark-brown cake of dried
+leaves and blossoms, which exhales an odor of pressed flowers. These are
+the tender tops of the <i>Jebelee</i>, plucked as the buds begin to expand, and
+carefully dried in the shade. In order to be used, it is moistened with
+rose-scented water, and cut to the necessary degree of fineness. The test
+of true Jebelee is, that it burns with a slow, hidden fire, like tinder,
+and causes no irritation to the eye when held under it. The smoke, drawn
+through a long cherry-stick pipe and amber mouth-piece, is pure, cool, and
+sweet, with an aromatic flavor, which is very pleasant in the mouth. It
+excites no salivation, and leaves behind it no unpleasant, stale odor.</p>
+
+<p>The narghileh (still bubbling beside me) is an institution known only in
+the East. It requires a peculiar kind of tobacco, which grows to
+perfection in the southern provinces of Persia. The smoke, after passing
+through water (rose-flavored, if you choose), is inhaled through a long,
+flexible tube directly into the lungs. It occasions not the slightest
+irritation or oppression, but in a few minutes produces a delicious sense
+of rest, which is felt even in the finger-ends. The pure physical
+sensation of rest is one of strength also, and of perfect contentment.
+Many an impatient thought, many an angry word, have I avoided by a resort
+to the pipe. Among our aborigines the pipe was the emblem of Peace, and I
+strongly recommend the Peace Society to print their tracts upon papers of
+smoking tobacco (Turkish, if possible), and distribute pipes with them.</p>
+
+<p>I know of nothing more refreshing, after the fatigue of a long day's
+journey, than a well-prepared narghileh. That slight feverish and
+excitable feeling which is the result of fatigue yields at once to its
+potency. The blood loses its heat and the pulse its rapidity; the muscles
+relax, the nerves are soothed into quiet, and the frame passes into a
+condition similar to sleep, except that the mind is awake and active. By
+the time one has finished his pipe, he is refreshed for the remainder of
+the day, and his nightly sleep is sound and healthy. Such are some of the
+physical effects of the pipe, in Eastern lands. Morally and
+psychologically, it works still greater transformations; but to describe
+them now, with the mouth-piece at my lips, would require an active
+self-consciousness which the habit does not allow.</p>
+
+<p>A servant enters with a steamy cup of coffee, seated in a silver <i>zerf</i>,
+or cup-holder. His thumb and fore-finger are clasped firmly upon the
+bottom of the zerf, which I inclose near the top with my own thumb and
+finger, so that the transfer is accomplished without his hand having
+touched mine.</p>
+
+<p>After draining the thick brown liquid, which must be done with due
+deliberation and a pause of satisfaction between each sip, I return the
+zerf, holding it in the middle, while the attendant places a palm of each
+hand upon the top and bottom and carries it off without contact. The
+beverage is made of the berries of Mocha, slightly roasted, pulverized in
+a mortar, and heated to a foam, without the addition of cream or sugar.
+Sometimes, however, it is flavored with the extract of roses or violets.
+When skilfully made, each cup is prepared separately, and the quantity of
+water and coffee carefully measured.</p>
+
+<p>Coffee is a true child of the East, and its original home was among the
+hills of Yemen, the Arabia Felix of the ancients. Fortunately for
+Mussulmen, its use was unknown in the days of Mahomet, or it would
+probably have fallen under the same prohibition as wine. The word <i>Kahweh</i>
+(whence <i>caf&eacute;</i>) is an old Arabic term for wine. The discovery of the
+properties of coffee is attributed to a dervish, who, for some
+misdemeanor, was carried into the mountains of Yemen by his brethren and
+there left to perish by starvation. In order to appease the pangs of
+hunger he gathered the ripe berries from the wild coffee-trees, roasted
+and ate them. The nourishment they contained, with water from the springs,
+sustained his life, and after two or three months he returned in good
+condition to his brethren, who considered his preservation as a miracle,
+and ever afterwards looked upon him as a pattern of holiness. He taught
+the use of the miraculous fruit, and the demand for it soon became so
+great as to render the cultivation of the tree necessary. It was a long
+time, however, before coffee was introduced into Europe. As late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century, Sandys, the quaint old traveller,
+describes the appearance and taste of the beverage, which he calls
+"Coffa," and sagely asks: "Why not that black broth which the
+Lacedemonians used?"</p>
+
+<p>On account of the excellence of the material, and the skilful manner of
+its preparation, the Coffee of the East is the finest in the world. I have
+found it so grateful and refreshing a drink, that I can readily pardon the
+pleasant exaggeration of the Arabic poet, Abd-el Kader Anazari Djezeri
+Hanbali, the son of Mahomet, who thus celebrates its virtues. After such
+an exalted eulogy, my own praises would sound dull and tame; and I
+therefore resume my pipe, commending Abd-el Kader to the reader.</p>
+
+<p>"O Coffee! thou dispellest the cares of the great; thou bringest back
+those who wander from the paths of knowledge. Coffee is the beverage of
+the people of God, and the cordial of his servants who thirst for wisdom.
+When coffee is infused into the bowl, it exhales the odor of musk, and is
+of the color of ink. The truth is not known except to the wise, who drink
+it from the foaming coffee-cup. God has deprived fools of coffee, who,
+with invincible obstinacy, condemn it as injurious.</p>
+
+<p>"Coffee is our gold; and in the place of its libations we are in the
+enjoyment of the best and noblest society. Coffee is even as innocent a
+drink as the purest milk, from which it is distinguished only by its
+color. Tarry with thy coffee in the place of its preparation, and the good
+God will hover over thee and participate in his feast. There the graces of
+the saloon, the luxury of life, the society of friends, all furnish a
+picture of the abode of happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Every care vanishes when the cup-bearer presents the delicious chalice.
+It will circulate fleetly through thy veins, and will not rankle there:
+if thou doubtest this, contemplate the youth and beauty of those who drink
+it. Grief cannot exist where it grows; sorrow humbles itself in obedience
+before its powers.</p>
+
+<p>"Coffee is the drink of God's people; in it is health. Let this be the
+answer to those who doubt its qualities. In it we will drown our
+adversities, and in its fire consume our sorrows. Whoever has once seen
+the blissful chalice, will scorn the wine-cup. Glorious drink! thy color
+is the seal of purity, and reason proclaims it genuine. Drink with
+confidence, and regard not the prattle of fools, who condemn without
+foundation."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch14">
+<h2>Chapter XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Journey to Antioch and Aleppo.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Change of Plans--Routes to Baghdad--Asia Minor--We sail from
+  Beyrout--Yachting on the Syrian Coast--Tartus and Latakiyeh--The Coasts
+  of Syria--The Bay of Suediah--The Mouth of the Orontes--Landing--The
+  Garden of Syria--Ride to Antioch--The Modern City--The Plains of the
+  Orontes--Remains of the Greek Empire--The Ancient Road--The Plain of
+  Keftin--Approach to Aleppo.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The living breath is fresh behind,<br />
+As, with dews and sunrise fed,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Comes the laughing morning wind."</p>
+
+<p>  Shelley.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Aleppo, <i>Friday, June</i> 4, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>A Traveller in the East, who has not unbounded time and an extensive
+fortune at his disposal, is never certain where and how far he shall go,
+until his journey is finished. With but a limited portion of both these
+necessaries, I have so far carried out my original plan with scarcely a
+variation; but at present I am obliged to make a material change of route.
+My farthest East is here at Aleppo. At Damascus, I was told by everybody
+that it was too late in the season to visit either Baghdad or Mosul, and
+that, on account of the terrible summer heats and the fevers which prevail
+along the Tigris, it would be imprudent to undertake it. Notwithstanding
+this, I should probably have gone (being now so thoroughly acclimated that
+I have nothing to fear from the heat), had I not met with a friend of
+Col. Rawlinson, the companion of Layard, and the sharer in his discoveries
+at Nineveh. This gentleman, who met Col. R. not long since in
+Constantinople, on his way to Baghdad (where he resides as British
+Consul), informed me that since the departure of Mr. Layard from Mosul,
+the most interesting excavations have been filled up, in order to preserve
+the sculptures. Unless one was able to make a new exhumation, he would be
+by no means repaid for so long and arduous a journey. The ruins of Nineveh
+are all below the surface of the earth, and the little of them that is now
+left exposed, is less complete and interesting than the specimens in the
+British Museum.</p>
+
+<p>There is a route from Damascus to Baghdad, across the Desert, by way of
+Palmyra, but it is rarely travelled, even by the natives, except when the
+caravans are sufficiently strong to withstand the attacks of the Bedouins.
+The traveller is obliged to go in Arab costume, to leave his baggage
+behind, except a meagre scrip for the journey, and to pay from $300 to
+$500 for the camels and escort. The more usual route is to come northward
+to this city, then cross to Mosul and descend the Tigris--a journey of
+four or five weeks. After weighing all the advantages and disadvantages of
+undertaking a tour of such length as it would be necessary to make before
+reaching Constantinople, I decided at Beyrout to give up the fascinating
+fields of travel in Media, Assyria and Armenia, and take a rather shorter
+and-perhaps equally interesting route from Aleppo to Constantinople, by
+way of Tarsus, Konia (Iconium), and the ancient countries of Phrygia,
+Bithynia, and Mysia. The interior of Asia Minor is even less known to us
+than the Persian side of Asiatic Turkey, which has of late received more
+attention from travellers; and, as I shall traverse it in its whole
+length, from Syria to the Bosphorus, I may find it replete with "green
+fields and pastures new," which shall repay me for relinquishing the first
+and more ambitious undertaking. At least, I have so much reason to be
+grateful for the uninterrupted good health and good luck I have enjoyed
+during seven months in Africa and the Orient, that I cannot be otherwise
+than content with the prospect before me.</p>
+
+<p>I left Beyrout on the night of the 28th of May, with Mr. Harrison, who has
+decided to keep me company as far as Constantinople. Fran&ccedil;ois, our classic
+dragoman, whose great delight is to recite Homer by the sea-side, is
+retained for the whole tour, as we have found no reason to doubt his
+honesty or ability. Our first thought was to proceed to Aleppo by land, by
+way of Homs and Hamah, whence there might be a chance of reaching Palmyra;
+but as we found an opportunity of engaging an American yacht for the
+voyage up the coast, it was thought preferable to take her, and save time.
+She was a neat little craft, called the "American Eagle," brought out by
+Mr. Smith, our Consul at Beyrout. So, one fine moonlit night, we slowly
+crept out of the harbor, and after returning a volley of salutes from our
+friends at Demetri's Hotel, ran into the heart of a thunder-storm, which
+poured down more rain than all I had seen for eight months before. But our
+ra&iuml;s, Assad (the Lion), was worthy of his name, and had two good Christian
+sailors at his command, so we lay in the cramped little cabin, and heard
+the floods washing our deck, without fear.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, we were off Tripoli, which is even more deeply buried than
+Beyrout in its orange and mulberry groves, and slowly wafted along the
+bold mountain-coast, in the afternoon reached Tartus, the Ancient Tortosa.
+A mile from shore is the rocky island of Aradus, entirely covered by a
+town. There were a dozen vessels lying in the harbor. The remains of a
+large fortress and ancient mole prove it to have been a place of
+considerable importance. Tartus is a small old place on the sea-shore--not
+so large nor so important in appearance as its island-port. The country
+behind is green and hilly, though but partially cultivated, and rises into
+Djebel Ansairiyeh, which divides the valley of the Orontes from the sea.
+It is a lovely coast, especially under the flying lights and shadows of
+such a breezy day as we had. The wind fell at sunset; but by the next
+morning, we had passed the tobacco-fields of Latakiyeh, and were in sight
+of the southern cape of the Bay of Suediah. The mountains forming this
+cape culminate in a grand conical peak, about 5,000 feet in height, called
+Djebel Okrab. At ten o'clock, wafted along by a slow wind, we turned the
+point and entered the Bay of Suediah, formed by the embouchure of the
+River Orontes. The mountain headland of Akma Dagh, forming the portal of
+the Gulf of Scanderoon, loomed grandly in front of us across the bay; and
+far beyond it, we could just distinguish the coast of Karamania, the
+snow-capped range of Taurus.</p>
+
+<p>The Coasts of Syria might be divided, like those of Guinea, according to
+the nature of their productions. The northern division is bold and bare,
+yet flocks of sheep graze on the slopes of its mountains; and the inland
+plains behind them are covered with orchards of pistachio-trees. Silk is
+cultivated in the neighborhood of Suediah, but forms only a small portion
+of the exports. This region may be called the Wool and Pistachio Coast.
+Southward, from Latakiyeh to Tartus and the northern limit of Lebanon,
+extends the Tobacco Coast, whose undulating hills are now clothed with the
+pale-green leaves of the renowned plant. From Tripoli to Tyre, embracing
+all the western slope of Lebanon, and the deep, rich valleys lying between
+his knees, the mulberry predominates, and the land is covered with the
+houses of thatch and matting which shelter the busy worms. This is the
+Silk Coast. The palmy plains of Jaffa, and beyond, until Syria meets the
+African sands between Gaza and El-Arish, constitute the Orange Coast. The
+vine, the olive, and the fig flourish everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>We were all day getting up the bay, and it seemed as if we should never
+pass Djebel Okrab, whose pointed top rose high above a long belt of fleecy
+clouds that girdled his waist. At sunset we made the mouth of the Orontes.
+Our lion of a Captain tried to run into the river, but the channel was
+very narrow, and when within three hundred yards of the shore the yacht
+struck. We had all sail set, and had the wind been a little stronger, we
+should have capsized in an instant. The lion went manfully to work, and by
+dint of hard poling, shoved us off, and came to anchor in deep water. Not
+until the danger was past did he open his batteries on the unlucky
+helmsman, and then the explosion of Arabic oaths was equal to a broadside
+of twenty-four pounders. We lay all night rocking on the swells, and the
+next morning, by firing a number of signal guns, brought out a boat, which
+took us off. We entered the mouth of the Orontes, and sailed nearly a mile
+between rich wheat meadows before reaching the landing-place of
+Suediah--two or three uninhabited stone huts, with three or four small
+Turkish craft, and a health officer. The town lies a mile or two inland,
+scattered along the hill-side amid gardens so luxuriant as almost to
+conceal it from view.</p>
+
+<p>This part of the coast is ignorant of travellers, and we were obliged to
+wait half a day before we could find a sufficient number of horses to take
+us to Antioch, twenty miles distant. When they came, they were solid
+farmers' horses, with the rudest gear imaginable. I was obliged to mount
+astride of a broad pack-saddle, with my legs suspended in coils of rope.
+Leaving the meadows, we entered a lane of the wildest, richest and
+loveliest bloom and foliage. Our way was overhung with hedges of
+pomegranate, myrtle, oleander, and white rose, in blossom, and
+occasionally with quince, fig, and carob trees, laced together with grape
+vines in fragrant bloom. Sometimes this wilderness of color and odor met
+above our heads and made a twilight; then it opened into long, dazzling,
+sun-bright vistas, where the hues of the oleander, pomegranate and white
+rose made the eye wink with their gorgeous profusion. The mountains we
+crossed were covered with thickets of myrtle, mastic, daphne, and arbutus,
+and all the valleys and sloping meads waved with fig, mulberry, and olive
+trees. Looking towards the sea, the valley broadened out between mountain
+ranges whose summits were lost in the clouds. Though the soil was not so
+rich as in Palestine, the general aspect of the country was much wilder
+and more luxuriant.</p>
+
+<p>So, by this glorious lane, over the myrtled hills and down into valleys,
+whose bed was one hue of rose from the blossoming oleanders, we travelled
+for five hours, crossing the low ranges of hills through which the Orontes
+forces his way to the sea. At last we reached a height overlooking the
+valley of the river, and saw in the east, at the foot of the mountain
+chain, the long lines of barracks built by Ibrahim Pasha for the defence
+of Antioch. Behind them the ancient wall of the city clomb the mountains,
+whose crest it followed to the last peak of the chain, From the next hill
+we saw the city--a large extent of one-story houses with tiled roofs,
+surrounded with gardens, and half buried in the foliage of sycamores. It
+extends from the River Orontes, which washes its walls, up the slope of
+the mountain to the crags of gray rock which overhang it. We crossed the
+river by a massive old bridge, and entered the town. Riding along the
+rills of filth which traverse the streets, forming their central avenues,
+we passed through several lines of bazaars to a large and dreary-looking
+khan, the keeper of which gave us the best vacant chamber--a narrow place,
+full of fleas.</p>
+
+<p>Antioch presents not even a shadow of its former splendor. Except the
+great walls, ten to fifteen miles in circuit, which the Turks have done
+their best to destroy, every vestige of the old city has disappeared. The
+houses are all of one story, on account of earthquakes, from which Antioch
+has suffered more than any other city in the world. At one time, during
+the Middle Ages, it lost 120,000 inhabitants in one day. Its situation is
+magnificent, and the modern town, notwithstanding its filth, wears a
+bright and busy aspect. Situated at the base of a lofty mountain, it
+overlooks, towards the east, a plain thirty or forty miles in length,
+producing the most abundant harvests. A great number of the inhabitants
+are workers in wood and leather, and very thrifty and cheerful people they
+appear to be.</p>
+
+<p>We remained until the next day at noon, by which time a gray-bearded
+scamp, the chief of the <i>mukkairees</i>, or muleteers, succeeded in getting
+us five miserable beasts for the journey to Aleppo. On leaving the city,
+we travelled along a former street of Antioch, part of the ancient
+pavement still remaining, and after two miles came to the old wall of
+circuit, which we passed by a massive gateway, of Roman time. It is now
+called <i>Bab Boulos</i>, or St. Paul's Gate. Christianity, it will be
+remembered, was planted in Antioch by Paul and Barnabas, and the Apostle
+Peter was the first bishop of the city. We now entered the great plain of
+the Orontes--a level sea, rioting in the wealth of its ripening harvests.
+The river, lined with luxuriant thickets, meandered through the centre of
+this glorious picture. We crossed it during the afternoon, and keeping on
+our eastward course, encamped at night in a meadow near the tents of some
+wandering Turcomans, who furnished us with butter and milk from their
+herds.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the plain the next morning, we travelled due east all day, over
+long stony ranges of mountains, inclosing only one valley, which bore
+evidence of great fertility. It was circular, about ten miles in its
+greater diameter, and bounded on the north by the broad peak of Djebel
+Saman, or Mount St. Simon. In the morning we passed a ruined castle,
+standing in a dry, treeless dell, among the hot hills. The muleteers
+called it the Maiden's Palace, and said that it was built long ago by a
+powerful Sultan, as a prison for his daughter. For several hours
+thereafter, our road was lined with remains of buildings, apparently
+dating from the time of the Greek Empire. There were tombs, temples of
+massive masonry, though in a bad style of architecture, and long rows of
+arched chambers, which resembled store-houses. They were all more or less
+shattered by earthquakes, but in one place I noticed twenty such arches,
+each of at least twenty feet span. All-the hills, on either hand, as far
+as we could see, were covered with the remains of buildings. In the plain
+of St. Simon, I saw two superb pillars, apparently part of a portico, or
+gateway, and the village of Dana is formed almost entirely of churches and
+convents, of the Lower Empire. There were but few inscriptions, and these
+I could not read; but the whole of this region would, no doubt, richly
+repay an antiquarian research. I am told here that the entire chain of
+hills, which extends southward for more than a hundred miles, abounds with
+similar remains, and that, in many places, whole cities stand almost
+entire, as if recently deserted by their inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>During the afternoon, we came upon a portion of the ancient road from
+Antioch to Aleppo, which is still as perfect as when first constructed. It
+crossed a very stony ridge, and is much the finest specimen of road-making
+I ever saw, quite putting to shame the Appian and Flaminian Ways at Rome.
+It is twenty feet wide, and laid with blocks of white marble, from two to
+four feet square. It was apparently raised upon a more ancient road, which
+diverges here and there from the line, showing the deeply-cut traces of
+the Roman chariot-wheels. In the barren depths of the mountains we found
+every hour cisterns cut in the rock and filled with water left by the
+winter rains. Many of them, however, are fast drying up, and a month later
+this will be a desert road.</p>
+
+<p>Towards night we descended from the hills upon the Plain of Keftin, which
+stretches south-westward from Aleppo, till the mountain-streams which
+fertilize it are dried up, when it is merged into the Syrian Desert. Its
+northern edge, along which we travelled, is covered with fields of wheat,
+cotton, and castor-beans. We stopped all night at a village called Taireb,
+planted at the foot of a tumulus, older than tradition. The people were
+in great dread of the Aneyzeh Arabs, who come in from the Desert to
+destroy their harvests and carry off their cattle. They wanted us to take
+a guard, but after our experience on the Anti-Lebanon, we felt safer
+without one.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday we travelled for seven hours over a wide, rolling country, now
+waste and barren, but formerly covered with wealth and supporting an
+abundant population, evidences of which are found in the buildings
+everywhere scattered over the hills. On and on we toiled in the heat, over
+this inhospitable wilderness, and though we knew Aleppo must be very near,
+yet we could see neither sign of cultivation nor inhabitants. Finally,
+about three o'clock, the top of a line of shattered wall and the points of
+some minarets issued out of the earth, several miles in front of us, and
+on climbing a glaring chalky ridge, the renowned city burst at once upon
+our view. It filled a wide hollow or basin among the white hills, against
+which its whiter houses and domes glimmered for miles, in the dead, dreary
+heat of the afternoon, scarcely relieved by the narrow belt of gardens on
+the nearer side, or the orchards of pistachio trees beyond. In the centre
+of the city rose a steep, abrupt mound, crowned with the remains of the
+ancient citadel, and shining minarets shot up, singly or in clusters,
+around its base. The prevailing hue of the landscape was a whitish-gray,
+and the long, stately city and long, monotonous hills, gleamed with equal
+brilliancy under a sky of cloudless and intense blue. This singular
+monotony of coloring gave a wonderful effect to the view, which is one of
+the most remarkable in all the Orient.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch15">
+<h2>Chapter XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Life in Aleppo.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Our Entry into Aleppo--We are conducted to a House--Our Unexpected
+  Welcome--The Mystery Explained--Aleppo--Its Name--Its Situation--The
+  Trade of Aleppo--The Christians--The Revolt of 1850--Present Appearance
+  of the City--Visit to Osman Pasha--The Citadel--View from the
+  Battlements--Society in Aleppo--Etiquette and Costume--Jewish Marriage
+  Festivities--A Christian Marriage Procession--Ride around the
+  Town--Nightingales--The Aleppo Button--A Hospital for Cats--Ferhat
+  Pasha.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Aleppo, <i>Tuesday, June</i> 8, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Our entry into Aleppo was a fitting preliminary to our experiences during
+the five days we have spent here. After passing a blackamoor, who acted as
+an advanced guard of the Custom House, at a ragged tent outside of the
+city, and bribing him with two piastres, we crossed the narrow line of
+gardens on the western side, and entered the streets. There were many
+coffee-houses, filled with smokers, nearly all of whom accosted us in
+Turkish, though Arabic is the prevailing language here. Ignorance made us
+discourteous, and we slighted every attempt to open a conversation. Out of
+the narrow streets of the suburbs, we advanced to the bazaars, in order to
+find a khan where we could obtain lodgings. All the best khans, however,
+were filled, and we were about to take a very inferior room, when a
+respectable individual came up to Fran&ccedil;ois and said: "The house is ready
+for the travellers, and I will show you the way." We were a little
+surprised at this address, but followed him to a neat, quiet and pleasant
+street near the bazaars, where we were ushered into a spacious court-yard,
+with a row of apartments opening upon it, and told to make ourselves at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>The place had evidently been recently inhabited, for the rooms were well
+furnished, with not only divans, but beds in the Frank style. A lean
+kitten was scratching at one of the windows, to the great danger of
+overturning a pair of narghilehs, a tame sea-gull was walking about the
+court, and two sheep bleated in a stable at the further end. In the
+kitchen we not only found a variety of utensils, but eggs, salt, pepper,
+and other condiments. Our guide had left, and the only information we
+could get, from a dyeing establishment next door, was that the occupants
+had gone into the country. "Take the good the gods provide thee," is my
+rule in such cases, and as we were very hungry, we set Fran&ccedil;ois to work at
+preparing dinner. We arranged a divan in the open air, had a table brought
+out, and by the aid of the bakers in the bazaar, and the stores which the
+kitchen supplied, soon rejoiced over a very palatable meal. The romantic
+character of our reception made the dinner a merry one. It was a chapter
+out of the Arabian Nights, and be he genie or afrite, caliph or merchant
+of Bassora, into whose hands we had fallen, we resolved to let the
+adventure take its course. We were just finishing a nondescript pastry
+which Fran&ccedil;ois found at a baker's, and which, for want of a better name,
+he called <i>m&eacute;ringues &agrave; la Khorassan,</i> when there was a loud knock at the
+street door. We felt at first some little trepidation, but determined to
+maintain our places, and gravely invite the real master to join us.</p>
+
+<p>It was a female servant, however, who, to our great amazement, made a
+profound salutation, and seemed delighted to see us. "My master did not
+expect your Excellencies to-day; he has gone into the gardens, but will
+soon return. Will your Excellencies take coffee after your dinner?" and
+coffee was forthwith served. The old woman was unremitting in her
+attentions; and her son, a boy of eight years, and the most venerable
+child I ever saw, entertained us with the description of a horse which his
+master had just bought--a horse which had cost two thousand piastres, and
+was ninety years old. Well, this Aleppo is an extraordinary place, was my
+first impression, and the inhabitants are remarkable people; but I waited
+the master's arrival, as the only means of solving the mystery. About
+dusk, there was another rap at the door. A lady dressed in white, with an
+Indian handkerchief bound over her black hair, arrived. "Pray excuse us,"
+said she; "we thought you would not reach here before to-morrow; but my
+brother will come directly." In fact, the brother did come soon
+afterwards, and greeted us with a still warmer welcome. "Before leaving
+the gardens," he said, "I heard of your arrival, and have come in a full
+gallop the whole way." In order to put an end to this comedy of errors, I
+declared at once that he was mistaken; nobody in Aleppo could possibly
+know of our coming, and we were, perhaps, transgressing on his
+hospitality. But no: he would not be convinced. He was a dragoman to the
+English Consulate; his master had told him we would be here the next day,
+and he must be prepared to receive us. Besides, the janissary of the
+Consulate had showed us the way to his house. We, therefore, let the
+matter rest until next morning, when we called on Mr. Very, the Consul,
+who informed us that the janissary had mistaken us for two gentlemen we
+had met in Damascus, the travelling companions of Lord Dalkeith. As they
+had not arrived, he begged us to remain in the quarters which had been
+prepared for them. We have every reason to be glad of this mistake, as it
+has made us acquainted with one of the most courteous and hospitable
+gentlemen in the East.</p>
+
+<p>Aleppo lies so far out of the usual routes of travel, that it is rarely
+visited by Europeans. One is not, therefore, as in the case of Damascus,
+prepared beforehand by volumes of description, which preclude all
+possibility of mistake or surprise. For my part, I only knew that Aleppo
+had once been the greatest commercial city of the Orient, though its power
+had long since passed into other hands. But there were certain stately
+associations lingering around the name, which drew me towards it, and
+obliged me to include it, at all hazards, in my Asiatic tour. The scanty
+description of Captains Irby and Mangles, the only one I had read, gave me
+no distinct idea of its position or appearance; and when, the other day, I
+first saw it looming grand and gray among the gray hills, more like a vast
+natural crystallization than the product of human art, I revelled in the
+novelty of that startling first impression.</p>
+
+<p>The tradition of the city's name is curious, and worth relating. It is
+called, in Arabic, <i>Haleb el-Shahba</i>--Aleppo, the Gray--which most persons
+suppose to refer to the prevailing color of the soil. The legend, however,
+goes much farther. <i>Haleb</i>, which the Venetians and Genoese softened into
+Aleppo, means literally: "has milked," According to Arab tradition, the
+patriarch Abraham once lived here: his tent being pitched near the mound
+now occupied by the citadel. He had a certain gray cow (<i>el-shahba</i>)
+which was milked every morning for the benefit of the poor. When,
+therefore, it was proclaimed: "<i>Ibrahim haleb el-shahba</i>" (Abraham has
+milked the gray cow), all the poor of the tribe came up to receive their
+share. The repetition of this morning call attached itself to the spot,
+and became the name of the city which was afterwards founded.</p>
+
+<p>Aleppo is built on the eastern slope of a shallow upland basin, through
+which flows the little River Koweik. There are low hills to the north and
+south, between which the country falls into a wide, monotonous plain,
+extending unbroken to the Euphrates. The city is from eight to ten miles
+in circuit, and, though not so thickly populated, covers a greater extent
+of space than Damascus. The population is estimated at 100,000. In the
+excellence (not the elegance) of its architecture, it surpasses any
+Oriental city I have yet seen. The houses are all of hewn stone,
+frequently three and even four stories in height, and built in a most
+massive and durable style, on account of the frequency of earthquakes. The
+streets are well paved, clean, with narrow sidewalks, and less tortuous
+and intricate than the bewildering alleys of Damascus. A large part of the
+town is occupied with bazaars, attesting the splendor of its former
+commerce. These establishments are covered with lofty vaults of stone,
+lighted from the top; and one may walk for miles beneath the spacious
+roofs. The shops exhibit all the stuffs of the East, especially of Persia
+and India. There is also an extensive display of European fabrics, as the
+eastern provinces of Asiatic Turkey, as far as Baghdad, are supplied
+entirely from Aleppo and Trebizond.</p>
+
+<p>Within ten years--in fact, since the Allied Powers drove Ibrahim Pasha
+out of Syria--the trade of Aleppo has increased, at the expense of
+Damascus. The tribes of the Desert, who were held in check during the
+Egyptian occupancy, are now so unruly that much of the commerce between
+the latter place and Baghdad goes northward to Mosul, and thence by a
+safer road to this city. The khans, of which there are a great number,
+built on a scale according with the former magnificence of Aleppo, are
+nearly all filled, and Persian, Georgian, and Armenian merchants again
+make their appearance in the bazaars. The principal manufactures carried
+on are the making of shoes (which, indeed, is a prominent branch in every
+Turkish city), and the weaving of silk and golden tissues. Two long
+bazaars are entirely occupied with shoe-shops, and there is nearly a
+quarter of a mile of confectionery, embracing more varieties than I ever
+saw, or imagined possible. I saw yesterday the operation of weaving silk
+and gold, which is a very slow process. The warp and the body of the woof
+were of purple silk. The loom only differed from the old hand-looms in
+general use in having some thirty or forty contrivances for lifting the
+threads of the warp, so as to form, by variation, certain patterns. The
+gold threads by which the pattern was worked were contained in twenty
+small shuttles, thrust by hand under the different parcels of the warp, as
+they were raised by a boy trained for that purpose, who sat on the top of
+the loom. The fabric was very brilliant in its appearance, and sells, as
+the weavers informed me, at 100 piastres per <i>pik</i>--about $7 per yard.</p>
+
+<p>We had letters to Mr. Ford, an American Missionary established here, and
+Signor di Picciotto, who acts as American Vice-Consul. Both gentlemen have
+been very cordial in their offers of service, and by their aid we have
+been enabled to see something of Aleppo life and society. Mr. Ford, who
+has been here four years, has a pleasant residence at Jedaida, a Christian
+suburb of the city. His congregation numbers some fifty or sixty
+proselytes, who are mostly from the schismatic sects of the Armenians. Dr.
+Smith, who established the mission at Ain-tab (two days' journey north of
+this), where he died last year, was very successful among these sects, and
+the congregation there amounts to nine hundred. The Sultan, a year ago,
+issued a firman, permitting his Christian subjects to erect houses of
+worship; but, although this was proclaimed in Constantinople and much
+lauded in Europe as an act of great generosity and tolerance, there has
+been no official promulgation of it here. So of the aid which the Turkish
+Government was said to have afforded to its destitute Christian subjects,
+whose houses were sacked during the fanatical rebellion of 1850. The world
+praised the Sultan's charity and love of justice, while the sufferers, to
+this day, lack the first experience of it. But for the spontaneous relief
+contributed in Europe and among the Christian communities of the Levant,
+the amount of misery would have been frightful.</p>
+
+<p>To Feridj Pasha, who is at present the commander of the forces here, is
+mainly due the credit of having put down the rebels with a strong hand.
+There were but few troops in the city at the time of the outbreak, and as
+the insurgents, who were composed of the Turkish and Arab population, were
+in league with the Aneyzehs of the Desert, the least faltering or delay
+would have led to a universal massacre of the Christians. Fortunately, the
+troops were divided into two portions, one occupying the barracks on a
+hill north of the city, and the other, a mere corporal's guard of a dozen
+men, posted in the citadel. The leaders of the outbreak went to the latter
+and offered him a large sum of money (the spoils of Christian houses) to
+give up the fortress. With a loyalty to his duty truly miraculous among
+the Turks, he ordered his men to fire upon them, and they beat a hasty
+retreat. The quarter of the insurgents lay precisely between the barracks
+and the citadel, and by order of Feridj Pasha a cannonade was immediately
+opened on it from both points. It was not, however, until many houses had
+been battered down, and a still larger number destroyed by fire, that the
+rebels were brought to submission. Their allies, the Aneyzehs, appeared on
+the hill east of Aleppo, to the number of five or six thousand, but a few
+well-directed cannon-balls told them what they might expect, and they
+speedily retreated. Two or three hundred Christian families lost nearly
+all of their property during the sack, and many were left entirely
+destitute. The house in which Mr. Ford lives was plundered of jewels and
+furniture to the amount of 400,000 piastres ($20,000). The robbers, it is
+said, were amazed at the amount of spoil they found. The Government made
+some feeble efforts to recover it, but the greater part was already sold
+and scattered through a thousand hands, and the unfortunate Christians
+have only received about seven per cent. of their loss.</p>
+
+<p>The burnt quarter has since been rebuilt, and I noticed several Christians
+occupying shops in various parts of it. But many families, who fled at the
+time, still remain in various parts of Syria, afraid to return to their
+homes. The Aneyzehs and other Desert tribes have latterly become more
+daring than ever. Even in the immediate neighborhood of the city, the
+inhabitants are so fearful of them that all the grain is brought up to
+the very walls to be threshed. The burying-grounds on both sides are now
+turned into threshing-floors, and all day long the Turkish peasants drive
+their heavy sleds around among the tomb-stones.</p>
+
+<p>On the second day after our arrival, we paid a visit to Osman Pasha,
+Governor of the City and Province of Aleppo. We went in state, accompanied
+by the Consul, with two janissaries in front, bearing silver maces, and a
+dragoman behind. The <i>sera&iuml;</i>, or palace, is a large, plain wooden
+building, and a group of soldiers about the door, with a shabby carriage
+in the court, were the only tokens of its character. We were ushered at
+once into the presence of the Pasha, who is a man of about seventy years,
+with a good-humored, though shrewd face. He was quite cordial in his
+manners, complimenting us on our Turkish costume, and vaunting his skill
+in physiognomy, which at once revealed to him that we belonged to the
+highest class of American nobility. In fact, in the firman which he has
+since sent us, we are mentioned as "nobles." He invited us to pass a day
+or two with him, saying that he should derive much benefit from our
+superior knowledge. We replied that such an intercourse could only benefit
+ourselves, as his greater experience, and the distinguished wisdom which
+had made his name long since familiar to our ears, precluded the hope of
+our being of any service to him. After half an hour's stay, during which
+we were regaled with jewelled pipes, exquisite Mocha coffee, and sherbet
+breathing of the gardens of G&uuml;listan, we took our leave.</p>
+
+<p>The Pasha sent an officer to show us the citadel. We passed around the
+moat to the entrance on the western side, consisting of a bridge and
+double gateway. The fortress, as I have already stated, occupies the crest
+of an elliptical mound, about one thousand feet by six hundred, and two
+hundred feet in height. It is entirely encompassed by the city and forms a
+prominent and picturesque feature in the distant view thereof. Formerly,
+it was thickly inhabited, and at the time of the great earthquake of 1822,
+there were three hundred families living within the walls, nearly all of
+whom perished. The outer walls were very much shattered on that occasion,
+but the enormous towers and the gateway, the grandest specimen of
+Saracenic architecture in the East, still remain entire. This gateway, by
+which we entered, is colossal in its proportions. The outer entrance,
+through walls ten feet thick, admitted us into a lofty vestibule lined
+with marble, and containing many ancient inscriptions in mosaic. Over the
+main portal, which is adorned with sculptured lions' heads, there is a
+tablet stating that the fortress was built by El Melek el Ashraf (the
+Holiest of Kings), after which follows: "Prosperity to the True
+Believers--Death to the Infidels!" A second tablet shows that it was
+afterwards repaired by Mohammed ebn-Berkook, who, I believe, was one of
+the Fatimite Caliphs. The shekh of the citadel, who accompanied us, stated
+the age of the structure at nine hundred years, which, as nearly as I can
+recollect the Saracenic chronology, is correct. He called our attention to
+numbers of iron arrow-heads sticking in the solid masonry--the marks of
+ancient sieges. Before leaving, we were presented with a bundle of arrows
+from the armory--undoubted relics of Saracen warfare.</p>
+
+<p>The citadel is now a mass of ruins, having been deserted since the
+earthquake. Grass is growing on the ramparts, and the caper plant, with
+its white-and-purple blossoms, flourishes among the piles of rubbish.
+Since the late rebellion, however, a small military barrack has been
+built, and two companies of soldiers are stationed there, We walked around
+the walls, which command a magnificent view of the city and the wide
+plains to the south and east. It well deserves to rank with the panorama
+of Cairo from the citadel, and that of Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon, in
+extent, picturesqueness and rich oriental character. Out of the gray ring
+of the city, which incloses the mound, rise the great white domes and the
+whiter minarets of its numerous mosques, many of which are grand and
+imposing structures. The course of the river through the centre of the
+picture is marked by a belt of the greenest verdure, beyond which, to the
+west, rises a chain of naked red hills, and still further, fading on the
+horizon, the blue summit of Mt. St. Simon, and the coast range of Akma
+Dagh. Eastward, over vast orchards of pistachio trees, the barren plain of
+the Euphrates fades away to a glimmering, hot horizon. Looking downwards
+on the heart of the city, I was surprised to see a number of open, grassy
+tracts, out of which, here and there, small trees were growing. But,
+perceiving what appeared to be subterranean entrances at various points, I
+found that these tracts were upon the roofs of the houses and bazaars,
+verifying what I had frequently heard, that in Aleppo the inhabitants
+visit their friends in different parts of the city, by passing over the
+roofs of the houses. Previous to the earthquake of 1822, these vast
+roof-plains were cultivated as gardens, and presented an extent of airy
+bowers as large, if not as magnificent, as the renowned Hanging Gardens of
+ancient Babylon.</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by Signor di Picciotto, we spent two or three days in
+visiting the houses of the principal Jewish and Christian families in
+Aleppo. We found, it is true, no such splendor as in Damascus, but more
+solid and durable architecture, and a more chastened elegance of taste.
+The buildings are all of hewn stone, the court-yards paved with marble,
+and the walls rich with gilding and carved wood. Some of the larger
+dwellings have small but beautiful gardens attached to them. We were
+everywhere received with the greatest hospitality, and the visits were
+considered as a favor rather than an intrusion. Indeed, I was frequently
+obliged to run the risk of giving offence, by declining the refreshments
+which were offered us. Each round of visits was a feat of strength, and we
+were obliged to desist from sheer inability to support more coffee,
+rose-water, pipes, and aromatic sweetmeats. The character of society in
+Aleppo is singular; its very life and essence is etiquette. The laws which
+govern it are more inviolable than those of the Medes and Persians. The
+question of precedence among the different families is adjusted by the
+most delicate scale, and rigorously adhered to in the most trifling
+matters. Even we, humble voyagers as we are, have been obliged to regulate
+our conduct according to it. After our having visited certain families,
+certain others would have been deeply mortified had we neglected to call
+upon them. Formerly, when a traveller arrived here, he was expected to
+call upon the different Consuls, in the order of their established
+precedence: the Austrian first, English second, French third, &amp;c. After
+this, he was obliged to stay at home several days, to give the Consuls an
+opportunity of returning the visits, which they made in the same order.
+There was a diplomatic importance about all his movements, and the least
+violation of etiquette, through ignorance or neglect, was the town talk
+for days.</p>
+
+<p>This peculiarity in society is evidently a relic of the formal times, when
+Aleppo was a semi-Venetian city, and the opulent seat of Eastern commerce.
+Many of the inhabitants are descended from the traders of those times, and
+they all speak the <i>lingua franca</i>, or Levantine Italian. The women wear a
+costume partly Turkish and partly European, combining the graces of both;
+it is, in my eyes, the most beautiful dress in the world. They wear a rich
+scarf of some dark color on the head, which, on festive occasions, is
+almost concealed by their jewels, and the heavy scarlet pomegranate
+blossoms which adorn their dark hair. A Turkish vest and sleeves of
+embroidered silk, open in front, and a skirt of white or some light color,
+completes the costume. The Jewesses wear in addition a short Turkish
+<i>caftan</i>, and full trousers gathered at the ankles. At a ball given by Mr.
+Very, the English Consul, which we attended, all the Christian beauties of
+Aleppo were present. There was a fine display of diamonds, many of the
+ladies wearing several thousand dollars' worth on their heads. The
+peculiar etiquette of the place was again illustrated on this occasion.
+The custom is, that the music must be heard for at least one hour before
+the guests come. The hour appointed was eight, but when we went there, at
+nine, nobody had arrived. As it was generally supposed that the ball was
+given on our account, several of the families had servants in the
+neighborhood to watch our arrival; and, accordingly, we had not been there
+five minutes before the guests crowded through the door in large numbers.
+When the first dance (an Arab dance, performed by two ladies at a time)
+was proposed, the wives of the French and Spanish Consuls were first led,
+or rather dragged, out. When a lady is asked to dance, she invariably
+refuses. She is asked a second and a third time; and if the gentleman does
+not solicit most earnestly, and use some gentle force in getting her upon
+the floor, she never forgives him.</p>
+
+<p>At one of the Jewish houses which we visited, the wedding festivities of
+one of the daughters were being celebrated. We were welcomed with great
+cordiality, and immediately ushered into the room of state, an elegant
+apartment, overlooking the gardens below the city wall. Half the room was
+occupied by a raised platform, with a divan of blue silk cushions. Here
+the ladies reclined, in superb dresses of blue, pink, and gold, while the
+gentlemen were ranged on the floor below. They all rose at our entrance,
+and we were conducted to seats among the ladies. Pipes and perfumed drinks
+were served, and the bridal cake, made of twenty-six different fruits, was
+presented on a golden salver. Our fair neighbors, some of whom literally
+blazed with jewels, were strikingly beautiful. Presently the bride
+appeared at the door, and we all rose and remained standing, as she
+advanced, supported on each side by the two <i>shebeeniyeh</i>, or bridesmaids.
+She was about sixteen, slight and graceful in appearance, though not
+decidedly beautiful, and was attired with the utmost elegance. Her dress
+was a pale blue silk, heavy with gold embroidery; and over her long dark
+hair, her neck, bosom, and wrists, played a thousand rainbow gleams from
+the jewels which covered them. The Jewish musicians, seated at the bottom
+of the hall, struck up a loud, rejoicing harmony on their violins,
+guitars, and dulcimers, and the women servants, grouped at the door,
+uttered in chorus that wild, shrill cry, which accompanies all such
+festivals in the East. The bride was careful to preserve the decorum
+expected of her, by speaking no word, nor losing the sad, resigned
+expression of her countenance. She ascended to the divan, bowed to each of
+us with a low, reverential inclination, and seated herself on the
+cushions. The music and dances lasted some time, accompanied by the
+<i>zugh&agrave;reet</i>, or cry of the women, which was repeated with double force
+when we rose to take leave. The whole company waited on us to the street
+door, and one of the servants, stationed in the court, shouted some long,
+sing-song phrases after us as we passed out. I could not learn the words,
+but was told that it was an invocation of prosperity upon us, in return
+for the honor which our visit had conferred.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I went to view a Christian marriage procession, which,
+about midnight, conveyed the bride to the house of the bridegroom. The
+house, it appeared, was too small to receive all the friends of the
+family, and I joined a large number of them, who repaired to the terrace
+of the English Consulate, to greet the procession as it passed. The first
+persons who appeared were a company of buffoons; after them four
+janissaries, carrying silver maces; then the male friends, bearing colored
+lanterns and perfumed torches, raised on gilded poles; then the females,
+among whom I saw some beautiful Madonna faces in the torchlight; and
+finally the bride herself, covered from head to foot with a veil of cloth
+of gold, and urged along by two maidens: for it is the etiquette of such
+occasions that the bride should resist being taken, and must be forced
+every step of the way, so that she is frequently three hours in going the
+distance of a mile. We watched the procession a long time, winding away
+through the streets--a line of torches, and songs, and incense, and noisy
+jubilee--under the sweet starlit heaven.</p>
+
+<p>The other evening, Signor di Picciotto mounted us from his fine Arabian
+stud, and we rode around the city, outside of the suburbs. The sun was
+low, and a pale yellow lustre touched the clusters of minarets that rose
+out of the stately masses of buildings, and the bare, chalky hills to the
+north. After leaving the gardens on the banks of the Koweik, we came upon
+a dreary waste of ruins, among which the antiquarian finds traces of the
+ancient Aleppo of the Greeks, the Mongolian conquerors of the Middle Ages,
+and the Saracens who succeeded them. There are many mosques and tombs,
+which were once imposing specimens of Saracenic art; but now, split and
+shivered by wars and earthquakes, are slowly tumbling into utter decay. On
+the south-eastern side of the city, its chalk foundations have been
+hollowed into vast, arched caverns, which extend deep into the earth.
+Pillars have been left at regular intervals, to support the masses above,
+and their huge, dim labyrinths resemble the crypts of some great
+cathedral. They are now used as rope-walks, and filled with cheerful
+workmen.</p>
+
+<p>Our last excursion was to a country-house of Signor di Picciotto, in the
+Gardens of Babala, about four miles from Aleppo. We set out in the
+afternoon on our Arabians, with our host's son on a large white donkey of
+the Baghdad breed. Passing the Turkish cemetery, where we stopped to view
+the tomb of General Bem, we loosened rein and sped away at full gallop
+over the hot, white hills. In dashing down a stony rise, the ambitious
+donkey, who was doing his best to keep up with the horses, fell, hurling
+Master Picciotto over his head. The boy was bruised a little, but set his
+teeth together and showed no sign of pain, mounted again, and followed
+us. The Gardens of Babala are a wilderness of fruit-trees, like those of
+Damascus. Signor P.'s country-house is buried in a wild grove of apricot,
+fig, orange, and pomegranate-trees. A large marble tank, in front of the
+open, arched <i>liwan</i>, supplies it with water. We mounted to the flat roof,
+and watched the sunset fade from the beautiful landscape. Beyond the
+bowers of dazzling greenness which surrounded us, stretched the wide, gray
+hills; the minarets of Aleppo, and the walls of its castled mount shone
+rosily in the last rays of the sun; an old palace of the Pashas, with the
+long, low barracks of the soldiery, crowned the top of a hill to the
+north; dark, spiry cypresses betrayed the place of tombs; and, to the
+west, beyond the bare red peak of Mount St. Simon, rose the faint blue
+outline of Giaour Dagh, whose mural chain divides Syria from the plains of
+Cilicia. As the twilight deepened over the scene, there came a long,
+melodious cry of passion and of sorrow from the heart of a starry-flowered
+pomegranate tree in the garden. Other voices answered it from the gardens
+around, until not one, but fifty nightingales charmed the repose of the
+hour. They vied with each other in their bursts of passionate music. Each
+strain soared over the last, or united with others, near and far, in a
+chorus of the divinest pathos--an expression of sweet, unutterable,
+unquenchable longing. It was an ecstasy, yet a pain, to listen. "Away!"
+said Jean Paul to Music: "thou tellest me of that which I have not, and
+never can have--which I forever seek, and never find!"</p>
+
+<p>But space fails me to describe half the incidents of our stay in Aleppo.
+There are two things peculiar to the city, however, which I must not omit
+mentioning. One is the Aleppo Button, a singular ulcer, which attacks
+every person born in the city, and every stranger who spends more than a
+month there. It can neither be prevented nor cured, and always lasts for a
+year. The inhabitants almost invariably have it on the face--either on the
+cheek, forehead, or tip of the nose--where it often leaves an indelible
+and disfiguring scar. Strangers, on the contrary, have it on one of the
+joints; either the elbow, wrist, knee, or ankle. So strictly is its
+visitation confined to the city proper, that in none of the neighboring
+villages, nor even in a distant suburb, is it known. Physicians have
+vainly attempted to prevent it by inoculation, and are at a loss to what
+cause to ascribe it. We are liable to have it, even after five days' stay;
+but I hope it will postpone its appearance until after I reach home.</p>
+
+<p>The other remarkable thing here is the Hospital for Cats. This was founded
+long ago by a rich, cat-loving Mussulman, and is one of the best endowed
+institutions in the city. An old mosque is appropriated to the purpose,
+under the charge of several directors; and here sick cats are nursed,
+homeless cats find shelter, and decrepit cats gratefully purr away their
+declining years. The whole category embraces several hundreds, and it is
+quite a sight to behold the court, the corridors, and terraces of the
+mosque swarming with them. Here, one with a bruised limb is receiving a
+cataplasm; there, a cataleptic patient is tenderly cared for; and so on,
+through the long concatenation of feline diseases. Aleppo, moreover,
+rejoices in a greater number of cats than even Jerusalem. At a rough
+guess, I should thus state the population of the city: Turks and Arabs,
+70,000; Christians of all denominations, 15,000; Jews, 10,000; dogs,
+12,000; and cats, 8,000.</p>
+
+<p>Among other persons whom I have met here, is Ferhat Pasha, formerly
+General Stein, Hungarian Minister of War, and Governor of Transylvania. He
+accepted Moslemism with Bem and others, and now rejoices in his
+circumcision and 7,000 piastres a month. He is a fat, companionable sort
+of man; who, by his own confession, never labored very zealously for the
+independence of Hungary, being an Austrian by birth. He conversed with me
+for several hours on the scenes in which he had participated, and
+attributed the failure of the Hungarians to the want of material means.
+General Bem, who died here, is spoken of with the utmost respect, both by
+Turks and Christians. The former have honored him with a large tomb, or
+mausoleum, covered with a dome.</p>
+
+<p>But I must close, leaving half unsaid. Suffice it to say that no Oriental
+city has interested me so profoundly as Aleppo, and in none have I
+received such universal and cordial hospitality. We leave to-morrow for
+Asia Minor, having engaged men and horses for the whole route to
+Constantinople.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch16">
+<h2>Chapter XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Through the Syrian Gates.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
+  Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
+  Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
+  Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
+  Town--A Land of Gardens.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Mountains, on whose barren breast<br />
+The lab'ring clouds do often rest."</p>
+
+<p>  Milton.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>In Quarantine (Adana, Asia Minor), <i>Tuesday, June</i> 15, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We left Aleppo on the morning of the 9th, under circumstances not the most
+promising for the harmony of our journey. We had engaged horses and
+baggage-mules from the <i>capidji</i>, or chief of the muleteers, and in order
+to be certain of having animals that would not break down on the way, made
+a particular selection from a number that were brought us. When about
+leaving the city, however, we discovered that one of the horses had been
+changed. Signor di Picciotto, who accompanied us past the Custom-House
+barriers, immediately dispatched the delinquent muleteer to bring back the
+true horse, and the latter made a farce of trying to find him, leading the
+Consul and the capidji (who, I believe, was at the bottom of the cheat) a
+wild-goose chase over the hills around Aleppo, where of course, the animal
+was not to be seen. When, at length, we had waited three hours, and had
+wandered about four miles from the city, we gave up the search, took leave
+of the Consul and went on with the new horse. Our proper plan would have
+been to pitch the tent and refuse to move till the matter was settled. The
+animal, as we discovered during the first day's journey, was hopelessly
+lame, and we only added to the difficulty by taking him.</p>
+
+<p>We rode westward all day over barren and stony hills, meeting with
+abundant traces of the power and prosperity of this region during the
+times of the Greek Emperors. The nevastation wrought by earthquakes has
+been terrible; there is scarcely a wall or arch standing, which does not
+bear marks of having been violently shaken. The walls inclosing the
+fig-orchards near the villages contain many stones with Greek
+inscriptions, and fragments of cornices. We encamped the first night on
+the plain at the foot of Mount St. Simon, and not far from the ruins of
+the celebrated Church of the same name. The building stands in a stony
+wilderness at the foot of the mountain. It is about a hundred feet long
+and thirty in height, with two lofty square towers in front. The pavement
+of the interior is entirely concealed by the masses of pillars, capitals,
+and hewn blocks that lie heaped upon it. The windows, which are of the
+tall, narrow, arched form, common in Byzantine Churches, have a common
+moulding which falls like a mantle over and between them. The general
+effect of the Church is very fine, though there is much inelegance in the
+sculptured details. At the extremity is a half-dome of massive stone, over
+the place of the altar, and just in front of this formerly stood the
+pedestal whereon, according to tradition, St. Simeon Stylites commenced
+his pillar-life. I found a recent excavation at the spot, but no
+pedestal, which has probably been carried off by the Greek monks. Beside
+the Church stands a large building, with an upper and lower balcony,
+supported by square stone pillars, around three sides. There is also a
+paved court-yard, a large cistern cut in the rock and numerous
+out-buildings, all going to confirm the supposition of its having been a
+monastery. The main building is three stories high, with pointed gables,
+and bears a strong resemblance to an American summer hotel, with verandas.
+Several ancient fig and walnut trees are growing among the ruins, and add
+to their picturesque appearance.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we crossed a broad chain of hills to the Plain of Antioch,
+which we reached near its northern extremity. In one of the valleys
+through which the road lay, we saw a number of hot sulphur springs, some
+of them of a considerable volume of water. Not far from them was a
+beautiful fountain of fresh and cold water gushing from the foot of a high
+rock. Soon after reaching the plain, we crossed the stream of Kara Su,
+which feeds the Lake of Antioch. This part of the plain is low and swampy,
+and the streams are literally alive with fish. While passing over the
+bridge I saw many hundreds, from one to two feet in length. We wandered
+through the marshy meadows for two or three hours, and towards sunset
+reached a Turcoman encampment, where the ground was dry enough to pitch
+our tents. The rude tribe received us hospitably, and sent us milk and
+cheese in abundance. I visited the tent of the Shekh, who was very
+courteous, but as he knew no language but Turkish, our conversation was
+restricted to signs. The tent was of camel's-hair cloth, spacious, and
+open at the sides. A rug was spread for me, and the Shekh's wife brought
+me a pipe of tolerable tobacco. The household were seated upon the
+ground, chatting pleasantly with one another, and apparently not in the
+least disturbed by my presence. One of the Shekh's sons, who was deaf and
+dumb, came and sat before me, and described by very expressive signs the
+character of the road to Scanderoon. He gave me to understand that there
+were robbers in the mountains, with many grim gestures descriptive of
+stabbing and firing muskets.</p>
+
+<p>The mosquitoes were so thick during the night that we were obliged to fill
+the tent with smoke in order to sleep. When morning came, we fancied there
+would be a relief for us, but it only brought a worse pest, in the shape
+of swarms of black gnats, similar to those which so tormented me in Nubia.
+I know of no infliction so terrible as these gnats, which you cannot drive
+away, and which assail ears, eyes, and nostrils in such quantities that
+you become mad and desperate in your efforts to eject them. Through glens
+filled with oleander, we ascended the first slopes of Akma Dagh, the
+mountain range which divides the Gulf of Scanderoon from the Plain of
+Antioch. Then, passing a natural terrace, covered with groves of oak, our
+road took the mountain side, climbing upwards in the shadow of pine and
+wild olive trees, and between banks of blooming lavender and myrtle. We
+saw two or three companies of armed guards, stationed by the road-side,
+for the mountain is infested with robbers, and a caravan had been
+plundered only three days before. The view, looking backward, took in the
+whole plain, with the Lake of Antioch glittering in the centre, the valley
+of the Orontes in the south, and the lofty cone of Djebel-Okrab far to the
+west. As we approached the summit, violent gusts of wind blew through the
+pass with such force as almost to overturn our horses. Here the road from
+Antioch joins that from Aleppo, and both for some distance retain the
+ancient pavement.</p>
+
+<p>From the western side we saw the sea once more, and went down through the
+<i>Pyl&aelig; Syri&aelig;</i>, or Syrian Gates, as this defile was called by the Romans. It
+is very narrow and rugged, with an abrupt descent. In an hour from the
+summit we came upon an aqueduct of a triple row of arches, crossing the
+gorge. It is still used to carry water to the town of Beilan, which hangs
+over the mouth of the pass, half a mile below. This is one of the most
+picturesque spots in Syria. The houses cling to the sides and cluster on
+the summits of precipitous crags, and every shelf of soil, every crevice
+where a tree can thrust its roots, upholds a mass of brilliant vegetation.
+Water is the life of the place. It gushes into the street from exhaustless
+fountains; it trickles from the terraces in showers of misty drops; it
+tumbles into the gorge in sparkling streams; and everywhere it nourishes a
+life as bright and beautiful as its own. The fruit trees are of enormous
+size, and the crags are curtained with a magnificent drapery of vines.
+This green gateway opens suddenly upon another, cut through a glittering
+mass of micaceous rock, whence one looks down on the town and Gulf of
+Scanderoon, the coast of Karamania beyond, and the distant snows of the
+Taurus. We descended through groves of pine and oak, and in three hours
+more reached the shore.</p>
+
+<p>Scanderoon is the most unhealthy place on the Syrian Coast, owing to the
+malaria from a marsh behind it. The inhabitants are a wretched pallid set,
+who are visited every year with devastating fevers. The marsh was partly
+drained some forty years ago by the Turkish government, and a few
+thousand dollars would be sufficient to remove it entirely, and make the
+place--which is of some importance as the seaport of Aleppo--healthy and
+habitable. At present, there are not five hundred inhabitants, and half of
+these consist of the Turkish garrison and the persons attached to the
+different Vice-Consulates. The streets are depositories of filth, and
+pools of stagnant water, on all sides, exhale the most fetid odors. Near
+the town are the ruins of a castle built by Godfrey of Bouillon. We
+marched directly down to the sea-shore, and pitched our tent close beside
+the waves, as the place most free from malaria. There were a dozen vessels
+at anchor in the road, and one of them proved to be the American bark
+Columbia, Capt. Taylor. We took a skiff and went on board, where we were
+cordially welcomed by the mate. In the evening, the captain came to our
+tent, quite surprised to find two wandering Americans in such a lonely
+corner of the world. Soon afterwards, with true seaman-like generosity, he
+returned, bringing a jar of fine Spanish olives and a large bottle of
+pickles, which he insisted on adding to our supplies. The olives have the
+choicest Andalusian flavor, and the pickles lose none of their relish from
+having been put up in New York.</p>
+
+<p>The road from Scanderoon to this place lies mostly along the shore of the
+gulf, at the foot of Akma Dagh, and is reckoned dangerous on account of
+the marauding bands of Koords who infest the mountains. These people, like
+the Druses, have rebelled against the conscription, and will probably hold
+their ground with equal success, though the Turks talk loudly of invading
+their strongholds. Two weeks ago, the post was robbed, about ten miles
+from Scanderoon, and a government vessel, now lying at anchor in the bay,
+opened a cannonade on the plunderers, before they could be secured. In
+consequence of the warnings of danger in everybody's mouth, we decided to
+take an escort, and therefore waited upon the commander of the forces,
+with the firman of the Pasha of Aleppo. A convoy of two soldiers was at
+once promised us; and at sunrise, next morning, they took the lead of our
+caravan.</p>
+
+<p>In order to appear more formidable, in case we should meet with robbers,
+we put on our Frank pantaloons, which had no other effect than to make the
+heat more intolerable. But we formed rather a fierce cavalcade, six armed
+men in all. Our road followed the shore of the bay, having a narrow,
+uninhabited flat, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, between us
+and the mountains. The two soldiers, more valiant than the guard of
+Banias, rode in advance, and showed no signs of fear as we approached the
+suspicious places. The morning was delightfully clear, and the
+snow-crowned range of Taurus shone through the soft vapors hanging over
+the gulf. In one place, we skirted the shore for some distance, under a
+bank twenty feet in height, and so completely mantled with shrubbery, that
+a small army might have hidden in it. There were gulleys at intervals,
+opening suddenly on our path, and we looked up them, expecting every
+moment to see the gleam of a Koordish gun-barrel, or a Turcoman spear,
+above the tops of the myrtles.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing a promontory which makes out from the mountains, we came upon the
+renowned plain of Issus, where Darius lost his kingdom to Alexander. On a
+low cliff overhanging the sea, there are the remains of a single tower of
+gray stone. The people in Scanderoon call it "Jonah's Pillar," and say
+that it marks the spot where the Ninevite was cast ashore by the whale.
+[This makes three places on the Syrian coast where Jonah was vomited
+forth.] The plain of Issus is from two to three miles long, but not more
+than half a mile wide, It is traversed by a little river, supposed to be
+the Pinarus, which comes down through a tremendous cleft in the Akma Dagh.
+The ground seems too small for the battle-field of such armies as were
+engaged on the occasion. It is bounded on the north by a low hill,
+separating it from the plain of Ba&iuml;as, and it is possible that Alexander
+may have made choice of this position, leaving the unwieldy forces of
+Darius to attack him from the plain. His advantage would be greater, on
+account of the long, narrow form of the ground, which would prevent him
+from being engaged with more than a small portion of the Persian army, at
+one time. The plain is now roseate with blooming oleanders, but almost
+entirely uncultivated. About midway there are the remains of an ancient
+quay jutting into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after leaving the field of Issus, we reached the town of Ba&iuml;as, which
+is pleasantly situated on the shore, at the mouth of a river whose course
+through the plain is marked with rows of tall poplar trees. The walls of
+the town, and the white dome and minaret of its mosque, rose dazzlingly
+against the dark blue of the sea, and the purple stretch of the mountains
+of Karamania. A single palm lifted its crest in the foreground. We
+dismounted for breakfast under the shade of an old bridge which crosses
+the river. It was a charming spot, the banks above and below being
+overhung with oleander, white rose, honeysuckle and clematis. The two
+guardsmen finished the remaining half of our Turcoman cheese, and almost
+exhausted our supply of bread. I gave one of them a cigar, which he was at
+a loss how to smoke, until our muleteer showed him.</p>
+
+<p>Ba&iuml;as was celebrated fifty years ago, as the residence of the robber
+chief, Kutchuk Ali, who, for a long time, braved the authority of the
+Porte itself. He was in the habit of levying a yearly tribute on the
+caravan to Mecca, and the better to enforce his claims, often suspended
+two or three of his captives at the gates of the town, a day or two before
+the caravan arrived. Several expeditions were sent against him, but he
+always succeeded in bribing the commanders, who, on their return to
+Constantinople, made such representations that Kutchuk Ali, instead of
+being punished, received one dignity after another, until finally he
+attained the rank of a Pasha of two tails. This emboldened him to commit
+enormities too great to be overlooked, and in 1812 Ba&iuml;as was taken, and
+the atrocious nest of land-pirates broken up.</p>
+
+<p>I knew that the town had been sacked on this occasion, but was not
+prepared to find such a complete picture of desolation. The place is
+surrounded with a substantial wall, with two gateways, on the north and
+south. A bazaar, covered with a lofty vaulted roof of stone, runs directly
+through from gate to gate; and there was still a smell of spices in the
+air, on entering. The massive shops on either hand, with their open doors,
+invited possession, and might readily be made habitable again. The great
+iron gates leading from the bazaar into the khans and courts, still swing
+on their rusty hinges. We rode into the court of the mosque, which is
+surrounded with a light and elegant corridor, supported by pillars. The
+grass has as yet but partially invaded the marble pavement, and a stone
+drinking-trough still stands in the centre. I urged my horse up the steps
+and into the door of the mosque. It is in the form of a Greek cross, with
+a dome in the centre, resting on four very elegant pointed arches. There
+is an elaborately gilded and painted gallery of wood over the entrance,
+and the pulpit opposite is as well preserved as if the <i>mollah</i> had just
+left it. Out of the mosque we passed into a second court, and then over a
+narrow bridge into the fortress. The moat is perfect, and the walls as
+complete as if just erected. Only the bottom is dry, and now covered with
+a thicket of wild pomegranate trees. The heavy iron doors of the fortress
+swung half open, as we entered unchallenged. The interior is almost
+entire, and some of the cannon still lie buried in the springing grass.
+The plan of the little town, which appears to have been all built at one
+time, is most admirable. The walls of circuit, including the fortress,
+cannot be more than 300 yards square, and yet none of the characteristics
+of a large Oriental city are omitted.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Ba&iuml;as, we travelled northward, over a waste, though fertile plain.
+The mountains on our right made a grand appearance, with their feet
+mantled in myrtle, and their tops plumed with pine. They rise from the sea
+with a long, bold sweep, but each peak falls off in a precipice on the
+opposite side, as if the chain were the barrier of the world and there was
+nothing but space beyond. In the afternoon we left the plain for a belt of
+glorious garden land, made by streams that came down from the mountains.
+We entered a lane embowered in pomegranate, white rose, clematis, and
+other flowering vines and shrubs, and overarched by superb plane, lime,
+and beech trees, chained together with giant grape vines. On either side
+were fields of ripe wheat and barley, mulberry orchards and groves of
+fruit trees, under the shade of which the Turkish families sat or slept
+during the hot hours of the day. Birds sang in the boughs, and the
+gurgling of water made a cool undertone to their music. Out of fairyland
+where shall I see again such lovely bowers? We were glad when the soldiers
+announced that it was necessary to encamp there; as we should find no
+other habitations for more than twenty miles.</p>
+
+<p>Our tent was pitched under a grand sycamore, beside a swift mountain
+stream which almost made the circuit of our camp. Beyond the tops of the
+elm, beech, and fig groves, we saw the picturesque green summits of the
+lower ranges of Giaour Dagh, in the north-east, while over the southern
+meadows a golden gleam of sunshine lay upon the Gulf of Scanderoon. The
+village near us was Chaya, where there is a military station. The guards
+we had brought from Scanderoon here left us; but the commanding officer
+advised us to take others on the morrow, as the road was still considered
+unsafe.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch17">
+<h2>Chapter XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Adana and Tarsus.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Black Gate--The Plain of Cilicia--A Koord Village--Missis--Cilician
+  Scenery--Arrival at Adana--Three days in Quarantine--We receive
+  Pratique--A Landscape--The Plain of Tarsus--The River Cydnus--A Vision
+  of Cleopatra--Tarsus and its Environs--The <i>Duniktash</i>--The Moon of
+  Ramazan.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a
+  citizen of no mean city."--Acts, xxi. 89.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Khan on Mt. Taurus, <i>Saturday, June</i> 19, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We left our camp at Chaya at dawn, with an escort of three soldiers, which
+we borrowed from the guard stationed at that place. The path led along the
+shore, through clumps of myrtle beaten inland by the wind, and rounded as
+smoothly as if they had been clipped by a gardener's shears. As we
+approached the head of the gulf, the peaked summits of Giaour Dagh, 10,000
+feet in height, appeared in the north-east. The streams we forded swarmed
+with immense trout. A brown hedgehog ran across our road, but when I
+touched him with the end of my pipe, rolled himself into an impervious
+ball of prickles. Soon after turning the head of the gulf, the road
+swerved off to the west, and entered a narrow pass, between hills covered
+with thick copse-wood. Here we came upon an ancient gateway of black lava
+stone, which bears marks of great antiquity It is now called <i>Kara Kapu,</i>
+the "Black Gate," and some suppose it to have been one of the ancient
+gates of Cilicia.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this, our road led over high, grassy hills, without a sign of human
+habitation, to the ruined khan of Koord Koolak, We dismounted and unloaded
+our baggage in the spacious stone archway, and drove our beasts into the
+dark, vaulted halls behind. The building was originally intended for a
+magazine of supplies, and from the ruined mosque near it, I suspect it was
+formerly one of the caravan stations for the pilgrims from Constantinople
+to Mecca. The weather was intensely hot and sultry, and our animals were
+almost crazy from the attacks of a large yellow gad-fly. After the noonday
+heat was over we descended to the first Cilician plain, which is bounded
+on the west by the range of Durdun Dagh. As we had now passed the most
+dangerous part of the road, we dismissed the three soldiers and took but a
+single man with us. The entire plain is covered with wild fennel, six to
+eight feet in height, and literally blazing with its bloomy yellow tops.
+Riding through it, I could barely look over them, and far and wide, on all
+sides, spread a golden sea, out of which the long violet hills rose with
+the liveliest effect. Brown, shining serpents, from four to six feet in
+length, frequently slid across our path. The plain, which must be sixty
+miles in circumference, is wholly uncultivated, though no land could
+possibly be richer.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the region of fennel we passed into one of red and white clover,
+timothy grass and wild oats. The thistles were so large as to resemble
+young palm-trees, and the salsify of our gardens grew rank and wild. At
+length we dipped into the evening shadow of Durdun Dagh, and reached the
+village of Koord Keui, on his lower slope. As there was no place for our
+tent on the rank grass of the plain or the steep side of the hill, we took
+forcible possession of the winnowing-floor, a flat terrace built up under
+two sycamores, and still covered with the chaff of the last threshing. The
+Koords took the whole thing as a matter of course, and even brought us a
+felt carpet to rest upon. They came and seated themselves around us,
+chatting sociably, while we lay in the tent-door, smoking the pipe of
+refreshment. The view over the wide golden plain, and the hills beyond, to
+the distant, snow-tipped peaks of Akma Dagh, was superb, as the shadow of
+the mountain behind us slowly lengthened over it, blotting out the mellow
+lights of sunset. There were many fragments of pillars and capitals of
+white marble built up in the houses, showing that they occupied the site
+of some ancient village or temple.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, we crossed Durdun Dagh, and entered the great plain of
+Cilicia. The range, after we had passed it, presented a grand, bold,
+broken outline, blue in the morning vapor, and wreathed with shifting
+belts of cloud. A stately castle, called the Palace of Serpents, on the
+summit of an isolated peak to the north, stood out clear and high, in the
+midst of a circle of fog, like a phantom picture of the air. The River
+Jyhoon, the ancient Pyramus, which rises on the borders of Armenia, sweeps
+the western base of the mountains. It is a larger stream than the Orontes,
+with a deep, rapid current, flowing at the bottom of a bed lower than the
+level of the plain. In three hours, we reached Missis, the ancient
+Mopsuestia, on the right bank of the river. There are extensive ruins on
+the left bank, which were probably those of the former city. The soil for
+some distance around is scattered with broken pillars, capitals, and hewn
+stones. The ancient bridge still crosses the river, but the central arch
+having been broken away, is replaced with a wooden platform. The modern
+town is a forlorn place, and all the glorious plain around it is
+uncultivated. The view over this plain was magnificent: unbounded towards
+the sea, but on the north girdled by the sublime range of Taurus, whose
+great snow-fields gleamed in the sun. In the afternoon, we reached the old
+bridge over the Jyhoon, at Adana. The eastern bank is occupied with the
+graves of the former inhabitants, and there are at least fifteen acres of
+tombstones, as thickly planted as the graves can be dug. The fields of
+wheat and barley along the river are very rich, and at present the natives
+are busily occupied in drawing the sheaves on large sleds to the open
+threshing-floors.</p>
+
+<p>The city is built over a low eminence, and its four tall minarets, with a
+number of palm-trees rising from the mass of brown brick walls, reminded
+me of Egypt. At the end of the bridge, we were met by one of the
+Quarantine officers, who preceded us, taking care that we touched nobody
+in the streets, to the Quarantine building. This land quarantine, between
+Syria and Asia Minor, when the former country is free from any epidemic,
+seems a most absurd thing. We were detained at Adana three days and a
+half, to be purified, before proceeding further. Lately, the whole town
+was placed in quarantine for five days, because a Turkish Bey, who lives
+near Ba&iuml;as, entered the gates without being noticed, and was found in the
+bazaars. The Quarantine building was once a palace of the Pashas of Adana,
+but is now in a half-ruined condition. The rooms are large and airy, and
+there is a spacious open divan which affords ample shade and a cool
+breeze throughout the whole day. Fortunately for us, there were only three
+persons in Quarantine, who occupied a room distant from ours. The
+Inspector was a very obliging person, and procured us a table and two
+chairs. The only table to be had in the whole place--a town of 15,000
+inhabitants--belonged to an Italian merchant, who kindly gave it for our
+use. We employed a messenger to purchase provisions in the bazaars; and
+our days passed quietly in writing, smoking, and gazing indolently from
+our windows upon the flowery plains beyond the town. Our nights, however,
+were tormented by small white gnats, which stung us unmercifully. The
+physician of Quarantine, Dr. Spagnolo, is a Venetian refugee, and formerly
+editor of <i>La Lega Italiana</i>, a paper published in Venice during the
+revolution. He informed us that, except the Princess Belgioioso, who
+passed through Adana on her way to Jerusalem, we were the only travellers
+he had seen for eleven months.</p>
+
+<p>After three days and four nights of grateful, because involuntary,
+indolence, Dr. Spagnolo gave us <i>pratique</i>, and we lost no time in getting
+under weigh again. We were the only occupants of Quarantine; and as we
+moved out of the portal of the old sera&iuml;, at sunrise, no one was guarding
+it. The Inspector and Mustapha, the messenger, took their back-sheeshes
+with silent gratitude. The plain on the west side of the town is well
+cultivated; and as we rode along towards Tarsus, I was charmed with the
+rich pastoral air of the scenery. It was like one of the midland
+landscapes of England, bathed in Southern sunshine. The beautiful level,
+stretching away to the mountains, stood golden with the fields of wheat
+which the reapers were cutting. It was no longer bare, but dotted with
+orange groves, clumps of holly, and a number of magnificent
+terebinth-trees, whose dark, rounded masses of foliage remind one of the
+Northern oak. Cattle were grazing in the stubble, and horses, almost
+buried under loads of fresh grass, met us as they passed to the city. The
+sheaves were drawn to the threshing-floor on sleds, and we could see the
+husbandmen in the distance treading out and winnowing the grain. Over
+these bright, busy scenes, rose the lesser heights of the Taurus, and
+beyond them, mingled in white clouds, the snows of the crowning range.</p>
+
+<p>The road to Tarsus, which is eight hours distant, lies over an unbroken
+plain. Towards the sea, there are two tumuli, resembling those on the
+plains east of Antioch. Stone wells, with troughs for watering horses,
+occur at intervals of three or four miles; but there is little cultivation
+after leaving the vicinity of Adana. The sun poured down an intense summer
+heat, and hundreds of large gad-flies, swarming around us, drove the
+horses wild with their stings. Towards noon, we stopped at a little
+village for breakfast. We took possession of a shop, which the
+good-natured merchant offered us, and were about to spread our provisions
+upon the counter, when the gnats and mosquitoes fairly drove us away. We
+at once went forward in search of a better place, which gave occasion to
+our chief mukkairee, Hadji Youssuf, for a violent remonstrance. The terms
+of the agreement at Aleppo gave the entire control of the journey into our
+own hands, and the Hadji now sought to violate it. He protested against
+our travelling more than six hours a day, and conducted himself so
+insolently, that we threatened to take him before the Pasha of Tarsus.
+This silenced him for the time; but we hate him so cordially since then,
+that I foresee we shall have more trouble. In the afternoon, a gust,
+sweeping along the sides of Taurus, cooled the air and afforded us a
+little relief.</p>
+
+<p>By three o'clock we reached the River Cydnus, which is bare of trees on
+its eastern side, but flows between banks covered with grass and shrubs.
+It is still spanned by the ancient bridge, and the mules now step in the
+hollow ruts worn long ago by Roman and Byzantine chariot wheels. The
+stream is not more than thirty yards broad, but has a very full and rapid
+current of a bluish-white color, from the snows which feed it. I rode down
+to the brink and drank a cup of the water. It was exceedingly cold, and I
+do not wonder that a bath in it should have killed the Emperor Barbarossa.
+From the top of the bridge, there is a lovely view, down the stream, where
+it washes a fringe of willows and heavy fruit-trees on its western bank,
+and then winds away through the grassy plain, to the sea. For once, my
+fancy ran parallel with the inspiration of the scene. I could think of
+nothing but the galley of Cleopatra slowly stemming the current of the
+stream, its silken sails filled with the sea-breeze, its gilded oars
+keeping time to the flutes, whose voluptuous melodies floated far out over
+the vernal meadows. Tarsus was probably almost hidden then, as now, by its
+gardens, except just where it touched the river; and the dazzling vision
+of the Egyptian Queen, as she came up conquering and to conquer, must have
+been all the more bewildering, from the lovely bowers through which she
+sailed.</p>
+
+<p>From the bridge an ancient road still leads to the old Byzantine gate of
+Tarsus. Part of the town is encompassed by a wall, built by the Caliph
+Haroun Al-Raschid, and there is a ruined fortress, which is attributed to
+Sultan Bajazet Small streams, brought from the Cydnus, traverse the
+environs, and, with such a fertile soil, the luxuriance of the gardens in
+which the city lies buried is almost incredible. In our rambles in search
+of a place to pitch the tent, we entered a superb orange-orchard, the
+foliage of which made a perpetual twilight. Many of the trunks were two
+feet in diameter. The houses are mostly of one story, and the materials
+are almost wholly borrowed from the ancient city. Pillars, capitals,
+fragments of cornices and entablatures abound. I noticed here, as in
+Adana, a high wooden frame on the top of every house, raised a few steps
+above the roof, and covered with light muslin, like a portable
+bathing-house. Here the people put up their beds in the evening, sleep,
+and come down to the roofs in the morning--an excellent plan for getting
+better air in these malarious plains and escaping from fleas and
+mosquitoes. In our search for the Armenian Church, which is said to have
+been founded by St. Paul ("Saul of Tarsus"), we came upon a mosque, which
+had been originally a Christian Church, of Greek times.</p>
+
+<p>From the top of a mound, whereupon stand the remains of an ancient
+circular edifice, we obtained a fine view of the city and plain of Tarsus.
+A few houses or clusters of houses stood here and there like reefs amid
+the billowy green, and the minarets--one of them with a nest of young
+storks on its very summit--rose like the masts of sunken ships. Some palms
+lifted their tufted heads from the gardens, beyond which the great plain
+extended from the mountains to the sea. The tumulus near Mersyn, the port
+of Tarsus, was plainly visible. Two hours from Mersyn are the ruins of
+Pompeiopolis, the name given by Pompey to the town of Soli, after his
+conquest of the Cilician pirates. From Soli, on account of the bad Greek
+spoken by its inhabitants, came the term "solecism." The ruins of
+Pompeiopolis consist of a theatre, temples, and a number of houses, still
+in good preservation. The whole coast, as far as Aleya, three hundred
+miles west of this, is said to abound with ruined cities, and I regret
+exceedingly that time will not permit me to explore it.</p>
+
+<p>While searching for the antiquities about Tarsus, I accosted a man in a
+Frank dress, who proved to be the Neapolitan Consul. He told us that the
+most remarkable relic was the <i>Duniktash</i> (the Round Stone), and procured
+us a guide. It lies in a garden near the city, and is certainly one of the
+most remarkable monuments in the East. It consists of a square inclosure
+of solid masonry, 350 feet long by 150 feet wide, the walls of which are
+eighteen feet in thickness and twenty feet high. It appears to have been
+originally a solid mass, without entrance, but a passage has been broken
+in one place, and in another there is a split or fissure, evidently
+produced by an earthquake. The material is rough stone, brick and mortar.
+Inside of the inclosure are two detached square masses of masonry, of
+equal height, and probably eighty feet on a side, without opening of any
+kind. One of them has been pierced at the bottom, a steep passage leading
+to a pit or well, but the sides of the passage thus broken indicate that
+the whole structure is one solid mass. It is generally supposed that they
+were intended as tombs: but of whom? There is no sign by which they may be
+recognized, and, what is more singular, no tradition concerning them.</p>
+
+<p>The day we reached Tarsus was the first of the Turkish fast-month of
+Ramazan, the inhabitants having seen the new moon the night before. At
+Adana, where they did not keep such a close look-out, the fast had not
+commenced. During its continuance, which is from twenty-eight to
+twenty-nine days, no Mussulman dares eat, drink, or smoke, from an hour
+before sunrise till half an hour after sunset. The Mohammedan months are
+lunar, and each month makes the whole round of the seasons, once in
+thirty-three years. When, therefore, the Ramazan comes in midsummer, as at
+present, the fulfilment of this fast is a great trial, even to the
+strongest and most devout. Eighteen hours without meat or drink, and what
+is still worse to a genuine Turk, without a pipe, is a rigid test of
+faith. The rich do the best they can to avoid it, by feasting all night
+and sleeping all day, but the poor, who must perform their daily
+avocations, as usual, suffer exceedingly. In walking through Tarsus I saw
+many wretched faces in the bazaars, and the guide who accompanied us had a
+painfully famished air. Fortunately the Koran expressly permits invalids,
+children, and travellers to disregard the fast, so that although we eat
+and drink when we like, we are none the less looked upon as good
+Mussulmans. About dark a gun is fired and a rocket sent up from the
+mosque, announcing the termination of the day's fast. The meals are
+already prepared, the pipes filled, the coffee smokes in the <i>finjans</i>,
+and the echoes have not died away nor the last sparks of the rocket become
+extinct, before half the inhabitants are satisfying their hunger, thirst
+and smoke-lust.</p>
+
+<p>We left Tarsus this morning, and are now encamped among the pines of Mount
+Taurus. The last flush of sunset is fading from his eternal snows, and I
+drop my pen to enjoy the silence of twilight in this mountain solitude.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch18">
+<h2>Chapter XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Pass of Mount Taurus.</h3>
+
+<p class="abs">  We enter the Taurus--Turcomans--Forest Scenery--the Palace of Pan--Khan
+  Mezarluk--Morning among the Mountains--The Gorge of the Cydnus--The Crag
+  of the Fortress--The Cilician Gate--Deserted Forts--A Sublime
+  Landscape--The Gorge of the Sihoon--The Second Gate--Camp in the
+  Defile--Sunrise--Journey up the Sihoon--A Change of Scenery--A Pastoral
+  Valley--Kol&uuml; Kushla--A Deserted Khan--A Guest in Ramazan--Flowers--The
+  Plain of Karamania--Barren Hills--The Town of Eregli--The Hadji again.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Lo! where the pass expands<br />
+Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,<br />
+And seems, with its accumulated crags,<br />
+To overhang the world." Shelley.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Eregli, <i>in Karamania, June</i> 22, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Striking our tent in the gardens of Tarsus, we again crossed the Cydnus,
+and took a northern course across the plain. The long line of Taurus rose
+before us, seemingly divided into four successive ranges, the highest of
+which was folded in clouds; only the long streaks of snow, filling the
+ravines, being visible. The outlines of these ranges were very fine, the
+waving line of the summits cut here and there by precipitous gorges--the
+gateways of rivers that came down to the plain. In about two hours, we
+entered the lower hills. They are barren and stony, with a white, chalky
+soil; but the valleys were filled with myrtle, oleander, and lauristinus
+in bloom, and lavender grew in great profusion on the hill-sides. The
+flowers of the oleander gave out a delicate, almond-like fragrance, and
+grew in such dense clusters as frequently to hide the foliage. I amused
+myself with finding a derivation of the name of this beautiful plant,
+which may answer until somebody discovers a better one. Hero, when the
+corpse of her lover was cast ashore by the waves, buried him under an
+oleander bush, where she was accustomed to sit daily, and lament over his
+untimely fate. Now, a foreign horticulturist, happening to pass by when
+the shrub was in blossom, was much struck with its beauty, and asked Hero
+what it was called. But she, absorbed in grief, and thinking only of her
+lover, clasped her hands, and sighed out: "O Leander! O Leander!" which
+the horticulturist immediately entered in his note-book as the name of the
+shrub; and by that name it is known, to the present time.</p>
+
+<p>For two or three hours, the scenery was rather tame, the higher summits
+being obscured with a thunder-cloud. Towards noon, however, we passed the
+first chain, and saw, across a strip of rolling land intervening, the
+grand ramparts of the second, looming dark and large under the clouds. A
+circular watch-tower of white stone, standing on the summit of a
+promontory at the mouth of a gorge on our right, flashed out boldly
+against the storm. We stopped under an oak-tree to take breakfast; but
+there was no water; and two Turks, who were resting while their horses
+grazed in the meadow, told us we should find a good spring half a mile
+further. We ascended a long slope, covered with wheat-fields, where
+numbers of Turcoman reapers were busy at work, passed their black tents,
+surrounded with droves of sheep and goats, and reached a rude stone
+fountain of good water, where two companies of these people had stopped
+to rest, on their way to the mountains. It was the time of noon prayer,
+and they went through their devotions with great solemnity. We nestled
+deep in a bed of myrtles, while we breakfasted; for the sky was clouded,
+and the wind blew cool and fresh from the region of rain above us. Some of
+the Turcomans asked us for bread, and were very grateful when we gave it
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, we came into a higher and wilder region, where the road
+led through thickets of wild olive, holly, oak, and lauristinus, with
+occasional groves of pine. What a joy I felt in hearing, once more, the
+grand song of my favorite tree! Our way was a woodland road; a storm had
+passed over the region in the morning; the earth was still fresh and
+moist, and there was an aromatic smell of leaves in the air. We turned
+westward into the entrance of a deep valley, over which hung a
+perpendicular cliff of gray and red rock, fashioned by nature so as to
+resemble a vast fortress, with windows, portals and projecting bastions.
+Fran&ccedil;ois displayed his knowledge of mythology, by declaring it to be the
+Palace of Pan. While we were carrying out the idea, by making chambers for
+the Fauns and Nymphs in the basement story of the precipice, the path
+wound around the shoulder of the mountain, and the glen spread away before
+us, branching up into loftier ranges, disclosing through its gateway of
+cliffs, rising out of the steeps of pine forest, a sublime vista of blue
+mountain peaks, climbing to the topmost snows. It was a magnificent Alpine
+landscape, more glowing and rich than Switzerland, yet equalling it in all
+the loftier characteristics of mountain scenery. Another and greater
+precipice towered over us on the right, and the black eagles which had
+made their eyries in its niched and caverned vaults, were wheeling around
+its crest. A branch of the Cydnus foamed along the bottom of the gorge,
+and soma Turcoman boys were tending their herds on its banks.</p>
+
+<p>Further up the glen, we found a fountain of delicious water, beside the
+deserted Khan of Mezarluk, and there encamped for the night. Our tent was
+pitched on the mountain side, near a fountain of the coolest, clearest and
+sweetest water I have seen in all the East. There was perfect silence
+among the mountains, and the place was as lonely as it was sublime. The
+night was cool and fresh; but I could not sleep until towards morning.
+When I opened my belated eyes, the tall peaks on the opposite side of the
+glen were girdled below their waists with the flood of a sparkling
+sunrise. The sky was pure as crystal, except a soft white fleece that
+veiled the snowy pinnacles of Taurus, folding and unfolding, rising and
+sinking, as if to make their beauty still more attractive by the partial
+concealment. The morning air was almost cold, but so pure and bracing--so
+aromatic with the healthy breath of the pines--that I took it down in the
+fullest possible draughts.</p>
+
+<p>We rode up the glen, following the course of the Cydnus, through scenery
+of the wildest and most romantic character. The bases of the mountains
+were completely enveloped in forests of pine, but their summits rose in
+precipitous crags, many hundreds of feet in height, hanging above our very
+heads. Even after the sun was five hours high, their shadows fell upon us
+from the opposite side of the glen. Mixed with the pine were occasional
+oaks, an undergrowth of hawthorn in bloom, and shrubs covered with yellow
+and white flowers. Over these the wild grape threw its rich festoons,
+filling the air with exquisite fragrance.</p>
+
+<p>Out of this glen, we passed into another, still narrower and wilder. The
+road was the old Roman way, and in tolerable condition, though it had
+evidently not been mended for many centuries. In half an hour, the pass
+opened, disclosing an enormous peak in front of us, crowned with the ruins
+of an ancient fortress of considerable extent. The position was almost
+impregnable, the mountain dropping on one side into a precipice five
+hundred feet in perpendicular height. Under the cliffs of the loftiest
+ridge, there was a terrace planted with walnut-trees: a charming little
+hamlet in the wilderness. Wild sycamore-trees, with white trunks and
+bright green foliage, shaded the foamy twists of the Cydnus, as it plunged
+down its difficult bed. The pine thrust its roots into the naked
+precipices, and from their summits hung out over the great abysses below.
+I thought of &OElig;none's</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  --"tall, dark pines, that fringed the craggy ledge<br />
+High over the blue gorge, and all between<br />
+The snowy peak and snow-white cataract<br />
+Fostered the callow eaglet;"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>and certainly she had on Mount Ida no more beautiful trees than these.</p>
+
+<p>We had doubled the Crag of the Fortress, when the pass closed before us,
+shut in by two immense precipices of sheer, barren rock, more than a
+thousand feet in height. Vast fragments, fallen from above, choked up the
+entrance, whence the Cydnus, spouting forth in foam, leaped into the
+defile. The ancient road was completely destroyed, but traces of it were
+to be seen on the rocks, ten feet above the present bed of the stream, and
+on the broken masses which had been hurled below. The path wound with
+difficulty among these wrecks, and then merged into the stream itself, as
+we entered the gateway. A violent wind blew in our faces as we rode
+through the strait, which is not ten yards in breadth, while its walls
+rise to the region of the clouds. In a few minutes we had traversed it,
+and stood looking back on the enormous gap. There were several Greek
+tablets cut in the rock above the old road, but so defaced as to be
+illegible. This is undoubtedly the principal gate of the Taurus, and the
+pass through which the armies of Cyrus and Alexander entered Cilicia.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the gate the mountains retreated, and we climbed up a little dell,
+past two or three Turcoman houses, to the top of a hill, whence opened a
+view of the principal range, now close at hand. The mountains in front
+were clothed with dark cedars to their very tops, and the snow-fields
+behind them seemed dazzlingly bright and near. Our course for several
+miles now lay through a more open valley, drained by the upper waters of
+the Cydnus. On two opposing terraces of the mountain chains are two
+fortresses, built by Ibraham Pasha, but now wholly deserted. They are
+large and well-constructed works of stone, and surrounded by ruins of
+stables, ovens, and the rude houses of the soldiery. Passing between
+these, we ascended to the shelf dividing the waters of the Cydnus and the
+Sihoon. From the point where the slope descends to the latter river, there
+opened before me one of the most glorious landscapes I ever beheld. I
+stood at the extremity of a long hollow or depression between the two
+ranges of the Taurus--not a valley, for it was divided by deep cloven
+chasms, hemmed in by steeps overgrown with cedars. On my right rose a
+sublime chain, soaring far out of the region of trees, and lifting its
+peaked summits of gray rock into toe sky. Another chain, nearly as lofty,
+but not so broken, nor with such large, imposing features, overhung me on
+the left; and far in front, filling up the magnificent vista--filling up
+all between the lower steeps, crowned with pine, and the round white
+clouds hanging on the verge of heaven--were the shining snows of the
+Taurus. Great God, how shall I describe the grandeur of that view! How
+draw the wonderful outlines of those mountains! How paint the airy hue of
+violet-gray, the soft white lights, the thousandfold pencillings of mellow
+shadow, the height, the depth, the far-reaching vastness of the landscape!</p>
+
+<p>In the middle distance, a great blue gorge passed transversely across the
+two ranges and the region between. This, as I rightly conjectured, was the
+bed of the Sihoon. Our road led downward through groves of fragrant
+cedars, and we travelled thus for two hours before reaching the river.
+Taking a northward course up his banks, we reached the second of the <i>Pyl&aelig;
+Cilici&aelig;</i> before sunset. It is on a grander scale than the first gate,
+though not so startling and violent in its features. The bare walls on
+either side fall sheer to the water, and the road, crossing the Sihoon by
+a lofty bridge of a single arch, is cut along the face of the rock. Near
+the bridge a subterranean stream, almost as large as the river, bursts
+forth from the solid heart of the mountain. On either side gigantic masses
+of rock, with here and there a pine to adorn their sterility, tower to the
+height of 6,000 feet, in some places almost perpendicular from summit to
+base. They are worn and broken into all fantastic forms. There are
+pyramids, towers, bastions, minarets, and long, sharp spires, splintered
+and jagged as the turrets of an iceberg. I have seen higher mountains,
+but I have never seen any which looked so high as these. We camped on a
+narrow plot of ground, in the very heart of the tremendous gorge. A
+soldier, passing along at dusk, told us that a merchant and his servant
+were murdered in the same place last winter, and advised us to keep watch.
+But we slept safely all night, while the stars sparkled over the chasm,
+and slips of misty cloud hung low on the thousand pinnacles of rock.</p>
+
+<p>When I awoke, the gorge lay in deep shadow; but high up on the western
+mountain, above the enormous black pyramids that arose from the river, the
+topmost pinnacles of rock sparkled like molten silver, in the full gush of
+sunrise. The great mountain, blocking up the gorge behind us, was bathed
+almost to its foot in the rays, and, seen through such a dark vista, was
+glorified beyond all other mountains of Earth. The air was piercingly cold
+and keen, and I could scarcely bear the water of the Sihoon on my
+sun-inflamed face. There was a little spring not far off, from which we
+obtained sufficient water to drink, the river being too muddy. The spring
+was but a thread oozing from the soil; but the Hadji collected it in
+handfuls, which he emptied into his water-skin, and then brought to us.</p>
+
+<p>The morning light gave a still finer effect to the manifold forms of the
+mountains than that of the afternoon sun. The soft gray hue of the rocks
+shone clearly against the cloudless sky, fretted all over with the shadows
+thrown by their innumerable spires and jutting points, and by the natural
+arches scooped out under the cliffs. After travelling less than an hour,
+we passed the riven walls of the mighty gateway, and rode again under the
+shade of pine forests. The height of the mountains now gradually
+diminished, and their sides, covered with pine and cedar, became less
+broken and abrupt. The summits, nevertheless, still retained the same
+rocky spine, shooting up into tall, single towers, or long lines of even
+parapets Occasionally, through gaps between, we caught glimpses of the
+snow-fields, dazzlingly high and white.</p>
+
+<p>After travelling eight or nine miles, we emerged from the pass, and left
+the Sihoon at a place called Chiftlik Khan--a stone building, with a small
+fort adjoining, wherein fifteen splendid bronze cannon lay neglected on
+their broken and rotting carriages. As we crossed the stone bridge over
+the river, a valley opened suddenly on the left, disclosing the whole
+range of the Taurus, which we now saw on its northern side, a vast stretch
+of rocky spires, with sparkling snow-fields between, and long ravines
+filled with snow, extending far down between the dark blue cliffs and the
+dark green plumage of the cedars.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after passing the central chain of the Taurus, the character
+of the scenery changed. The heights were rounded, the rocky strata only
+appearing on the higher peaks, and the slopes of loose soil were deeply
+cut and scarred by the rains of ages. Both in appearance, especially in
+the scattered growth of trees dotted over the dark red soil, and in their
+formation, these mountains strongly resemble the middle ranges of the
+Californian Sierra Nevada. We climbed a long, winding glen, until we had
+attained a considerable height, when the road reached a dividing ridge,
+giving us a view of a deep valley, beyond which a chain of barren
+mountains rose to the height of some five thousand feet. As we descended
+the rocky path, a little caravan of asses and mules clambered up to meet
+us, along the brinks of steep gulfs. The narrow strip of bottom land
+along the stream was planted with rye, now in head, and rolling in silvery
+waves before the wind.</p>
+
+<p>After our noonday halt, we went over the hills to another stream, which
+came from the north-west. Its valley was broader and greener than that we
+had left, and the hills inclosing it had soft and undulating outlines.
+They were bare of trees, but colored a pale green by their thin clothing
+of grass and herbs. In this valley the season was so late, owing to its
+height above the sea, that the early spring-flowers were yet in bloom.
+Poppies flamed among the wheat, and the banks of the stream were brilliant
+with patches of a creeping plant, with a bright purple blossom. The
+asphodel grew in great profusion, and an ivy-leaved shrub, covered with
+flakes of white bloom, made the air faint with its fragrance. Still
+further up, we came to orchards of walnut and plum trees, and vineyards
+There were no houses, but the innabitants, who were mostly Turcomans, live
+in villages during the winter, and in summer pitch their tents on the
+mountains where they pasture their flocks. Directly over this quiet
+pastoral, vale towered the Taurus, and I looked at once on its secluded
+loveliness and on the wintry heights, whose bleak and sublime heads were
+mantled in clouds. From no point is there a more imposing view of the
+whole snowy range. Near the head of the valley we passed a large Turcoman
+encampment, surrounded with herds of sheep and cattle.</p>
+
+<p>We halted for the evening at a place called Kol&uuml;-Kushla---an immense
+fortress-village, resembling Ba&iuml;as, and like it, wholly deserted. Near it
+there is a small town of very neat houses, which is also deserted, the
+inhabitants having gone into the mountains with their flocks. I walked
+through the fortress, which is a massive building of stone, about 500
+feet square, erected by Sultan Murad as a resting-place for the caravans
+to Mecca. It has two spacious portals, in which the iron doors are still
+hanging, connected by a vaulted passage, twenty feet high and forty wide,
+with bazaars on each side. Side gateways open into large courts,
+surrounded with arched chambers. There is a mosque entire, with its pulpit
+and galleries, and the gilded crescent still glittering over its dome.
+Behind it is a bath, containing an entrance hall and half a dozen
+chambers, in which the water-pipes and stone tanks still remain. With a
+little alteration, the building would make a capital Phalanstery, where
+the Fourierites might try their experiment without contact with Society.
+There is no field for them equal to Asia Minor--a glorious region,
+abounding in natural wealth, almost depopulated, and containing a great
+number of Phalansteries ready built.</p>
+
+<p>We succeeded in getting some eggs, fowls, and milk from an old Turcoman
+who had charge of the village. A man who rode by on a donkey sold us a bag
+of <i>yaourt</i> (sour milk-curds), which was delicious, notwithstanding the
+suspicious appearance of the bag. It was made before the cream had been
+removed, and was very rich and nourishing. The old Turcoman sat down and
+watched us while we ate, but would not join us, as these wandering tribes
+are very strict in keeping Ramazan. When we had reached our dessert--a
+plate of fine cherries--another white-bearded and dignified gentleman
+visited us. We handed him the cherries, expecting that he would take a few
+and politely return the dish: but no such thing. He coolly produced his
+handkerchief, emptied everything into it, and marched off. He also did not
+venture to eat, although we pointed to the Taurus, on whose upper snows
+the last gleam of daylight was just melting away.</p>
+
+<p>We arose this morning in a dark, cloudy dawn. There was a heavy black
+storm hanging low in the west, and another was gathering its forces along
+the mountains behind us. A cold wind blew down the valley, and long peals
+of thunder rolled grandly among the gorges of Taurus. An isolated hill,
+crowned with a shattered crag which bore a striking resemblance to a
+ruined fortress, stood out black and sharp against the far, misty, sunlit
+peaks. As far as the springs were yet undried, the land was covered with
+flowers. In one place I saw a large square plot of the most brilliant
+crimson hue, burning amid the green wheat-fields, as if some Tyrian mantle
+had been flung there. The long, harmonious slopes and rounded summits of
+the hills were covered with drifts of a beautiful purple clover, and a
+diminutive variety of the <i>achillea</i>, or yarrow, with glowing yellow
+blossoms. The leaves had a pleasant aromatic odor, and filled the air with
+their refreshing breath, as they were crushed under the hoofs of our
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>We had now reached the highest ridge of the hilly country along the
+northern base of Taurus, and saw, far and wide before us, the great
+central plain of Karamania. Two isolated mountains, at forty or fifty
+miles distance, broke the monotony of the desert-like level: Kara Dagh in
+the west, and the snow-capped summits of Hassan Dagh in the north-east.
+Beyond the latter, we tried to catch a glimpse of the famous Mons Argseus,
+at the base of which is Kaisariyeh, the ancient C&aelig;sarea of Cappadocia.
+This mountain, which is 13,000 feet high, is the loftiest peak of Asia
+Minor. The clouds hung low on the horizon, and the rains were falling,
+veiling it from our sight.</p>
+
+<p>Our road, for the remainder of the day, was over barren hills, covered
+with scanty herbage. The sun shone out intensely hot, and the glare of the
+white soil was exceedingly painful to my eyes. The locality of Eregli was
+betrayed, some time before we reached it, by its dark-green belt of fruit
+trees. It stands in the mouth of a narrow valley which winds down from the
+Taurus, and is watered by a large rapid stream that finally loses itself
+in the lakes and morasses of the plain. There had been a heavy black
+thunder-cloud gathering, and as we reached our camping-ground, under some
+fine walnut-trees near the stream, a sudden blast of cold wind swept over
+the town, filling the air with dust. We pitched the tent in all haste,
+expecting a storm, but the rain finally passed to the northward. We then
+took a walk through the town, which is a forlorn place. A spacious khan,
+built apparently for the Mecca pilgrims, is in ruins, but the mosque has
+an exquisite minaret, eighty feet high, and still bearing traces of the
+devices, in blue tiles, which once covered it. The shops were mostly
+closed, and in those which were still open the owners lay at full length
+on their bellies, their faces gaunt with fasting. They seemed annoyed at
+our troubling them, even with purchases. One would have thought that some
+fearful pestilence had fallen upon the town. The cobblers only, who
+somewhat languidly plied their implements, seemed to retain a little life.
+The few Jews and Armenians smoked their pipes in a tantalizing manner, in
+the very faces of the poor Mussulmans. We bought an oka of excellent
+cherries, which we were cruel enough to taste in the streets, before the
+hungry eyes of the suffering merchants.</p>
+
+<p>This evening the asses belonging to the place were driven in from
+pasture--four or five hundred in all; and such a show of curious asinine
+specimens as I never before beheld. A Dervish, who was with us in
+Quarantine, at Adana, has just arrived. He had lost his <i>tesker&eacute;</i>
+(passport), and on issuing forth purified, was cast into prison. Finally
+he found some one who knew him, and procured his release. He had come on
+foot to this place in five days, suffering many privations, having been
+forty-eight hours without food. He is bound to Konia, on a pilgrimage to
+the tomb of Hazret Mevlana, the founder of the sect of dancing Dervishes.
+We gave him food, in return for which he taught me the formula of his
+prayers. He tells me I should always pronounce the name of Allah when my
+horse stumbles, or I see a man in danger of his life, as the word has a
+saving power. Hadji Youssuf, who has just been begging for an advance of
+twenty piastres to buy grain for his horses, swore "by the pardon of God"
+that he would sell the lame horse at Konia and get a better one. We have
+lost all confidence in the old villain's promises, but the poor beasts
+shall not suffer for his delinquencies.</p>
+
+<p>Our tent is in a charming spot, and, from without, makes a picture to be
+remembered. The yellow illumination from within strikes on the under sides
+of the walnut boughs, while the moonlight silvers them from above. Beyond
+gardens where the nightingales are singing, the tall minaret of Eregli
+stands revealed in the vapory glow. The night is too sweet and balmy for
+sleep, and yet I must close my eyes upon it, for the hot plains of
+Karamania await us to-morrow.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch19">
+<h2>Chapter XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Plains of Karamania.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Plains of Karamania--Afternoon Heat--A Well--Volcanic
+  Phenomena--Kara-bounar--A Grand Ruined Khan--Moonlight Picture--A
+  Landscape of the Plains-Mirages--A Short Interview--The Village of
+  Ismil---Third Day on the Plains--Approach to Konia.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "A weary waste, expanding to the skies."--Goldsmith.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Konia, Capital of Karamania, <i>Friday, June</i> 25, 1854.</h4>
+
+<p>Fran&ccedil;ois awoke us at the break of day, at Eregli, as we had a journey of
+twelve hours before us. Passing through the town, we traversed a narrow
+belt of garden and orchard land, and entered the great plain of Karamania.
+Our road led at first northward towards a range called Karadja Dagh, and
+then skirted its base westward. After three hours' travel we passed a
+village of neat, whitewashed houses, which were entirely deserted, all the
+inhabitants having gone off to the mountains. There were some herds
+scattered over the plain, near the village. As the day wore on, the wind,
+which had been chill in the morning, ceased, and the air became hot and
+sultry. The glare from the white soil was so painful that I was obliged to
+close my eyes, and so ran a continual risk of falling asleep and tumbling
+from my horse. Thus, drowsy and half unconscious of my whereabouts, I rode
+on in the heat and arid silence of the plain until noon, when we reached
+a well. It was a shaft, sunk about thirty feet deep, with a long, sloping
+gallery slanting off to the surface. The well was nearly dry, but by
+descending the gallery we obtained a sufficient supply of cold, pure
+water. We breakfasted in the shaded doorway, sharing our provisions with a
+Turcoman boy, who was accompanying his father to Eregli with a load of
+salt.</p>
+
+<p>Our road now crossed a long, barren pass, between two parts of Karadja
+Dagh. Near the northern side there was a salt lake of one hundred yards in
+diameter, sunk in a deep natural basin. The water was intensely saline. On
+the other side of the road, and a quarter of a mile distant, is an extinct
+volcano, the crater of which, near two hundred feet deep, is a salt lake,
+with a trachytic cone three hundred feet high rising from the centre. From
+the slope of the mountain we overlooked another and somewhat deeper plain,
+extending to the north and west. It was bounded by broken peaks, all of
+which betrayed a volcanic origin. Far before us we saw the tower on the
+hill of Kara-bounar, our resting-place for the night. The road thither was
+over a barren plain, cheered here and there by patches of a cushion-like
+plant, which was covered with pink blossoms. Mr. Harrison scared up some
+coveys of the frankolin, a large bird resembling the pheasant, and
+enriched our larder with a dozen starlings.</p>
+
+<p>Kara-bounar is built on the slope of a mound, at the foot of which stands
+a spacious mosque, visible far over the plain. It has a dome, and two
+tall, pencil-like towers, similar to those of the Citadel-mosque of Cairo.
+Near it are the remains of a magnificent khan-fortress, said to have been
+built by the eunuch of one of the former Sultans. As there was no water in
+the wells outside of the town, we entered the khan and pitched the tent
+in its grass-grown court. Six square pillars of hewn stone made an aisle
+to our door, and the lofty, roofless walls of the court, 100 by 150 feet,
+inclosed us. Another court, of similar size, communicated with it by a
+broad portal, and the remains of baths and bazaars lay beyond. A handsome
+stone fountain, with two streams of running water, stood in front of the
+khan. We were royally lodged, but almost starved in our splendor, as only
+two or three Turcomans remained out of two thousand (who had gone off with
+their herds to the mountains), and they were unable to furnish us with
+provisions. But for our frankolins and starlings we should have gone
+fasting.</p>
+
+<p>The mosque was a beautiful structure of white limestone, and the galleries
+of its minarets were adorned with rich arabesque ornaments. While the
+muezzin was crying his sunset-call to prayer, I entered the portico and
+looked into the interior, which was so bare as to appear incomplete. As we
+sat in our palace-court, after dinner, the moon arose, lighting up the
+niches in the walls, the clusters of windows in the immense eastern gable,
+and the rows of massive columns. The large dimensions of the building gave
+it a truly grand effect, and but for the whine of a distant jackal I could
+have believed that we were sitting in the aisles of a roofless Gothic
+cathedral, in the heart of Europe. Fran&ccedil;ois was somewhat fearful of
+thieves, but the peace and repose of the place we've so perfect that I
+would not allow any such apprehensions to disturb me. In two minutes after
+I touched my bed I was insensible, and I did not move a limb until
+sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Kara-bounar, there is a low, barren ridge, climbing which, we
+overlooked an immense plain, uncultivated, apparently unfertile, and
+without a sign of life as far as the eye could reach. Kara Dagh, in the
+south, lifted nearer us its cluster of dark summits; to the north, the
+long ridge of &Uuml;sedjik Dagh (the Pigmy Mountain) stretched like a cape into
+the plain; Hassan Dagh; wrapped in a soft white cloud, receded behind us,
+and the snows of Taurus seemed almost as distant as when we first beheld
+them from the Syrian Gates. We rode for four hours over the dead level,
+the only objects that met our eyes being an occasional herd of camels in
+the distance. About noon, we reached a well, similar to that of the
+previous day, but of recent construction. A long, steep gallery led down
+to the water, which was very cold, but had a villainous taste of lime,
+salt, and sulphur.</p>
+
+<p>After an hour's halt, we started again. The sun was intensely hot, and for
+hours we jogged on over the dead level, the bare white soil blinding our
+eyes with its glare. The distant hills were lifted above the horizon by a
+mirage. Long sheets of blue water were spread along their bases, islanding
+the isolated peaks, and turning into ships and boats the black specks of
+camels far away. But the phenomena were by no means on so grand a scale as
+I had seen in the Nubian Desert. On the south-western horizon, we
+discerned the summits of the Karaman range of Taurus, covered with snow.
+In the middle of the afternoon, we saw a solitary tent upon the plain,
+from which an individual advanced to meet us. As he drew nearer, we
+noticed that he wore white Frank pantaloons, similar to the Turkish
+soldiery, with a jacket of brown cloth, and a heavy sabre. When he was
+within convenient speaking distance, he cried out: "Stop! why are you
+running away from me?" "What do you call running away?" rejoined Fran&ccedil;ois;
+"we are going on our journey." "Where do you come from?" he then asked.
+"From there," said Fran&ccedil;ois, pointing behind us "Where are you going?"
+"There!" and the provoking Greek simply pointed forwards. "You have
+neither faith nor religion!" said the man, indignantly; then, turning upon
+his heel, he strode back across the plain.</p>
+
+<p>About four o'clock, we saw a long line of objects rising before us, but so
+distorted by the mirage that it was impossible to know what they were.
+After a while, however, we decided that they were houses interspersed with
+trees; but the trees proved to be stacks of hay and lentils, heaped on the
+flat roofs. This was Ismil, our halting-place. The houses were miserable
+mud huts; but the village was large, and, unlike most of those we have
+seen this side of Taurus, inhabited. The people are Turcomans, and their
+possessions appear to be almost entirely in their herds. Immense numbers
+of sheep and goats were pasturing on the plain. There were several wells
+in the place, provided with buckets attached to long swing-poles; the
+water was very cold, but brackish. Our tent was pitched on the plain, on a
+hard, gravelly strip of soil. A crowd of wild-haired Turcoman boys
+gathered in front, to stare at us, and the shepherds quarrelled at the
+wells, as to which should take his turn at watering his flocks. In the
+evening a handsome old Turk visited us, and, finding that we were bound to
+Constantinople, requested Fran&ccedil;ois to take a letter to his son, who was
+settled there.</p>
+
+<p>Fran&ccedil;ois aroused us this morning before the dawn, as we had a journey of
+thirty-five miles before us. He was in a bad humor; for a man, whom he had
+requested to keep watch over his tent, while he went into the village, had
+stolen a fork and spoon. The old Turk, who had returned as soon as we
+were stirring, went out to hunt the thief, but did not succeed in finding
+him. The inhabitants of the village were up long before sunrise, and
+driving away in their wooden-wheeled carts to the meadows where they cut
+grass. The old Turk accompanied us some distance, in order to show us a
+nearer way, avoiding a marshy spot. Our road lay over a vast plain,
+seemingly boundless, for the lofty mountain-ranges that surrounded it on
+all sides were so distant and cloud-like, and so lifted from the horizon
+by the deceptive mirage, that the eye did not recognize their connection
+with it. The wind blew strongly from the north-west, and was so cold that
+I dismounted and walked ahead for two or three hours.</p>
+
+<p>Before noon, we passed two villages of mud huts, partly inhabited, and
+with some wheat-fields around them. We breakfasted at another well, which
+furnished us with a drink that tasted like iced sea-water. Thence we rode
+forth again into the heat, for the wind had fallen by this time, and the
+sun shone out with great force. There was ever the same dead level, and we
+rode directly towards the mountains, which, to my eyes, seemed nearly as
+distant as ever. At last, there was a dark glimmer through the mirage, at
+their base, and a half-hour's ride showed it to be a line of trees. In
+another hour, we could distinguish a minaret or two, and finally, walls
+and the stately domes of mosques. This was Konia, the ancient Iconium, one
+of the most renowned cities of Asia Minor.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch20">
+<h2>Chapter XX</h2>
+
+<h3>Scenes in Konia.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Kpproach to Konia---Tomb of Hazret Mevlana--Lodgings in a Khan--An
+  American Luxury--A Night-Scene in Ramazan--Prayers in the
+  Mosque--Remains of the Ancient City--View from the Mosque--The
+  Interior--A Leaning Minaret--The Diverting History of the Muleteers.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "But they shook off the dust on their feet, and came unto
+  Iconium."--Acts, xiii. 51.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Konia (Ancient Iconium), <i>June</i> 27, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>The view of Konia from the plain is not striking until one has approached
+within a mile of the suburbs, when the group of mosques, with their heavy
+central domes lifted on clusters of smaller ones, and their tall, light,
+glittering minarets, rising above the foliage of the gardens, against the
+background of airy hills, has a very pleasing effect. We approached
+through a long line of dirty suburbs, which looked still more forlorn on
+account of the Ramazan. Some Turkish officials, in shabby Frank dresses,
+followed us to satisfy their curiosity by talking with our <i>Katurjees</i>, or
+muleteers. Outside the city walls, we passed some very large barracks for
+cavalry, built by Ibrahim Pasha. On the plain north-east of the city, the
+battle between him and the forces of the Sultan, resulting in the defeat
+of the latter, was fought.</p>
+
+<p>We next came upon two magnificent mosques, built of white limestone, with
+a multitude of leaden domes and lofty minarets, adorned with galleries
+rich in arabesque ornaments. Attached to one of them is the tomb, of
+Hazret Mevlana, the founder of the sect of Mevlevi Dervishes, which is
+reputed one of the most sacred places in the East. The tomb is surmounted
+by a dome, upon which stands a tall cylindrical tower, reeded, with
+channels between each projection, and terminating in a long, tapering
+cone. This tower is made of glazed tiles, of the most brilliant sea-blue
+color, and sparkles in the sun like a vast pillar of icy spar in some
+Polar grotto. It is a most striking and fantastic object, surrounded by a
+cluster of minarets and several cypress-trees, amid which it seems placed
+as the central ornament and crown of the group.</p>
+
+<p>The aspect of the city was so filthy and uninviting that we preferred
+pitching our tent; but it was impossible to find a place without going
+back upon the plain; so we turned into the bazaar, and asked the way to a
+khan. There was a tolerable crowd in the street, although many of the
+shops were shut. The first khan we visited was too filthy to enter; but
+the second, though most unpromising in appearance, turned out to be better
+than it looked. The <i>oda-bashi</i> (master of the rooms) thoroughly swept and
+sprinkled the narrow little chamber he gave us, laid clean mats upon the
+floor, and, when our carpets and beds were placed within, its walls of mud
+looked somewhat comfortable. Its single window, with an iron grating in
+lieu of glass, looked upon an oblong court, on the second story,
+surrounded by the rooms of Armenian merchants. The main court (the gate of
+which is always closed at sunset) is two stories in height, with a rough
+wooden balcony running around it, and a well of muddy water in the centre.</p>
+
+<p>The oda-bashi lent us a Turkish table and supplied us with dinner from
+his own kitchen; kibabs, stewed beans, and cucumber salad. Mr. H. and I,
+forgetting the Ramazan, went out to hunt for an iced sherbet; but all the
+coffee-shops were closed until sunset. The people stared at our Egyptian
+costumes, and a fellow in official dress demanded my <i>tesker&eacute;</i>. Soon after
+we returned, Fran&ccedil;ois appeared with a splendid lump of ice in a basin and
+some lemons. The ice, so the <i>khangee</i> said, is taken from a lake among
+the mountains, which in winter freezes to the thickness of a foot. Behind
+the lake is a natural cavern, which the people fill with ice, and then
+close up. At this season they take it out, day by day, and bring it down
+to the city. It is very pure and thick, and justifies the Turkish proverb
+in regard to Konia, which is celebrated for three excellent things:
+"<i>dooz, booz, k&uuml;z</i>"--salt, ice, and girls.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after sunset, a cannon announced the close of the fast. We waited an
+hour or two longer, to allow the people time to eat, and then sallied out
+into the streets. Every minaret in the city blazed with a crown of lighted
+lamps around its upper gallery, while the long shafts below, and the
+tapering cones above, topped with brazen crescents, shone fair in the
+moonlight. It was a strange, brilliant spectacle. In the square before the
+principal mosque we found a crowd of persons frolicking around the
+fountain, in the light of a number of torches on poles planted in the
+ground. Mats were spread on the stones, and rows of Turks of all classes
+sat thereon, smoking their pipes. Large earthen water-jars stood here and
+there, and the people drank so often and so long that they seemed
+determined to provide against the morrow. The boys were having their
+amusement in wrestling, shouting and firing off squibs, which they threw
+into the crowd. We kicked off our slippers, sat down among the Turks,
+smoked a narghileh, drank a cup of coffee and an iced sherbet of raisin
+juice, and so enjoyed the Ramazan as well as the best of them.</p>
+
+<p>Numbers of True Believers were drinking and washing themselves at the
+picturesque fountain, and just as we rose to depart, the voice of a
+boy-muezzin, on one of the tallest minarets, sent down a musical call to
+prayer. Immediately the boys left off their sports and started on a run
+for the great mosque, and the grave, gray-bearded Turks got up from the
+mats, shoved on their slippers, and marched after them. We followed,
+getting a glimpse of the illuminated interior of the building, as we
+passed; but the oda-bashi conducted us still further, to a smaller though
+more beautiful mosque, surrounded with a garden-court. It was a truly
+magical picture. We entered the gate, and passed on by a marble pavement,
+under trees and arbors of vines that almost shut out the moonlight, to a
+paved space, in the centre whereof was a beautiful fountain, in the purest
+Saracenic style. Its heavy, projecting cornices and tall pyramidal roof
+rested on a circle of elegant arches, surrounding a marble structure,
+whence the water gushed forth in a dozen sparkling streams. On three sides
+it was inclosed by the moonlit trees and arbors; on the fourth by the
+outer corridor of the mosque, the door of entrance being exactly opposite.</p>
+
+<p>Large numbers of persons were washing their hands and feet at the
+fountain, after which they entered and knelt on the floor. We stood
+unobserved in the corridor, and looked in on the splendidly illuminated
+interior and the crowd at prayer, all bending their bodies to the earth at
+regular intervals and murmuring the name of Allah. They resembled a
+plain, of reeds bending before the gusts of wind which precede a storm.
+When all had entered and were united in solemn prayer, we returned,
+passing the grand mosque. I stole up to the door, lifted the heavy carpet
+that hung before it, and looked in. There was a Mevlevi Dervish standing
+in the entrance, but his eyes were lifted in heavenly abstraction, and he
+did not see me. The interior was brilliantly lit by white and colored
+lamps, suspended from the walls and the great central dome. It was an
+imposing structure, simple in form, yet grand from its dimensions. The
+floor was covered with kneeling figures, and a deep voice, coming from the
+other end of the mosque, was uttering pious phrases in a kind of chant. I
+satisfied my curiosity quickly, and we then returned to the khan.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday afternoon I made a more thorough examination of the city.
+Passing through the bazaars, I reached the Serai, or Pasha's Palace, which
+stands on the site of that of the Sultans of Iconium. It is a long, wooden
+building, with no pretensions to architectural beauty. Near it there is a
+large and ancient mosque, with a minaret of singular elegance. It is about
+120 feet high, with two hanging galleries; the whole built of blue and red
+bricks, the latter projecting so as to form quaint patterns or designs.
+Several ancient buildings near this mosque are surmounted with pyramidal
+towers, resembling Pagodas of India. Following the long, crooked lanes
+between mud buildings, we passed these curious structures and reached the
+ancient wall of the city. In one of the streets lay a marble lion, badly
+executed, and apparently of the time of the Lower Empire. In the wall were
+inserted many similar figures, with fragments of friezes and cornices.
+This is the work of the Seljook Kings, who, in building the wall, took
+great pains to exhibit the fragments of the ancient city. The number of
+altars they have preserved is quite remarkable. On the square towers are
+sunken tablets, containing long Arabic inscriptions.</p>
+
+<p>The high walls of a ruined building in the southern part of the city
+attracted us, and on going thither we found it to be an ancient mosque,
+standing on an eminence formed apparently of the debris of other
+buildings. Part of the wall was also ancient, and in some places showed
+the marks of an earthquake. A long flight of steps led up to the door of
+the mosque, and as we ascended we were rewarded by the most charming view
+of the city and the grand plain. Konia lay at our feet--a wide, straggling
+array of low mud dwellings, dotted all over with patches of garden
+verdure, while its three superb mosques, with the many smaller tombs and
+places of worship, appeared like buildings left from some former and more
+magnificent capital. Outside of this circle ran a belt of garden land,
+adorned with groves and long lines of fruit trees; still further, the
+plain, a sea of faded green, flecked with the softest cloud-shadows, and
+beyond all, the beautiful outlines and dreamy tints of the different
+mountain chains. It was in every respect a lovely landscape, and the city
+is unworthy such surroundings. The sky, which in this region is of a pale,
+soft, delicious blue, was dotted with scattered fleeces of white clouds,
+and there was an exquisite play of light and shade over the hills.</p>
+
+<p>There were half a dozen men and boys about the door, amusing themselves
+with bursting percussion caps on the stone. They addressed us as
+"<i>hadji</i>!" (pilgrims), begging for more caps. I told them I was not a
+Turk, but an Arab, which they believed at once, and requested me to enter
+the mosque. The interior had a remarkably fine effect. It was a maze of
+arches, supported by columns of polished black marble, forty in number. In
+form it was nearly square, and covered with a flat, wooden roof. The floor
+was covered with a carpet, whereon several persons were lying at full
+length, while an old man, seated in one of the most remote corners, was
+reading in a loud, solemn voice. It is a peculiar structure, which I
+should be glad to examine more in detail.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from this eminence is a remarkable leaning minaret, more than a
+hundred feet in height, while in diameter it cannot be more than fifteen
+feet. In design it is light and elegant, and the effect is not injured by
+its deviation from the perpendicular, which I should judge to be about six
+feet. From the mosque we walked over the mounds of old Iconium to the
+eastern wall, passing another mosque, wholly in ruin, but which must have
+once been more splendid than any now standing. The portal is the richest
+specimen of Saracenic sculpture I have ever seen: a very labyrinth of
+intricate ornaments. The artist must have seen the great portal of the
+Temple of the Sun at Baalbec. The minarets have tumbled down, the roof has
+fallen in, but the walls are still covered with white and blue tiles, of
+the finest workmanship, resembling a mosaic of ivory and lapis lazuli.
+Some of the chambers seem to be inhabited, for two old men with white
+beards lay in the shade, and were not a little startled by our sudden
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>We returned to the great mosque, which we had visited on the evening of
+our arrival, and listened for some time to the voice of a mollah who was
+preaching an afternoon sermon to a small and hungry congregation. We then
+entered the court before the tomb of Hazret Mevlana. It was apparently
+forbidden ground to Christians, but as the Dervishes did not seem to
+suspect us we walked about boldly, and were about to enter, when an
+indiscretion of my companion frustrated our plans. Forgetting his assumed
+character, he went to the fountain and drank, although it was no later
+than the <i>asser</i>, or afternoon prayer. The Dervishes were shocked and
+scandalized by this violation of the fast, in the very court-yard of their
+holiest mosque, and we judged it best to retire by degrees. We sent this
+morning to request an interview with the Pasha, but he had gone to pass
+the day in a country palace, about three hours distant. It is a still,
+hot, bright afternoon, and the silence of the famished populace disposes
+us to repose. Our view is bounded by the mud walls of the khan, and I
+already long for the freedom of the great Karamanian Plain. Here, in the
+heart of Asia Minor, all life seems to stagnate. There is sleep
+everywhere, and I feel that a wide barrier separates me from the living
+world.</p>
+
+<p>We have been detained here a whole day, through a chain of accidents, all
+resulting from the rascality of our muleteers on leaving Aleppo. The lame
+horse they palmed upon us was unable to go further, so we obliged them to
+buy another animal, which they succeeded in getting for 350 piastres. We
+advanced the money, although they were still in our debt, hoping to work
+our way through with the new horse, and thus avoid the risk of loss or
+delay. But this morning at sunrise Hadji Youssuf comes with a woeful face
+to say that the new horse has been stolen in the night, and we, who are
+ready to start, must sit down and wait till he is recovered. I suspected
+another trick, but when, after the lapse of three hours, Fran&ccedil;ois found
+the hadji sitting on the ground, weeping, and Achmet beating his breast,
+it seemed probable that the story was true. All search for the horse being
+vain, Fran&ccedil;ois went with them to the shekh of the horses, who promised, in
+case it should hereafter be found, to place it in the general pen, where
+they would be sure to get it on their return. The man who sold them the
+horse offered them another for the lame one and 150 piastres, and there
+was no other alternative but to accept it. But <i>we</i> must advance the 150
+piastres, and so, in mid-journey, we have already paid them to the end,
+with the risk of their horses breaking down, or they, horses and all,
+absconding from us. But the knavish varlets are hardly bold enough for
+such a climax of villany.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch21">
+<h2>Chapter XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Heart of Asia Minor.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Scenery of the Hills--Ladik, the Ancient Laodicea--The Plague of
+  Gad-Flies--Camp at Ilg&uuml;n--A Natural Warm Bath--The Gad-Flies Again--A
+  Summer Landscape--Ak-Sheher--The Base of Sultan Dagh--The Fountain of
+  Midas--A Drowsy Journey--The Town of Bolawad&uuml;n.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"By the forests, lakes, and fountains,<br />
+Though the many-folded mountains." Shelley.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Bolawad&uuml;n, <i>July</i> 1, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Our men brought all the beasts into the court-yard of the khan at Konia,
+the evening before our departure, so that no more were stolen during the
+night. The oda-bashi, indefatigable to the last in his attention to us,
+not only helped load the mules, but accompanied us some distance on our
+way. All the merchants in the khan collected in the gallery to see us
+start, and we made our exit in some state. The morning was clear, fresh,
+and delightful. Turning away from the city walls, we soon emerged from the
+lines of fruit-trees and interminable fields of tomb-stones, and came out
+upon the great bare plain of Karamania. A ride of three hours brought us
+to a long, sloping hill, which gave us a view of the whole plain, and its
+circuit of mountains. A dark line in the distance marked the gardens of
+Konia. On the right, near the centre of the plain, the lake, now
+contracted to very narrow limits, glimmered in the sun. Notwithstanding
+the waste and unfertile appearance of the country, the soft, sweet sky
+that hangs over it, the pure, transparent air, the grand sweep of the
+plain, and the varied forms of the different mountain chains that
+encompass it, make our journey an inspiring one. A descent of the hills
+soon shut out the view; and the rest of the day's journey lay among them,
+skirting the eastern base of Allah Dagh.</p>
+
+<p>The country improved in character, as we advanced. The bottoms of the dry
+glens were covered with wheat, and shrubbery began to make its appearance
+on the mountain-sides In the afternoon, we crossed a watershed, dividing
+Karamania from the great central plain of Asia Minor, and descended to a
+village called Ladik, occupying the site of the ancient Laodicea, at the
+foot of Allah Dagh. The plain upon which we came was greener and more
+flourishing than that we had left. Trees were scattered here and there in
+clumps, and the grassy wastes, stretching beyond the grain-fields, were
+dotted with herds of cattle. Emir Dagh stood in the north-west, blue and
+distant, while, towards the north and north-east, the plain extended to
+the horizon--a horizon fifty miles distant--without a break. In that
+direction lay the great salt lake of Y&uuml;zler, and the strings of camels we
+met on the road, laden with salt, were returning from it. Ladik is
+surrounded with poppy-fields, brilliant with white and purple blossoms.
+When the petals have fallen, the natives go carefully over the whole field
+and make incisions in every stalk, whence the opium exudes.</p>
+
+<p>We pitched our tent under a large walnut tree, which we found standing in
+a deserted inclosure. The graveyard of the village is studded with relics
+of the ancient town. There are pillars, cornices, entablatures, jambs,
+altars, mullions and sculptured tablets, all of white marble, and many of
+them in an excellent state of preservation. They appear to date from the
+early time of the Lower Empire, and the cross has not yet been effaced
+from some which serve as head-stones for the True Believers. I was
+particularly struck with the abundance of altars, some of which contained
+entire and legible inscriptions. In the town there is the same abundance
+of ruins. The lid of a sarcophagus, formed of a single block of marble,
+now serves as a water-trough, and the fountain is constructed of ancient
+tablets. The town stands on a mound which appears to be composed entirely
+of the debris of the former place, and near the summit there are many
+holes which the inhabitants have dug in their search for rings, seals and
+other relics.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we made a journey of nine hours over a hilly country lying
+between the ranges of Allah Dagh and Emir Dagh. There were wells of
+excellent water along the road, at intervals of an hour or two. The day
+was excessively hot and sultry during the noon hours, and the flies were
+so bad as to give great inconvenience to our horses. The animal I bestrode
+kicked so incessantly that I could scarcely keep my seat. His belly was
+swollen and covered with clotted blood, from their bites. The hadji's mule
+began to show symptoms of illness, and we had great difficulty in keeping
+it on its legs. Mr. Harrison bled it in the mouth, as a last resource, and
+during the afternoon it partly recovered.</p>
+
+<p>An hour before sunset we reached Ilg&uuml;n, a town on the plain, at the foot
+of one of the spurs of Emir Dagh. To the west of it there is a lake of
+considerable size, which receives the streams that flow through the town
+and water its fertile gardens. We passed through the town and pitched our
+tent upon a beautiful grassy meadow. Our customary pipe of refreshment was
+never more heartily enjoyed than at this place. Behind us was a barren
+hill, at the foot of which was a natural hot bath, wherein a number of
+women and children were amusing themselves. The afternoon heat had passed
+away, the air was calm, sweet, and tempered with the freshness of coming
+evening, and the long shadows of the hills, creeping over the meadows, had
+almost reached the town. Beyond the line of sycamore, poplar and fig-trees
+that shaded the gardens of Ilg&uuml;n, rose the distant chain of Allah Dagh,
+and in the pale-blue sky, not far above it, the dim face of the gibbous
+moon showed like the ghost of a planet. Our horses were feeding on the
+green meadow; an old Turk sat beside us, silent with fasting, and there
+was no sound but the shouts of the children in the bath. Such hours as
+these, after a day's journey made in the drowsy heat of an Eastern summer,
+are indescribably grateful.</p>
+
+<p>After the women had retired from the bath, we were allowed to enter. The
+interior consisted of a single chamber, thirty feet high, vaulted and
+almost dark. In the centre was a large basin of hot water, filled by four
+streams which poured into it. A ledge ran around the sides, and niches in
+the wall supplied places for our clothes. The bath-keeper furnished us
+with towels, and we undressed and plunged in. The water was agreeably warm
+(about 90&deg;), had a sweet taste, and a very slight sulphury smell. The
+vaulted hall redoubled the slightest noise, and a shaven Turk, who kept us
+company, sang in his delight, that he might hear the echo of his own
+voice. When we went back to the tent we found our visitor lying on the
+ground, trying to stay his hunger. It was rather too bad in us to light
+our pipes, make a sherbet and drink and smoke in his face, while we joked
+him about the Ramazan; and he at last got up and walked off, the picture
+of distress.</p>
+
+<p>We made an early start the next morning, and rode on briskly over the
+rolling, grassy hills. A beautiful lake, with an island in it, lay at the
+foot of Emir Dagh. After two hours we reached a guard-house, where our
+<i>tesker&eacute;s</i> were demanded, and the lazy guardsman invited us in to take
+coffee, that he might establish a right to the backsheesh which he could
+not demand. He had seen us afar off, and the coffee was smoking in the
+<i>finjans</i> when we arrived. The sun was already terribly hot, and the
+large, green gad-flies came in such quantities that I seemed to be riding
+in the midst of a swarm of bees. My horse suffered very much, and struck
+out his hind feet so violently, in his endeavors to get rid of them, that
+he racked every joint in my body. They were not content with sucking his
+blood, but settling on the small segment of my calf, exposed between the
+big Tartar boot and the flowing trowsers, bit through my stockings with
+fierce bills. I killed hundreds of them, to no purpose, and at last, to
+relieve my horse, tied a bunch of hawthorn to a string, by which I swung
+it under his belly and against the inner side of his flanks. In this way I
+gave him some relief--a service which he acknowledged by a grateful motion
+of his head.</p>
+
+<p>As we descended towards Ak-Sheher the country became exceedingly rich and
+luxuriant. The range of Sultan Dagh (the Mountain of the Sultan) rose on
+our left, its sides covered with a thick screen of shrubbery, and its
+highest peak dotted with patches of snow; opposite, the lower range of
+Emir Dagh (the Mountain of the Prince) lay blue and bare in the sun
+shine. The base of Sultan Dagh was girdled with groves of fruit-trees,
+stretching out in long lines on the plain, with fields of ripening wheat
+between. In the distance the large lake of Ak-Sheher glittered in the sun.
+Towards the north-west, the plain stretched away for fifty miles before
+reaching the hills. It is evidently on a much lower level than the plain
+of Konia; the heat was not only greater, but the season was further
+advanced. Wheat was nearly ready for cutting, and the poppy-fields where,
+the day previous, the men were making their first incisions for opium,
+here had yielded their harvest and were fast ripening their seed.
+Ak-Sheher is beautifully situated at the entrance of a deep gorge in the
+mountains. It is so buried in its embowered gardens that little, except
+the mosque, is seen as you approach it. It is a large place, and boasts a
+fine mosque, but contains nothing worth seeing. The bazaar, after that of
+Konia, was the largest we had seen since leaving Tarsus. The greater part
+of the shopkeepers lay at full length, dozing, sleeping, or staying their
+appetites till the sunset gun. We found some superb cherries, and plenty
+of snow, which is brought down from the mountain. The natives were very
+friendly and good-humored, but seemed surprised at Mr. Harrison tasting
+the cherries, although I told them we were upon a journey. Our tent was
+pitched under a splendid walnut tree, outside of the town. The green
+mountain rose between us and the fading sunset, and the yellow moon was
+hanging in the east, as we took our dinner at the tent-door. Turks were
+riding homewards on donkeys, with loads of grass which they had been
+cutting in the meadows. The gun was fired, and the shouts of the children
+announced the close of the day's fast, while the sweet, melancholy voice
+of a boy muezzin called us to sunset prayer, from the minaret.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Ak-Sheher this morning, we rode along the base of Sultan Dagh. The
+plain which we overlooked was magnificent. The wilderness of shrubbery
+which fringed the slopes of the mountain gave place to great orchards and
+gardens, interspersed with fields of grain, which extended far out on the
+plain, to the wild thickets and wastes of reeds surrounding the lake. The
+sides of Sultan Dagh were terraced and cultivated wherever it was
+practicable, and I saw some fields of wheat high up on the mountain. There
+were many, people in the road or laboring in the fields; and during the
+forenoon we passed several large villages. The country is more thickly
+inhabited, and has a more thrifty and prosperous air than any part of Asia
+Minor which I have seen. The people are better clad, have more open,
+honest, cheerful and intelligent faces, and exhibit a genuine courtesy and
+good-will in their demeanor towards us. I never felt more perfectly
+secure, or more certain of being among people whom I could trust.</p>
+
+<p>We passed under the summit of Sultan Dagh, which shone out so clear and
+distinct in the morning sun, that I could scarcely realize its actual
+height above the plain. From a tremendous gorge, cleft between the two
+higher peaks, issued a large stream, which, divided into a hundred
+channels, fertilizes a wide extent of plain. About two hours from
+Ak-Sheher we passed a splendid fountain of crystal water, gushing up
+beside the road. I believe it is the same called by some travellers the
+Fountain of Midas, but am ignorant wherefore the name is given it. We rode
+for several hours through a succession of grand, rich landscapes. A
+smaller lake succeeded to that of Ak-Sheher, Emir Dagh rose higher in the
+pale-blue sky, and Sultan Dagh showed other peaks, broken and striped with
+snow; but around us were the same glorious orchards and gardens, the same
+golden-green wheat and rustling phalanxes of poppies--armies of vegetable
+Round-heads, beside the bristling and bearded Cavaliers. The sun was
+intensely hot during the afternoon, as we crossed the plain, and I became
+so drowsed that it required an agony of exertion to keep from tumbling off
+my horse. We here left the great post-road to Constantinople, and took a
+less frequented track. The plain gradually became a meadow, covered with
+shrub cypress, flags, reeds, and wild water-plants. There were vast wastes
+of luxuriant grass, whereon thousands of black buffaloes were feeding. A
+stone causeway, containing many elegant fragments of ancient sculpture,
+extended across this part of the plain, but we took a summer path beside
+it, through beds of iris in bloom--a fragile snowy blossom, with a lip of
+the clearest golden hue. The causeway led to a bare salt plain, beyond
+which we came to the town of Bolawad&uuml;n, and terminated our day's journey
+of forty miles.</p>
+
+<p>Bolawad&uuml;n is a collection of mud houses, about a mile long, situated on an
+eminence at the western base of Emir Dagh. I went into the bazaar, which
+was a small place, and not very well supplied, though, as it was near
+sunset, there was quite a crowd of people, and the bakers were shovelling
+out their fresh bread at a brisk rate. Every one took me for a good
+Egyptian Mohammedan, and I was jostled right and left among the turbans,
+in a manner that certainly would not have happened me had I not also worn
+one. Mr. H., who had fallen behind the caravan, came up after we had
+encamped, and might have wandered a long time without finding us, but for
+the good-natured efforts of the inhabitants to set him aright. This
+evening he knocked over a hedgehog, mistaking it for a cat. The poor
+creature was severely hurt, and its sobs of distress, precisely like those
+of a little child, were to painful to hear, that we were obliged to have
+it removed from the vicinity of the tent.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch22">
+<h2>Chapter XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Forests of Phrygia.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Frontier of Phrygia--Ancient Quarries and Tombs--We Enter the Pine
+  Forests--A Guard-House--Encampments of the Turcomans--Pastoral
+  Scenery--A Summer Village--The Valley of the Tombs--Rock Sepulchres of
+  the Phrygian Kings--The Titan's Camp--The Valley of K&uuml;mbeh--A Land of
+  Flowers--Turcoman Hospitality--The Exiled Effendis--The Old Turcoman--A
+  Glimpse of Arcadia--A Landscape--Interested Friendship--The Valley of
+  the Pursek--Arrival at Kiutahya.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "And round us all the thicket rang
+  To many a flute of Arcady." Tennyson.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Kiutahya, <i>July</i> 5, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We had now passed through the ancient provinces of Cilicia, Cappadocia,
+and Lycaonia, and reached the confines of Phrygia--a rude mountain region,
+which was never wholly penetrated by the light of Grecian civilization. It
+is still comparatively a wilderness, pierced but by a single high-road,
+and almost unvisited by travellers, yet inclosing in its depths many
+curious relics of antiquity. Leaving Bolawad&uuml;n in the morning, we ascended
+a long, treeless mountain-slope, and in three or four hours reached the
+dividing ridge---the watershed of Asia Minor, dividing the affluents of
+the Mediterranean and the central lakes from the streams that flow to the
+Black Sea. Looking back, Sultan Dagh, along whose base we had travelled
+the previous day, lay high and blue in the background, streaked with
+shining snow, and far away behind it arose a still higher peak, hoary with
+the lingering winter. We descended into a grassy plain, shut in by a range
+of broken mountains, covered to their summits with dark-green shrubbery,
+through which the strata of marble rock gleamed like patches of snow. The
+hills in front were scarred with old quarries, once worked for the
+celebrated Phrygian marble. There was neither a habitation nor a human
+being to be seen, and the landscape had a singularly wild, lonely, and
+picturesque air.</p>
+
+<p>Turning westward, we crossed a high rolling tract, and entered a valley
+entirely covered with dwarf oaks and cedars. In spite of the dusty road,
+the heat, and the multitude of gad-flies, the journey presented an
+agreeable contrast to the great plains over which we had been travelling
+for many days. The opposite side of the glen was crowned with a tall crest
+of shattered rock, in which were many old Phrygian tombs. They were mostly
+simple chambers, with square apertures. There were traces of many more,
+the rock having been blown up or quarried down--the tombs, instead of
+protecting it, only furnishing one facility the more for destruction.
+After an hour's rest at a fountain, we threaded the windings of the glen
+to a lower plain, quite shut in by the hills, whose ribs of marble showed
+through the forests of oak, holly, cedar, and pine, which dotted them. We
+were now fully entered into the hill-country, and our road passed over
+heights and through hollows covered with picturesque clumps of foliage. It
+resembled some of the wild western downs of America, and, but for the
+Phrygian tombs, whose doorways stared at us from every rock, seemed as
+little familiar with the presence of Man.</p>
+
+<p>Hadji Youssuf, in stopping to arrange some of the baggage, lost his hold
+of his mule, and in spite of every effort to secure her, the provoking
+beast kept her liberty for the rest of the day. In vain did we head her
+off, chase her, coax her, set traps for her: she was too cunning to be
+taken in, and marched along at her ease, running into every field of
+grain, stopping to crop the choicest bunches of grass, or walking demurely
+in the caravan, allowing the hadji to come within arm's length before she
+kicked up her heels and dashed away again. We had a long chase through the
+clumps of oak and holly, but all to no purpose. The great green gad-flies
+swarmed around us, biting myself as well as my horse. Hecatombs, crushed
+by my whip, dropped dead in the dust, but the ranks were immediately
+filled from some invisible reserve. The soil was no longer bare, but
+entirely covered with grass and flowers. In one of the valleys I saw a
+large patch of the crimson larkspur, so thick as to resemble a pool of
+blood. While crossing a long, hot hill, we came upon a little arbor of
+stones, covered with pine branches. It inclosed an ancient sarcophagus of
+marble, nearly filled with water. Beside it stood a square cup, with a
+handle, rudely hewn out of a piece of pine wood. This was a charitable
+provision for travellers, and constantly supplied by the Turcomans who
+lived in the vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>The last two hours of our journey that day were through a glorious forest
+of pines. The road lay in a winding glen, green and grassy, and covered to
+the summits on both sides with beautiful pine trees, intermixed with
+cedar. The air had the true northern aroma, and was more grateful than
+wine. Every turn of the glen disclosed a charming woodland view. It was a
+wild valley of the northern hills, filled with the burning lustre of a
+summer sun, and canopied by the brilliant blue of a summer sky. There were
+signs of the woodman's axe, and the charred embers of forest camp-fires. I
+thought of the lovely <i>ca&ntilde;adas</i> in the pine forests behind Monterey, and
+could really have imagined myself there. Towards evening we reached a
+solitary guard-house, on the edge of the forest. The glen here opened a
+little, and a stone fountain of delicious water furnished all that we
+wanted for a camping-place. The house was inhabited by three soldiers;
+sturdy, good-humored fellows, who immediately spread a mat in the shade
+for us and made us some excellent coffee. A Turcoman encampment in the
+neighborhood supplied us with milk and eggs.</p>
+
+<p>The guardsmen were good Mussulmans, and took us for the same. One of them
+asked me to let him know when the sun was down, and I prolonged his fast
+until it was quite dark, when I gave him permission to eat. They all had
+tolerable stallions for their service, and seemed to live pleasantly
+enough, in their wild way. The fat, stumpy corporal, with his enormously
+broad pantaloons and automaton legs, went down to the fountain with his
+musket, and after taking a rest and sighting full five minutes, fired at a
+dove without hitting it. He afterwards joined us in a social pipe, and we
+sat on a carpet at the door of the guard-house, watching the splendid
+moonrise through the pine boughs. When the pipes had burned out I went to
+bed, and slept a long, sweet sleep until dawn.</p>
+
+<p>We knew that the tombs of the Phrygian Kings could not be far off, and, on
+making inquiries of the corporal, found that he knew the place. It was not
+four hours distant, by a by-road and as it would be impossible to reach
+it without a guide, he would give us one of his men, in consideration of a
+fee of twenty piastres. The difficulty was evident, in a hilly, wooded
+country like this, traversed by a labyrinth of valleys and ravines, and so
+we accepted the soldier. As we were about leaving, an old Turcoman, whose
+beard was dyed a bright red, came up, saying that he knew Mr. H. was a
+physician, and could cure him of his deafness. The morning air was sweet
+with the breath of cedar and pine, and we rode on through the woods and
+over the open turfy glades, in high spirits. We were in the heart of a
+mountainous country, clothed with evergreen forests, except some open
+upland tracts, which showed a thick green turf, dotted all over with
+park-like clumps, and single great trees. The pines were noble trunks,
+often sixty to eighty feet high, and with boughs disposed in all possible
+picturesqueness of form. The cedar frequently showed a solid white bole,
+three feet in diameter.</p>
+
+<p>We took a winding footpath, often a mere track, striking across the hills
+in a northern direction. Everywhere we met the Turks of the plain, who are
+now encamped in the mountains, to tend their flocks through the summer
+months. Herds of sheep and goats were scattered over the green
+pasture-slopes, and the idle herd-boys basked in the morning sun, playing
+lively airs on a reed flute, resembling the Arabic <i>zumarra</i>. Here and
+there was a woodman, busy at a recently felled tree, and we met several of
+the creaking carts of the country, hauling logs. All that we saw had a
+pleasant rural air, a smack of primitive and unsophisticated life. From
+the higher ridges over which we passed, we could see, far to the east and
+west, other ranges of pine-covered mountains, and in the distance the
+cloudy lines of loftier chains. The trunks of the pines were nearly all
+charred, and many of the smaller trees dead, from the fires which, later
+in the year, rage in these forests.</p>
+
+<p>After four hours of varied and most inspiring travel, we reached a
+district covered for the most part with oak woods--a more open though
+still mountainous region. There was a summer village of Turks scattered
+over the nearest slope--probably fifty houses in all, almost perfect
+counterparts of Western log-cabins. They were built of pine logs, laid
+crosswise, and covered with rough boards. These, as we were told, were the
+dwellings of the people who inhabit the village of Khosref Pasha Khan
+during the winter. Great numbers of sheep and goats were browsing over the
+hills or lying around the doors of the houses. The latter were beautiful
+creatures, with heavy, curved horns, and long, white, silky hair, that
+entirely hid their eyes. We stopped at a house for water, which the man
+brought out in a little cask. He at first proposed giving us <i>yaourt</i>, and
+his wife suggested <i>ka&iuml;mak</i> (sweet curds), which we agreed to take, but it
+proved to be only boiled milk.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the village, we took a path leading westward, mounted a long hill,
+and again entered the pine forests. Before long, we came to a well-built
+country-house, somewhat resembling a Swiss cottage. It was two stories
+high, and there was an upper balcony, with cushioned divans, overlooking a
+thriving garden-patch and some fruit-trees. Three or four men were weeding
+in the garden, and the owner came up and welcomed us. A fountain of
+ice-cold water gushed into a stone trough at the door, making a tempting
+spot for our breakfast, but we were bent on reaching the tombs. There were
+convenient out-houses for fowls, sheep, and cattle. The herds were out,
+grazing along the edges of the forest, and we heard the shrill, joyous
+melodies of the flutes blown by the herd-boys.</p>
+
+<p>We now reached a ridge, whence we looked down through the forest upon a
+long valley, nearly half a mile wide, and bordered on the opposite side by
+ranges of broken sandstone crags. This was the place we sought--the Valley
+of the Phrygian Tombs. Already we could distinguish the hewn faces of the
+rocks, and the dark apertures to the chambers within. The bottom of the
+valley was a bed of glorious grass, blazoned with flowers, and redolent of
+all vernal smells. Several peasants, finding it too hot to mow, had thrown
+their scythes along the swarths, and were lying in the shade of an oak. We
+rode over the new-cut hay, up the opposite side, and dismounted at the
+face of the crags. As we approached them, the number of chambers hewn in
+the rock, the doors and niches now open to the day, surmounted by
+shattered spires and turrets, gave the whole mass the appearance of a
+grand fortress in ruins. The crags, which are of a very soft, reddish-gray
+sandstone, rise a hundred and fifty feet from their base, and their
+summits are worn by the weather into the most remarkable forms.</p>
+
+<p>The principal monument is a broad, projecting cliff, one side of which has
+been cut so as to resemble the fa&ccedil;ade of a temple. The sculptured part is
+about sixty feet high by sixty in breadth, and represents a solid wall
+with two pilasters at the ends, upholding an architrave and pediment,
+which is surmounted by two large volutes. The whole face of the wall is
+covered with ornaments resembling panel-work, not in regular squares, but
+a labyrinth of intricate designs. In the centre, at the bottom, is a
+shallow square recess, surrounded by an elegant, though plain moulding,
+but there is no appearance of an entrance to the sepulchral chamber, which
+may be hidden in the heart of the rock. There is an inscription in Greek
+running up one side, but it is of a later date than the work itself. On
+one of the tombs there is an inscription: "To King Midas." These relics
+are supposed to date from the period of the Gordian Dynasty, about seven
+centuries before Christ.</p>
+
+<p>A little in front of a headland, formed by the summit walls of two meeting
+valleys, rises a mass of rocks one hundred feet high, cut into sepulchral
+chambers, story above story, with the traces of steps between them,
+leading to others still higher. The whole rock, which may be a hundred and
+fifty feet long by fifty feet broad, has been scooped out, leaving but
+narrow partitions to separate the chambers of the dead. These chambers are
+all plain, but some are of very elegant proportions, with arched or
+pyramidal roofs, and arched recesses at the sides, containing sarcophagi
+hewn in the solid stone. There are also many niches for cinerary urns. The
+principal tomb had a portico, supported by columns, but the front is now
+entirely hurled down, and only the elegant panelling and stone joists of
+the ceiling remain. The entire hill was a succession of tombs. There is
+not a rock which does not bear traces of them. I might have counted
+several hundred within a stone's throw. The position of these curious
+remains in a lonely valley, shut in on all sides by dark, pine-covered
+mountains---two of which are crowned with a natural acropolis of rock,
+resembling a fortress--increases the interest with which they inspire the
+beholder. The valley on the western side, with its bed of ripe wheat in
+the bottom, its tall walls, towers, and pinnacles of rock, and its distant
+vista of mountain and forest, is the most picturesque in Phrygia.</p>
+
+<p>The Turcoman reapers, who came up to see us and talk with us, said that
+there were the remains of walls on the summit of the principal acropolis
+opposite us, and that, further up the valley, there was a chamber with two
+columns in front. Mr. Harrison and I saddled and rode off, passing along a
+wall of fantastic rock-turrets, at the base of which was a natural column,
+about ten feet high, and five in diameter, almost perfectly round, and
+upholding an immense rock, shaped like a cocked hat. In crossing the
+meadow we saw a Turk sitting in the sun beside a spring, and busily
+engaged in knitting a stocking. After a ride of two miles we found the
+chamber, hewn like the fa&ccedil;ade of a temple in an isolated rock, overlooking
+two valleys of wild meadow-land. The pediment and cornice were simple and
+beautiful, but the columns had been broken away. The chambers were
+perfectly plain, but the panel-work on the ceiling of the portico was
+entire.</p>
+
+<p>After passing three hours in examining these tombs, we took the track
+which our guide pointed out as the road to Kiutahya. We rode two hours
+through the forest, and came out upon a wooded height, overlooking a
+grand, open valley, rich in grain-fields and pasture land. While I was
+contemplating this lovely view, the road turned a corner of the ridge, and
+lo! before me there appeared (as I thought), above the tops of the pines,
+high up on the mountain side, a line of enormous tents. Those snow-white
+cones, uprearing their sharp spires, and spreading out their broad
+bases--what could they be but an encampment of monster tents? Yet no; they
+were pinnacles of white rock--perfect cones, from thirty to one hundred
+feet in height, twelve in all, and ranged side by side along the edge of
+the cliff, with the precision of a military camp. They were snow-white,
+perfectly smooth and full, and their bases touched. What made the
+spectacle more singular, there was no other appearance of the same rock on
+the mountain. All around them was the dark-green of the pines, out of
+which they rose like drifted horns of unbroken snow. I named this singular
+phenomenon--which seems to have escaped the notice of travellers--The
+Titan's Camp.</p>
+
+<p>In another hour we reached a fountain near the village of K&uuml;mbeh, and
+pitched our tents for the night. The village, which is half a mile in
+length, is built upon a singular crag, which shoots up abruptly from the
+centre of the valley, rising at one extremity to a height of more than a
+hundred feet. It was entirely deserted, the inhabitants having all gone
+off to the mountains with their herds. The solitary muezzin, who cried the
+<i>mughreb</i> at the close of the fast, and lighted the lamps on his minaret,
+went through with his work in most unclerical haste, now that there was no
+one to notice him. We sent Achmet, the <i>katurgee</i>, to the mountain camp of
+the villagers, to procure a supply of fowls and barley.
+
+We rose very early yesterday morning, shivering in the cold air of the
+mountains, and just as the sun, bursting through the pines, looked down
+the little hollow where our tents were pitched, set the caravan in motion.
+The ride down the valley was charming. The land was naturally rich and
+highly cultivated, which made its desertion the more singular. Leagues of
+wheat, rye and poppies spread around us, left for the summer warmth to do
+its silent work. The dew sparkled on the fields as we rode through them,
+and the splendor of the flowers in blossom was equal to that of the plains
+of Palestine. There were purple, white and scarlet poppies; the rich
+crimson larkspur; the red anemone; the golden daisy; the pink convolvulus;
+and a host of smaller blooms, so intensely bright and dazzling in their
+hues, that the meadows were richer than a pavement of precious jewels. To
+look towards the sun, over a field of scarlet poppies, was like looking on
+a bed of live coals; the light, striking through the petals, made them
+burn as with an inward fire. Out of this wilderness of gorgeous color,
+rose the tall spires of a larger plant, covered with great yellow flowers,
+while here and there the snowy blossoms of a clump of hawthorn sweetened
+the morning air.</p>
+
+<p>A short distance beyond K&uuml;mbeh, we passed another group of ancient tombs,
+one of which was of curious design. An isolated rock, thirty feet in
+height by twenty in diameter, was cut so as to resemble a triangular
+tower, with the apex bevelled. A chamber, containing a sarcophagus, was
+hewn out of the interior. The entrance was ornamented with double columns
+in bas-relief, and a pediment. There was another arched chamber, cut
+directly through the base of the triangle, with a niche on each side,
+hollowed out at the bottom so as to form a sarcophagus.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving these, the last of the Phrygian tombs, we struck across the valley
+and ascended a high range of hills, covered with pine, to an upland,
+wooded region. Here we found a summer village of log cabins, scattered
+over a grassy slope. The people regarded us with some curiosity, and the
+women hastily concealed their faces. Mr. H. rode up to a large new house,
+and peeped in between the logs. There were several women inside, who
+started up in great confusion and threw over their heads whatever article
+was most convenient. An old man, with a long white beard, neatly dressed
+in a green jacket and shawl turban, came out and welcomed us. I asked for
+<i>ka&iuml;mak</i>, which he promised, and immediately brought out a carpet and
+spread it on the ground. Then followed a large basin of ka&iuml;mak, with
+wooden spoons, three loaves of bread, and a plate of cheese. We seated
+ourselves on the carpet, and delved in with the spoons, while the old man
+retired lest his appetite should be provoked. The milk was excellent, nor
+were the bread and cheese to be despised.</p>
+
+<p>While we were eating, the Khowagee, or schoolmaster of the community, a
+genteel little man in a round white turban, came op to inquire of Fran&ccedil;ois
+who we were. "That effendi in the blue dress," said he, "is the Bey, is he
+not?" "Yes," said F. "And the other, with the striped shirt and white
+turban, is a writer?" [Here he was not far wrong.] "But how is it that the
+effendis do not speak Turkish?" he persisted. "Because," said Fran&ccedil;ois,
+"their fathers were exiled by Sultan Mahmoud when they were small
+children. They have grown up in Aleppo like Arabs, and have not yet
+learned Turkish; but God grant that the Sultan may not turn his face away
+from them, and that they may regain the rank their fathers once had in
+Stamboul." "God grant it!" replied the Khowagee, greatly interested in the
+story. By this time we had eaten our full share of the ka&iuml;mak, which was
+finished by Fran&ccedil;ois and the katurgees. The old man now came up, mounted
+on a dun mare, stating that he was bound for Kiutahya, and was delighted
+with the prospect of travelling in such good company, I gave one of his
+young children some money, as the ka&iuml;mak was tendered out of pure
+hospitality, and so we rode off.</p>
+
+<p>Our new companion was armed to the teeth, having a long gun with a heavy
+wooden stock and nondescript lock, and a sword of excellent metal. It was,
+in fact, a weapon of the old Greek empire, and the cross was still
+enamelled in gold at the root of the blade, in spite of all his efforts to
+scratch it out. He was something of a <i>fakeer</i>, having made a pilgrimage
+to Mecca and Jerusalem. He was very inquisitive, plying Fran&ccedil;ois with
+questions about the government. The latter answered that we were not
+connected with the government, but the old fellow shrewdly hinted that he
+knew better--we were persons of rank, travelling incognito. He was very
+attentive to us, offering us water at every fountain, although he believed
+us to be good Mussulmans. We found him of some service as a guide,
+shortening our road by taking by-paths through the woods.</p>
+
+<p>For several hours we traversed a beautifully wooded region of hills.
+Graceful clumps of pine shaded the grassy knolls, where the sheep and
+silky-haired goats were basking at rest, and the air was filled with a
+warm, summer smell, blown from the banks of golden broom. Now and then,
+from the thickets of laurel and arbutus, a shrill shepherd's reed piped
+some joyous woodland melody. Was it a Faun, astray among the hills? Green
+dells, open to the sunshine, and beautiful as dreams of Arcady, divided
+the groves of pine. The sky overhead was pure and cloudless, clasping the
+landscape with its belt of peace and silence. Oh, that delightful region,
+haunted by all the bright spirits of the immortal Grecian Song! Chased
+away from the rest of the earth, here they have found a home--here
+secret altars remain to them from the times that are departed!</p>
+
+<p>Out of these woods, we passed into a lonely plain, inclosed by piny hills
+that brightened in the thin, pure ether. In the distance were some
+shepherds' tents, and musical goat-bells tinkled along the edges of the
+woods. From the crest of a lofty ridge beyond this plain, we looked back
+over the wild solitudes wherein we had been travelling for two days--long
+ranges of dark hills, fading away behind each other, with a perspective
+that hinted of the hidden gulfs between. From the western slope, a still
+more extensive prospect opened before us. Over ridges covered with forests
+of oak and pine, we saw the valley of the Pursek, the ancient Thymbrius,
+stretching far away to the misty line of Keshish Dagh, The mountains
+behind Kintahya loomed up high and grand, making a fine feature in the
+middle distance. We caught but fleeting glimpses of the view through the
+trees; and then, plunging into the forest again, descended to a cultivated
+slope, whereon there was a little village, now deserted. The graveyard
+beside it was shaded with large cedar-trees, and near it there was a
+fountain of excellent water. "Here," said the old man, "you can wash and
+pray, and then rest awhile under the trees." Fran&ccedil;ois excused us by saying
+that, while on a journey, we always bathed before praying; but, not to
+slight his faith entirely, I washed my hands and face before sitting down
+to our scanty breakfast of bread and water.</p>
+
+<p>Our path now led down through long, winding glens, over grown with oaks,
+from which the wild yellow honeysuckles fell in a shower of blossoms. As
+we drew near the valley, the old man began to hint that his presence had
+been of great service to us, and deserved recompense. "God knows," said
+he to Fran&ccedil;ois, "in what corner of the mountains you might now be, if I
+had not accompanied you." "Oh," replied Fran&ccedil;ois, "there are always plenty
+of people among the woods, who would have been equally as kind as yourself
+in showing us the way." He then spoke of the robbers in the neighborhood,
+and pointed out some graves by the road-side, as those of persons who had
+been murdered. "But," he added, "everybody in these parts knows me, and
+whoever is in company with me is always safe." The Greek assured him that
+we always depended on ourselves for our safety. Defeated on these tacks,
+he boldly affirmed that his services were worthy of payment. "But," said
+Fran&ccedil;ois "you told us at the village that you had business in Kiutahya,
+and would be glad to join us for the sake of having company on the road."
+"Well, then," rejoined the old fellow, making a last effort, "I leave the
+matter to your politeness." "Certainly," replied the imperturbable
+dragoman, "we could not be so impolite as to offer money to a man of your
+wealth and station; we could not insult you by giving you alms." The old
+Turcoman thereupon gave a shrug and a grunt, made a sullen good-by
+salutation, and left us.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly six o'clock when we reached the Pursek. There was no sign of
+the city, but we could barely discern an old fortress on the lofty cliff
+which commands the town. A long stone bridge crossed the river, which here
+separates into half a dozen channels. The waters are swift and clear, and
+wind away in devious mazes through the broad green meadows. We hurried on,
+thinking we saw minarets in the distance, but they proved to be poplars.
+The sun sank lower and lower, and finally went down before there was any
+token of our being in the vicinity of the city. Soon, however, a line of
+tiled roofs appeared along the slope of a hill on our left, and turning
+its base, we saw the city before us, filling the mouth of a deep valley or
+gorge, which opened from the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>But the horses are saddled, and Fran&ccedil;ois tells me it is time to put up my
+pen. We are off, over the mountains, to the Greek city of &OElig;zani, in
+the valley of the Rhyndacus.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch23">
+<h2>Chapter XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Kiutahya and the Ruins of &OElig;zani.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Entrance into Kiutahya--The New Khan--An Unpleasant
+  Discovery--Kiutahya--The Citadel--Panorama from the Walls--The Gorge of
+  the Mountains--Camp in a Meadow--The Valley of the
+  Rhyndacus--Chavd&uuml;r--The Ruins of &OElig;zani--The Acropolis and
+  Temple--The Theatre and Stadium--Ride down the Valley--Camp at Daghje
+  K&ouml;i</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "There is a temple in ruin stands,<br />
+Fashioned by long-forgotten hands;<br />
+Two or three columns and many a stone,<br />
+Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown!<br />
+Out upon Time! it will leave no more<br />
+Of the things to come than the things before!"</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Daghje K&ouml;i, on the Rhyndacus, <i>July</i> 6, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>On entering Kiutahya, we passed the barracks, which were the residence of
+Kossuth and his companions in exile. Beyond them, we came to a broad
+street, down which flowed the vilest stream of filth of which even a
+Turkish city could ever boast. The houses on either side were two stories
+high, the upper part of wood, with hanging balconies, over which shot the
+eaves of the tiled roofs. The welcome cannon had just sounded, announcing
+the close of the day's fast. The coffee-shops were already crowded with
+lean and hungry customers, the pipes were filled and lighted, and the
+coffee smoked in the finjans. In half a minute such whiffs arose on all
+sides as it would have cheered the heart of a genuine smoker to behold.
+Out of these cheerful places we passed into other streets which were
+entirely deserted, the inhabitants being at dinner. It had a weird,
+uncomfortable effect to ride through streets where the clatter of our
+horses' hoofs was the only sound of life. At last we reached the entrance
+to a bazaar, and near it a khan--a new khan, very neatly built, and with a
+spare room so much better than we expected, that we congratulated
+ourselves heartily. We unpacked in a hurry, and Fran&ccedil;ois ran off to the
+bazaar, from which he speedily returned with some roast kid, cucumbers,
+and cherries. We lighted two lamps, I borrowed the oda-bashi's narghileh,
+and Fran&ccedil;ois, learning that it was our national anniversary, procured us a
+flask of Greek wine, that we might do it honor. The beverage, however,
+resembled a mixture of vinegar and sealing-wax, and we contented ourselves
+with drinking patriotic toasts, in two finjans of excellent coffee. But in
+the midst of our enjoyment, happening to cast my eye on the walls, I saw a
+sight that turned all our honey into gall. Scores on scores--nay, hundreds
+on hundreds--of enormous bed-bugs swarmed on the plaster, and were already
+descending to our beds and baggage. To sleep there was impossible, but we
+succeeded in getting possession of one of the outside balconies, where we
+made our beds, after searching them thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening a merchant, who spoke a little Arabic, came up to me and
+asked: "Is not your Excellency's friend the <i>hakim pasha</i>" (chief
+physician). I did not venture to assent, but replied: "No; he is a
+<i>sowakh</i>" This was beyond his comprehension, and he went away with the
+impression that Mr. H. was much greater than a <i>hakim pasha</i>. I slept
+soundly on my out-doors bed, but was awakened towards morning by two
+tremendous claps of thunder, echoing in the gorge, and the rattling of
+rain on the roof of the khan.</p>
+
+<p>I spent two or three hours next morning in taking a survey of Kiutahya.
+The town is much larger than I had supposed: I should judge it to contain
+from fifty to sixty thousand inhabitants. The situation is remarkable, and
+gives a picturesque effect to the place when seen from above, which makes
+one forget its internal filth. It is built in the mouth of a gorge, and
+around the bases of the hills on either side. The lofty mountains which
+rise behind it supply it with perpetual springs of pure water. At every
+dozen steps you come upon a fountain, and every large street has a brook
+in the centre. The houses are all two and many of them three stories high,
+with hanging balconies, which remind me much of Switzerland. The bazaars
+are very extensive, covering all the base of the hill on which stands the
+ancient citadel. The goods displayed were mostly European cotton fabrics,
+<i>quincaillerie</i>, boots and slippers, pipe-sticks and silks. In the parts
+devoted to the produce of the country, I saw very fine cherries, cucumbers
+and lettuce, and bundles of magnificent clover, three to four feet high.</p>
+
+<p>We climbed a steep path to the citadel, which covers the summit of an
+abrupt, isolated hill, connected by a shoulder with the great range. The
+walls are nearly a mile in circuit, consisting almost wholly of immense
+circular buttresses, placed so near each other that they almost touch. The
+connecting walls are broken down on the northern side, so that from below
+the buttresses have the appearance of enormous shattered columns. They are
+built of rough stones, with regular layers of flat, burnt bricks. On the
+highest part of the hill stands the fortress, or stronghold, a place which
+must have been almost impregnable before the invention of cannon. The
+structure probably dates from the ninth or tenth century, but is built on
+the foundations of more ancient edifices. The old Greek city of Cotyaeum
+(whence Kiutahya) probably stood upon this hill. Within the citadel is an
+upper town, containing about a hundred houses, the residence, apparently
+of poor families.</p>
+
+<p>From the circuit of the walls, on every side, there are grand views over
+the plain, the city, and the gorges of the mountains behind. The valley of
+the Pursek, freshened by the last night's shower, spread out a sheet of
+vivid green, to the pine-covered mountains which bounded it on all sides.
+Around the city it was adorned with groves and gardens, and, in the
+direction of Brousa, white roads went winding away to other gardens and
+villages in the distance. The mountains of Phrygia, through which we had
+passed, were the loftiest in the circle that inclosed the valley. The city
+at our feet presented a thick array of red-tiled roofs, out of which rose
+here and there the taper shaft of a minaret, or the dome of a mosque or
+bath. From the southern side of the citadel, we looked down into the gorge
+which supplies Kiutahya with water--a wild, desert landscape of white
+crags and shattered peaks of gray rock, hanging over a narrow winding bed
+of the greenest foliage.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of taking the direct road to Brousa, we decided to make a detour
+of two days, in order to visit the ruins of the old Greek city of
+&OElig;zani, which are thirty-six miles south of Kiutahya. Leaving at
+noon, we ascended the gorge behind the city, by delightfully embowered
+paths, at first under the eaves of superb walnut-trees, and then through
+wild thickets of willow, hazel, privet, and other shrubs, tangled
+together with the odorous white honeysuckle. Near the city, the
+mountain-sides were bare white masses of gypsum and other rock, in many
+places with the purest chrome-yellow hue; but as we advanced they were
+clothed to the summit with copsewood. The streams that foamed down these
+perennial heights were led into buried channels, to come to light again in
+sparkling fountains, pouring into ever-full stone basins. The day was cool
+and cloudy, and the heavy shadows which hung on the great sides of the
+mountain gateway, heightened, by contrast, the glory of the sunlit plain
+seen through them.</p>
+
+<p>After passing the summit ridge, probably 5,000 feet above the sea, we came
+upon a wooded, hilly region, stretching away in long misty lines to Murad
+Dagh, whose head was spotted with snow. There were patches of wheat and
+rye in the hollows, and the bells of distant herds tinkled occasionally
+among the trees. There was no village on the road, and we were on the way
+to one which we saw in the distance, when we came upon a meadow of good
+grass, with a small stream running through it. Here we encamped, sending
+Achmet, the katurgee, to the village for milk and eggs. The ewes had just
+been milked for the suppers of their owners, but they went over the flock
+again, stripping their udders, which greatly improved the quality of the
+milk. The night was so cold that I could scarcely sleep during the morning
+hours. There was a chill, heavy dew on the meadow; but when Fran&ccedil;ois awoke
+me at sunrise, the sky was splendidly clear and pure, and the early beams
+had a little warmth in them. Our coffee, before starting, made with
+sheep's milk, was the richest I ever drank.</p>
+
+<p>After riding for two hours across broad, wild ridges, covered with cedar,
+we reached a height overlooking the valley of the Rhyndacus, or rather the
+plain whence he draws his sources--a circular level, ten or twelve miles
+in diameter, and contracting towards the west into a narrow dell, through
+which his waters find outlet; several villages, each embowered in gardens,
+were scattered along the bases of the hills that inclose it. We took the
+wrong road, but were set aright by a herdsman, and after threading a lane
+between thriving grain-fields, were cheered by the sight of the Temple of
+&OElig;zani, lifted on its acropolis above the orchards of Chavd&uuml;r, and
+standing out sharp and clear against the purple of the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Our approach to the city was marked by the blocks of sculptured marble
+that lined the way: elegant mouldings, cornices, and entablatures, thrown
+together with common stone to make walls between the fields. The village
+is built on both sides of the Rhyndacus; it is an ordinary Turkish hamlet,
+with tiled roofs and chimneys, and exhibits very few of the remains of the
+old city in its composition. This, I suspect, is owing to the great size
+of the hewn blocks, especially of the pillars, cornices, and entablatures,
+nearly all of which are from twelve to fifteen feet long. It is from the
+size and number of these scattered blocks, rather than from the buildings
+which still partially exist, that one obtains an idea of the size and
+splendor of the ancient &OElig;zani. The place is filled with fragments,
+especially of columns, of which there are several hundred, nearly all
+finely fluted. The Rhyndacus is still spanned by an ancient bridge of
+three arches, and both banks are lined with piers of hewn stone. Tall
+poplars and massy walnuts of the richest green shade the clear waters, and
+there are many picturesque combinations of foliage and ruin--death and
+life--which would charm a painter's eye. Near the bridge we stopped to
+examine a pile of immense fragments which have been thrown together by the
+Turks--pillars, cornices, altars, pieces of a frieze, with bulls' heads
+bound together by hanging garlands, and a large square block, with a
+legible tablet. It resembled an altar in form, and, from the word
+"<i>Artemidoron</i>" appeared to have belonged to some temple to Diana.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through the village we came to a grand artificial platform on its
+western side, called the Acropolis. It is of solid masonry, five hundred
+feet square, and averaging ten feet in height. On the eastern side it is
+supported on rude though massive arches, resembling Etruscan workmanship.
+On the top and around the edges of this platform lie great numbers of
+fluted columns, and immense fragments of cornice and architrave. In the
+centre, on a foundation platform about eight feet high, stands a beautiful
+Ionic temple, one hundred feet in length. On approaching, it appeared
+nearly perfect, except the roof, and so many of the columns remain
+standing that its ruined condition scarcely injures the effect. There are
+seventeen columns on the side and eight at the end, Ionic in style,
+fluted, and fifty feet in height. About half the cella remains, with an
+elegant frieze and cornice along the top, and a series of tablets, set in
+panels of ornamental sculpture, running along the sides. The front of the
+cella includes a small open peristyle, with two composite Corinthian
+columns at the entrance, making, with those of the outer colonnade,
+eighteen columns standing. The tablets contain Greek inscriptions,
+perfectly legible, where the stone has not been shattered. Under the
+temple there are large vaults, which we found filled up with young kids,
+who had gone in there to escape the heat of the sun. The portico was
+occupied by sheep, which at first refused to make room for us, and gave
+strong olfactory evidence of their partiality for the temple as a
+resting-place.</p>
+
+<p>On the side of a hill, about three hundred yards to the north, are the
+remains of a theatre. Crossing some patches of barley and lentils, we
+entered a stadium, forming an extension of the theatre---that is, it took
+the same breadth and direction, so that the two might be considered as one
+grand work, more than one thousand feet long by nearly four hundred wide.
+The walls of the stadium are hurled down, except an entrance of five
+arches of massive masonry, on the western side. We rode up the artificial
+valley, between high, grassy hills, completely covered with what at a
+distance resembled loose boards, but which were actually the long marble
+seats of the stadium. Urging our horses over piles of loose blocks, we
+reached the base of the theatre, climbed the fragments that cumber the
+main entrance, and looked on the spacious arena and galleries within.
+Although greatly ruined, the materials of the whole structure remain, and
+might be put together again. It is a grand wreck; the colossal fragments
+which have tumbled from the arched proscenium fill the arena, and the rows
+of seats, though broken and disjointed, still retain their original order.
+It is somewhat more than a semicircle, the radius being about one hundred
+and eighty feet. The original height was upwards of fifty feet, and there
+were fifty rows of seats in all, each row capable of seating two hundred
+persons, so that the number of spectators who could be accommodated was
+eight thousand.</p>
+
+<p>The fragments cumbering the arena were enormous, and highly interesting
+from their character. There were rich blocks of cornice, ten feet long;
+fluted and reeded pillars; great arcs of heavily-carved sculpture, which
+appeared to have served as architraves from pillar to pillar, along the
+face of the proscenium, where there was every trace of having been a
+colonnade; and other blocks sculptured with figures of animals in
+alto-relievo. There were generally two figures on each block, and among
+those which could be recognized were the dog and the lion. Doors opened
+from the proscenium into the retiring-rooms of the actors, under which
+were the vaults where the beasts were kept. A young fox or jackal started
+from his siesta as we entered the theatre, and took refuge under the loose
+blocks. Looking backwards through the stadium from the seats of the
+theatre, we had a lovely view of the temple, standing out clear and bright
+in the midst of the summer plain, with the snow-streaked summits of Murad
+Dagh in the distance. It was a picture which I shall long remember. The
+desolation of the magnificent ruins was made all the more impressive by
+the silent, solitary air of the region around them.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Chavd&uuml;r in the afternoon, we struck northward, down the valley of
+the Rhyndacus, over tracts of rolling land, interspersed with groves of
+cedar and pine. There were so many branch roads and crossings that we
+could not fail to go wrong; and after two or three hours found ourselves
+in the midst of a forest, on the broad top of a mountain, without any road
+at all. There were some herdsmen tending their flocks near at hand, but
+they could give us no satisfactory direction. We thereupon, took our own
+course, and soon brought up on the brink of a precipice, overhanging a
+deep valley. Away to the eastward we caught a glimpse of the Rhyndacus,
+and the wooden minaret of a little village on his banks. Following the
+edge of the precipice, we came at last to a glen, down which ran a rough
+footpath that finally conducted us, by a long road through the forests, to
+the village of Daghje K&ouml;i, where we are now encamped.</p>
+
+<p>The place seems to be devoted to the making of flints, and the streets are
+filled with piles of the chipped fragments. Our tent is pitched on the
+bank of the river, in a barren meadow. The people tell us that the whole
+region round about has just been visited by a plague of grasshoppers,
+which have destroyed their crops. Our beasts have wandered off to the
+hills, in search for grass, and the disconsolate Hadji is hunting them.
+Achmet, the katurgee, lies near the fire, sick; Mr. Harrison complains of
+fever, and Fran&ccedil;ois moves about languidly, with a dismal countenance. So
+here we are in the solitudes of Bithynia, but there is no God but God, and
+that which is destined comes to pass.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch24">
+<h2>Chapter XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mysian Olympus.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
+  of Taushanl&uuml;--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
+  Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
+  Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
+  of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghi&ouml;l--A Showery Ride--The
+  Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
+  Furled.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "I looked yet farther and higher, and saw in the heavens a silvery cloud
+  that stood fast, and still against the breeze; * * * * and so it was as
+  a sign and a testimony--almost as a call from the neglected gods, that I
+  now saw and acknowledged the snowy crown of the Mysian Olympus!"
+  Kinglake.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Brousa, <i>July</i> 9, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>From Daghje K&uuml;i, there were two roads to Taushanl&uuml;, but the people
+informed us that the one which led across the mountains was difficult to
+find, and almost impracticable. We therefore took the river road, which we
+found picturesque in the highest degree. The narrow dell of the Rhyndacus
+wound through a labyrinth of mountains, sometimes turning at sharp angles
+between craggy buttresses, covered with forests, and sometimes broadening
+out into a sweep of valley, where the villagers were working in companies
+among the grain and poppy fields. The banks of the stream were lined with
+oak, willow and sycamore, and forests of pine, descending from the
+mountains, frequently overhung the road. We met numbers of peasants,
+going to and from the fields, and once a company of some twenty women,
+who, on seeing us, clustered together like a flock of frightened sheep,
+and threw their mantles over their heads. They had curiosity enough,
+however, to peep at us as we went by, and I made them a salutation, which
+they returned, and then burst into a chorus of hearty laughter. All this
+region was ravaged by a plague of grasshoppers. The earth was black with
+them in many places, and our horses ploughed up a living spray, as they
+drove forward through the meadows. Every spear of grass was destroyed, and
+the wheat and rye fields were terribly cut up. We passed a large crag
+where myriads of starlings had built their nests, and every starling had a
+grasshopper in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the river, in order to pass a narrow defile, by which it forces
+its way through the rocky heights of Dumanidj Dagh. Soon after passing the
+ridge, a broad and beautiful valley expanded before us. It was about ten
+miles in breadth, nearly level, and surrounded by picturesque ranges of
+wooded mountains. It was well cultivated, principally in rye and poppies,
+and more thickly populated than almost any part of Europe. The tinned tops
+of the minarets of Taushanl&uuml; shone over the top of a hill in front, and
+there was a large town nearly opposite, on the other bank of the
+Rhyndacus, and seven small villages scattered about in various directions.
+Most of the latter, however, were merely the winter habitations of the
+herdsmen, who are now living in tents on the mountain tops. All over the
+valley, the peasants were at work in the harvest-fields, cutting and
+binding grain, gathering opium from the poppies, or weeding the young
+tobacco. In the south, over the rim of the hills that shut in this
+pastoral solitude, rose the long blue summits of Urus Dagh. We rode into
+Taushanl&uuml;, which is a long town, filling up a hollow between two stony
+hills. The houses are all of stone, two stories high, with tiled roofs and
+chimneys, so that, but for the clapboarded and shingled minarets, it would
+answer for a North-German village.</p>
+
+<p>The streets were nearly deserted, and even in the bazaars, which are of
+some extent, we found but few persons. Those few, however, showed a
+laudable curiosity with regard to us, clustering about us whenever we
+stopped, and staring at us with provoking pertinacity. We had some
+difficulty in procuring information concerning the road, the directions
+being so contradictory that we were as much in the dark as ever. We lost
+half an hour in wandering among the hills; and, after travelling four
+hours over piny uplands, without finding the village of Kara K&ouml;i, encamped
+on a dry plain, on the western bank of the river. There was not a spear of
+grass for the beasts, everything being eaten up by the grasshoppers, and
+there were no Turcomans near who could supply us with food. So we dined on
+hard bread and black coffee, and our forlorn beasts walked languidly
+about, cropping the dry stalks of weeds and the juiceless roots of the
+dead grass.</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the river next morning, and took a road following its course,
+and shaded with willows and sycamores. The lofty, wooded ranges of the
+Mysian Olympus lay before us, and our day's work was to pass them. After
+passing the village of Kara K&ouml;i, we left the valley of the Rhyndacus, and
+commenced ascending one of the long, projecting spurs thrust out from the
+main chain of Olympus. At first we rode through thickets of scrubby cedar,
+but soon came to magnificent pine forests, that grew taller and sturdier
+the higher we clomb. A superb mountain landscape opened behind us. The
+valleys sank deeper and deeper, and at last disappeared behind the great
+ridges that heaved themselves out of the wilderness of smaller hills. All
+these ridges were covered with forests; and as we looked backwards out of
+the tremendous gulf up the sides of which we were climbing, the scenery
+was wholly wild and uncultivated. Our path hung on the imminent side of a
+chasm so steep that one slip might have been destruction to both horse and
+rider. Far below us, at the bottom of the chasm, roared an invisible
+torrent. The opposite side, vapory from its depth, rose like an immense
+wall against Heaven. The pines were even grander than those in the woods
+of Phrygia. Here they grew taller and more dense, hanging their cloudy
+boughs over the giddy depths, and clutching with desperate roots to the
+almost perpendicular sides of the gorges. In many places they were the
+primeval forests of Olympus, and the Hamadryads were not yet frightened
+from their haunts.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, slowly toiling up through the sublime wilderness, breathing the
+cold, pure air of those lofty regions, we came at last to a little stream,
+slowly trickling down the bed of the gorge. It was shaded, not by the
+pine, but by the Northern beech, with its white trunk and close,
+confidential boughs, made for the talks of lovers and the meditations of
+poets. Here we stopped to breakfast, but there was nothing for the poor
+beasts to eat, and they waited for us droopingly, with their heads thrust
+together. While we sat there three camels descended to the stream, and
+after them a guard with a long gun. He was a well-made man, with a brown
+face, keen, black eye, and piratical air, and would have made a good hero
+of modern romance. Higher up we came to a guard house, on a little cleared
+space, surrounded by beech forests. It was a rough stone hut, with a white
+flag planted on a pole before it, and a miniature water-wheel, running a
+miniature saw at a most destructive rate, beside the door.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing our way, we entered on a region such as I had no idea could be
+found in Asia. The mountains, from the bottoms of the gorges to their
+topmost summits, were covered with the most superb forests of beech I ever
+saw--masses of impenetrable foliage, of the most brilliant green, touched
+here and there by the darker top of a pine. Our road was through a deep,
+dark shade, and on either side, up and down, we saw but a cool, shadowy
+solitude, sprinkled with dots of emerald light, and redolent with the odor
+of damp earth, moss, and dead leaves. It was a forest, the counterpart of
+which could only be found in America--such primeval magnitude of growth,
+such wild luxuriance, such complete solitude and silence! Through the
+shafts of the pines we had caught glorious glimpses of the blue mountain
+world below us; but now the beech folded us in its arms, and whispered in
+our ears the legends of our Northern home. There, on the ridges of the
+Mysian Olympus, sacred to the bright gods of Grecian song, I found the
+inspiration of our darker and colder clime and age. "<i>O gloriosi spiriti
+degli boschi!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>I could scarcely contain myself, from surprise and joy. Fran&ccedil;ois failed to
+find French adjectives sufficient for his admiration, and even our
+cheating katurgees were touched by the spirit of the scene. On either
+side, whenever a glimpse could be had through the boughs, we looked upon
+leaning walls of trees, whose tall, rounded tops basked in the sunshine,
+while their bases were wrapped in the shadows cast by themselves. Thus,
+folded over each other like scales, or feathers on a falcon's wing, they
+clad the mountain. The trees were taller, and had a darker and more glossy
+leaf than the American beech. By and by patches of blue shone between the
+boughs before us, a sign that the summit was near, and before one o'clock
+we stood upon the narrow ridge forming the crest of the mountain. Here,
+although we were between five and six thousand feet above the sea, the
+woods of beech were a hundred feet in height, and shut out all view. On
+the northern side the forest scenery is even grander than on the southern.
+The beeches are magnificent trees, straight as an arrow, and from a
+hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in height. Only now and then could we
+get any view beyond the shadowy depths sinking below us, and then it was
+only to see similar mountain ranges, buried in foliage, and rolling far
+behind each other into the distance. Twice, in the depth of the gorge, we
+saw a saw-mill, turned by the snow-cold torrents. Piles of pine and
+beechen boards were heaped around them, and the sawyers were busily plying
+their lonely business. The axe of the woodman echoed but rarely through
+the gulfs, though many large trees lay felled by the roadside. The rock,
+which occasionally cropped out of the soil, was white marble, and there
+was a shining precipice of it, three hundred feet high, on the opposite
+side of the gorge.</p>
+
+<p>After four hours of steady descent, during the last hour of which we
+passed into a forest entirely of oaks, we reached the first terrace at the
+base of the mountain. Here, as I was riding in advance of the caravan, I
+met a company of Turkish officers, who saluted me with an inclination of
+the most profound reverence. I replied with due Oriental gravity, which
+seemed to justify their respect, for when they met Fran&ccedil;ois, who is
+everywhere looked upon as a Turkish janissary, they asked: "Is not your
+master a <i>Shekh el-Isl&agrave;m</i>?" "You are right: he is," answered the
+unscrupulous Greek. A Shekh el-Isl&agrave;m is a sort of high-priest,
+corresponding in dignity to a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. It is
+rather singular that I am generally taken for a Secretary of some kind, or
+a Moslem priest, while my companion, who, by this time, has assumed the
+Oriental expression, is supposed to be either medical or military.</p>
+
+<p>We had no sooner left the forests and entered the copsewood which
+followed, than the blue bulk, of Olympus suddenly appeared in the west,
+towering far into the sky. It is a magnificent mountain, with a broad
+though broken summit, streaked with snow. Before us, stretching away
+almost to his base, lay a grand mountain slope, covered with orchards and
+golden harvest-fields. Through lanes of hawthorn and chestnut trees in
+blossom, which were overgrown with snowy clematis and made a shady roof
+above our heads, we reached the little village of Orta K&ouml;i, and encamped
+in a grove of pear-trees. There was grass for our beasts, who were on the
+brink of starvation, and fowls and cucumbers for ourselves, who had been
+limited to bread and coffee for two days. But as one necessity was
+restored, another disappeared. We had smoked the last of our delicious
+Aleppo tobacco, and that which the villagers gave us was of very inferior
+quality. Nevertheless, the pipe which we smoked with them in the twilight,
+beside the marble fountain, promoted that peace of mind which is the
+sweetest preparative of slumber.</p>
+
+<p>Fran&ccedil;ois was determined to finish our journey to-day. He had a
+presentiment that we should reach Brousa, although I expected nothing of
+the kind. He called us long before the lovely pastoral valley in which we
+lay had a suspicion of the sun, but just in time to see the first rays
+strike the high head of Olympus. The long lines of snow blushed with an
+opaline radiance against the dark-blue of the morning sky, and all the
+forests and fields below lay still, and cool, and dewy, lapped in dreams
+yet unrecalled by the fading moon. I bathed my face in the cold well that
+perpetually poured over its full brim, drank the coffee which Fran&ccedil;ois had
+already prepared, sprang into the saddle, and began the last day of our
+long pilgrimage. The tent was folded, alas! for the last time; and now
+farewell to the freedom of our wandering life! Shall I ever feel it again?</p>
+
+<p>The dew glistened on the chestnuts and the walnuts, on the wild
+grape-vines and wild roses, that shaded our road, as we followed the
+course of an Olympian stream through a charming dell, into the great plain
+below. Everywhere the same bountiful soil, the same superb orchards, the
+same ripe fields of wheat and barley, and silver rye. The peasants were at
+work, men and women, cutting the grain with rude scythes, binding it into
+sheaves, and stacking it in the fields. As we rode over the plain, the
+boys came running out to us with handfuls of grain, saluting us from afar,
+bidding us welcome as pilgrims, wishing us as many years of prosperity as
+there were kernels in their sheaves, and kissing the hands that gave them
+the harvest-toll. The whole landscape had an air of plenty, peace, and
+contentment. The people all greeted us cordially; and once a Mevlevi
+Dervish and a stately Turk, riding in company, saluted me so
+respectfully, stopping to speak with me, that I quite regretted being
+obliged to assume an air of dignified reserve, and ride away from them.</p>
+
+<p>Ere long, we saw the two white minarets of Aineghi&ouml;l, above the line of
+orchards in front of us, and, in three hours after starting, reached the
+place. It is a small town, not particularly clean, but with brisk-looking
+bazaars. In one of the houses, I saw half-a-dozen pairs of superb antlers,
+the spoils of Olympian stags. The bazaar is covered with a trellised roof,
+overgrown with grape-vines, which hang enormous bunches of young grapes
+over the shop-boards. We were cheered by the news that Brousa was only
+eight hours distant, and I now began to hope that we might reach it. We
+jogged on as fast as we could urge our weary horses, passed another belt
+of orchard land, paid more harvest-tolls to the reapers, and commenced
+ascending a chain of low hills which divides the plain of Aineghi&ouml;l from
+that of Brousa.</p>
+
+<p>At a fountain called the "mid-day <i>konn&agrave;k</i>" we met some travellers coming
+from Brousa, who informed us that we could get there by the time of
+<i>asser</i> prayer. Rounding the north-eastern base of Olympus, we now saw
+before us the long headland which forms his south-western extremity. A
+storm was arising from the sea of Marmora, and heavy white clouds settled
+on the topmost summits of the mountain. The wind began to blow fresh and
+cool, and when we had reached a height overlooking the deep valley, in the
+bottom of which lies the picturesque village of Ak-su, there were long
+showery lines coming up from the sea, and a filmy sheet of gray rain
+descended between us and Olympus, throwing his vast bulk far into the
+background. At Ak-su, the first shower met us, pouring so fast and thick
+that we were obliged to put on our capotes, and halt under a walnut-tree
+for shelter. But it soon passed over, laying the dust, for the time, and
+making the air sweet and cool.</p>
+
+<p>We pushed forward over heights covered with young forests of oak, which
+are protected by the government, in order that they may furnish
+ship-timber. On the right, we looked down into magnificent valleys,
+opening towards the west into the the plain of Brousa; but when, in the
+middle of the afternoon, we reached the last height, and saw the great
+plain itself, the climax was attained. It was the crown of all that we had
+yet seen. This superb plain or valley, thirty miles long, by five in
+breadth, spread away to the westward, between the mighty mass of Olympus
+on the one side, and a range of lofty mountains on the other, the sides of
+which presented a charming mixture of forest and cultivated land. Olympus,
+covered with woods of beech and oak, towered to the clouds that concealed
+his snowy head; and far in advance, under the last cape he threw out
+towards the sea, the hundred minarets of Brousa stretched in a white and
+glittering line, like the masts of a navy, whose hulls were buried in the
+leafy sea. No words can describe the beauty of the valley, the blending of
+the richest cultivation with the wildest natural luxuriance. Here were
+gardens and orchards; there groves of superb chestnut-trees in blossom;
+here, fields of golden grain or green pasture-land; there, Arcadian
+thickets overgrown with clematis and wild rose; here, lofty poplars
+growing beside the streams; there, spiry cypresses looking down from the
+slopes: and all blended in one whole, so rich, so grand, so gorgeous, that
+I scarcely breathed when it first burst upon me.</p>
+
+<p>And now we descended to its level, and rode westward along the base of
+Olympus, grandest of Asian mountains. This after-storm view, although his
+head was shrouded, was sublime. His base is a vast sloping terrace,
+leagues in length, resembling the nights of steps by which the ancient
+temples were approached. From this foundation rise four mighty pyramids,
+two thousand feet in height, and completely mantled with forests. They are
+very nearly regular in their form and size, and are flanked to the east
+and west by headlands, or abutments, the slopes of which are longer and
+more gradual, as if to strengthen the great structure. Piled upon the four
+pyramids are others nearly as large, above whose green pinnacles appear
+still other and higher ones, bare and bleak, and clustering thickly
+together, to uphold the great central dome of snow. Between the bases of
+the lowest, the streams which drain the gorges of the mountain issue
+forth, cutting their way through the foundation terrace, and widening
+their beds downwards to the plain, like the throats of bugles, where, in
+winter rains, they pour forth the hoarse, grand monotone of their Olympian
+music. These broad beds are now dry and stony tracts, dotted all over with
+clumps of dwarfed sycamores and threaded by the summer streams, shrunken
+in bulk, but still swift, cold, and clear as ever.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the city before night, and Fran&ccedil;ois is glad to find his
+presentiment fulfilled. We have safely passed through the untravelled
+heart of Asia Minor, and are now almost in sight of Europe. The camp-fire
+is extinguished; the tent is furled. We are no longer happy nomads,
+masquerading in Moslem garb. We shall soon become prosaic Christians, and
+meekly hold out our wrists for the handcuffs of Civilization. Ah, prate
+as we will of the progress of the race, we are but forging additional
+fetters, unless we preserve that healthy physical development, those pure
+pleasures of mere animal existence, which are now only to be found among
+our semi-barbaric brethren. Our progress is nervous, when it should be
+muscular.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch25">
+<h2>Chapter XXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.</h3>
+
+
+<p class='abs'>  The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
+  Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
+  Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
+  the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
+  Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Ca&iuml;que--Breakfast with
+  the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
+  View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "And we glode fast o'er a pellucid plain<br />
+Of waters, azure with the noontide ray.<br />
+Ethereal mountains shone around--a fane<br />
+Stood in the midst, beyond green isles which lay<br />
+On the blue, sunny deep, resplendent far away."</p>
+
+<p>  Shelley.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Constantinople, <i>Monday, July</i> 12, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Before entering Brousa, we passed the whole length of the town, which is
+built on the side of Olympus, and on three bluffs or spurs which project
+from it. The situation is more picturesque than that of Damascus, and from
+the remarkable number of its white domes and minarets, shooting upward
+from the groves of chestnut, walnut, and cypress-trees, the city is even
+more beautiful. There are large mosques on all the most prominent points,
+and, near the centre of the city, the ruins of an ancient castle, built
+upon a crag. The place, as we rode along, presented a shifting diorama of
+delightful views. The hotel is at the extreme western end of the city, not
+far from its celebrated hot baths. It is a new building, in European
+style, and being built high on the slope, commands one of the most
+glorious prospects I ever enjoyed from windows made with hands. What a
+comfort it was to go up stairs into a clean, bright, cheerful room; to
+drop at full length on a broad divan; to eat a Christian meal; to smoke a
+narghileh of the softest Persian tobacco; and finally, most exquisite of
+all luxuries, to creep between cool, clean sheets, on a curtained bed, and
+find it impossible to sleep on account of the delicious novelty of the
+sensation!</p>
+
+<p>At night, another storm came up from the Sea of Marmora. Tremendous peals
+of thunder echoed in the gorges of Olympus and sharp, broad flashes of
+lightning gave us blinding glimpses of the glorious plain below. The rain
+fell in heavy showers, but our tent-life was just closed, and we sat
+securely at our windows and enjoyed the sublime scene.</p>
+
+<p>The sun, rising over the distant mountains of Isnik, shone full in my
+face, awaking me to a morning view of the valley, which, freshened by the
+night's thunder-storm, shone wonderfully bright and clear. After coffee,
+we went to see the baths, which are on the side of the mountain, a mile
+from the hotel. The finest one, called the Kalputcha Hammam, is at the
+base of the hill. The entrance hall is very large, and covered by two
+lofty domes. In the centre is a large marble urn-shaped fountain, pouring
+out an abundant flood of cold water. Out of this, we passed into an
+immense rotunda, filled with steam and traversed by long pencils of light,
+falling from holes in the roof. A small but very beautiful marble fountain
+cast up a jet of cold water in the centre. Beyond this was still another
+hall, of the same size, but with a circular basin, twenty-five feet in
+diameter, in the centre. The floor was marble mosaic, and the basin was
+lined with brilliantly-colored tiles. It was kept constantly full by the
+natural hot streams of the mountain. There were a number of persons in the
+pool, but the atmosphere was so hot that we did not long disturb them by
+our curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>We then ascended to the Armenian bath, which is the neatest of all, but it
+was given up to the women, and we were therefore obliged to go to a
+Turkish one adjoining. The room into which we were taken was so hot that a
+violent perspiration immediately broke out all over my body, and by the
+time the <i>dell&egrave;ks</i> were ready to rasp me, I was as limp as a wet towel,
+and as plastic as a piece of putty. The man who took me was sweated away
+almost to nothing; his very bones appeared to have become soft and
+pliable. The water was slightly sulphureous, and the pailfuls which he
+dashed over my head were so hot that they produced the effect of a
+chill--a violent nervous shudder. The temperature of the springs is 180&deg;
+Fahrenheit, and I suppose the tank into which he afterwards plunged me
+must have been nearly up to the mark. When, at last, I was laid on the
+couch, my body was so parboiled that I perspired at all pores for full an
+hour--a feeling too warm and unpleasant at first, but presently merging
+into a mood which was wholly rapturous and heavenly. I was like a soft
+white cloud, that rests all of a summer afternoon on the peak of a distant
+mountain. I felt the couch on which I lay no more than the cloud might
+feel the cliffs on which it lingers so airily. I saw nothing but peaceful,
+glorious sights; spaces of clear blue sky; stretches of quiet lawns;
+lovely valleys threaded by the gentlest of streams; azure lakes, unruffled
+by a breath; calms far out on mid-ocean, and Alpine peaks bathed in the
+flush of an autumnal sunset. My mind retraced all our journey from
+Aleppo, and there was a halo over every spot I had visited. I dwelt with
+rapture on the piny hills of Phrygia, on the gorges of Taurus, on the
+beechen solitudes of Olympus. Would to heaven that I might describe those
+scenes as I then felt them! All was revealed to me: the heart of Nature
+lay bare, and I read the meaning and knew the inspiration of her every
+mood. Then, as my frame grew cooler, and the fragrant clouds of the
+narghileh, which had helped my dreams, diminished, I was like that same
+summer cloud, when it feels a gentle breeze and is lifted above the hills,
+floating along independent of Earth, but for its shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Brousa is a very long, straggling place, extending for three or four miles
+along the side of the mountain, but presenting a very picturesque
+appearance from every point. The houses are nearly all three stories high,
+built of wood and unburnt bricks, and each story projects over the other,
+after the manner of German towns of the Middle Ages. They have not the
+hanging balconies which I have found so quaint and pleasing in Kiutahya.
+But, especially in the Greek quarter, many of them are plastered and
+painted of some bright color, which gives a gay, cheerful appearance to
+the streets. Besides, Brousa is the cleanest Turkish town I have seen. The
+mountain streams traverse most of the streets, and every heavy rain washes
+them out thoroughly. The whole city has a brisk, active air, and the
+workmen appear both more skilful and more industrious than in the other
+parts of Asia Minor. I noticed a great many workers in copper, iron, and
+wood, and an extensive manufactory of shoes and saddles. Brousa, however,
+is principally noted for its silks, which are produced in this valley,
+and others to the South and East. The manufactories are near the city. I
+looked over some of the fabrics in the bazaars, but found them nearly all
+imitations of European stuffs, woven in mixed silk and cotton, and even
+more costly than the silks of Damascus.</p>
+
+<p>We passed the whole length of the bazaars, and then, turning up one of the
+side streets on our right, crossed a deep ravine by a high stone bridge.
+Above and below us there were other bridges, under which a stream flowed
+down from the mountains. Thence we ascended the height, whereon stands the
+largest and one of the oldest mosques in Brousa. The position is
+remarkably fine, commanding a view of nearly the whole city and the plain
+below it. We entered the court-yard boldly, Fran&ccedil;ois taking the precaution
+to speak to me only in Arabic, as there was a Turk within. Mr. H. went to
+the fountain, washed his hands and face, but did not dare to swallow a
+drop, putting on a most dolorous expression of countenance, as if
+perishing with thirst. The mosque was a plain, square building, with a
+large dome and two minarets. The door was a rich and curious specimen of
+the <i>stalactitic</i> style, so frequent in Saracenic buildings. We peeped
+into the windows, and, although the mosque, which does not appear to be in
+common use, was darkened, saw enough to show that the interior was quite
+plain.</p>
+
+<p>Just above this edifice stands a large octagonal tomb, surmounted by a
+dome, and richly adorned with arabesque cornices and coatings of green and
+blue tiles. It stood in a small garden inclosure, and there was a sort of
+porter's lodge at the entrance. As we approached, an old gray-bearded man
+in a green turban came out, and, on Fran&ccedil;ois requesting entrance for us,
+took a key and conducted us to the building. He had not the slightest idea
+of our being Christians. We took off our slippers before touching the
+lintel of the door, as the place was particularly holy. Then, throwing
+open the door, the old man lingered a few moments after we entered, so as
+not to disturb our prayers--a mark of great respect. We advanced to the
+edge of the parapet, turned our faces towards Mecca, and imitated the
+usual Mohammedan prayer on entering a mosque, by holding both arms
+outspread for a few moments, then bringing the hands together and bowing
+the face upon them. This done, we leisurely examined the building, and the
+old man was ready enough to satisfy our curiosity. It was a rich and
+elegant structure, lighted from the dome. The walls were lined with
+brilliant tiles, and had an elaborate cornice, with Arabic inscriptions in
+gold. The floor was covered with a carpet, whereon stood eight or ten
+ancient coffins, surrounding a larger one which occupied a raised platform
+in the centre. They were all of wood, heavily carved, and many of them
+entirely covered with gilded inscriptions. These, according to the old
+man, were the coffins of the Ottoman Sultans, who had reigned at Brousa
+previous to the taking of Constantinople, with some members of their
+families. There were four Sultans, among whom were Mahomet I., and a
+certain Achmet. Orchan, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty, is buried
+somewhere in Brousa, and the great central coffin may have been his.
+Fran&ccedil;ois and I talked entirely in Arabic, and the old man asked: "Who are
+these Hadjis?" whereupon F. immediately answered: "They are Effendis from
+Baghdad."</p>
+
+<p>We had intended making the ascent of Olympus, but the summit was too
+thickly covered with clouds. On the morning of the second day, therefore,
+we determined to take up the line of march for Constantinople. The last
+scene of our strange, eventful history with the katurgees had just
+transpired, by their deserting us, being two hundred piastres in our debt.
+They left their khan on the afternoon after our arrival, ostensibly for
+the purpose of taking their beasts out to pasture, and were never heard of
+more. We let them go, thankful that they had not played the trick sooner.
+We engaged fresh horses for Moudania, on the Sea of Marmora, and
+dispatched Fran&ccedil;ois in advance, to procure a ca&iuml;que for Constantinople,
+while we waited to have our passports signed. But after waiting an hour,
+as there was no appearance of the precious documents, we started the
+baggage also, under the charge of a <i>surroudjee</i>, and remained alone.
+Another hour passed by, and yet another, and the Bey was still occupied in
+sleeping off his hunger. Mr. Harrison, in desperation, went to the office,
+and after some delay, received the passports with a vis&egrave;, but not, as we
+afterwards discovered, the necessary one.</p>
+
+<p>It was four o'clock by the time we left Brousa. Our horses were stiff,
+clumsy pack-beasts; but, by dint of whips and the sharp shovel-stirrups,
+we forced them into a trot and made them keep it. The road was well
+travelled, and by asking everybody we met: "<i>Bou y&ocirc;l Moudania yedermi</i>?"
+("Is this the way to Moudania?"), we had no difficulty in finding it. The
+plain in many places is marshy, and traversed by several streams. A low
+range of hills stretches across, and nearly closes it, the united waters
+finding their outlet by a narrow valley to the north. From the top of the
+hill we had a grand view, looking back over the plain, with the long line
+of Brousa's minarets glittering through the interminable groves at the
+foot of the mountain Olympus now showed a superb outline; the clouds hung
+about his shoulders, but his snowy head was bare. Before us lay a broad,
+rich valley, extending in front to the mountains of Moudania. The country
+was well cultivated, with large farming establishments here and there.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was setting as we reached the summit ridge, where stood a little
+guard-house. As we rode over the crest, Olympus disappeared, and the Sea
+of Marmora lay before us, spreading out from the Gulf of Moudania, which
+was deep and blue among the hills, to an open line against the sunset.
+Beyond that misty line lay Europe, which I had not seen for nearly nine
+months, and the gulf below me was the bound of my tent and saddle life.
+But one hour more, old horse! Have patience with my Ethiopian thong, and
+the sharp corners of my Turkish stirrups: but one hour more, and I promise
+never to molest you again! Our path was downward, and I marvel that the
+poor brute did not sometimes tumble headlong with me. He had been too long
+used to the pack, however, and his habits were as settled as a Turk's. We
+passed a beautiful village in a valley on the right, and came into olive
+groves and vineyards, as the dusk was creeping on. It was a lovely country
+of orchards and gardens, with fountains spouting by the wayside, and
+country houses perched on the steeps. In another hour, we reached the
+sea-shore. It was now nearly dark, but we could see the tower of Moudania
+some distance to the west.</p>
+
+<p>Still in a continual trot, we rode on; and as we drew near, Mr. H. fired
+his gun to announce our approach. At the entrance of the town, we found
+the sourrudjee waiting to conduct us. We clattered through the rough
+streets for what seemed an endless length of time. The Ramazan gun had
+just fired, the minarets were illuminated, and the coffee-houses were
+filled with people. Finally, Fran&ccedil;ois, who had been almost in despair at
+our non-appearance, hailed us with the welcome news that he had engaged a
+ca&iuml;que, and that our baggage was already embarked. We only needed the
+vis&egrave;s of the authorities, in order to leave. He took our tesker&eacute;s to get
+them, and we went upon the balcony of a coffee-house overhanging the sea,
+and smoked a narghileh.</p>
+
+<p>But here there was another history. The tesker&eacute;s had not been properly
+vis&egrave;d at Brousa, and the Governor at first decided to send us back. Taking
+Fran&ccedil;ois, however, for a Turk, and finding that we had regularly passed
+quarantine, he signed them after a delay of an hour and a half, and we
+left the shore, weary, impatient, and wolfish with twelve hours' fasting.
+A cup of Brousan beer and a piece of bread brought us into a better mood,
+and I, who began to feel sick from the rolling of the ca&iuml;que, lay down on
+my bed, which was spread at the bottom, and found a kind of uneasy sleep.
+The sail was hoisted at first, to get us across the mouth of the Gulf, but
+soon the Greeks took to their oars. They were silent, however, and though
+I only slept by fits, the night wore away rapidly. As the dawn was
+deepening, we ran into a little bight in the northern side of a
+promontory, where a picturesque Greek village stood at the foot of the
+mountains. The houses were of wood, with balconies overgrown with
+grape-vines, and there was a fountain of cold, excellent water on the very
+beach. Some Greek boatmen were smoking in the portico of a caf&eacute; on shore,
+and two fishermen, who had been out before dawn to catch sardines, were
+emptying their nets of the spoil. Our men kindled a fire on the sand, and
+roasted us a dish of the fish. Some of the last night's hunger remained,
+and the meal had enough of that seasoning to be delicious.</p>
+
+<p>After giving our men an hour's rest, we set off for the Princes' Islands,
+which now appeared to the north, over the glassy plain of the sea. The
+Gulf of Iskmid, or Nicomedia, opened away to the east, between two
+mountain headlands. The morning was intensely hot and sultry, and but for
+the protection of an umbrella, we should have suffered greatly. There was
+a fiery blue vapor on the sea, and a thunder-cloud hid the shores of
+Thrace. Now and then came a light puff of wind, whereupon the men would
+ship the little mast, and crowd on an enormous quantity of sail. So,
+sailing and rowing, we neared the islands with the storm, but it advanced
+slowly enough to allow a sight of the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed, gleaming far and white, like icebergs astray on a torrid sea.
+Another cloud was pouring its rain over the Asian shore, and we made haste
+to get to the landing at Prinkipo before it could reach us. From the
+south, the group of islands is not remarkable for beauty. Only four of
+them--Prinkipo, Chalki, Prote, and Antigone--are inhabited, the other five
+being merely barren rocks.</p>
+
+<p>There is an ancient convent on the summit of Prinkipo, where the Empress
+Irene--the contemporary of Charlemagne--is buried. The town is on the
+northern side of the island, and consists mostly of the summer residences
+of Greek and Armenian merchants. Many of these are large and stately
+houses, surrounded with handsome gardens. The streets are shaded with
+sycamores, and the number of coffee-houses shows that the place is much
+frequented on festal days. A company of drunken Greeks were singing in
+violation of all metre and harmony--a discord the more remarkable, since
+nothing could be more affectionate than their conduct towards each other.
+Nearly everybody was in Frank costume, and our Oriental habits, especially
+the red Tartar boots, attracted much observation. I began to feel awkward
+and absurd, and longed to show myself a Christian once more.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Prinkipo, we made for Constantinople, whose long array of marble
+domes and gilded spires gleamed like a far mirage over the waveless sea.
+It was too faint and distant and dazzling to be substantial. It was like
+one of those imaginary cities which we build in a cloud fused in the light
+of the setting sun. But as we neared the point of Chalcedon, running along
+the Asian shore, those airy piles gathered form and substance. The
+pinnacles of the Seraglio shot up from the midst of cypress groves;
+fantastic kiosks lined the shore; the minarets of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed rose more clearly against the sky; and a fleet of steamers and
+men-of-war, gay with flags, marked the entrance of the Golden Horn. We
+passed the little bay where St. Chrysostom was buried, the point of
+Chalcedon, and now, looking up the renowned Bosphorus, saw the Maiden's
+Tower, opposite Scutari. An enormous pile, the barracks of the Anatolian
+soldiery, hangs over the high bank, and, as we row abreast of it, a fresh
+breeze comes up from the Sea of Marmora. The prow of the ca&iuml;que is turned
+across the stream, the sail is set, and we glide rapidly and noiselessly
+over the Bosphorus and into the Golden Horn, between the banks of the
+Frank and Moslem--Pera and Stamboul. Where on the earth shall we find a
+panorama more magnificent?</p>
+
+<p>The air was filled with the shouts and noises of the great Oriental
+metropolis; the water was alive with ca&iuml;ques and little steamers; and all
+the world of work and trade, which had grown almost to be a fable,
+welcomed us back to its restless heart. We threaded our rather perilous
+way over the populous waves, and landed in a throng of Custom-House
+officers and porters, on the wharf at Galata.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch26">
+<h2>Chapter XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Night of Predestination.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Constantinople in Ramazan--The Origin of the Fast--Nightly
+  Illuminations--The Night of Predestination--The Golden Horn at
+  Night--Illumination of the Shores--The Cannon of Constantinople--A Fiery
+  Panorama--The Sultan's Ca&iuml;que--Close of the Celebration--A Turkish
+  Mob--The Dancing Dervishes.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Skies full of splendid moons and shooting stars,<br />
+And spouting exhalations, diamond fires." Keats.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Constantinople, <i>Wednesday, July</i> 14, 1862.</h4>
+
+<p>Constantinople, during the month of Ramazan, presents a very different
+aspect from Constantinople at other times. The city, it is true, is much
+more stern and serious during the day; there is none of that gay, careless
+life of the Orient which you see in Smyrna, Cairo, and Damascus; but when
+once the sunset gun has fired, and the painful fast is at an end, the
+picture changes as if by magic. In all the outward symbols of their
+religion, the Mussulmans show their joy at being relieved from what they
+consider a sacred duty. During the day, it is quite a science to keep the
+appetite dormant, and the people not only abstain from eating and
+drinking, but as much as possible from the sight of food. In the bazaars,
+you see the famished merchants either sitting, propped back against their
+cushions, with the shawl about their stomachs, tightened so as to prevent
+the void under it from being so sensibly felt, or lying at full length in
+the vain attempt to sleep. It is whispered here that many of the Turks
+will both eat and smoke, when there is no chance of detection, but no one
+would dare infringe the fast in public. Most of the mechanics and porters
+are Armenians, and the boatmen are Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>I have endeavored to ascertain the origin of this fast month. The Syrian
+Christians say that it is a mere imitation of an incident which happened
+to Mahomet. The Prophet, having lost his camels, went day after day
+seeking them in the Desert, taking no nourishment from the time of his
+departure in the morning until his return at sunset. After having sought
+them thus daily, for the period of one entire moon, he found them, and in
+token of joy, gave a three days' feast to the tribe, now imitated in the
+festival of Bairam, which lasts for three days after the close of Ramazan.
+This reason, however, seems too trifling for such a rigid fast, and the
+Turkish tradition, that the Koran was sent down from heaven during this
+month, offers a more probable explanation. During the fast, the
+Mussulmans, as is quite natural, are much more fanatical than at other
+times. They are obliged to attend prayers at the mosque every night, or to
+have a <i>mollah</i> read the Koran to them at their own houses. All the
+prominent features of their religion are kept constantly before their
+eyes, and their natural aversion to the Giaour, or Infidel, is increased
+tenfold. I have heard of several recent instances in which strangers have
+been exposed to insults and indignities.</p>
+
+<p>At dusk the minarets are illuminated; a peal of cannon from the Arsenal,
+echoed by others from the forts along the Bosphorus, relieves the
+suffering followers of the Prophet, and after an hour of silence, during
+which they are all at home, feasting, the streets are filled with noisy
+crowds, and every coffee-shop is thronged. Every night there are
+illuminations along the water, which, added to the crowns of light
+sparkling on the hundred minarets and domes, give a magical effect to the
+night view of the city. Towards midnight there is again a season of
+comparative quiet, most of the inhabitants having retired to rest; but,
+about two hours afterwards a watchman comes along with a big drum, which
+he beats lustily before the doors of the Faithful, in order to arouse them
+in time to eat again before the daylight-gun, which announces the
+commencement of another day's fast.</p>
+
+<p>Last night was the holiest night of Islam, being the twenty-fifth of the
+fast. It is called the <i>Leilet-el-Kadr,</i> or Night of the Predestination,
+the anniversary of that on which the Koran was miraculously communicated
+to the Prophet. On this night the Sultan, accompanied by his whole suite,
+attends service at the mosque, and on his return to the Seraglio, the
+Sultana Valide, or Sultana-Mother, presents him with a virgin from one of
+the noble families of Constantinople. Formerly, St. Sophia was the theatre
+of this celebration, but this year the Sultan chose the Mosque of
+Tophaneh, which stands on the shore--probably as being nearer to his
+imperial palace at Beshiktashe, on the Bosphorus. I consider myself
+fortunate in having reached Constantinople in season to witness this
+ceremony, and the illumination of the Golden Horn, which accompanies it.</p>
+
+<p>After sunset the mosques crowning the hills of Stamboul, the mosque of
+Tophaneh, on this side of the water, and the Turkish men-of-war and
+steamers afloat at the mouth of the Golden Horn, began to blaze with more
+than their usual brilliance. The outlines of the minarets and domes were
+drawn in light on the deepening gloom, and the masts and yards of the
+vessel were hung with colored lanterns. From the battery in front of the
+mosque and arsenal of Tophaneh a blaze of intense light streamed out over
+the water, illuminating the gliding forms of a thousand ca&iuml;ques, and the
+dark hulls of the vessels lying at anchor. The water is the best place
+from which to view the illumination, and a party of us descended to the
+landing-place. The streets of Tophaneh were crowded with swarms of Turks,
+Greeks and Armenians. The square around the fountain was brilliantly
+lighted, and venders of sherbet and ka&iuml;mak were ranged along the
+sidewalks. In the neighborhood of the mosque the crowd was so dense that
+we could with difficulty make our way through. All the open space next the
+water was filled up with the clumsy <i>arabas</i>, or carriages of the Turks,
+in which sat the wives of the Pashas and other dignitaries.</p>
+
+<p>We took a ca&iuml;que, and were soon pulled out into the midst of a multitude
+of other ca&iuml;ques, swarming all over the surface of the Golden Horn. The
+view from this point was strange, fantastic, yet inconceivably gorgeous.
+In front, three or four large Turkish frigates lay in the Bosphorus, their
+hulls and spars outlined in fire against the dark hills and distant
+twinkling lights of Asia. Looking to the west, the shores of the Golden
+Horn were equally traced by the multitude of lamps that covered them, and
+on either side, the hills on which the city is built rose from the
+water--masses of dark buildings, dotted all over with shafts and domes of
+the most brilliant light. The gateway on Seraglio Point was illuminated,
+as well as the quay in front of the mosque of Tophaneh, all the cannons of
+the battery being covered with lamps. The commonest objects shared in the
+splendor, even a large lever used for hoisting goods being hung with
+lanterns from top to bottom. The mosque was a mass of light, and between
+the tall minarets flanking it, burned the inscription, in Arabic
+characters, "Long life to you, O our Sovereign!"</p>
+
+<p>The discharge of a cannon announced the Sultan's departure from his
+palace, and immediately the guns on the frigates and the batteries on both
+shores took up the salute, till the grand echoes, filling the hollow
+throat of the Golden Horn, crashed from side to side, striking the hills
+of Scutari and the point of Chalcedon, and finally dying away among the
+summits of the Princes' Islands, out on the Sea of Marmora. The hulls of
+the frigates were now lighted up with intense chemical fires, and an
+abundance of rockets were spouted from their decks. A large Drummond light
+on Seraglio Point, and another at the Battery of Tophaneh, poured their
+rival streams across the Golden Horn, revealing the thousands of ca&iuml;ques
+jostling each other from shore to shore, and the endless variety of gay
+costumes with which they were filled. The smoke of the cannon hanging in
+the air, increased the effect of this illumination, and became a screen of
+auroral brightness, through which the superb spectacle loomed with large
+and unreal features. It was a picture of air--a phantasmagoric spectacle,
+built of luminous vapor and meteoric fires, and hanging in the dark round
+of space. In spite of ourselves, we became eager and excited, half fearing
+that the whole pageant would dissolve the next moment, and leave no trace
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the cannon thundered from a dozen batteries, and the rockets
+burst into glittering rain over our heads. Grander discharges I never
+heard; the earth shook and trembled under the mighty bursts of sound, and
+the reverberation which rattled along the hill of Galata, broken by the
+scattered buildings into innumerable fragments of sound, resembled the
+crash of a thousand falling houses. The distant echoes from Asia and the
+islands in the sea filled up the pauses between the nearer peals, and we
+seemed to be in the midst of some great naval engagement. But now the
+ca&iuml;que of the Sultan is discerned, approaching from the Bosphorus. A
+signal is given, and a sunrise of intense rosy and golden radiance
+suddenly lights up the long arsenal and stately mosque of Tophaneh, plays
+over the tall buildings on the hill of Pera, and falls with a fainter
+lustre on the Genoese watch-tower that overlooks Galata. It is impossible
+to describe the effect of this magical illumination. The mosque, with its
+taper minarets, its airy galleries, and its great central dome, is built
+of compact, transparent flame, and in the shifting of the red and yellow
+fires, seems to flicker and waver in the air. It is as lofty, and
+gorgeous, and unsubstantial as the cloudy palace in Cole's picture of
+"Youth." The long white front of the arsenal is fused in crimson heat, and
+burns against the dark as if it were one mass of living coal. And over all
+hangs the luminous canopy of smoke, redoubling its lustre on the waters of
+the Golden Horn, and mingling with the phosphorescent gleams that play
+around the oars of the ca&iuml;ques.</p>
+
+<p>A long barge, propelled by sixteen oars, glides around the dark corner of
+Tophaneh, and shoots into the clear, brilliant space in front of the
+mosque. It is not lighted, and passes with great swiftness towards the
+brilliant landing-place. There are several persons seated under a canopy
+in the stern, and we are trying to decide which is the Sultan, when a
+second boat, driven by twenty-four oarsmen, comes in sight. The men rise
+up at each stroke, and the long, sharp craft flies over the surface of
+the water, rather than forces its way through it. A gilded crown surmounts
+the long, curved prow, and a light though superb canopy covers the stern.
+Under this, we catch a glimpse of the Sultan and Grand Vizier, as they
+appear for an instant like black silhouettes against the burst of light on
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>After the Sultan had entered the mosque, the fires diminished and the
+cannon ceased, though the illuminated masts, minarets and gateways still
+threw a brilliant gleam over the scene. After more than an hour spent in
+devotion, he again entered his ca&iuml;que and sped away to greet his new wife,
+amid a fresh discharge from the frigates and the batteries on both shores,
+and a new dawn of auroral splendor. We made haste to reach the
+landing-place, in order to avoid the crowd of ca&iuml;ques; but, although we
+were among the first, we came near being precipitated into the water, in
+the struggle to get ashore. The market-place at Tophaneh was so crowded
+that nothing but main force brought us through, and some of our party had
+their pockets picked. A number of Turkish soldiers and police-men were
+mixed up in the melee, and they were not sparing of blows when they came
+in contact with a Giaour. In making my way through, I found that a
+collision with one of the soldiers was inevitable, but I managed to plump
+against him with such force as to take the breath out of his body, and was
+out of his reach before he had recovered himself. I saw several Turkish
+women striking right and left in their endeavors to escape, and place
+their hands against the faces of those who opposed them, pushing them
+aside. This crowd was contrived by thieves, for the purpose of plunder,
+and, from what I have since learned, must have been very successful.</p>
+
+<p>I visited to-day the College of the Mevlevi Dervishes at Pera, and
+witnessed their peculiar ceremonies. They assemble in a large hall, where
+they take their seats in a semi-circle, facing the shekh. After going
+through several times with the usual Moslem prayer, they move in slow
+march around the room, while a choir in the gallery chants Arabic phrases
+in a manner very similar to the mass in Catholic churches. I could
+distinguish the sentences "God is great," "Praise be to God," and other
+similar ejaculations. The chant was accompanied with a drum and flute, and
+had not lasted long before the Dervishes set themselves in a rotary
+motion, spinning slowly around the shekh, who stood in the centre. They
+stretched both arms out, dropped their heads on one side, and glided
+around with a steady, regular motion, their long white gowns spread out
+and floating on the air. Their steps were very similar to those of the
+modern waltz, which, it is possible, may have been derived from the dance
+of the Mevlevis. Baron Von Hammer finds in this ceremony an imitation of
+the dance of the spheres, in the ancient Samothracian Mysteries; but I see
+no reason to go so far back for its origin. The dance lasted for about
+twenty minutes, and the Dervishes appeared very much exhausted at the
+close, as they are obliged to observe the fast very strictly.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch27">
+<h2>Chapter XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Solemnities of Bairam.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Appearance of the New Moon--The Festival of Bairam--The Interior of
+  the Seraglio--The Pomp of the Sultan's Court--Rescind Pasha--The
+  Sultan's Dwarf--Arabian Stallions--The Imperial Guard--Appearance of the
+  Sultan--The Inner Court--Return of the Procession--The Sultan on his
+  Throne--The Homage of the Pashas--An Oriental Picture--Kissing the
+  Scarf--The Shekh el-Isl&agrave;m--The Descendant of the Caliphs--Bairam
+  Commences.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Constantinople, <i>Monday</i>, <i>July</i> 19, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Saturday was the last day of the fast-month of Ramazan, and yesterday the
+celebration of the solemn festival of Bairam took place. The moon changed
+on Friday morning at 11 o'clock, but as the Turks have no faith in
+astronomy, and do not believe the moon has actually changed until they see
+it, all good Mussulmen were obliged to fast an additional day. Had
+Saturday been cloudy, and the new moon invisible, I am not sure but the
+fast would have been still further prolonged. A good look-out was kept,
+however, and about four o'clock on Saturday afternoon some sharp eyes saw
+the young crescent above the sun. There is a hill near Gemlik, on the Gulf
+of Moudania, about fifty miles from here, whence the Turks believe the new
+moon can be first seen. The families who live on this hill are exempted
+from taxation, in consideration of their keeping a watch for the moon, at
+the close of Ramazan. A series of signals, from hill to hill, is in
+readiness, and the news is transmitted to Constantinople in a very short
+time Then, when the muezzin proclaims the <i>asser</i>, or prayer two hours
+before sunset, he proclaims also the close of Ramazan. All the batteries
+fire a salute, and the big guns along the water announce the joyful news
+to all parts of the city. The forts on the Bosphorus take up the tale, and
+both shores, from the Black Sea to the Propontis, shake with the burden of
+their rejoicing. At night the mosques are illuminated for the last time,
+for it is only during Ramazan that they are lighted, or open for night
+service.</p>
+
+<p>After Ramazan, comes the festival of Bairam, which lasts three days, and
+is a season of unbounded rejoicing. The bazaars are closed, no Turk does
+any work, but all, clothed in their best dresses, or in an entire new suit
+if they can afford it, pass the time in feasting, in paying visits, or in
+making excursions to the shores of the Bosphorus, or other favorite spots
+around Constantinople. The festival is inaugurated by a solemn state
+ceremony, at the Seraglio and the mosque of Sultan Achmed, whither the
+Sultan goes in procession, accompanied by all the officers of the
+Government. This is the last remaining pageant which has been spared to
+the Ottoman monarchs by the rigorous reforming measures of Sultan Mahmoud,
+and shorn as it is of much of its former splendor, it probably surpasses
+in brilliant effect any spectacle which any other European Court can
+present. The ceremonies which take place inside of the Seraglio were,
+until within three or four years, prohibited to Frank eyes, and travellers
+were obliged to content themselves with a view of the procession, as it
+passed to the mosque. Through the kindness of Mr. Brown, of the American
+Embassy, I was enabled to witness the entire solemnity, in all its
+details.</p>
+
+<p>As the procession leaves the Seraglio at sunrise, we rose with the first
+streak of dawn, descended to Tophaneh, and crossed to Seraglio Point,
+where the cavass of the Embassy was in waiting for us. He conducted us
+through the guards, into the garden of the Seraglio, and up the hill to
+the Palace. The Capudan Pasha, or Lord High Admiral, had just arrived in a
+splendid ca&iuml;que, and pranced up the hill before us on a magnificent
+stallion, whose trappings blazed with jewels and gold lace. The rich
+uniforms of the different officers of the army and marine glittered far
+and near under the dense shadows of the cypress trees, and down the dark
+alleys where the morning twilight had not penetrated. We were ushered into
+the great outer court-yard of the Seraglio, leading to the Sublime Porte.
+A double row of marines, in scarlet jackets and white trowsers, extended
+from one gate to the other, and a very excellent brass band played "<i>Suoni
+la tromba</i>" with much spirit. The groups of Pashas and other officers of
+high rank, with their attendants, gave the scene a brilliant character of
+festivity. The costumes, except those of the secretaries and servants,
+were after the European model, but covered with a lavish profusion of gold
+lace. The horses were all of the choicest Eastern breeds, and the broad
+housings of their saddles of blue, green, purple, and crimson cloth, were
+enriched with gold lace, rubies, emeralds and turquoises.</p>
+
+<p>The cavass took us into a chamber near the gate, and commanding a view of
+the whole court. There we found Mr. Brown and his lady, with several
+officers from the U.S. steamer San Jacinto. At this moment the sun,
+appearing above the hill of Bulgaria, behind Scutari, threw his earliest
+rays upon the gilded pinnacles of the Seraglio. The commotion in the long
+court-yard below increased. The marines were formed into exact line, the
+horses of the officers clattered on the rough pavement as they dashed
+about to expedite the arrangements, the crowd pressed closer to the line
+of the procession, and in five minutes the grand pageant was set in
+motion. As the first Pasha made his appearance under the dark archway of
+the interior gate, the band struck up the <i>Marseillaise</i> (which is a
+favorite air among the Turks), and the soldiers presented arms. The
+court-yard was near two hundred yards long, and the line of Pashas, each
+surrounded with the officers of his staff, made a most dazzling show. The
+lowest in rank came first. I cannot recollect the precise order, nor the
+names of all of them, which, in fact, are of little consequence, while
+power and place are such uncertain matters in Turkey.</p>
+
+<p>Each Pasha wore the red fez on his head, a frock-coat of blue cloth, the
+breast of which was entirely covered with gold lace, while a broad band of
+the same decorated the skirts, and white pantaloons. One of the Ministers,
+Mehemet Ali Pasha, the brother-in-law of the Sultan, was formerly a
+cooper's apprentice, but taken, when a boy, by the late Sultan Mahmoud, to
+be a playmate for his son, on account of his extraordinary beauty. Rescind
+Pasha, the Grand Vizier, is a man of about sixty years of age. He is
+frequently called Giaour, or Infidel, by the Turks, on account of his
+liberal policy, which has made him many enemies. The expression of his
+face denotes intelligence, but lacks the energy necessary to accomplish
+great reforms. His son, a boy of about seventeen, already possesses the
+rank of Pasha, and is affianced to the Sultan's daughter, a child of ten,
+or twelve years old. He is a fat, handsome youth, with a sprightly face,
+and acted his part in the ceremonies with a nonchalance which made him
+appear graceful beside his stiff, dignified elders.</p>
+
+<p>After the Pashas came the entire household of the Sultan, including even
+his eunuchs, cooks, and constables. The Kislar Aga, or Chief Eunuch, a
+tall African in resplendent costume, is one of the most important
+personages connected with the Court. The Sultan's favorite dwarf, a little
+man about forty years old and three feet high, bestrode his horse with as
+consequential an air as any of them. A few years ago, this man took a
+notion to marry, and applied to the Sultan for a wife. The latter gave him
+permission to go into his harem and take the one whom he could kiss. The
+dwarf, like all short men, was ambitious to have a long wife. While the
+Sultan's five hundred women, who knew the terms according to which the
+dwarf was permitted to choose, were laughing at the amorous mannikin, he
+went up to one of the tallest and handsomest of them, and struck her a
+sudden blow on the stomach. She collapsed with the pain, and before she
+could recover he caught her by the neck and gave her the dreaded kiss. The
+Sultan kept his word, and the tall beauty is now the mother of the dwarfs
+children.</p>
+
+<p>The procession grows more brilliant as it advances, and the profound
+inclination made by the soldiers at the further end of the court,
+announces the approach of the Sultan himself. First come three led horses,
+of the noblest Arabian blood--glorious creatures, worthy to represent</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven,<br />
+And snort the morning from their nostrils,<br />
+Making their fiery gait above the glades."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Their eyes were more keen and lustrous than the diamonds which studded
+their head-stalls, and the wealth of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires that
+gleamed on their trappings would have bought the possessions of a German
+Prince. After them came the Sultan's body-guard, a company of tall, strong
+men, in crimson tunics and white trousers, with lofty plumes of peacock
+feathers in their hats. Some of them carried crests of green feathers,
+fastened upon long staves. These superb horses and showy guards are the
+only relics of that barbaric pomp which characterized all State
+processions during the time of the Janissaries. In the centre of a hollow
+square of plume-bearing guards rode Abdul-Medjid himself, on a snow-white
+steed. Every one bowed profoundly as he passed along, but he neither
+looked to the right or left, nor made the slightest acknowledgment of the
+salutations. Turkish etiquette exacts the most rigid indifference on the
+part of the Sovereign, who, on all public occasions, never makes a
+greeting. Formerly, before the change of costume, the Sultan's turbans
+were carried before him in the processions, and the servants who bore them
+inclined them to one side and the other, in answer to the salutations of
+the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Sultan Abdul-Medjid is a man of about thirty, though he looks older. He
+has a mild, amiable, weak face, dark eyes, a prominent nose, and short,
+dark brown mustaches and beard. His face is thin, and wrinkles are already
+making their appearance about the corners of his mouth and eyes. But for a
+certain vacancy of expression, he would be called a handsome man. He sits
+on his horse with much ease and grace, though there is a slight stoop in
+his shoulders. His legs are crooked, owing to which cause he appears
+awkward when on his feet, though he wears a long cloak to conceal the
+deformity. Sensual indulgence has weakened a constitution not naturally
+strong, and increased that mildness which has now become a defect in his
+character. He is not stern enough to be just, and his subjects are less
+fortunate under his easy rule than under the rod of his savage father,
+Mahmoud. He was dressed in a style of the utmost richness and elegance. He
+wore a red Turkish fez, with an immense rosette of brilliants, and a long,
+floating plume of bird-of-paradise feathers. The diamond in the centre of
+the rosette is of unusual size; it was picked up some years ago in the
+Hippodrome, and probably belonged to the treasury of the Greek Emperors.
+The breast and collar of his coat were one mass of diamonds, and sparkled
+in the early sun with a thousand rainbow gleams. His mantle of dark-blue
+cloth hung to his knees, concealing the deformity of his legs. He wore
+white pantaloons, white kid gloves, and patent leather boots, thrust into
+his golden stirrups.</p>
+
+<p>A few officers of the Imperial household followed behind the Sultan, and
+the procession then terminated. Including the soldiers, it contained from
+two to three thousand persons. The marines lined the way to the mosque of
+Sultan Achmed, and a great crowd of spectators filled up the streets and
+the square of the Hippodrome. Coffee was served to us, after which we were
+all conducted into the inner court of the Seraglio, to await the return of
+the cort&egrave;ge. This court is not more than half the size of the outer one,
+but is shaded with large sycamores, embellished with fountains, and
+surrounded with light and elegant galleries, in pure Saracenic style. The
+picture which it presented was therefore far richer and more
+characteristic of the Orient than the outer court, where the architecture
+is almost wholly after Italian models. The portals at either end rested
+on slender pillars, over which projected broad eaves, decorated with
+elaborate carved and gilded work, and above all rose a dome, surmounted by
+the Crescent. On the right, the tall chimneys of the Imperial kitchens
+towered above the walls. The sycamores threw their broad, cool shadows
+over the court, and groups of servants, in gala dresses, loitered about
+the corridors.</p>
+
+<p>After waiting nearly half an hour, the sound of music and the appearance
+of the Sultan's body-guard proclaimed the return of the procession. It
+came in reversed order, headed by the Sultan, after whom followed the
+Grand Vizier and other Ministers of the Imperial Council, and the Pashas,
+each surrounded by his staff of officers. The Sultan dismounted at the
+entrance to the Seraglio, and disappeared through the door. He was absent
+for more than half an hour, during which time he received the
+congratulations of his family, his wives, and the principal personages of
+his household, all of whom came to kiss his feet. Meanwhile, the Pashas
+ranged themselves in a semicircle around the arched and gilded portico.
+The servants of the Seraglio brought out a large Persian carpet, which
+they spread on the marble pavement. The throne, a large square seat,
+richly carved and covered with gilding, was placed in the centre, and a
+dazzling piece of cloth-of-gold thrown over the back of it. When the
+Sultan re-appeared, he took his seat thereon, placing his feet on a small
+footstool. The ceremony of kissing his feet now commenced. The first who
+had this honor was the Chief of the Emirs, an old man in a green robe,
+embroidered with pearls. He advanced to the throne, knelt, kissed the
+Sultan's patent-leather boot, and retired backward from the presence.</p>
+
+<p>The Ministers and Pashas followed in single file, and, after they had
+made the salutation, took their stations on the right hand of the throne.
+Most of them were fat, and their glittering frock-coats were buttoned so
+tightly that they seemed ready to burst. It required a great effort for
+them to rise from their knees. During all this time, the band was playing
+operatic airs, and as each Pasha knelt, a marshal, or master of
+ceremonies, with a silver wand, gave the signal to the Imperial Guard, who
+shouted at the top of their voices: "Prosperity to our Sovereign! May he
+live a thousand years!" This part of the ceremony was really grand and
+imposing. All the adjuncts were in keeping: the portico, wrought in rich
+arabesque designs; the swelling domes and sunlit crescents above; the
+sycamores and cypresses shading the court; the red tunics and peacock
+plumes of the guard; the monarch himself, radiant with jewels, as he sat
+in his chair of gold--all these features combined to form a stately
+picture of the lost Orient, and for the time Abdul-Medjid seemed the true
+representative of Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid.</p>
+
+<p>After the Pashas had finished, the inferior officers of the Army, Navy,
+and Civil Service followed, to the number of at least a thousand. They
+were not considered worthy to touch the Sultan's person, but kissed his
+golden scarf, which was held out to them by a Pasha, who stood on the left
+of the throne. The Grand Vizier had his place on the right, and the Chief
+of the Eunuchs stood behind him. The kissing of the scarf occupied an
+hour. The Sultan sat quietly during all this time, his face expressing a
+total indifference to all that was going on. The most skilful
+physiognomist could not have found in it the shadow of an expression. If
+this was the etiquette prescribed for him, he certainly acted it with
+marvellous skill and success.</p>
+
+<p>The long line of officers at length came to an end, and I fancied that the
+solemnities were now over; but after a pause appeared the <i>Shekh
+el-Isl&agrave;m,</i> or High Priest of the Mahometan religion. His authority in
+religious matters transcends that of the Sultan, and is final and
+irrevocable. He was a very venerable man, of perhaps seventy-five years of
+age, and his tottering steps were supported by two mollahs. He was dressed
+in a long green robe, embroidered with gold and pearls, over which his
+white beard flowed below his waist. In his turban of white cambric was
+twisted a scarf of cloth-of-gold. He kissed the border of the Sultan's
+mantle, which salutation was also made by a long line of the chief priests
+of the mosques of Constantinople, who followed him. These priests were
+dressed in long robes of white, green, blue, and violet, many of them with
+collars of pearls and golden scarfs wound about their turbans, the rich
+fringes falling on their shoulders. They were grave, stately men, with
+long gray beards, and the wisdom of age and study in their deep-set eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Among the last who came was the most important personage of all. This was
+the Governor of Mecca (as I believe he is called), the nearest descendant
+of the Prophet, and the successor to the Caliphate, in case the family of
+Othman becomes extinct. Sultan Mahmoud, on his accession to the throne,
+was the last descendant of Orchan, the founder of the Ottoman Dynasty, the
+throne being inherited only by the male heirs. He left two sons, who are
+both living, Abdul-Medjid having departed from the practice of his
+predecessors, each of whom slew his brothers, in order to make his own
+sovereignty secure. He has one son, Muzad, who is about ten years old, so
+that there are now three males of the family of Orchan. In case of their
+death, the Governor of Mecca would become Caliph, and the sovereignty
+would be established in his family. He is a swarthy Arab, of about fifty,
+with a bold, fierce face. He wore a superb dress of green, the sacred
+color, and was followed by his two sons, young men of twenty and
+twenty-two. As he advanced to the throne, and was about to kneel and kiss
+the Sultan's robe, the latter prevented him, and asked politely after his
+health--the highest mark of respect in his power to show. The old Arab's
+face gleamed with such a sudden gush of pride and satisfaction, that no
+flash of lightning could have illumined it more vividly.</p>
+
+<p>The sacred writers, or transcribers of the Koran, closed the procession,
+after which the Sultan rose and entered the Seraglio. The crowd slowly
+dispersed, and in a few minutes the grand reports of the cannon on
+Seraglio Point announced the departure of the Sultan for his palace on the
+Bosphorus. The festival of Bairam was now fairly inaugurated, and all
+Stamboul was given up to festivity. There was no Turk so poor that he did
+not in some sort share in the rejoicing. Our Fourth could scarcely show
+more flags, let off more big guns or send forth greater crowds of
+excursionists than this Moslem holiday.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch28">
+<h2>Chapter XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mosques of Constantinople.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Sojourn at Constantinople--Semi-European Character of the City--The
+  Mosque--Procuring a Firman--The Seraglio--The Library--The Ancient
+  Throne-Room--Admittance to St. Sophia--Magnificence of the Interior--The
+  Marvellous Dome--The Mosque of Sultan Achmed--The Sulemanye--Great
+  Conflagrations--Political Meaning of the Fires--Turkish Progress--Decay
+  of the Ottoman Power.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Is that indeed Sophia's far-famed dome,<br />
+Where first the Faith was led in triumph home,<br />
+Like some high bride, with banner and bright sign,<br />
+And melody, and flowers?" Audrey de Vere.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Constantinople, <i>Tuesday, August</i> 8, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>The length of my stay in Constantinople has enabled me to visit many
+interesting spots in its vicinity, as well as to familiarize myself with
+the peculiar features of the great capital. I have seen the beautiful
+Bosphorus from steamers and ca&iuml;ques; ridden up the valley of Buyukdere,
+and through the chestnut woods of Belgrade; bathed in the Black Sea, under
+the lee of the Symplegades, where the marble altar to Apollo still invites
+an oblation from passing mariners; walked over the flowery meadows beside
+the "Heavenly Waters of Asia;" galloped around the ivy-grown walls where
+Dandolo and Mahomet II. conquered, and the last of the Pal&aelig;ologi fell; and
+dreamed away many an afternoon-hour under the funereal cypresses of Pera,
+and beside the Delphian tripod in the Hippodrome. The historic interest
+of these spots is familiar to all, nor; with one exception, have their
+natural beauties been exaggerated by travellers. This exception is the
+village of Belgrade, over which Mary Montague went into raptures, and set
+the fashion for tourists ever since. I must confess to having been wofully
+disappointed. The village is a miserable cluster of rickety houses, on an
+open piece of barren land, surrounded by the forests, or rather thickets,
+which keep alive the springs that supply Constantinople with water. We
+reached there with appetites sharpened by our morning's ride, expecting to
+find at least a vender of <i>kibabs</i> (bits of fried meat) in so renowned a
+place; but the only things to be had were raw salt mackerel, and bread
+which belonged to the primitive geological formation.</p>
+
+<p>The general features of Constantinople and the Bosphorus are so well
+known, that I am spared the dangerous task of painting scenes which have
+been colored by abler pencils. Von Hammer, Lamartine, Willis, Miss Pardoe,
+Albert Smith, and thou, most inimitable Thackeray! have made Pera and
+Scutari, the Bazaars and Baths, the Seraglio and the Golden Horn, as
+familiar to our ears as Cornhill and Wall street. Besides, Constantinople
+is not the true Orient, which is to be found rather in Cairo, in Aleppo,
+and brightest and most vital, in Damascus. Here, we tread European soil;
+the Franks are fast crowding out the followers of the Prophet, and
+Stamboul itself, were its mosques and Seraglio removed, would differ
+little in outward appearance from a third-rate Italian town. The Sultan
+lives in a palace with a Grecian portico; the pointed Saracenic arch, the
+arabesque sculptures, the latticed balconies, give place to clumsy
+imitations of Palladio, and every fire that sweeps away a recollection of
+the palmy times of Ottoman rule, sweeps it away forever.</p>
+
+<p>But the Mosque--that blossom of Oriental architecture, with its crowning
+domes, like the inverted bells of the lotus, and its reed-like minarets,
+its fountains and marble courts--can only perish with the faith it
+typifies. I, for one, rejoice that, so long as the religion of Islam
+exists (and yet, may its time be short!), no Christian model can shape its
+houses of worship. The minaret must still lift its airy tower for the
+muezzin; the dome must rise like a gilded heaven above the prayers of the
+Faithful, with its starry lamps and emblazoned phrases; the fountain must
+continue to pour its waters of purification. A reformation of the Moslem
+faith is impossible. When it begins to give way, the whole fabric must
+fall. Its ceremonies, as well as its creed, rest entirely on the
+recognition of Mahomet as the Prophet of God. However the Turks may change
+in other respects, in all that concerns their religion they must continue
+the same.</p>
+
+<p>Until within a few years, a visit to the mosques, especially the more
+sacred ones of St. Sophia and Sultan Achmed, was attended with much
+difficulty. Miss Pardoe, according to her own account, risked her life in
+order to see the interior of St. Sophia, which she effected in the
+disguise of a Turkish Effendi. I accomplished the same thing, a few days
+since, but without recourse to any such romantic expedient. Mr. Brown, the
+interpreter of the Legation, procured a firman from the Grand Vizier, on
+behalf of the officers of the San Jacinto, and kindly invited me, with
+several other American and English travellers, to join the party. During
+the month of Ramazan, no firmans are given, and as at this time there are
+few travellers in Constantinople, we should otherwise have been subjected
+to a heavy expense. The cost of a firman, including backsheesh to the
+priests and doorkeepers, is 700 piastres (about $33).</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the Golden Horn in ca&iuml;ques, and first visited the gardens and
+palaces on Seraglio Point. The Sultan at present resides in his summer
+palace of Beshiktashe, on the Bosphorus, and only occupies the Serai
+Bornou, as it is called, during the winter months. The Seraglio covers the
+extremity of the promontory on which Constantinople is built, and is
+nearly three miles in circuit. The scattered buildings erected by
+different Sultans form in themselves a small city, whose domes and pointed
+turrets rise from amid groves of cypress and pine. The sea-wall is lined
+with kiosks, from whose cushioned windows there are the loveliest views of
+the European and Asian shores. The newer portion of the palace, where the
+Sultan now receives the ambassadors of foreign nations, shows the
+influence of European taste in its plan and decorations. It is by no means
+remarkable for splendor, and suffers by contrast with many of the private
+houses in Damascus and Aleppo. The building is of wood, the walls
+ornamented with detestable frescoes by modern Greek artists, and except a
+small but splendid collection of arms, and some wonderful specimens of
+Arabic chirography, there is nothing to interest the visitor.</p>
+
+<p>In ascending to the ancient Seraglio, which was founded by Mahomet II., on
+the site of the palace of the Pal&aelig;ologi, we passed the Column of
+Theodosius, a plain Corinthian shaft, about fifty feet high. The Seraglio
+is now occupied entirely by the servants and guards, and the greater part
+of it shows a neglect amounting almost to dilapidation. The Saracenic
+corridors surrounding its courts are supported by pillars of marble,
+granite, and porphyry, the spoils of the Christian capital. We were
+allowed to walk about at leisure, and inspect the different compartments,
+except the library, which unfortunately was locked. This library was for a
+long time supposed to contain many lost treasures of ancient
+literature--among other things, the missing books of Livy--but the recent
+researches of Logothetos, the Prince of Samos, prove that there is little
+of value, among its manuscripts. Before the door hangs a wooden globe,
+which is supposed to be efficacious in neutralizing the influence of the
+Evil Eye. There are many ancient altars and fragments of pillars scattered
+about the courts, and the Turks have even commenced making a collection of
+antiquities, which, with the exception of two immense sarcophagi of red
+porphyry, contains nothing of value. They show, however, one of the brazen
+heads of the Delphian tripod in the Hippodrome, which, they say, Mahomet
+the Conqueror struck off with a single blow of his sword, on entering
+Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>The most interesting portion of the Seraglio is the ancient throne-room,
+now no longer used, but still guarded by a company of white eunuchs. The
+throne is an immense, heavy bedstead, the posts of which are thickly
+incrusted with rubies, turquoises, emeralds, and sapphires. There is a
+funnel-shaped chimney-piece in the room, a master-work of Benevenuto
+Cellini. There, half a century ago, the foreign ambassadors were
+presented, after having been bathed, fed, and clothed with a rich mantle
+in the outer apartments. They were ushered into the imperial presence,
+supported by a Turkish official on either side, in order that they might
+show no signs of breaking down under the load of awe and reverence they
+were supposed to feel. In the outer Court, adjoining the Sublime Porte, is
+the Chapel of the Empress Irene, now converted into an armory, which, for
+its size, is the most tasteful and picturesque collection of weapons I
+have ever seen. It is especially rich in Saracenic armor, and contains
+many superb casques of inlaid gold. In a large glass case in the chancel,
+one sees the keys of some thirty or forty cities, with the date of their
+capture. It is not likely that another will ever be added to the list.</p>
+
+<p>We now passed out through the Sublime Porte, and directed our steps to the
+famous <i>Aya Sophia</i>--the temple dedicated by Justinian to the Divine
+Wisdom. The repairs made to the outer walls by the Turks, and the addition
+of the four minarets, have entirely changed the character of the building,
+without injuring its effect. As a Christian Church, it must have been less
+imposing than in its present form. A priest met us at the entrance, and
+after reading the firman with a very discontented face, informed us that
+we could not enter until the mid-day prayers were concluded. After taking
+off our shoes, however, we were allowed to ascend to the galleries, whence
+we looked down on the bowing worshippers. Here the majesty of the renowned
+edifice, despoiled as it now is, bursts at once upon the eye. The
+wonderful flat dome, glittering with its golden mosaics, and the sacred
+phrase from the Koran: "<i>God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth</i>,"
+swims in the air, one hundred and eighty feet above the marble pavement.
+On the eastern and western sides, it rests on two half domes; which again
+rise from or rest upon a group of three small half-domes, so that the
+entire roof of the mosque, unsupported by a pillar, seems to have been
+dropped from above on the walls, rather than to have been built up from
+them. Around the edifice run an upper and a lower gallery, which alone
+preserve the peculiarities of the Byzantine style. These galleries are
+supported by the most precious columns which ancient art could afford:
+among them eight shafts of green marble, from the Temple of Diana, at
+Ephesus; eight of porphyry, from the Temple of the Sun, at Baalbek;
+besides Egyptian granite from the shrines of Isis and Osiris, and
+Pentelican marble from the sanctuary of Pallas Athena. Almost the whole of
+the interior has been covered with gilding, but time has softened its
+brilliancy, and the rich, subdued gleam of the walls is in perfect harmony
+with the varied coloring of the ancient marbles.</p>
+
+<p>Under the dome, four Christian seraphim, executed in mosaic, have been
+allowed to remain, but the names of the four archangels of the Moslem
+faith are inscribed underneath. The bronze doors are still the same, the
+Turks having taken great pains to obliterate the crosses with which they
+were adorned. Around the centre of the dome, as on that of Sultan Achmed,
+may be read, in golden letters, and in all the intricacy of Arabic
+penmanship, the beautiful verse:--"God is the Light of the Heavens and the
+Earth. His wisdom is a light on the wall, in which burns a lamp covered
+with glass. The glass shines like a star, the lamp is lit with the oil of
+a blessed tree. No Eastern, no Western oil, it shines for whoever wills."
+After the prayers were over, and we had descended to the floor of the
+mosque, I spent the rest of my time under the dome, fascinated by its
+marvellous lightness and beauty. The worshippers present looked at us with
+curiosity, but without ill-will; and before we left, one of the priests
+came slyly with some fragments of the ancient gilded mosaic, which, he was
+heathen enough to sell, and we to buy.</p>
+
+<p>From St. Sophia we went to Sultan Achmed, which faces the Hippodrome, and
+is one of the stateliest piles of Constantinople. It is avowedly an
+imitation of St. Sophia, and the Turks consider it a more wonderful work,
+because the dome is seven feet higher. It has six minarets, exceeding in
+this respect all the mosques of Asia. The dome rests on four immense
+pillars, the bulk of which quite oppresses the light galleries running
+around the walls. This, and the uniform white color of the interior,
+impairs the effect which its bold style and imposing dimensions would
+otherwise produce. The outside view, with the group of domes swelling
+grandly above the rows of broad-armed sycamores, is much more
+satisfactory. In the tomb of Sultan Achmed, in one corner of the court, we
+saw his coffin, turban, sword, and jewelled harness. I had just been
+reading old Sandys' account of his visit to Constantinople, in 1610,
+during this Sultan's reign, and could only think of him as Sandys
+represents him, in the title-page to his book, as a fat man, with bloated
+cheeks, in a long gown and big turban, and the words underneath:--
+"<i>Achmed, sive Tyrannus.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The other noted mosques of Constantinople are the <i>Yeni Djami,</i> or Mosque
+of the Sultana Valide, on the shore of the Golden Horn, at the end of the
+bridge to Galata; that of Sultan Bajazet; of Mahomet II., the Conqueror,
+and of his son, Suleyman the Magnificent, whose superb mosque well
+deserves this title. I regret exceedingly that our time did not allow us
+to view the interior, for outwardly it not only surpasses St. Sophia, and
+all other mosques in the city, but is undoubtedly one of the purest
+specimens of Oriental architecture extant. It stands on a broad terrace,
+on one of the seven hills of Stamboul, and its exquisitely proportioned
+domes and minarets shine as if crystalized in the blue of the air. It is a
+type of Oriental, as the Parthenon is of Grecian, and the Cologne
+Cathedral of Gothic art. As I saw it the other night, lit by the flames of
+a conflagration, standing out red and clear against the darkness, I felt
+inclined to place it on a level with either of those renowned structures.
+It is a product of the rich fancy of the East, splendidly ornate, and not
+without a high degree of symmetry--yet here the symmetry is that of
+ornament alone, and not the pure, absolute proportion of forms, which we
+find in Grecian Art. It requires a certain degree of enthusiasm--nay, a
+slight inebriation of the imaginative faculties--in order to feel the
+sentiment of this Oriental Architecture. If I rightly express all that it
+says to me, I touch the verge of rapsody. The East, in almost all its
+aspects, is so essentially poetic, that a true picture of it must be
+poetic in spirit, if not in form.</p>
+
+<p>Constantinople has been terribly ravaged by fires, no less than fifteen
+having occurred during the past two weeks. Almost every night the sky has
+been reddened by burning houses, and the minarets of the seven hills
+lighted with an illumination brighter than that of the Bairam. All the
+space from the Hippodrome to the Sea of Marmora has been swept away; the
+lard, honey, and oil magazines on the Golden Horn, with the bazaars
+adjoining; several large blocks on the hill of Galata, with the College of
+the Dancing Dervishes; a part of Scutari, and the College of the Howling
+Dervishes, all have disappeared; and to-day, the ruins of 3,700 houses,
+which were destroyed last night, stand smoking in the Greek quarter,
+behind the aqueduct of Valens. The entire amount of buildings consumed in
+these two weeks is estimated at between <i>five and six thousand</i>! The fire
+on the hill of Galata threatened to destroy a great part of the suburb of
+Pera. It came, sweeping over the brow of the hill, towards my hotel,
+turning the tall cypresses in the burial ground into shafts of angry
+flame, and eating away the crackling dwellings of hordes of hapless Turks.
+I was in bed; from a sudden attack of fever, but seeing the other guests
+packing up their effects and preparing to leave, I was obliged to do the
+same; and this, in my weak state, brought on such a perspiration that the
+ailment left me, The officers of the United States steamer <i>San Jacinto</i>,
+and the French frigate <i>Charlemagne</i>, came to the rescue with their men
+and fire-engines, and the flames were finally quelled. The proceedings of
+the Americans, who cut holes in the roofs and played through them upon the
+fires within, were watched by the Turks with stupid amazement.
+"M&aacute;shallah!" said a fat Bimbashi, as he stood sweltering in the heat; "The
+Franks are a wonderful people."</p>
+
+<p>To those initiated into the mysteries of Turkish politics, these fires are
+more than accidental; they have a most weighty significance. They indicate
+either a general discontent with the existing state of affairs, or else a
+powerful plot against the Sultan and his Ministry. Setting fire to houses
+is, in fact, the Turkish method of holding an "indignation meeting," and
+from the rate with which they are increasing, the political crisis must be
+near at hand. The Sultan, with his usual kindness of heart, has sent large
+quantities of tents and other supplies to the guiltless sufferers; but no
+amount of kindness can soften the rancor of these Turkish intrigues.
+Reschid Pasha, the present Grand Vizier, and the leader of the party of
+Progress, is the person against whom this storm of opposition is now
+gathering.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all efforts, the Ottoman Power is rapidly wasting away. The
+life of the Orient is nerveless and effete; the native strength of the
+race has died out, and all attempts to resuscitate it by the adoption of
+European institutions produce mere galvanic spasms, which leave it more
+exhausted than before. The rosy-colored accounts we have had of Turkish
+Progress are for the most part mere delusions. The Sultan is a
+well-meaning but weak man, and tyrannical through his very weakness. Had
+he strength enough to break through the meshes of falsehood and venality
+which are woven so close about him, he might accomplish some solid good.
+But Turkish rule, from his ministers down to the lowest <i>cadi</i>, is a
+monstrous system of deceit and corruption. These people have not the most
+remote conception of the true aims of government; they only seek to enrich
+themselves and their parasites, at the expense of the people and the
+national treasury. When we add to this the conscript system, which is
+draining the provinces of their best Moslem subjects, to the advantage of
+the Christians and Jews, and the blindness of the Revenue Laws, which
+impose on domestic manufactures double the duty levied on foreign
+products, it will easily be foreseen that the next half-century, or less,
+will completely drain the Turkish Empire of its last lingering energies.</p>
+
+<p>Already, in effect, Turkey exists only through the jealousy of the
+European nations. The treaty of Unkiar-iskelessi, in 1833, threw her into
+the hands of Russia, although the influence of England has of late years
+reigned almost exclusively in her councils. These are the two powers who
+are lowering at each other with sleepless eyes, in the Dardanelles and the
+Bosphorus. The people, and most probably the government, is strongly
+preposessed in favor of the English; but the Russian Bear has a heavy paw,
+and when he puts it into the scale, all other weights kick the beam. It
+will be a long and wary struggle, and no man can prophecy the result. The
+Turks are a people easy to govern, were even the imperfect laws, now in
+existence, fairly administered. They would thrive and improve under a
+better state of things; but I cannot avoid the conviction that the
+regeneration of the East will never be effected at their hands.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch29">
+<h2>Chapter XXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>Farewell to the Orient--Malta.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Embarcation--Farewell to the Orient--Leaving Constantinople--A
+  Wreck--The Dardanelles--Homeric Scenery--Smyrna Revisited--The Grecian
+  Isles--Voyage to Malta--Detention--La Valetta--The Maltese--The
+  Climate--A Boat for Sicily.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Farewell, ye mountains,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;By glory crowned<br />
+Ye sacred fountains<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Of Gods renowned;<br />
+Ye woods and highlands,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Where heroes dwell;<br />
+Ye seas and islands,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Farewell! Farewell!"</p>
+
+<p>  Frithiof's Saga.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>In The Dardanelles, <i>Saturday, August</i> 7, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>At last, behold me fairly embarked for Christian Europe, to which I bade
+adieu in October last, eager for the unknown wonders of the Orient. Since
+then, nearly ten months have passed away, and those wonders are now
+familiar as every-day experiences. I set out, determined to be satisfied
+with no slight taste of Eastern life, but to drain to the bottom its
+beaker of mingled sunshine and sleep. All this has been accomplished; and
+if I have not wandered so far, nor enriched myself with such varied
+knowledge of the relics of ancient history, as I might have purposed or
+wished, I have at least learned to know the Turk and the Arab, been
+soothed by the patience inspired by their fatalism, and warmed by the
+gorgeous gleams of fancy that animate their poetry and religion. These
+ten months of my life form an episode which seems to belong to a separate
+existence. Just refined enough to be poetic, and just barbaric enough to
+be freed from all conventional fetters, it is as grateful to brain and
+soul, as an Eastern bath to the body. While I look forward, not without
+pleasure, to the luxuries and conveniences of Europe, I relinquish with a
+sigh the refreshing indolence of Asia.</p>
+
+<p>We have passed between the Castles of the two Continents, guarding the
+mouth of the Dardanelles, and are now entering the Grecian Sea. To-morrow,
+we shall touch, for a few hours, at Smyrna, and then turn westward, on the
+track of Ulysses and St. Paul. Farewell, then, perhaps forever, to the
+bright Orient! Farewell to the gay gardens, the spicy bazaars, to the
+plash of fountains and the gleam of golden-tipped minarets! Farewell to
+the perfect morn's, the balmy twilights, the still heat of the blue noons,
+the splendor of moon and stars! Farewell to the glare of the white crags,
+the tawny wastes of dead sand, the valleys of oleander, the hills of
+myrtle and spices! Farewell to the bath, agent of purity and peace, and
+parent of delicious dreams--to the shebook, whose fragrant fumes are
+breathed from the lips of patience and contentment--to the narghileh,
+crowned with that blessed plant which grows in the gardens of Shiraz,
+while a fountain more delightful than those of Samarcand bubbles in its
+crystal bosom I Farewell to the red cap and slippers, to the big turban,
+the flowing trousers, and the gaudy shawl--to squatting on broad divans,
+to sipping black coffee in acorn cups, to grave faces and <i>salaam
+aleikooms</i>, and to aching of the lips and forehead! Farewell to the
+evening meal in the tent door, to the couch on the friendly earth, to the
+yells of the muleteers, to the deliberate marches of the plodding horse,
+and the endless rocking of the dromedary that knoweth his master!
+Farewell, finally, to annoyance without anger, delay without vexation,
+indolence without ennui, endurance without fatigue, appetite without
+intemperance, enjoyment without pall!</p>
+
+
+<h4>La Valetta, Malta, <i>Saturday, August</i> 14, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>My last view of Stamboul was that of the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed, shining faintly in the moonlight, as we steamed down the Sea of
+Marmora. The <i>Caire</i> left at nine o'clock, freighted with the news of
+Reschid Pasha's deposition, and there were no signs of conflagration in
+all the long miles of the city that lay behind us. So we speculated no
+more on the exciting topics of the day, but went below and took a vapor
+bath in our berths; for I need not assure you that the nights on the
+Mediterranean at this season are anything but chilly. And here I must note
+the fact, that the French steamers, while dearer than the Austrian, are
+more cramped in their accommodations, and filled with a set of most
+uncivil servants. The table is good, and this is the only thing to be
+commended. In all other respects, I prefer the Lloyd vessels.</p>
+
+<p>Early next morning, we passed the promontory of Cyzicus, and the Island of
+Marmora, the marble quarries of which give name to the sea. As we were
+approaching the entrance to the Dardanelles, we noticed an Austrian brig
+drifting in the current, the whiff of her flag indicating distress. Her
+rudder was entirely gone, and she was floating helplessly towards the
+Thracian coast. A boat was immediately lowered and a hawser carried to her
+bows, by which we towed her a short distance; but our steam engine did
+not like this drudgery, and snapped the rope repeatedly, so that at last
+we were obliged to leave her to her fate. The lift we gave, however, had
+its effect, and by dexterous maneuvering with the sails, the captain
+brought her safely into the harbor of Gallipoli, where she dropped anchor
+beside us.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Gallipoli, the Dardanelles contract, and the opposing continents
+rise into lofty and barren hills. In point of natural beauty, this strait
+is greatly inferior to the Bosphorus. It lacks the streams and wooded
+valleys which open upon the latter. The country is but partially
+cultivated, except around the town of Dardanelles, near the mouth of the
+strait. The site of the bridge of Xerxes is easily recognized, the
+conformation of the different shores seconding the decision of
+antiquarians. Here, too, are Sestos and Abydos, of passionate and poetic
+memory. But as the sun dipped towards the sea, we passed out of the narrow
+gateway. On our left lay the plain of Troy, backed by the blue range of
+Mount Ida. The tamulus of Patroclus crowned a low bluff looking on the
+sea. On the right appeared the long, irregular island of Imbros, and the
+peaks of misty Samothrace over and beyond it. Tenedos was before us. The
+red flush of sunset tinged the grand Homeric landscape, and lingered and
+lingered on the summit of Ida, as if loth to depart. I paced the deck
+until long after it was too dark to distinguish it any more.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning we dropped anchor in the harbor of Smyrna, where we
+remained five hours. I engaged a donkey, and rode out to the Caravan
+Bridge, where the Greek driver and I smoked narghilehs and drank coffee in
+the shade of the acacias. I contrasted my impressions with those of my
+first visit to Smyrna last October--my first glimpse of Oriental ground.
+Then, every dog barked at me, and all the horde of human creatures who
+prey upon innocent travellers ran at my heels, but now, with my brown face
+and Turkish aspect of grave indifference, I was suffered to pass as
+quietly as my donkey-driver himself. Nor did the latter, nor the ready
+<i>cafidji</i>, who filled our pipes on the banks of the Meles, attempt to
+overcharge me--a sure sign that the Orient had left its seal on my face.
+Returning through the city, the same mishap befel me which travellers
+usually experience on their first arrival. My donkey, while dashing at
+full speed through a crowd of Smyrniotes in their Sunday dresses, slipped
+up in a little pool of black mud, and came down with a crash. I flew over
+his head and alighted firmly on my feet, but the spruce young Greeks,
+whose snowy fustanelles were terribly bespattered, came off much worse.
+The donkey shied back, levelled his ears and twisted his head on one side,
+awaiting a beating, but his bleeding legs saved him.</p>
+
+<p>We left at two o'clock, touched at Scio in the evening, and the next
+morning at sunrise lay-to in the harbor of Syra. The Pir&aelig;us was only
+twelve hours distant; but after my visitation of fever in Constantinople,
+I feared to encounter the pestilential summer heats of Athens. Besides, I
+had reasons for hastening with all speed to Italy and Germany. At ten
+o'clock we weighed anchor again and steered southwards, between the groups
+of the Cyclades, under a cloudless sky and over a sea of the brightest
+blue. The days were endurable under the canvas awning of our quarter-deck,
+but the nights in our berths were sweat-baths, which left us so limp and
+exhausted that we were almost fit to vanish, like ghosts, at daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>Our last glimpse of the Morea--Cape Matapan--faded away in the moonlight,
+and for <i>two</i> days we travelled westward over the burning sea. On the
+evening of the 11th, the long, low outline of Malta rose gradually against
+the last flush of sunset, and in two hours thereafter, we came to anchor
+in Quarantine Harbor. The quarantine for travellers returning from the
+East, which formerly varied from fourteen to twenty-one days, is now
+reduced to one day for those arriving from Greece or Turkey, and three
+days for those from Egypt and Syria. In our case, it was reduced to
+sixteen hours, by an official courtesy. I had intended proceeding directly
+to Naples; but by the contemptible trickery of the agents of the French
+steamers--a long history, which it is unnecessary to recapitulate--am left
+here to wait ten days for another steamer. It is enough to say that there
+are six other travellers at the same hotel, some coming from
+Constantinople, and some from Alexandria, in the same predicament. Because
+a single ticket to Naples costs some thirty or forty francs less than by
+dividing the trip into two parts, the agents in those cities refuse to
+give tickets further than Malta to those who are not keen enough to see
+through the deception. I made every effort to obtain a second ticket in
+time to leave by the branch steamer for Italy, but in vain.</p>
+
+<p>La Valetta is, to my eyes, the most beautiful small city in the world. It
+is a jewel of a place; not a street but is full of picturesque effects,
+and all the look-outs, which you catch at every turn, let your eyes rest
+either upon one of the beautiful harbors on each side, or the distant
+horizon of the sea. The streets are so clean that you might eat your
+dinner off the pavement; the white balconies and cornices of the houses,
+all cleanly cut in the soft Maltese stone, stand out in intense relief
+against the sky, and from the manifold reflections and counter
+reflections, the shadows (where there are any) become a sort of milder
+light. The steep sides of the promontory, on which the city is built, are
+turned into staircases, and it is an inexhaustible pastime to watch the
+groups, composed of all nations who inhabit the shores of the
+Mediterranean, ascending and descending. The Auberges of the old Knights,
+the Palace of the Grand Master, the Church of St. John, and other relics
+of past time, but more especially the fortifications, invest the place
+with a romantic interest, and I suspect that, after Venice and Granada,
+there are few cities where the Middle Ages have left more impressive
+traces of their history.</p>
+
+<p>The Maltese are contented, and appear to thrive under the English
+administration. They are a peculiar people, reminding me of the Arab even
+more than the Italian, while a certain rudeness in their build and motions
+suggests their Punic ancestry. Their language is a curious compound of
+Arabic and Italian, the former being the basis. I find that I can
+understand more than half that is said, the Arabic terminations being
+applied to Italian words. I believe it has never been successfully reduced
+to writing, and the restoration of pure Arabic has been proposed, with
+much reason, as preferable to an attempt to improve or refine it. Italian
+is the language used in the courts of justice and polite society, and is
+spoken here with much more purity than either in Naples or Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>The heat has been so great since I landed that I have not ventured outside
+of the city, except last evening to an amateur theatre, got up by the
+non-commissioned officers and privates in the garrison. The performances
+were quite tolerable, except a love-sick young damsel who spoke with a
+rough masculine voice, and made long strides across the stage when she
+rushed into her lover's arms. I am at a loss to account for the exhausting
+character of the heat. The thermometer shows 90&deg; by day, and 80&deg; to 85&deg; by
+night--a much lower temperature than I have found quite comfortable in
+Africa and Syria. In the Desert 100&deg; in the shade is rather bracing than
+otherwise; here, 90&deg; renders all exercise, more severe than smoking a
+pipe, impossible. Even in a state of complete inertia, a shirt-collar will
+fall starchless in five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Rather than waste eight more days in this glimmering half-existence, I
+have taken passage in a Maltese <i>speronara</i>, which sails this evening for
+Catania, in Sicily, where the grand festival of St. Agatha, which takes
+place once in a hundred years, will be celebrated next week. The trip
+promises a new experience, and I shall get a taste, slight though it be,
+of the golden Trinacria of the ancients. Perhaps, after all, this delay
+which so vexes me (bear in mind, I am no longer in the Orient!) may be
+meant solely for my good. At least, Mr. Winthrop, our Consul here, who has
+been exceedingly kind and courteous to me, thinks it a rare good fortune
+that I shall see the Catanian festa.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch30">
+<h2>Chapter XXX.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Festival of St. Agatha.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Departure from Malta--The Speronara--Our Fellow-Passengers--The First
+  Night on Board--Sicily--Scarcity of Provisions--Beating in the Calabrian
+  Channel--The Fourth Morning--The Gulf of Catania--A Sicilian
+  Landscape--The Anchorage--The Suspected List--The Streets of
+  Catania--Biography of St. Agatha--The Illuminations--The Procession of
+  the Veil--The Biscari Palace--The Antiquities of Catania--The Convent of
+  St. Nicola.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "The morn is full of holiday, loud bells<br />
+With rival clamors ring from every spire;<br />
+Cunningly-stationed music dies and swells<br />
+In echoing places; when the winds respire,<br />
+Light flags stream out like gauzy tongues of fire."--Keats.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Catania, Sicily, <i>Friday</i>, <i>August</i> 20, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>I went on board the <i>speronara</i> in the harbor of La Valetta at the
+appointed hour (5 P.M.), and found the remaining sixteen passengers
+already embarked. The captain made his appearance an hour later, with our
+bill of health and passports, and as the sun went down behind the brown
+hills of the island, we passed the wave-worn rocks of the promontory,
+dividing the two harbors, and slowly moved off towards Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>The Maltese <i>speronara</i> resembles the ancient Roman galley more than any
+modern craft. It has the same high, curved poop and stern, the same short
+masts and broad, square sails. The hull is too broad for speed, but this
+adds to the security of the vessel in a gale. With a fair wind, it rarely
+makes more than eight knots an hour, and in a calm, the sailors (if not
+too lazy) propel it forward with six long oars. The hull is painted in a
+fanciful style, generally blue, red, green and white, with bright red
+masts. The bulwarks are low, and the deck of such a convexity that it is
+quite impossible to walk it in a heavy sea. Such was the vessel to which I
+found myself consigned. It was not more than fifty feet long, and of less
+capacity than a Nile <i>dahabiyeh</i>. There was a sort of deck cabin, or crib,
+with two berths, but most of the passengers slept in the hold. For a
+passage to Catania I was obliged to pay forty francs, the owner swearing
+that this was the regular price; but, as I afterwards discovered, the
+Maltese only paid thirty-six francs for the whole trip. However, the
+Captain tried to make up the money's worth in civilities, and was
+incessant in his attentions to "your Lordships," as he styled myself and
+my companion, C&aelig;sar di Cagnola, a young Milanese.</p>
+
+<p>The Maltese were tailors and clerks, who were taking a holiday trip to
+witness the great festival of St. Agatha. With two exceptions, they were a
+wild and senseless, though good-natured set, and in spite of sea-sickness,
+which exercised them terribly for the first two days, kept up a constant
+jabber in their bastard Arabic from morning till night. As is usual in
+such a company, one of them was obliged to serve as a butt for the rest,
+and "Maestro Paolo," as they termed him, wore such a profoundly serious
+face all the while, from his sea-sickness, that the fun never came to an
+end. As they were going to a religious festival, some of them had brought
+their breviaries along with them; but I am obliged to testify that, after
+the first day, prayers were totally forgotten. The sailors, however, wore
+linen bags, printed with a figure of the Madonna, around their necks.</p>
+
+<p>The sea was rather rough, but C&aelig;sar and I fortified our stomachs with a
+bottle of English ale, and as it was dark by this time, sought our
+resting-places for the night. As we had paid double, <i>places</i> were assured
+us in the coop on deck, but beds were not included in the bargain. The
+Maltese, who had brought mattresses and spread a large Phalansteriau bed
+in the hold, fared much better. I took one of my carpet bags for a pillow
+and lay down on the planks, where I succeeded in getting a little sleep
+between the groans of the helpless land-lubbers. We had the <i>ponente</i>, or
+west-wind, all night, but the speronara moved sluggishly, and in the
+morning it changed to the <i>greco-levante,</i> or north-east. No land was in
+sight; but towards noon, the sky became clearer, and we saw the southern
+coast of Sicily--a bold mountain-shore, looming phantom-like in the
+distance. Cape Passaro was to the east, and the rest of the day was spent
+in beating up to it. At sunset, we were near enough to see the villages
+and olive-groves of the beautiful shore, and, far behind the nearer
+mountains, ninety miles distant, the solitary cone of Etna.</p>
+
+<p>The second night passed like the first, except that our bruised limbs were
+rather more sensitive to the texture of the planks. We crawled out of our
+coop at dawn, expecting to behold Catania in the distance; but there was
+Cape Passaro still staring us in the face. The Maltese were patient, and
+we did not complain, though C&aelig;sar and I began to make nice calculations as
+to the probable duration of our two cold fowls and three loaves of bread.
+The promontory of Syracuse was barely visible forty miles ahead; but the
+wind was against us, and so another day passed in beating up the eastern
+coast. At dusk, we overtook another speronara which had left Malta two
+hours before us, and this was quite a triumph to our captain, All the oars
+were shipped, the sailors and some of the more courageous passengers took
+hold, and we shot ahead, scudding rapidly along the dark shores, to the
+sound of the wild Maltese songs. At length, the promontory was gained, and
+the restless current, rolling down from Scylla and Charybdis, tossed our
+little bark from wave to wave with a recklessness that would have made any
+one nervous but an old sailor like myself.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow morning," said the Captain, "we shall sail into Catania;" but
+after a third night on the planks, which were now a little softer, we rose
+to find ourselves abreast of Syracuse, with Etna as distant as ever. The
+wind was light, and what little we made by tacking was swept away by the
+current, so that, after wasting the whole forenoon, we kept a straight
+course across the mouth of the channel, and at sunset saw the Calabrian
+Mountains. This move only lost us more ground, as it happened. C&aelig;sar and I
+mournfully and silently consumed our last fragment of beef, with the
+remaining dry crusts of bread, and then sat down doggedly to smoke and see
+whether the captain would discover our situation. But no; while we were
+supplied, the whole vessel was at our Lordships' command, and now that we
+were destitute, he took care to make no rash offers. C&aelig;sar, at last, with
+an imperial dignity becoming his name, commanded dinner. It came, and the
+pork and maccaroni, moistened with red Sicilian wine, gave us patience for
+another day.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth morning dawned, and--Great Neptune be praised!--we were
+actually within the Gulf of Catania. Etna loomed up in all his sublime
+bulk, unobscured by cloud or mist, while a slender jet of smoke, rising
+from his crater, was slowly curling its wreaths in the clear air, as if
+happy to receive the first beam of the sun. The towers of Syracuse, which
+had mocked us all the preceding day, were no longer visible; the
+land-locked little port of Augusta lay behind us; and, as the wind
+continued favorable, ere long we saw a faint white mark at the foot of the
+mountain. This was Catania. The shores of the bay were enlivened with
+olive-groves and the gleam of the villages, while here and there a single
+palm dreamed of its brothers across the sea. Etna, of course, had the
+monarch's place in the landscape, but even his large, magnificent outlines
+could not usurp all my feeling. The purple peaks to the westward and
+farther inland, had a beauty of their own, and in the gentle curves with
+which they leaned towards each other, there was a promise of the flowery
+meadows of Enna. The smooth blue water was speckled with fishing-boats. We
+hailed one, inquiring when the <i>festa</i> was to commence; but, mistaking our
+question, they answered: "Anchovies." Thereupon, a waggish Maltese
+informed them that Maestro Paolo thanked them heartily. All the other
+boats were hailed in the name of Maestro Paolo, who, having recovered from
+his sea-sickness, took his bantering good-humoredly.</p>
+
+<p>Catania presented a lovely picture, as we drew near the harbor. Planted at
+the very foot of Etna, it has a background such as neither Naples nor
+Genoa can boast. The hills next the sea are covered with gardens and
+orchards, sprinkled with little villages and the country palaces of the
+nobles--a rich, cultured landscape, which gradually merges into the
+forests of oak and chestnut that girdle the waist of the great volcano.
+But all the wealth of southern vegetation cannot hide the footsteps of
+that Ruin, which from time to time visits the soil. Half-way up, the
+mountain-side is dotted with cones of ashes and cinders, some covered with
+the scanty shrubbery which centuries have called forth, some barren and
+recent; while two dark, winding streams of sterile lava descend to the
+very shore, where they stand congealed in ragged needles and pyramids.
+Part of one of these black floods has swept the town, and, tumbling into
+the sea, walls one side of the port.</p>
+
+<p>We glided slowly past the mole, and dropped anchor a few yards from the
+shore. There was a sort of open promenade planted with trees, in front of
+us, surrounded with high white houses, above which rose the dome of the
+Cathedral and the spires of other churches. The magnificent palace of
+Prince Biscari was on our right, and at its foot the Customs and Revenue
+offices. Every roof, portico, and window was lined with lamps, a triumphal
+arch spanned the street before the palace, and the landing-place at the
+offices was festooned with crimson and white drapery, spangled with gold.
+While we were waiting permission to land, a scene presented itself which
+recalled the pagan days of Sicily to my mind. A procession came in sight
+from under the trees, and passed along the shore. In the centre was borne
+a stately shrine, hung with garlands, and containing an image of St.
+Agatha. The sound of flutes and cymbals accompanied it, and a band of
+children, bearing orange and palm branches, danced riotously before. Had
+the image been Pan instead of St. Agatha, the ceremonies would have been
+quite as appropriate.</p>
+
+<p>The speronara's boat at last took us to the gorgeous landing place, where
+we were carefully counted by a fat Sicilian official, and declared free
+from quarantine. We were then called into the Passport Office where the
+Maltese underwent a searching examination. One of the officers sat with
+the Black Book, or list of suspected persons of all nations, open before
+him, and looked for each name as it was called out. Another scanned the
+faces of the frightened tailors, as if comparing them with certain
+revolutionary visages in his mind. Terrible was the keen, detective glance
+of his eye, and it went straight through the poor Maltese, who vanished
+with great rapidity when they were declared free to enter the city. At
+last, they all passed the ordeal, but C&aelig;sar and I remained, looking in at
+the door. "There are still these two Frenchmen," said the captain. "I am
+no Frenchman," I protested; "I am an American." "And I," said C&aelig;sar, "am
+an Austrian subject." Thereupon we received a polite invitation to enter;
+the terrible glance softened into a benign, respectful smile; he of the
+Black Book ran lightly over the C's and T's, and said, with a courteous
+inclination: "There is nothing against the signori." I felt quite relieved
+by this; for, in the Mediterranean, one is never safe from spies, and no
+person is too insignificant to escape the ban, if once suspected.</p>
+
+<p>Calabria was filled to overflowing with strangers from all parts of the
+Two Sicilies, and we had some difficulty in finding very bad and dear
+lodgings. It was the first day of the <i>festa, </i> and the streets were
+filled with peasants, the men in black velvet jackets and breeches, with
+stockings, and long white cotton caps hanging on the shoulders, and the
+women with gay silk shawls on their heads, after the manner of the Mexican
+<i>reboza</i>. In all the public squares, the market scene in Masaniello was
+acted to the life. The Sicilian dialect is harsh and barbarous, and the
+original Italian is so disguised by the admixture of Arabic, Spanish,
+French, and Greek words, that even my imperial friend, who was a born
+Italian, had great difficulty in understanding the people.</p>
+
+<p>I purchased a guide to the festa, which, among other things, contained a
+biography of St. Agatha. It is a beautiful specimen of pious writing, and
+I regret that I have not space to translate the whole of it. Agatha was a
+beautiful Catanian virgin, who secretly embraced Christianity during the
+reign of Nero. Catania was then governed by a pr&aelig;tor named Quintianus,
+who, becoming enamored of Agatha, used the most brutal means to compel her
+to submit to his desires, but without effect. At last, driven to the
+cruelest extremes, he cut off her breasts, and threw her into prison. But
+at midnight, St. Peter, accompanied by an angel, appeared to her, restored
+the maimed parts, and left her more beautiful than ever. Quintianus then
+ordered a furnace to be heated, and cast her therein. A terrible
+earthquake shook the city; the sun was eclipsed; the sea rolled backwards,
+and left its bottom dry; the pr&aelig;tor's palace fell in ruins, and he,
+pursued by the vengeance of the populace, fled till he reached the river
+Simeto, where he was drowned in attempting to cross. "The thunders of the
+vengeance of God," says the biography, "struck him down into the
+profoundest Hell." This was in the year 252.</p>
+
+<p>The body was carried to Constantinople in 1040, "although the Catanians
+wept incessantly at their loss;" but in 1126, two French knights, named
+Gilisbert and Goselin, were moved by angelic influences to restore it to
+its native town, which they accomplished, "and the eyes of the Catanians
+again burned with joy." The miracles effected by the saint are numberless,
+and her power is especially efficacious in preventing earthquakes and
+eruptions of Mount Etna. Nevertheless, Catania has suffered more from
+these causes than any other town in Sicily. But I would that all saints
+had as good a claim to canonization as St. Agatha. The honors of such a
+festival as this are not out of place, when paid to such youth, beauty,
+and "heavenly chastity," as she typifies.</p>
+
+<p>The guide, which I have already consulted, gives a full account of the
+festa, in advance, with a description of Catania. The author says: "If thy
+heart is not inspired by gazing on this lovely city, it is a fatal
+sign--thou wert not born to feel the sweet impulses of the Beautiful!"
+Then, in announcing the illuminations and pyrotechnic displays, he
+exclaims: "Oh, the amazing spectacle! Oh, how happy art thou, that thou
+beholdest it! I What pyramids of lamps! What myriads of rockets! What
+wonderful temples of flame! The Mountain himself is astonished at such a
+display." And truly, except the illumination of the Golden Horn on the
+Night of Predestination, I have seen nothing equal to the spectacle
+presented by Catania, during the past three nights. The city, which has
+been built up from her ruins more stately than ever, was in a blaze of
+light--all her domes, towers, and the long lines of her beautiful palaces
+revealed in the varying red and golden flames of a hundred thousand lamps
+and torches. Pyramids of fire, transparencies, and illuminated triumphal
+arches filled the four principal streets, and the fountain in the
+Cathedral square gleamed like a jet of molten silver, spinning up from one
+of the pores of Etna. At ten o'clock, a gorgeous display of fireworks
+closed the day's festivities, but the lamps remained burning nearly all
+night.</p>
+
+<p>On the second night, the grand Procession of the Veil took place. I
+witnessed this imposing spectacle from the balcony of Prince Gessina's
+palace. Long lines of waxen torches led the way, followed by a military
+band, and then a company of the highest prelates, in their most brilliant
+costumes, surrounding the Bishop, who walked under a canopy of silk and
+gold, bearing the miraculous veil of St. Agatha. I was blessed with a
+distant view of it, but could see no traces of the rosy hue left upon it
+by the flames of the Saint's martyrdom. Behind the priests came the
+<i>Intendente</i> of Sicily, Gen. Filangieri, the same who, three years ago,
+gave up Catania to sack and slaughter. He was followed by the Senate of
+the City, who have just had the cringing cowardice to offer him a ball on
+next Sunday night. If ever a man deserved the vengeance of an outraged
+people, it is this Filangieri, who was first a Liberal, when the cause
+promised success, and then made himself the scourge of the vilest of
+kings. As he passed me last night in his carriage of State, while the
+music pealed in rich rejoicing strains, that solemn chant with which the
+monks break upon the revellers, in "Lucrezia Borgia," came into my mind:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "La gioja del profani<br />
+  'E un fumo passagier'--"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>[the rejoicing of the profane is a transitory mist.] I heard, under the
+din of all these festivities, the voice of that Retribution which even now
+lies in wait, and will not long be delayed.</p>
+
+<p>To-night Signor Scavo, the American Vice-Consul, took me to the palace of
+Prince Biscari, overlooking the harbor, in order to behold the grand
+display of fireworks from the end of the mole. The showers of rockets and
+colored stars, and the temples of blue and silver fire, were repeated in
+the dark, quiet bosom of the sea, producing the most dazzling and
+startling effects. There was a large number of the Catanese nobility
+present, and among them a Marchesa Gioveni, the descendant of the bloody
+house of Anjou. Prince Biscari is a benign, courtly old man, and greatly
+esteemed here. His son is at present in exile, on account of the part he
+took in the late revolution. During the sack of the city under Filangieri,
+the palace was plundered of property to the amount of ten thousand
+dollars. The museum of Greek and Roman antiquities attached to it, and
+which the house of Biscari has been collecting for many years, is probably
+the finest in Sicily. The state apartments were thrown open this evening,
+and when I left, an hour ago, the greater portion of the guests were going
+through mazy quadrilles on the mosaic pavements.</p>
+
+<p>Among the antiquities of Catania which I have visited, are the
+Amphitheatre, capable of holding 15,000 persons, the old Greek Theatre,
+the same in which Alcibiades made his noted harangue to the Catanians, the
+Odeon, and the ancient Baths. The theatre, which is in tolerable
+preservation, is built of lava, like many of the modern edifices in the
+city. The Baths proved to me, what I had supposed, that the Oriental Bath
+of the present day is identical with that of the Ancients. Why so
+admirable an institution has never been introduced into Europe (except in
+the <i>Bains Chinois</i> of Paris) is more than I can tell. From the pavement
+of these baths, which is nearly twenty feet below the surface of the
+earth, the lava of later eruptions has burst up, in places, in hard black
+jets. The most wonderful token of that flood which whelmed Catania two
+hundred years ago, is to be seen at the Grand Benedictine Convent of San
+Nicola, in the upper part of the city. Here the stream of lava divides
+itself just before the Convent, and flows past on both sides, leaving the
+building and gardens untouched. The marble courts, the fountains, the
+splendid galleries, and the gardens of richest southern bloom and
+fragrance, stand like an epicurean island in the midst of the terrible
+stony waves, whose edges bristle with the thorny aloe and cactus. The
+monks of San Nicola are all chosen from the Sicilian nobility, and live a
+comfortable life of luxury and vice. Each one has his own carriage,
+horses, and servants, and each his private chambers outside of the convent
+walls and his kept concubines. These facts are known and acknowledged by
+the Catanians, to whom they are a lasting scandal.</p>
+
+<p>It is past midnight, and I must close. C&aelig;sar started this afternoon,
+alone, for the ascent of Etna. I would have accompanied him, but my only
+chance of reaching Messina in time for the next steamer to Naples is the
+diligence which leaves here to-morrow. The mountain has been covered with
+clouds for the last two days, and I have had no view at all comparable to
+that of the morning of my arrival. To-morrow the grand procession of the
+Body of St. Agatha takes place, but I am quite satisfied with three days
+of processions and horse races, and three nights of illuminations.</p>
+
+<p>I leave in the morning, with a Sicilian passport, my own availing me
+nothing, after landing.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch31">
+<h2>Chapter XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Eruption of Mount Etna.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Mountain Threatens--The Signs Increase--We Leave Catania--Gardens
+  Among the Lava--Etna Labors--Aci Reale--The Groans of Etna--The
+  Eruption--Gigantic Tree of Smoke--Formation of the New Crater--We Lose
+  Sight of the Mountain--Arrival at Messina--Etna is Obscured--Departure.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  -------"the shattered side<br />
+Of thundering &AElig;tna, whose combustible<br />
+And fuel'd entrails thence conceiving fire,<br />
+Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,<br />
+And leave a singed bottom." Milton.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Messina, Sicily, <i>Monday, August</i> 23, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>The noises of the festival had not ceased when I closed my letter at
+midnight, on Friday last. I slept soundly through the night, but was
+awakened before sunrise by my Sicilian landlord. "O, Excellenza! have you
+heard the Mountain? He is going to break out again; may the holy Santa
+Agatha protect us!" It is rather ill-timed on the part of the Mountain,
+was my involuntary first thought, that he should choose for a new eruption
+precisely the centennial festival of the only Saint who is supposed to
+have any power over him. It shows a disregard of female influence not at
+all suited to the present day, and I scarcely believe that he seriously
+means it. Next came along the jabbering landlady: "I don't like his looks.
+It was just so the last time. Come, Excellenza, you can see him from the
+back terrace." The sun was not yet risen, but the east was bright with
+his coming, and there was not a cloud in the sky. All the features of Etna
+were sharply sculptured in the clear air. From the topmost cone, a thick
+stream of white smoke was slowly puffed out at short intervals, and rolled
+lazily down the eastern side. It had a heavy, languid character, and I
+should have thought nothing of the appearance but for the alarm of my
+hosts. It was like the slow fire of Earth's incense, burning on that grand
+mountain altar.</p>
+
+<p>I hurried off to the Post Office, to await the arrival of the diligence
+from Palermo. The office is in the Strada Etnea, the main street of
+Catania, which runs straight through the city, from the sea to the base of
+the mountain, whose peak closes the long vista. The diligence was an hour
+later than usual, and I passed the time in watching the smoke which
+continued to increase in volume, and was mingled, from time to time, with
+jets of inky blackness. The postilion said he had seen fires and heard
+loud noises during the night. According to his account, the disturbances
+commenced about midnight. I could not but envy my friend C&aelig;sar, who was
+probably at that moment on the summit, looking down into the seething
+fires of the crater.</p>
+
+<p>At last, we rolled out of Catania. There were in the diligence, besides
+myself, two men and a woman, Sicilians of the secondary class. The road
+followed the shore, over rugged tracts of lava, the different epochs of
+which could be distinctly traced in the character of the vegetation. The
+last great flow (of 1679) stood piled in long ridges of terrible
+sterility, barely allowing the aloe and cactus to take root in the hollows
+between. The older deposits were sufficiently decomposed to nourish the
+olive and vine; but even here, the orchards were studded with pyramids of
+the harder fragments, which are laboriously collected by the husbandmen.
+In the few favored spots which have been untouched for so many ages that a
+tolerable depth of soil has accumulated, the vegetation has all the
+richness and brilliancy of tropical lands. The palm, orange, and
+pomegranate thrive luxuriantly, and the vines almost break under their
+heavy clusters. The villages are frequent and well built, and the hills
+are studded, far and near, with the villas of rich proprietors, mostly
+buildings of one story, with verandahs extending their whole length.
+Looking up towards Etna, whose base the road encircles, the views are
+gloriously rich and beautiful. On the other hand is the blue Mediterranean
+and the irregular outline of the shore, here and there sending forth
+promontories of lava, cooled by the waves into the most fantastic forms.</p>
+
+<p>We had sot proceeded far before a new sign called my attention to the
+mountain. Not only was there a perceptible jar or vibration in the earth,
+but a dull, groaning sound, like the muttering of distant thunder, began
+to be heard. The smoke increased in volume, and, as we advanced further to
+the eastward, and much nearer to the great cone, I perceived that it
+consisted of two jets, issuing from different mouths. A broad stream of
+very dense white smoke still flowed over the lip of the topmost crater and
+down the eastern side. As its breadth did not vary, and the edges were
+distinctly defined, it was no doubt the sulphureous vapor rising from a
+river of molten lava. Perhaps a thousand yards below, a much stronger
+column of mingled black and white smoke gushed up, in regular beats or
+pants, from a depression in the mountain side, between two small, extinct
+cones. All this part of Etna was scarred with deep chasms, and in the
+bottoms of those nearest the opening, I could see the red gleam of fire.
+The air was perfectly still, and as yet there was no cloud in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>When we stopped to change horses at the town of Aci Reale, I first felt
+the violence of the tremor and the awful sternness of the sound. The smoke
+by this time seemed to be gathering on the side towards Catania, and hung
+in a dark mass about half-way down the mountain. Groups of the villagers
+were gathered in the streets which looked upwards to Etna, and discussing
+the chances of an eruption. "Ah," said an old peasant, "the Mountain knows
+how to make himself respected. When he talks, everybody listens." The
+sound was the most awful that ever met my ears. It was a hard, painful
+moan, now and then fluttering like a suppressed sob, and had, at the same
+time, an expression of threatening and of agony. It did not come from Etna
+alone. It had no fixed location; it pervaded all space. It was in the air,
+in the depths of the sea, in the earth under my feet--everywhere, in fact;
+and as it continued to increase in violence, I experienced a sensation of
+positive pain. The people looked anxious and alarmed, although they said
+it was a good thing for all Sicily; that last year they had been in
+constant fear from earthquakes, and that an eruption invariably left the
+island quiet for several years. It is true that, during the past year,
+parts of Sicily and Calabria have been visited with severe shocks,
+occasioning much damage to property. A merchant of this city informed me
+yesterday that his whole family had slept for two months in the vaults of
+his warehouse, fearing that their residence might be shaken down in the
+night.</p>
+
+<p>As we rode along from Aci Reale to Taormina, all the rattling of the
+diligence over the rough road could not drown the awful noise. There was a
+strong smell of sulphur in the air, and the thick pants of smoke from the
+lower crater continued to increase in strength. The sun was fierce and
+hot, and the edges of the sulphureous clouds shone with a dazzling
+whiteness. A mounted soldier overtook us, and rode beside the diligence,
+talking with the postillion. He had been up to the mountain, and was
+taking his report to the Governor of the district. The heat of the day and
+the continued tremor of the air lulled me into a sort of doze, when I was
+suddenly aroused by a cry from the soldier and the stopping of the
+diligence. At the same time, there was a terrific peal of sound, followed
+by a jar which must have shaken the whole island. We looked up to Etna,
+which was fortunately in full view before us. An immense mass of
+snow-white smoke had burst up from the crater and was rising
+perpendicularly into the air, its rounded volumes rapidly whirling one
+over the other, yet urged with such impetus that they only rolled outwards
+after they had ascended to an immense height. It might have been one
+minute or five--for I was so entranced by this wonderful spectacle that I
+lost the sense of time--but it seemed instantaneous (so rapid and violent
+were the effects of the explosion), when there stood in the air, based on
+the summit of the mountain, a mass of smoke four or five miles high, and
+shaped precisely like the Italian pine tree.</p>
+
+<p>Words cannot paint the grandeur of this mighty tree. Its trunk of columned
+smoke, one side of which was silvered by the sun, while the other, in
+shadow, was lurid with red flame, rose for more than a mile before it sent
+out its cloudy boughs. Then parting into a thousand streams, each of
+which again threw out its branching tufts of smoke, rolling and waving in
+the air, it stood in intense relief against the dark blue of the sky. Its
+rounded masses of foliage were dazzlingly white on one side, while, in the
+shadowy depths of the branches, there was a constant play of brown,
+yellow, and crimson tints, revealing the central shaft of fire. It was
+like the tree celebrated in the Scandinavian sagas, as seen by the mother
+of Harold Hardrada--that tree, whose roots pierced through the earth,
+whose trunk was of the color of blood, and whose branches filled the
+uttermost corners of the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>This outburst seemed to have relieved the mountain, for the tremors were
+now less violent, though the terrible noise still droned in the air, and
+earth, and sea. And now, from the base of the tree, three white streams
+slowly crept into as many separate chasms, against the walls of which
+played the flickering glow of the burning lava. The column of smoke and
+flame was still hurled upwards, and the tree, after standing about ten
+minutes--a new and awful revelation of the active forces of
+Nature--gradually rose and spread, lost its form, and, slowly moved by a
+light wind (the first that disturbed the dead calm of the day), bent over
+to the eastward. We resumed our course. The vast belt of smoke at last
+arched over the strait, here about twenty miles wide, and sank towards the
+distant Calabrian shore. As we drove under it, for some miles of our way,
+the sun was totally obscured, and the sky presented the singular spectacle
+of two hemispheres of clear blue, with a broad belt of darkness drawn
+between them. There was a hot, sulphureous vapor in the air, and showers
+of white ashes fell, from time to time. We were distant about twelve
+miles, in a straight line, from the crater; but the air was so clear,
+even under the shadow of the smoke, that I could distinctly trace the
+downward movement of the rivers of lava.</p>
+
+<p>This was the eruption, at last, to which all the phenomena of the morning
+had been only preparatory. For the first time in ten years the depths of
+Etna had been stirred, and I thanked God for my detention at Malta, and
+the singular hazard of travel which had brought me here, to his very base,
+to witness a scene, the impression of which I shall never lose, to my
+dying day. Although the eruption may continue and the mountain pour forth
+fiercer fires and broader tides of lava, I cannot but think that the first
+upheaval, which lets out the long-imprisoned forces, will not be equalled
+in grandeur by any later spectacle.
+
+After passing Taormina, our road led us under the hills of the coast, and
+although I occasionally caught glimpses of Etna, and saw the reflection of
+fires from the lava which was filling up his savage ravines, the smoke at
+last encircled his waist, and he was then shut out of sight by the
+intervening mountains. We lost a bolt in a deep valley opening on the sea,
+and during our stoppage I could still hear the groans of the Mountain,
+though farther off and less painful to the ear. As evening came on, the
+beautiful hills of Calabria, with white towns and villages on their sides,
+gleamed in the purple light of the setting sun. We drove around headland
+after headland, till the strait opened, and we looked over the harbor of
+Messina to Capo Faro, and the distant islands of the Tyrrhene Sea.</p>
+
+<hr width="80%" />
+
+<p>I leave this afternoon for Naples and Leghorn. I have lost already so much
+time between Constantinople and this place, that I cannot give up ten
+days more to Etna. Besides, I am so thoroughly satisfied with what I have
+seen, that I fear no second view of the eruption could equal it. Etna
+cannot be seen from here, nor from a nearer point than a mountain six or
+eight miles distant. I tried last evening to get a horse and ride out to
+it, in order to see the appearance of the eruption by night; but every
+horse, mule and donkey in the place was engaged, except a miserable lame
+mule, for which five dollars was demanded. However, the night happened to
+be cloudy so that I could have seen nothing.</p>
+
+<p>My passport is finally <i>en r&egrave;gle</i>. It has cost the labors of myself and an
+able-bodied valet-de-place since yesterday morning, and the expenditure of
+five dollars and a half, to accomplish this great work. I have just been
+righteously abusing the Neapolitan Government to a native merchant whom,
+from his name, I took to be a Frenchman, but as I am off in an hour or
+two, hope to escape arrest. Perdition to all Tyranny!</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch32">
+<h2>Chapter XXXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Gibraltar.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
+  Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
+  Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
+  Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  ------"to the north-west, Cape St. Vincent died away,<br />
+Sunset ran, a burning blood-red, blushing into Cadiz Bay.<br />
+In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray."</p>
+
+<p>  Browning.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Gibraltar, <i>Saturday, November</i> 6, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>I leave unrecorded the links of travel which connected Messina and
+Gibraltar. They were over the well-trodden fields of Europe, where little
+ground is left that is not familiar. In leaving Sicily I lost the
+Saracenic trail, which I had been following through the East, and first
+find it again here, on the rock of Calpe, whose name, <i>Djebel el-Tarik</i>
+(the Mountain of Tarik), still speaks of the fiery race whose rule
+extended from the unknown ocean of the West to "Ganges and Hydaspes,
+Indian streams." In Malta and Sicily, I saw their decaying watch-towers,
+and recognized their sign-manual in the deep, guttural, masculine words
+and expressions which they have left behind them. I now design following
+their footsteps through the beautiful <i>Bel&agrave;d-el-Andaluz</i>, which, to the
+eye of the Melek Abd-er-rahm&agrave;n, was only less lovely than the plains of
+Damascus.</p>
+
+<p>While in Constantinople, I received letters which opened to me wider and
+richer fields of travel than I had already traversed. I saw a possibility
+of exploring the far Indian realms, the shores of farthest Cathay and the
+famed Zipango of Marco Polo. Before entering on this new sphere of
+experiences, however, it was necessary for me to visit Italy, Germany, and
+England. I sailed from Messina to Leghorn, and travelled thence, by way of
+Florence, Venice, and the Tyrol, to Munich. After three happy weeks at
+Gotha, and among the valleys of she Th&uuml;ringian Forest, I went to London,
+where business and the preparation for my new journeys detained me two or
+three weeks longer. Although the comforts of European civilization were
+pleasant, as a change, after the wild life of the Orient, the autumnal
+rains of England soon made me homesick for the sunshine I had left. The
+weather was cold, dark, and dreary, and the oppressive, sticky atmosphere
+of the bituminous metropolis weighed upon me like a nightmare. Heartily
+tired of looking at a sun that could show nothing brighter than a red
+copper disk, and of breathing an air that peppered my face with particles
+of soot, I left on the 28th of October. It was one of the dismalest days
+of autumn; the meadows of Berkshire were flooded with broad, muddy
+streams, and the woods on the hills of Hampshire looked brown and sodden,
+as if slowly rotting away. I reached Southampton at dusk, but there the
+sky was neither warmer nor clearer, so I spent the evening over a coal
+fire, all impatience for the bright beloved South, towards which my face
+was turned once more.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Madras</i> left on the next day, at 2 P.M., in the midst of a cheerless
+rain, which half blotted out the pleasant shores of Southampton Water, and
+the Isle of Wight. The <i>Madras</i> was a singularly appropriate vessel for
+one bound on such a journey as mine. The surgeon was Dr. Mungo Park, and
+one of my room-mates was Mr. R. Crusoe. It was a Friday, which boded no
+good for the voyage; but then my journey commenced with my leaving London
+the day previous, and Thursday is a lucky day among the Arabs. I caught a
+watery view of the gray cliffs of the Needles, when dinner was announced,
+but many were those (and I among them) who commenced that meal, and did
+not stay to finish it.</p>
+
+<p>Is there any piece of water more unreasonably, distressingly, disgustingly
+rough and perverse than the British Channel? Yes: there is one, and but
+one--the Bay of Biscay. And as the latter succeeds the former, without a
+pause between, and the head-winds never ceased, and the rain continually
+poured, I leave you to draw the climax of my misery. Four days and four
+nights in a berth, lying on your back, now dozing dull hour after hour,
+now making faint endeavors to eat, or reading the feeblest novel ever
+written, because the mind cannot digest stronger aliment--can there be a
+greater contrast to the wide-awake life, the fiery inspiration, of the
+Orient? My blood became so sluggish and my mind so cloudy and befogged,
+that I despaired of ever thinking clearly or feeling vividly again. "The
+winds are rude" in Biscay, Byron says. They are, indeed: very rude. They
+must have been raised in some most disorderly quarter of the globe. They
+pitched the waves right over our bulwarks, and now and then dashed a
+bucketful of water down the cabin skylight, swamping the ladies' cabin,
+and setting scores of bandboxes afloat. Not that there was the least
+actual danger; but Mrs. ---- would not be persuaded that we were not on
+the brink of destruction, and wrote to friends at home a voluminous
+account of her feelings. There was an Irishman on board, bound to Italy,
+with his sister. It was his first tour, and when asked why he did not go
+direct, through France, he replied, with brotherly concern, that he was
+anxious his sister should see the Bay of Biscay.</p>
+
+<p>This youth's perceptions were of such an emerald hue, that a lot of wicked
+Englishmen had their own fun out of him. The other day, he was trying to
+shave, to the great danger of slicing off his nose, as the vessel was
+rolling fearfully. "Why don't you have the ship headed to the wind?" said
+one of the Englishmen, who heard his complaints; "she will then lie
+steady, and you can shave beautifully." Thereupon the Irishman sent one of
+the stewards upon deck with a polite message to the captain, begging him
+to put the vessel about for five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Towards noon of the fifth day, we saw the dark, rugged mountains that
+guard the north-western corner of the Spanish Peninsula. We passed the Bay
+of Corunna, and rounding the bold headland of Finisterre, left the
+Biscayan billows behind us. But the sea was still rough and the sky
+clouded, although the next morning the mildness of the air showed the
+change in our latitude. About noon that day, we made the Burlings, a
+cluster of rocks forty miles north of Lisbon, and just before sunset, a
+transient lifting of the clouds revealed the Rock of Cintra, at the mouth
+of the Tagus. The tall, perpendicular cliffs, and the mountain slopes
+behind, covered with gardens, orchards, and scattered villas and hamlets,
+made a grand though dim picture, which was soon hidden from our view.</p>
+
+<p>On the 4th, we were nearly all day crossing the mouth of the Bay of
+Cadiz, and only at sunset saw Cape Trafalgar afar off, glimmering through
+the reddish haze. I remained on deck, as there were patches of starlight
+in the sky. After passing the light-house at Tarifa, the Spanish shore
+continued to be visible. In another hour, there was a dim, cloudy outline
+high above the horizon, on our right. This was the Lesser Atlas, in
+Morocco. And now, right ahead, distinctly visible, though fifteen miles
+distant, lay a colossal lion, with his head on his outstretched paws,
+looking towards Africa. If I had been brought to the spot blindfolded, I
+should have known what it was. The resemblance is certainly very striking,
+and the light-house on Europa Point seemed to be a lamp held in his paws.
+The lights of the city and fortifications rose one by one, glittering
+along the base, and at midnight we dropped anchor before them on the
+western side.</p>
+
+<p>I landed yesterday morning. The mists, which had followed me from England,
+had collected behind the Rock, and the sun, still hidden by its huge bulk,
+shone upwards through them, making a luminous background, against which
+the lofty walls and jagged ramparts of this tremendous natural
+fortification were clearly defined. I announced my name, and the length of
+time I designed remaining, at a little office on the quay, and was then
+allowed to pass into the city. A number of familiar white turbans met me
+on entering, and I could not resist the temptation of cordially saluting
+the owners in their own language. The town is long and narrow, lying
+steeply against the Rock. The houses are white, yellow and pink, as in
+Spanish towns, but the streets are clean and well paved. There is a
+square, about the size of an ordinary building-lot, where a sort of
+market of dry goods and small articles is held The "Club-House Hotel"
+occupies one side of it; and, as I look out of my window upon it, I see
+the topmost cliffs of the Rock above me, threatening to topple down from a
+height of 1,500 feet.</p>
+
+<p>My first walk in Gibraltar was in search of a palm-tree. After threading
+the whole length of the town, I found two small ones in a garden, in the
+bottom of the old moat. The sun was shining, and his rays seemed to fall
+with double warmth on their feathery crests. Three brown Spaniards,
+bare-armed, were drawing water with a pole and bucket, and filling the
+little channels which conveyed it to the distant vegetables. The sea
+glittered blue below; an Indian fig-tree shaded me; but, on the rock
+behind, an aloe lifted its blossoming stem, some twenty feet high, into
+the sunshine. To describe what a weight was lifted from my heart would
+seem foolish to those who do not know on what little things the whole tone
+of our spirits sometimes depends.</p>
+
+<p>But if an even balance was restored yesterday, the opposite scale kicked
+the beam this morning. Not a speck of vapor blurred the spotless crystal
+of the sky, as I walked along the hanging paths of the Alameda. The sea
+was dazzling ultra-marine, with a purple lustre; every crag and notch of
+the mountains across the bay, every shade of brown or gray, or the green
+of grassy patches, was drawn and tinted with a pencil so exquisitely
+delicate as almost to destroy the perspective. The white houses of
+Algeciras, five miles off, appeared close at hand: a little toy-town,
+backed by miniature hills. Apes' Hill, the ancient Abyla, in Africa,
+advanced to meet Calpe, its opposing pillar, and Atlas swept away to the
+east ward, its blue becoming paler and paler, till the powers of vision
+finally failed. From the top of the southern point of the Rock, I saw the
+mountain-shore of Spain, as far as Malaga, and the snowy top of one of the
+Sierra Nevada. Looking eastward to the horizon line of the Mediterranean,
+my sight extended so far, in the wonderful clearness of the air, that the
+convexity of the earth's surface was plainly to be seen. The sea, instead
+of being a plane, was slightly convex, and the sky, instead of resting
+upon it at the horizon, curved down beyond it, as the upper side of a horn
+curves over the lower, when one looks into the mouth. There is none of the
+many aspects of Nature more grand than this, which is so rarely seen, that
+I believe the only person who has ever described it is Humboldt, who saw
+it, looking from the Silla de Caraccas over the Caribbean Sea. It gives
+you the impression of standing on the edge of the earth, and looking off
+into space. From the mast-head, the ocean appears either flat or slightly
+concave, and &aelig;ronauts declare that this apparent concavity becomes more
+marked, the higher they ascend. It is only at those rare periods when the
+air is so miraculously clear as to produce the effect of <i>no
+air</i>--rendering impossible the slightest optical illusion--that our eyes
+can see things as they really are. So pure was the atmosphere to-day,
+that, at meridian, the moon, although a thin sickle, three days distant
+from the sun, shone perfectly white and clear.</p>
+
+<p>As I loitered in the Alameda, between thick hedges of ever-blooming
+geraniums, clumps of heliotrope three feet high, and luxuriant masses of
+ivy, around whose warm flowers the bees clustered and hummed, I could only
+think of the voyage as a hideous dream. The fog and gloom had been in my
+own eyes and in my own brain, and now the blessed sun, shining full in my
+face, awoke me. I am a worshipper of the Sun. I took off my hat to him, as
+I stood there, in a wilderness of white, crimson, and purple flowers, and
+let him blaze away in my face for a quarter of an hour. And as I walked
+home with my back to him, I often turned my face from side to side that I
+might feel his touch on my cheek. How a man can live, who is sentenced to
+a year's imprisonment, is more than I can understand.</p>
+
+<p>But all this (you will say) gives you no picture of Gibraltar. The Rock is
+so familiar to all the world, in prints and descriptions, that I find
+nothing new to say of it, except that it is by no means so barren a rock
+as the island of Malta, being clothed, in many places, with beautiful
+groves and the greenest turf; besides, I have not yet seen the
+rock-galleries, having taken passage for Cadiz this afternoon. When I
+return--as I hope to do in twenty days, after visiting Seville and
+Granada--I shall procure permission to view all the fortifications, and
+likewise to ascend to the summit.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch33">
+<h2>Chapter XXXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Cadiz And Seville.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
+  Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
+  House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
+  Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar-Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
+  House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
+  Evening in Seville.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "The walls of Cadiz front the shore,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And shimmer o'er the sea."</p>
+
+<p>  R. H. Stoddard.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Beautiful Seville!<br />
+Of which I've dreamed, until I saw its towers<br />
+In every cloud that hid the setting sun."</p>
+
+<p>  George H. Boker.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Seville, <i>November</i> 10, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>I left Gibraltar on the evening of the 6th, in the steamer Iberia. The
+passage to Cadiz was made in nine hours, and we came to anchor in the
+harbor before day-break. It was a cheerful picture that the rising sun
+presented to us. The long white front of the city, facing the East, glowed
+with a bright rosy lustre, on a ground of the clearest blue. The tongue of
+land on which Cadiz stands is low, but the houses are lifted by the heavy
+sea-wall which encompasses them. The main-land consists of a range of low
+but graceful hills, while in the south-east the mountains of Ronda rise at
+some distance. I went immediately on shore, where my carpet-bag was seized
+upon by a boy, with the rich brown complexion of one Murillo's beggars,
+who trudged off with it to the gate. After some little detention there, I
+was conducted to a long, deserted, barn-like building, where I waited half
+an hour before the proper officer came. When the latter had taken his
+private toll of my contraband cigars, the brown imp conducted me to
+Blanco's English Hotel, a neat and comfortable house on the Alameda.</p>
+
+<p>Cadiz is soon seen. Notwithstanding its venerable age of three thousand
+years--having been founded by Hercules, who figures on its
+coat-of-arms--it is purely a commercial city, and has neither antiquities,
+nor historic associations that interest any but Englishmen. It is
+compactly built, and covers a smaller space than accords with my ideas of
+its former splendor. I first walked around the sea-ramparts, enjoying the
+glorious look-off over the blue waters. The city is almost insulated, the
+triple line of fortifications on the land side being of but trifling
+length. A rocky ledge stretches out into the sea from the northern point,
+and at its extremity rises the massive light-house tower, 170 feet high.
+The walls toward the sea were covered with companies of idle anglers,
+fishing with cane rods of enormous length. On the open, waste spaces
+between the bastions, boys had spread their limed cords to catch singing
+birds, with chirping decoys placed here and there in wicker cages. Numbers
+of boatmen and peasants, in their brown jackets, studded with tags and
+bugles, and those round black caps which resemble smashed bandboxes,
+loitered about the walls or lounged on the grass in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Except along the Alameda, which fronts the bay, the exterior of the city
+has an aspect of neglect and desertion. The interior, however, atones for
+this in the gay and lively air of its streets, which, though narrow, are
+regular and charmingly clean. The small plazas are neatness itself, and
+one is too content with this to ask for striking architectural effects.
+The houses are tall and stately, of the most dazzling whiteness, and
+though you could point out no one as a pattern of style, the general
+effect is chaste and harmonious. In fact, there are two or three streets
+which you would almost pronounce faultless. The numbers of hanging
+balconies and of court-yards paved with marble and surrounded with elegant
+corridors, show the influence of Moorish taste. There is not a
+mean-looking house to be seen, and I have no doubt that Cadiz is the best
+built city of its size in the world. It lies, white as new-fallen snow,
+like a cluster of ivory palaces, between sea and sky. Blue and silver are
+its colors, and, as everybody knows, there can be no more charming
+contrast.</p>
+
+<p>I visited both the old and new cathedrals, neither of which is
+particularly interesting. The latter is unfinished, and might have been a
+fine edifice had the labor and money expended on its construction been
+directed by taste. The interior, rich as it is in marbles and sculpture,
+has a heavy, confused effect. The pillars dividing the nave from the
+side-aisles are enormous composite masses, each one consisting of six
+Corinthian columns, stuck around and against a central shaft. More
+satisfactory to me was the Opera-House, which I visited in the evening,
+and where the dazzling array of dark-eyed Gaditanas put a stop to
+architectural criticism. The women of Cadiz are noted for their beauty and
+their graceful gait. Some of them are very beautiful, it is true; but
+beauty is not the rule among them. Their gait, however, is the most
+graceful possible, because it is perfectly free and natural. The
+commonest serving-maid who walks the streets of Cadiz would put to shame a
+whole score of our mincing and wriggling belles.</p>
+
+<p>Honest old Blanco prepared me a cup of chocolate by sunrise next morning,
+and accompanied me down to the quay, to embark for Seville. A furious wind
+was blowing from the south-east, and the large green waves raced and
+chased one another incessantly over the surface of the bay. I took a heavy
+craft, which the boatmen pushed along under cover of the pier, until they
+reached the end, when the sail was dropped in the face of the wind, and
+away we shot into the watery tumult. The boat rocked and bounced over the
+agitated surface, running with one gunwale on the waves, and sheets of
+briny spray broke over me. I felt considerably relieved when I reached the
+deck of the steamer, but it was then diversion enough to watch those who
+followed. The crowd of boats pitching tumultuously around the steamer,
+jostling against each other, their hulls gleaming with wet, as they rose
+on the beryl-colored waves, striped with long, curded lines of wind-blown
+foam, would have made a fine subject for the pencil of Achenbach.</p>
+
+<p>At last we pushed off, with a crowd of passengers fore and aft, and a
+pyramid of luggage piled around the smoke-pipe. There was a party of four
+Englishmen on board, and, on making their acquaintance, I found one of
+them to be a friend to some of my friends--Sir John Potter, the
+progressive ex-Mayor of Manchester. The wind being astern, we ran rapidly
+along the coast, and in two hours entered the mouth of the Guadalquivir.
+[This name comes from the Arabic <i>wadi el-kebeer</i>--literally, the Great
+Valley.] The shores are a dead flat. The right bank is a dreary forest of
+stunted pines, abounding with deer and other game; on the left is the
+dilapidated town of San Lucar, whence Magellan set sail on his first
+voyage around the world. A mile further is Bonanza, the port of Xeres,
+where we touched and took on board a fresh lot of passengers. Thenceforth,
+for four hours, the scenery of the Guadalquivir had a most distressing
+sameness. The banks were as flat as a board, with here and there a
+straggling growth of marshy thickets. Now and then we passed a herdsman's
+hut, but there were no human beings to be seen, except the peasants who
+tended the large flocks of sheep and cattle. A sort of breakfast was
+served in the cabin, but so great was the number of guests that I had much
+difficulty in getting anything to eat. The waiters were models of calmness
+and deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>As we approached Seville, some low hills appeared on the left, near the
+river. Dazzling white villages were planted at their foot, and all the
+slopes were covered with olive orchards, while the banks of the stream
+were bordered with silvery birch trees. This gave the landscape, in spite
+of the African warmth and brightness of the day, a gray and almost wintry
+aspect. Soon the graceful Giralda, or famous Tower of Seville, arose in
+the distance; but, from the windings of the river, we were half an hour in
+reaching the landing-place. One sees nothing of the far-famed beauty of
+Seville, on approaching it. The boat stops below the Alameda, where the
+passengers are received by Custom-House officers, who, in my case, did not
+verify the stories told of them in Cadiz. I gave my carpet-bag to a boy,
+who conducted me along the hot and dusty banks to the bridge over the
+Guadalquivir, where he turned into the city. On passing the gate, two
+loafer-like guards stopped my baggage, notwithstanding it had already been
+examined. "What!" said I, "do you examine twice on entering Seville?"
+"Yes," answered one; "twice, and even three times;" but added in a lower
+tone, "it depends entirely on yourself." With that he slipped behind me,
+and let one hand fall beside my pocket. The transfer of a small coin was
+dexterously made, and I passed on without further stoppage to the Fonda de
+Madrid.</p>
+
+<p>Sir John Potter engaged Antonio Bailli, the noted guide of Seville, who
+professes to have been the cicerone of all distinguished travellers, from
+Lord Byron and Washington Irving down to Owen Jones, and I readily
+accepted his invitation to join the party. Bailli is recommended by Ford
+as "fat and good-humored" Fat he certainly is, and very good-humored when
+speaking of himself, but he has been rather spoiled by popularity, and is
+much too profuse in his critical remarks on art and architecture.
+Nevertheless, as my stay in Seville is limited, I have derived no slight
+advantage from his services.</p>
+
+<p>On the first morning I took an early stroll through the streets. The
+houses are glaringly white, like those of Cadiz, but are smaller and have
+not the same stately exteriors. The windows are protected by iron
+gratings, of florid patterns, and, as many of these are painted green, the
+general effect is pleasing. Almost every door opens upon a <i>patio</i>, or
+courtyard, paved with black and white marble and adorned with flowers and
+fountains. Many of these remain from the time of the Moors, and are still
+surrounded by the delicate arches and brilliant tile-work of that period.
+The populace in the streets are entirely Spanish--the jaunty <i>majo</i> in
+his queer black cap, sash, and embroidered jacket, and the nut-brown,
+dark-eyed damsel, swimming along in her mantilla, and armed with the
+irresistible fan.</p>
+
+<p>We went first to the Cathedral, built on the site of the great mosque of
+Abou Youssuf Yakoub. The tall Giralda beckoned to us over the tops of the
+intervening buildings, and finally a turn in the street brought us to the
+ancient Moorish gateway on the northern side. This is an admirable
+specimen of the horse-shoe arch, and is covered with elaborate tracery. It
+originally opened into the court, or <i>h&agrave;ram</i>, of the mosque, which still
+remains, and is shaded by a grove of orange trees. The Giralda, to my eye,
+is a more perfect tower than the Campanile of Florence, or that of San
+Marco, at Venice, which is evidently an idea borrowed from it. The Moorish
+structure, with a base of fifty feet square, rises to the height of two
+hundred and fifty feet. It is of a light pink color, and the sides, which
+are broken here and there by exquisitely proportioned double Saracenic
+arches, are covered from top to bottom with arabesque tracery, cut in
+strong relief. Upon this tower, a Spanish architect has placed a tapering
+spire, one hundred feet high, which fortunately harmonizes with the
+general design, and gives the crowning grace to the work.</p>
+
+<p>The Cathedral of Seville may rank as one of the grandest Gothic piles in
+Europe. The nave lacks but five feet of being as high as that of St.
+Peter's, while the length and breadth of the edifice are on a commensurate
+scale. The ninety-three windows of stained glass fill the interior with a
+soft and richly-tinted light, mellower and more gentle than the sombre
+twilight of the Gothic Cathedrals of Europe. The wealth lavished on the
+smaller chapels and shrines is prodigious, and the high altar, inclosed
+within a gilded railing fifty feet high, is probably the most enormous
+mass of wood-carving in existence. The Cathedral, in fact, is encumbered
+with its riches. While they bewilder you as monuments of human labor and
+patience, they detract from the grand simplicity of the building. The
+great nave, on each side of the transept, is quite blocked up, so that the
+choir and magnificent royal chapel behind it have almost the effect of
+detached edifices.</p>
+
+<p>We returned again this morning, remaining two hours, and succeeded in
+making a thorough survey, including a number of trashy pictures and
+barbarously rich shrines. Murillo's "Guardian Angel" and the "Vision of
+St. Antonio" are the only gems. The treasury contains a number of sacred
+vessels of silver, gold and jewels--among other things, the keys of
+Moorish Seville, a cross made of the first gold brought from the New-World
+by Columbus, and another from that robbed in Mexico by Cortez. The
+Cathedral won my admiration more and more. The placing of the numerous
+windows, and their rich coloring, produce the most glorious effects of
+light in the lofty aisles, and one is constantly finding new vistas, new
+combinations of pillar, arch and shrine. The building is in itself a
+treasury of the grandest Gothic pictures.</p>
+
+<p>From the Cathedral we went to the Alcazar <i>(El-Kasr),</i> or Palace of the
+Moorish Kings. We entered by a long passage, with round arches on either
+side, resting on twin pillars, placed at right angles to the line of the
+arch, as one sees both in Saracenic and Byzantine structures. Finally, old
+Bailli brought us into a dull, deserted court-yard, where we were
+surprised by the sight of an entire Moorish fa&ccedil;ade, with its pointed
+arches, its projecting roof, its rich sculptured ornaments and its
+illuminations of red, blue, green and gold. It has been lately restored,
+and now rivals in freshness and brilliancy any of the rich houses of
+Damascus. A doorway, entirely too low and mean for the splendor of the
+walls above it, admitted us into the first court. On each side of the
+passage are the rooms of the guard and the Moorish nobles. Within, all is
+pure Saracenic, and absolutely perfect in its grace and richness. It is
+the realization of an Oriental dream; it is the poetry and luxury of the
+East in tangible forms. Where so much depends on the proportion and
+harmony of the different parts--on those correspondences, the union of
+which creates that nameless soul of the work, which cannot be expressed in
+words--it is useless to describe details. From first to last--the chambers
+of state; the fringed arches; the open tracery, light and frail as the
+frost-stars crystallized on a window-pane; the courts, fit to be
+vestibules to Paradise; the audience-hall, with its wondrous sculptures,
+its columns and pavement of marble, and its gilded dome; the garden,
+gorgeous with its palm, banana, and orange-trees--all were in perfect
+keeping, all jewels of equal lustre, forming a diadem which still lends a
+royal dignity to the phantom of Moorish power.</p>
+
+<p>We then passed into the gardens laid out by the Spanish monarchs--trim,
+mathematical designs, in box and myrtle, with concealed fountains
+springing up everywhere unawares in the midst of the paven walks; yet
+still made beautiful by the roses and jessamines that hung in rank
+clusters over the marble balustrades, and by the clumps of tall orange
+trees, bending to earth under the weight of their fruitage. We afterward
+visited Pilate's House, as it is called--a fine Spanish-Moresco palace,
+now belonging to the Duke of Medina Coeli. It is very rich and elegant,
+but stands in the same relation to the Alcazar as a good copy does to the
+original picture. The grand staircase, nevertheless, is a marvel of tile
+work, unlike anything else in Seville, and exhibits a genius in the
+invention of elaborate ornamental patterns, which is truly wonderful. A
+number of workmen were busy in restoring the palace, to fit it for the
+residence of the young Duke. The Moorish sculptures are reproduced in
+plaster, which, at least, has a better effect than the fatal whitewash
+under which the original tints of the Alcazar are hidden. In the courts
+stand a number of Roman busts--Spanish antiquities, and therefore not of
+great merit--singularly out of place in niches surrounded by Arabic
+devices and sentences from the Koran.</p>
+
+<p>This morning, I climbed the Giralda. The sun had just risen, and the clay
+was fresh and crystal-clear. A little door in the Cathedral, near the foot
+of the tower, stood open, and I entered. A rather slovenly Sevilla&ntilde;a had
+just completed her toilet, but two children were still in undress.
+However, she opened a door in the tower, and I went up without hindrance.
+The ascent is by easy ramps, and I walked four hundred yards, or nearly a
+quarter of a mile, before reaching the top of the Moorish part. The
+panoramic view was superb. To the east and west, the Great Valley made a
+level line on a far-distant horizon. There were ranges of hills in the
+north and south, and those rising near the city, clothed in a gray mantle
+of olive-trees, were picturesquely crowned with villages. The
+Guadalquivir, winding in the most sinuous mazes, had no longer a turbid
+hue; he reflected the blue morning sky, and gleamed brightly between his
+borders of birch and willow. Seville sparkled white and fair under my
+feet, her painted towers and tiled domes rising thickly out of the mass of
+buildings. The level sun threw shadows into the numberless courts,
+permitting the mixture of Spanish and Moorish architecture to be plainly
+discerned, even at that height. A thin golden vapor softened the features
+of the landscape, towards the sun, while, on the opposite side, every
+object stood out in the sharpest and clearest outlines.</p>
+
+<p>On our way to the Mus&eacute;o, Bailli took us to the house of a friend of his,
+in order that we might taste real Manzanilla wine. This is a pale,
+straw-colored vintage, produced in the valley of the Guadalquivir. It is
+flavored with camomile blossoms, and is said to be a fine tonic for weak
+stomachs. The master then produced a dark-red wine, which he declared to
+be thirty years old. It was almost a syrup in consistence, and tasted more
+of sarsaparilla than grapes. None of us relished it, except Bailli, who
+was so inspired by the draught, that he sang us two Moorish songs and an
+Andalusian catch, full of fun and drollery.</p>
+
+<p>The Mus&eacute;o contains a great amount of bad pictures, but it also contains
+twenty-three of Murillo's works, many of them of his best period. To those
+who have only seen his tender, spiritual "Conceptions" and "Assumptions,"
+his "Vision of St. Francis" in this gallery reveals a mastery of the
+higher walks of his art, which they would not have anticipated. But it is
+in his "Cherubs" and his "Infant Christs" that he excels. No one ever
+painted infantile grace and beauty with so true a pencil. There is but one
+Velasquez in the collection, and the only thing that interested me, in two
+halls filled with rubbish, was a "Conception" by Murillo's mulatto pupil,
+said by some to have been his slave. Although an imitation of the great
+master, it is a picture of much sweetness and beauty. There is no other
+work of the artist in existence, and this, as the only production of the
+kind by a painter of mixed African blood, ought to belong to the Republic
+of Liberia.</p>
+
+<p>Among the other guests at the Fonda de Madrid is Mr. Thomas Hobhouse,
+brother of Byron's friend. We had a pleasant party in the Court this
+evening, listening to blind P&eacute;p&eacute;, who sang to his guitar a medley of merry
+Andalusian refrains. Singing made the old man courageous, and, at the
+close, he gave us the radical song of Spain, which is now strictly
+prohibited. The air is charming, but too gay; one would sooner dance than
+fight to its measures. It does not bring the hand to the sword, like the
+glorious Marseillaise.</p>
+
+<p><i>Adios</i>, beautiful Seville!</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch34">
+<h2>Chapter XXXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Journey in a Spanish Diligence.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Spanish Diligence Lines--Leaving Seville--An Unlucky Start--Alcal&agrave; of
+  the Bakers--Dinner at Carmona--A Dehesa--The Mayoral and his
+  Team--Ecija--Night Journey--Cordova--The Cathedral-Mosque--Moorish
+  Architecture--The Sierra Morena--A Rainy Journey--A Chapter of
+  Accidents--Baylen--The Fascination of Spain--Jaen--The Vega of Granada.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Granada, <i>November</i> 14, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>It is an enviable sensation to feel for the first time that you are in
+Granada. No amount of travelling can weaken the romantic interest which
+clings about this storied place, or take away aught from the freshness of
+that emotion with which you first behold it, I sit almost at the foot of
+the Alhambra, whose walls I can see from my window, quite satisfied for
+to-day with being here. It has been raining since I arrived, the thunder
+is crashing overhead, and the mountains are covered with clouds, so I am
+kept in-doors, with the luxury of knowing that all the wonders of the
+place are within my reach. And now let me beguile the dull weather by
+giving you a sketch of my journey from Seville hither.</p>
+
+<p>There are three lines of stages from Seville to Madrid, and their
+competition has reduced the fare to $12, which, for a ride of 350 miles,
+is remarkably cheap. The trip is usually made in three days and a half. A
+branch line from Baylen--nearly half-way--strikes southward to Granada,
+and as there is no competition on this part of the road, I was charged $15
+for a through seat in the <i>coup&eacute;</i>. On account of the lateness of the
+season, and the limited time at my command, this was preferable to taking
+horses and riding across the country from Seville to Cordova. Accordingly,
+at an early hour on Thursday morning last, furnished with a travelling
+ticket inscribed: "Don Valtar de Talor" (myself!), I took leave of my
+English friends at the Fonda de Madrid, got into an immense, lumbering
+yellow vehicle, drawn by ten mules, and started, trusting to my good luck
+and bad Spanish to get safely through. The commencement, however, was
+unpropitious, and very often a stumble at starting makes the whole journey
+limp. The near mule in the foremost span was a horse, ridden by our
+postillion, and nothing could prevent that horse from darting into all
+sorts of streets and alleys where we had no desire to go. As all mules
+have implicit faith in horses, of course the rest of the animals followed.
+We were half an hour in getting out of Seville, and when at last we
+reached the open road and dashed off at full gallop, one of the mules in
+the traces fell and was dragged in the dust some twenty or thirty yards
+before we could stop. My companions in the coup&eacute; were a young Spanish
+officer and his pretty Andalusian bride, who was making her first journey
+from home, and after these mishaps was in a state of constant fear and
+anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>The first stage across the valley of the Guadalquivir took us to the town
+of Alcal&agrave;, which lies in the lap of the hills above the beautiful little
+river Guadaira. It is a picturesque spot; the naked cliffs overhanging the
+stream have the rich, red hue of cinnabar, and the trees and shrubbery in
+the meadows, and on the hill-sides are ready grouped to the artist's
+hand. The town is called Alcal&agrave; de los Panadores (of the Bakers) from its
+hundreds of flour mills and bake-ovens, which supply Seville with those
+white, fine, delicious twists, of which Spain may be justly proud. They
+should have been sent to the Exhibition last year, with the Toledo blades
+and the wooden mosaics. We left the place and its mealy-headed population,
+and turned eastward into wide, rolling tracts, scattered here and there
+with gnarled olive trees. The soil was loose and sandy, and hedges of
+aloes lined the road. The country is thinly populated, and very little of
+it under cultivation.</p>
+
+<p>About noon we reached Carmona, which was founded by the Romans, as,
+indeed, were nearly all the towns of Southern Spain. It occupies the crest
+and northern slope of a high hill, whereon the ancient Moorish castle
+still stands. The Alcazar, or palace, and the Moorish walls also remain,
+though in a very ruinous condition. Here we stopped to dinner, for the
+"Nueva Peninsular," in which I was embarked, has its hotels all along the
+route, like that of Zurutuza, in Mexico. We were conducted into a small
+room adjoining the stables, and adorned with colored prints illustrating
+the history of Don John of Austria. The table-cloths, plates and other
+appendages were of very ordinary quality, but indisputably clean; we
+seated ourselves, and presently the dinner appeared. First, a vermicelli
+<i>pilaff</i>, which I found palatable, then the national <i>olla</i>, a dish of
+enormous yellow peas, sprinkled with bits of bacon and flavored with oil;
+then three successive courses of chicken, boiled, stewed and roasted, but
+in every case done to rags, and without a particle of the original
+flavor. This was the usual style of our meals on the road, whether
+breakfast, dinner or supper, except that kid was sometimes substituted for
+fowl, and that the oil employed, being more or less rancid, gave different
+flavors to the dishes, A course of melons, grapes or pomegranates wound up
+the repast, the price of which varied from ten to twelve reals--a real
+being about a half-dime. In Seville, at the Fonda de Madrid, the cooking
+is really excellent; but further in the interior, judging from what I have
+heard, it is even worse than I have described.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing our journey, we passed around the southern brow of the hill,
+under the Moorish battlements. Here a superb view opened to the south and
+east over the wide Vega of Carmona, as far as the mountain chain which
+separates it from the plain of Granada. The city has for a coat of arms a
+silver star in an azure field, with the pompous motto: "As Lucifer shines
+in the morning, so shines Carmona in Andalusia." If it shines at all, it
+is because it is a city set upon a hill; for that is the only splendor I
+could find about the place. The Vega of Carmona is partially cultivated,
+and now wears a sombre brown hue, from its tracts of ploughed land.</p>
+
+<p>Cultivation soon ceased, however, and we entered on a <i>dehesa</i>, a
+boundless plain of waste land, covered with thickets of palmettos. Flocks
+of goats and sheep, guarded by shepherds in brown cloaks, wandered here
+and there, and except their huts and an isolated house, with its group of
+palm-trees, there was no sign of habitation. The road was a deep, red
+sand, and our mules toiled along slowly and painfully, urged by the
+incessant cries of the <i>mayoral</i>, or conductor, and his <i>mozo</i>. As the
+mayoral's whip could only reach the second span, the business of the
+latter was to jump down every ten minutes, run ahead and belabor the
+flanks of the foremost mules, uttering at the same time a series of sharp
+howls, which seemed to strike the poor beasts with quite as much severity
+as his whip. I defy even a Spanish ear to distinguish the import of these
+cries, and the great wonder was how they could all come out of one small
+throat. When it came to a hard pull, they cracked and exploded like
+volleys of musketry, and flew like hail-stones about the ears of the
+<i>machos</i> (he-mules). The postillion, having only the care of the foremost
+span, is a silent man, but he has contracted a habit of sleeping in the
+saddle, which I mention for the benefit of timid travellers, as it adds to
+the interest of a journey by night.</p>
+
+<p>The clouds which had been gathering all day, now settled down upon the
+plain, and night came on with a dull rain. At eight o'clock we reached the
+City of Ecija, where we had two hours' halt and supper. It was so dark and
+rainy that I saw nothing, not even the classic Xenil, the river of
+Granada, which flows through the city on its way to the Guadalquivir, The
+night wore slowly away, and while the <i>mozo</i> drowsed on his post, I caught
+snatches of sleep between his cries. As the landscape began to grow
+distinct in the gray, cloudy dawn, we saw before us Cordova, with the dark
+range of the Sierra Morena rising behind it. This city, once the glory of
+Moorish Spain, the capital of the great Abd-er-Rahman, containing, when in
+its prime, a million of inhabitants, is now a melancholy wreck. It has not
+a shadow of the art, science, and taste which then distinguished it, and
+the only interest it now possesses is from these associations, and the
+despoiled remnant of its renowned Mosque.</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the Guadalquivir on a fine bridge built on Roman foundations,
+and drove slowly down the one long, rough, crooked street. The diligence
+stops for an hour, to allow passengers to breakfast, but my first thought
+was for the Cathedral-mosque, <i>la Mezquita</i>, as it is still called. "It is
+closed," said the ragged crowd that congregated about us; "you cannot get
+in until eight o'clock." But I remembered that a silver key will open
+anything in Spain, and taking a mozo as a guide we hurried off as fast as
+the rough pavements would permit. We had to retrace the whole length of
+the city, but on reaching the Cathedral, found it open. The exterior is
+low, and quite plain, though of great extent. A Moorish gateway admitted
+me into the original court-yard, or <i>h&agrave;ram</i>, of the mosque, which is
+planted with orange trees and contains the fountain, for the ablutions of
+Moslem worshippers, in the centre. The area of the Mosque proper,
+exclusive of the court-yard, is about 400 by 350 feet. It was built on the
+plan of the great Mosque of Damascus, about the end of the eighth century.
+The materials--including twelve hundred columns of marble, jasper and
+porphyry, from the ruins of Carthage, and the temples of Asia
+Minor---belonged to a Christian basilica, of the Gothic domination, which
+was built upon the foundations of a Roman temple of Janus; so that the
+three great creeds of the world have here at different times had their
+seat. The Moors considered this mosque as second in holiness to the Kaaba
+of Mecca, and made pilgrimages to it from all parts of Moslem Spain and
+Barbary. Even now, although shorn of much of its glory, it surpasses any
+Oriental mosque into which I have penetrated, except St. Sophia, which is
+a Christian edifice.</p>
+
+<p>All the nineteen original entrances--beautiful horse-shoe arches--are
+closed, except the central one. I entered by a low door, in one corner of
+the corridor. A wilderness of columns connected by double arches (one
+springing above the other, with an opening between), spread their dusky
+aisles before me in the morning twilight. The eight hundred and fifty
+shafts of this marble forest formed labyrinths and mazes, which at that
+early hour appeared boundless, for their long vistas disappeared in the
+shadows. Lamps were burning before distant shrines, and a few worshippers
+were kneeling silently here and there. The sound of my own footsteps, as I
+wandered through the ranks of pillars, was all that I heard. In the centre
+of the wood (for such it seemed) rises the choir, a gaudy and tasteless
+excrescence added by the Christians. Even Charles V., who laid a merciless
+hand on the Alhambra, reproved the Bishop of Cordova for this barbarous
+and unnecessary disfigurement.</p>
+
+<p>The sacristan lighted lamps in order to show me the Moorish chapels.
+Nothing but the precious materials of which these exquisite structures are
+composed could have saved them from the holy hands of the Inquisition,
+which intentionally destroyed all the Roman antiquities of Cordova. Here
+the fringed arches, the lace-like filigrees, the wreathed inscriptions,
+and the domes of pendent stalactites which enchant you in the Alcazar of
+Seville, are repeated, not in stucco, but in purest marble, while the
+entrance to the "holy of holies" is probably the most glorious piece of
+mosaic in the world. The pavement of the interior is deeply worn by the
+knees of the Moslem pilgrims, who compassed it seven times, kneeling, as
+they now do in the Kaaba, at Mecca. The sides are embroidered with
+sentences from the Koran, in Cufic characters, and the roof is in the
+form of a fluted shell, of a single piece of pure white marble, fifteen
+feet in diameter. The roof of the vestibule is a wonderful piece of
+workmanship, formed of pointed arches, wreathed and twined through each
+other, like basket-work. No people ever wrought poetry into stone so
+perfectly as the Saracens. In looking on these precious relics of an
+elegant and refined race, I cannot help feeling a strong regret that their
+kingdom ever passed into other hands.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Cordova, our road followed the Guadalquivir, along the foot of the
+Sierra Morena, which rose dark and stern, a barrier to the central
+table-lands of La Mancha. At Alcolea, we crossed the river on a noble
+bridge of black marble, out of all keeping with the miserable road. It
+rained incessantly, and the scenery through which we passed had a wild and
+gloomy character. The only tree to be seen was the olive, which covered
+the hills far and near, the profusion of its fruit showing the natural
+richness of the soil. This part of the road is sometimes infested with
+robbers, and once, when I saw two individuals waiting for us in a lonely
+defile, with gun-barrels thrust out from under their black cloaks, I
+anticipated a recurrence of a former unpleasant experience. But they
+proved to be members of the <i>guardia civil</i>, and therefore our protectors.</p>
+
+<p>The ruts and quagmires, made by the rain, retarded our progress, and it
+was dark when we reached Andujar, fourteen leagues from Cordova. To
+Baylen, where I was to quit the diligence, and take another coming down
+from Madrid to Granada, was four leagues further. We journeyed on in the
+dark, in a pouring rain, up and down hill for some hours, when all at
+once the cries of the mozo ceased, and the diligence came to a dead stop.
+There was some talk between our conductors, and then the mayoral opened
+the door and invited us to get out. The postillion had fallen asleep, and
+the mules had taken us into a wrong road. An attempt was made to turn the
+diligence, but failed, leaving it standing plump against a high bank of
+mud. We stood, meanwhile, shivering in the cold and wet, and the fair
+Andalusian shed abundance of tears. Fortunately, Baylen was close at hand,
+and, after some delay, two men came with lanterns and escorted us to the
+<i>posada</i>, or inn, where we arrived at midnight. The diligence from Madrid,
+which was due six hours before, had not made its appearance, and we passed
+the rest of the night in a cold room, fasting, for the meal was only to be
+served when the other passengers came. At day-break, finally, a single
+dish of oily meat was vouchsafed to us, and, as it was now certain that
+some accident had happened, the passengers to Madrid requested the
+<i>Administrador</i> to send them on in an extra conveyance. This he refused,
+and they began to talk about getting up a pronunciamento, when a messenger
+arrived with the news that the diligence had broken down at midnight,
+about two leagues off. Tools were thereupon dispatched, nine hours after
+the accident happened, and we might hope to be released from our
+imprisonment in four or five more.</p>
+
+<p>Baylen is a wretched place, celebrated for having the first palm-tree
+which those see who come from Madrid, and for the victory gained by
+Casta&ntilde;os over the French forces under Dupont, which occasioned the flight
+of Joseph Buonaparte from Madrid, and the temporary liberation of Spain
+from the French yoke. Casta&ntilde;os, who received the title of Duke de Baylen,
+and is compared by the Spaniards to Wellington, died about three months
+ago. The battle-field I passed in the night; the palm-tree I found, but it
+is now a mere stump, the leaves having been stripped off to protect the
+houses of the inhabitants from lightning. Our posada had one of them hung
+at the window. At last, the diligence came, and at three P.M., when I
+ought to have been in sight of Granada, I left the forlorn walls of
+Baylen. My fellow-passengers were a young sprig of the Spanish nobility
+and three chubby-faced nuns.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the journey that afternoon was through a wide, hilly region,
+entirely bare of trees and habitations, and but partially cultivated.
+There was something sublime in its very nakedness and loneliness, and I
+felt attracted to it as I do towards the Desert. In fact, although I have
+seen little fine scenery since leaving Seville, have had the worst of
+weather, and no very pleasant travelling experiences, the country has
+exercised a fascination over me, which I do not quite understand. I find
+myself constantly on the point of making a vow to return again. Much to my
+regret, night set in before we reached Jaen, the capital of the Moorish
+kingdom of that name. We halted for a short time in the large plaza of the
+town, where the dash of fountains mingled with the sound of the rain, and
+the black, jagged outline of a mountain overhanging the place was visible
+through the storm.</p>
+
+<p>All night we journeyed on through the mountains, sometimes splashing
+through swollen streams, sometimes coming almost to a halt in beds of deep
+mud. When this morning dawned, we were ascending through wild, stony
+hills, overgrown with shrubbery, and the driver said we were six leagues
+from Granada. Still on, through a lonely country, with now and then a
+large <i>venta</i>, or country inn, by the road-side, and about nine o'clock,
+as the sky became more clear, I saw in front of us, high up under the
+clouds, the snow-fields of the Sierra Nevada. An hour afterwards we were
+riding between gardens, vineyards, and olive orchards, with the
+magnificent Vega of Granada stretching far away on the right, and the
+Vermilion Towers of the Alhambra crowning the heights before us.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch35">
+<h2>Chapter XXXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Granada And The Alhambra.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish
+  Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs
+  of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The
+  Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la
+  Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the
+  Fish-pond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the
+  Architecture--Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The
+  Moorish Dynasty in Spain.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Who has not in Granada been,<br />
+Verily, he has nothing seen."</p>
+
+<p>  <i>Andalusian Proverb</i>.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Granada, <i>Wednesday, Nov.</i> 17, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Immediately on reaching here, I was set upon by an old gentleman who
+wanted to act as guide, but the mozo of the hotel put into my hand a card
+inscribed "Don Mateo Ximenez, Guide to the celebrated Washington Irving,"
+and I dismissed the other applicant. The next morning, as the mozo brought
+me my chocolate, he said; "Se&ntilde;or, <i>el chico</i> is waiting for you." The
+"little one" turned out to be the son of old Mateo, "honest Mateo," who
+still lives up in the Alhambra, but is now rather too old to continue his
+business, except on great occasions. I accepted the young Mateo, who spoke
+with the greatest enthusiasm of Mr. Irving, avowing that the whole family
+was devoted to him, in life and death. It was still raining furiously,
+and the golden Darro, which roars in front of the hotel, was a swollen
+brown flood. I don't wonder that he sometimes threatens, as the old
+couplet says, to burst up the Zacatin, and bear it down to his bride, the
+Xenil.</p>
+
+<p>Towards noon, the clouds broke away a little, and we sallied out. Passing
+through the gate and square of Vivarrambla (may not this name come from
+the Arabic <i>bob er-raml,</i> the "gate of the sand?"), we soon reached the
+Cathedral. This massive structure, which makes a good feature in the
+distant view of Granada, is not at all imposing, near at hand. The
+interior is a mixture of Gothic and Roman, glaring with whitewash, and
+broken, like that of Seville, by a wooden choir and two grand organs,
+blocking up the nave. Some of the side chapels, nevertheless, are splendid
+masses of carving and gilding. In one of them, there are two full-length
+portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, supposed to be by Alonzo Cano. The
+Cathedral contains some other good pictures by the same master, but all
+its former treasures were carried off by the French.</p>
+
+<p>We next went to the Picture Gallery, which is in the Franciscan Convent.
+There are two small Murillos, much damaged, some tolerable Alonzo Canos, a
+few common-place pictures by Juan de Sevilla, and a hundred or more by
+authors whose names I did not inquire, for a more hideous collection of
+trash never met my eye. One of them represents a miracle performed by two
+saints, who cut off the diseased leg of a sick white man, and replace it
+by the sound leg of a dead negro, whose body is seen lying beside the bed.
+Judging from the ghastly face of the patient, the operation is rather
+painful, though the story goes that the black leg grew fast, and the man
+recovered. The picture at least illustrates the absence of "prejudice of
+color" among the Saints.</p>
+
+<p>We went into the adjoining Church of Santo Domingo, which has several very
+rich shrines of marble and gold. A sort of priestly sacristan opened the
+Church of the Madonna del Rosario---a glittering mixture of marble, gold,
+and looking-glasses, which has rather a rich effect. The beautiful yellow
+and red veined marbles are from the Sierra Nevada. The sacred Madonna--a
+big doll with staring eyes and pink cheeks--has a dress of silver, shaped
+like an extinguisher, and encrusted with rubies and other precious stones.
+The utter absence of taste in most Catholic shrines is an extraordinary
+thing. It seems remarkable that a Church which has produced so many
+glorious artists should so constantly and grossly violate the simplest
+rules of art. The only shrine which I have seen, which was in keeping with
+the object adored, is that of the Virgin, at Nazareth, where there is
+neither picture nor image, but only vases of fragrant flowers, and
+perfumed oil in golden lamps, burning before a tablet of spotless marble.</p>
+
+<p>Among the decorations of the chapel, there are a host of cherubs frescoed
+on the ceiling, and one of them is represented in the act of firing off a
+blunderbuss. "Is it true that the angels carry blunderbusses?" I asked the
+priest. He shrugged his shoulders with a sort of half-smile, and said
+nothing. In the Cathedral, on the plinths of the columns in the outer
+aisles, are several notices to the effect that "whoever speaks to women,
+either in the nave or the aisles, thereby puts himself in danger of
+excommunication." I could not help laughing, as I read this monkish and
+yet most <i>un</i>monk-like statute. "Oh," said Mateo, "all that was in the
+despotic times; it is not so now."</p>
+
+<p>A deluge of rain put a stop to my sight-seeing until the next morning,
+when I set out with Mateo to visit the Royal Chapel. A murder had been
+committed in the night, near the entrance of the Zacatin, and the
+paving-stones were still red with the blood of the victim. A <i>funcion</i> of
+some sort was going on in the Chapel, and we went into the sacristy to
+wait. The priests and choristers were there, changing their robes; they
+saluted me good-humoredly, though there was an expression in their faces
+that plainly said: "a heretic!" When the service was concluded, I went
+into the chapel and examined the high altar, with its rude wood-carvings,
+representing the surrender of Granada. The portraits of Ferdinand and
+Isabella, Cardinal Ximenez, Gonzalvo of Cordova, and King Boabdil, are
+very curious. Another tablet represents the baptism of the conquered
+Moors.</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of the chapel stand the monuments erected to Ferdinand and
+Isabella, and their successors Philip L, and Maria, by Charles V. They are
+tall catafalques of white marble, superbly sculptured, with the full
+length effigies of the monarchs upon them. The figures are admirable; that
+of Isabella, especially, though the features are settled in the repose of
+death, expresses all the grand and noble traits which belonged to her
+character. The sacristan removed the matting from a part of the floor,
+disclosing an iron grating underneath, A damp, mouldly smell, significant
+of death and decay, came up through the opening. He lighted two long waxen
+tapers, lifted the grating, and I followed him down the narrow steps into
+the vault where lie the coffins of the Catholic Sovereigns. They were
+brought here from the Alhambra, in 1525. The leaden sarcophagi, containing
+the bodies of Ferdinand and Isabella, lie, side by side, on stone slabs;
+and as I stood between the two, resting a hand on each, the sacristan
+placed the tapers in apertures in the stone, at the head and foot. They
+sleep, as they wished, in their beloved Granada, and no profane hand has
+ever disturbed the repose of their ashes.</p>
+
+<p>After visiting the Church of San Jeronimo, founded by Gonzalvo of Cordova,
+I went to the adjoining Church and Hospital of San Juan de Dios. A fat
+priest, washing his hands in the sacristy, sent a boy to show me the
+Chapel of San Juan, and the relics. The remains of the Saint rest in a
+silver chest, standing in the centre of a richly-adorned chapel. Among the
+relics is a thorn from the crown of Christ, which, as any botanist may
+see, must have grown on a different plant from the other thorn they show
+at Seville; and neither kind is found in Palestine. The true <i>spina
+christi</i>, the nebbuk, has very small thorns; but nothing could be more
+cruel, as I found when riding through patches of it near Jericho. The boy
+also showed me a tooth of San Lorenzo, a crooked brown <i>bicuspis</i>, from
+which I should infer that the saint was rather an ill-favored man. The
+gilded chapel of San Juan is in singular contrast with one of the garments
+which he wore when living--a cowl of plaited reeds, looking like an old
+fish basket--which is kept in a glass case. His portrait is also to be
+seen--a mild and beautiful face, truly that of one who went about doing
+good. He was a sort of Spanish John Howard, and deserved canonization, if
+anybody ever did.</p>
+
+<p>I ascended the street of the Darro to the Albaycin, which we entered by
+one of the ancient gates. This suburb is still surrounded by the original
+fortifications, and undermined by the capacious cisterns of the Moors. It
+looks down on Granada; and from the crumbling parapets there are superb
+views over the city, the Vega, and its inclosing mountains. The Alhambra
+rose opposite, against the dark-red and purple background of the Sierra
+Nevada, and a canopy of heavy rain-clouds rested on all the heights. A
+fitful gleam of sunshine now and then broke through and wandered over the
+plain, touching up white towers and olive groves and reaches of the
+winding Xenil, with a brilliancy which suggested the splendor of the whole
+picture, if once thus restored to its proper light. I could see Santa F&eacute;
+in the distance, toward Loxa; nearer, and more eastward, the Sierra de
+Elvira, of a deep violet color, with the woods of the Soto de Roma, the
+Duke of Wellington's estate, at its base; and beyond it the Mountain of
+Parapanda, the weather-guage of Granada, still covered with clouds. There
+is an old Granadian proverb which says:--"When Parapanda wears his bonnet,
+it will rain whether God wills it or no." From the chapel of San Miguel,
+above the Albaycin, there is a very striking view of the deep gorge of the
+Darro, at one's feet, with the gardens and white walls of the Generalife
+rising beyond, and the Silla del Moro and the Mountain of the Sun towering
+above it. The long, irregular lines of the Alhambra, with the huge red
+towers rising here and there, reminded me somewhat of a distant view of
+Karnak; and, like Karnak, the Alhambra is picturesque from whatever point
+it is viewed.</p>
+
+<p>We descended through wastes of cactus to the Darro, in whose turbid stream
+a group of men were washing for gold. I watched one of them, as he
+twirled his bowl in precisely the California style, but got nothing for
+his pains. Mateo says that they often make a dollar a day, each. Passing
+under the Tower of Comares and along the battlements of the Alhambra, we
+climbed up to the Generalife. This charming villa is still in good
+preservation, though its exquisite filigree and scroll-work have been
+greatly injured by whitewash. The elegant colonnades surround gardens rich
+in roses, myrtles and cypresses, and the fountains that lulled the Moorish
+Kings in their summer idleness still pour their fertilizing streams. In
+one of the rooms is a small and bad portrait gallery, containing a
+supposed portrait of Boabdil. It is a mild, amiable face, but wholly lacks
+strength of character.</p>
+
+<p>To-day I devoted to the Alhambra. The storm, which, as the people say, has
+not been equalled for several years, showed no signs of breaking up, and
+in the midst of a driving shower I ascended to the Vermilion Towers, which
+are supposed to be of Phoenician origin. They stand on the extremity of a
+long, narrow ledge, which stretches out like an arm from the hill of the
+Alhambra. The <i>pas&eacute;o</i> lies between, and is shaded by beautiful elms, which
+the Moors planted.</p>
+
+<p>I entered the Alhambra by the Gate of Justice, which is a fine specimen of
+Moorish architecture, though of common red brick and mortar. It is
+singular what a grace the horse-shoe arch gives to the most heavy and
+lumbering mass of masonry. The round arches of the Christian edifices of
+Granada seem tame and inelegant, in comparison. Over the arch of the
+vestibule of this gate is the colossal hand, and over the inner entrance
+the key, celebrated in the tales of Washington Irving and the
+superstitions of the people. I first ascended the Torre de la Vela, where
+the Christian flag was first planted on the 2d of January, 1492. The view
+of the Vega and City of Granada was even grander than from the Albaycin.
+Parapanda was still bonneted in clouds, but patches of blue sky began to
+open above the mountains of Loxa. A little boy accompanied us, to see that
+I did not pull the bell, the sound of which would call together all the
+troops in the city. While we stood there, the funeral procession of the
+man murdered two nights before came up the street of Gomerez, and passed
+around the hill under the Vermilion Towers.</p>
+
+<p>I made the circuit of the walls before entering the Palace. In the Place
+of the Cisterns, I stopped to take a drink of the cool water of the Darro,
+which is brought thither by subterranean channels from the hills. Then,
+passing the ostentatious pile commenced by Charles V., but which was never
+finished, and never will be, nor ought to be, we walked along the southern
+ramparts to the Tower of the Seven Floors, amid the ruins of winch I
+discerned the top of the arch by which the unfortunate Boabdil quitted
+Granada, and which was thenceforth closed for ever. In the Tower of the
+Infantas, a number of workmen were busy restoring the interior, which has
+been cruelly damaged. The brilliant <i>azulejo</i>, or tile-work, the delicate
+arches and filigree sculpture of the walls, still attest its former
+elegance, and give some color to the tradition that it was the residence
+of the Moorish Princesses.</p>
+
+<p>As we passed through the little village which still exists among the ruins
+of the fortress, Mateo invited me to step in and see his father, the
+genuine "honest Mateo," immortalized in the "Tales of the Alhambra." The
+old man has taken up the trade of silk-weaving, and had a number of
+gay-colored ribbons on his loom. He is more than sixty years old and now
+quite gray-headed, but has the same simple manners, the same honest face
+that attracted his temporary master. He spoke with great enthusiasm of Mr.
+Irving, and brought out from a place of safety the "Alhambra" and the
+"Chronicles of the Conquest," which he has carefully preserved. He then
+produced an Andalusian sash, the work of his own hands, which he insisted
+on binding around my waist, to see how it would look. I must next take off
+my coat and hat, and put on his Sunday jacket and jaunty sombrero. "<i>Por
+Dios</i>!" he exclaimed: "<i>que buen mozo</i>! Senor, you are a legitimate
+Andalusian!" After this, of course, I could do no less than buy the sash.
+"You must show it to Washington Irving," said he, "and tell him it was
+made by Mateo's own hands;" which I promised. I must then go into the
+kitchen, and eat a pomegranate from his garden--a glorious pomegranate,
+with kernels of crimson, and so full of blood that you could not touch
+them but it trickled through your fingers. El Marques, a sprightly dog,
+and a great slate-colored cat, took possession of my legs, and begged for
+a share of every mouthful I took, while old Mateo sat beside me, rejoicing
+in the flavor of a Gibraltar cigar which I gave him. But my time was
+precious, and so I let the "Son of the Alhambra" go back to his loom, and
+set out for the Palace of the Moorish Kings.</p>
+
+<p>This palace is so hidden behind the ambitious shell of that of Charles V.
+that I was at a loss where it could be. I thought I had compassed the
+hill, and yet had seen no indications of the renowned magnificence of the
+Alhambra. But a little door in a blank wall ushered me into a true Moorish
+realm, the Court of the Fishpond, or of the Myrtles, as it is sometimes
+called. Here I saw again the slender pillars, the fringed and embroidered
+arches, and the perforated, lace-like tracery of the fairy corridors.
+Here, hedges of roses and myrtles still bloomed around the ancient tank,
+wherein hundreds of gold-fish disported. The noises of the hill do not
+penetrate here, and the solitary porter who admitted me went back to his
+post, and suffered me to wander at will through the enchanted halls.</p>
+
+<p>I passed out of this court by an opposite door, and saw, through the
+vistas of marble pillars and the wonderful fret-work which seems a thing
+of air rather than of earth, the Fountain of the Lions. Thence I entered
+in succession the Hall of the Abencerrages, the Hall of the Two Sisters,
+the apartments of the Sultanas, the Mosque, and the Hall of the
+Ambassadors. These places--all that is left of the renowned palace--are
+now well kept, and carefully guarded. Restorations are going on, here and
+there, and the place is scrupulously watched, that no foreign Vandal, may
+further injure what the native Goths have done their best to destroy. The
+rubbish has been cleared away; the rents in the walls have been filled up,
+and, for the first time since it passed into Spanish hands, there seems a
+hope that the Alhambra will be allowed to stand. What has been already
+destroyed we can only partially conjecture; but no one sees what remains
+without completing the picture in his own imagination, and placing it
+among the most perfect and marvellous creations of human genius.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can exceed the richness of invention which, in this series of
+halls, corridors, and courts, never repeats the same ornaments, but, from
+the simplest primitive forms and colors, produces a thousand
+combinations, not one of which is in discord with the grand design. It is
+useless to attempt a detailed description of this architecture; and it is
+so unlike anything else in the world, that, like Karnak and Baalbec, those
+only know the Alhambra who see it. When you can weave stone, and hang your
+halls with marble tapestry, you may rival it. It is nothing to me that
+these ornaments are stucco; to sculpture them in marble is only the work
+of the hands. Their great excellence is in the design, which, like all
+great things, suggests even more than it gives. If I could create all that
+the Court of Lions suggested to me for its completion, it would fulfil the
+dream of King Sheddad, and surpass the palaces of the Moslem Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>The pavilions of the Court of Lions, and the halls which open into it, on
+either side, approach the nearest to their original perfection. The floors
+are marble, the wainscoting of painted tiles, the walls of embroidery,
+still gleaming with the softened lustre of their original tints, and the
+lofty conical domes seem to be huge sparry crystalizations, hung with
+dropping stalactites, rather than any work of the human hand. Each of
+these domes is composed of five thousand separate pieces, and the pendent
+prismatic blocks, colored and gilded, gradually resolve themselves, as you
+gaze, into the most intricate and elegant designs. But you must study long
+ere you have won all the secret of their beauty. To comprehend them, one
+should spend a whole day, lying on his back, under each one. Mateo spread
+his cloak for me in the fountain in the Hall of the Abencerrages, over the
+blood-stains made by the decapitation of those gallant chiefs, and I lay
+half an hour looking upward: and this is what I made out of the dome. From
+its central pinnacle hung the chalice of a flower with feathery petals,
+like the "crape myrtle" of our Southern States Outside of this, branched
+downward the eight rays of a large star, whose points touched the base of
+the dome; yet the star was itself composed of flowers, while between its
+rays and around its points fell a shower of blossoms, shells, and sparry
+drops. From the base of the dome hung a gorgeous pattern of lace, with a
+fringe of bugles, projecting into eight points so as to form a star of
+drapery, hanging from the points of the flowery star in the dome. The
+spaces between the angles were filled with masses of stalactites, dropping
+one below the other, till they tapered into the plain square sides of the
+hall.</p>
+
+<p>In the Hall of the Two Sisters, I lay likewise for a considerable time,
+resolving its misty glories into shape. The dome was still more suggestive
+of flowers. The highest and central piece was a deep trumpet-flower, whose
+mouth was cleft into eight petals. It hung in the centre of a superb
+lotus-cup, the leaves of which were exquisitely veined and chased. Still
+further below swung a mass of mimosa blossoms, intermixed with pods and
+lance-like leaves, and around the base of the dome opened the bells of
+sixteen gorgeous tulips. These pictures may not be very intelligible, but
+I know not how else to paint the effect of this fairy architecture.</p>
+
+<p>In Granada, as in Seville and Cordova, one's sympathies are wholly with
+the Moors. The few mutilated traces which still remain of their power,
+taste, and refinement, surpass any of the monuments erected by the race
+which conquered them. The Moorish Dynasty in Spain was truly, as Irving
+observes, a splendid exotic, doomed never to take a lasting root in the
+soil It was choked to death by the native weeds; and, in place of lands
+richly cultivated and teeming with plenty, we now have barren and-almost
+depopulated wastes--in place of education, industry, and the cultivation
+of the arts and sciences, an enslaved, ignorant and degenerate race.
+Andalusia would be far more prosperous at this day, had she remained in
+Moslem hands. True, she would not have received that Faith which is yet
+destined to be the redemption of the world, but the doctrines of Mahomet
+are more acceptable to God, and more beneficial to Man than those of that
+Inquisition, which, in Spain alone, has shed ten times as much Christian
+blood as all the Moslem races together for the last six centuries. It is
+not from a mere romantic interest that I lament the fate of Boabdil, and
+the extinction of his dynasty. Had he been a king worthy to reign in those
+wonderful halls, he never would have left them. Had he perished there,
+fighting to the last, he would have been freed from forty years of weary
+exile and an obscure death. Well did Charles V. observe, when speaking of
+him: "Better a tomb in the Alhambra than a palace in the Alpujanas!"</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch36">
+<h2>Chapter XXXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Bridle-Roads of Andalusia.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Change of Weather--Napoleon and his Horses--Departure from Granada--My
+  Guide, Jos&eacute; Garcia--His Domestic Troubles--The Tragedy of the
+  Umbrella--The Vow against Aguardiente--Crossing the Vega--The Sierra
+  Nevada--The Baths of Alhama--"Woe is Me, Alhama!"--The Valley of the
+  River V&eacute;lez--V&eacute;lez Malaga--The Coast Road--The Fisherman and his
+  Donkey--Malaga--Summer Scenery--The Story of Don Pedro, without Fear and
+  without Care--The Field of Monda--A Lonely Venta.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Venta de Villalon, <i>November</i> 20, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>The clouds broke away before I had been two hours in the Alhambra, and the
+sunshine fell broad and warm into its courts. They must be roofed with
+blue sky, in order to give the full impression of their brightness and
+beauty. Mateo procured me a bottle of <i>vino rancio</i>, and we drank it
+together in the Court of Lions. Six hours had passed away before I knew
+it, and I reluctantly prepared to leave. The clouds by this time had
+disappeared; the Vega slept in brilliant sunshine, and the peaks of the
+Sierra Nevada shone white and cold against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the hotel, I found a little man, nicknamed Napoleon, awaiting
+me. He was desirous to furnish me with horses, and, having a prophetic
+knowledge of the weather, promised me a bright sky as far as Gibraltar. "I
+furnish all the se&ntilde;ors," said he; "they know me, and never complain of me
+or my horses;" but, by way of security, on making the bargain, I
+threatened to put up a card in the hotel at Gibraltar, warning all
+travellers against him, in case I was not satisfied. My contract was for
+two horses and a guide, who were to be ready at sunrise the next morning.
+Napoleon was as good as his word; and before I had finished an early cup
+of chocolate, there was a little black Andalusian stallion awaiting me.
+The <i>alforjas</i>, or saddle-bags, of the guide were strengthened by a stock
+of cold provisions, the leathern bota hanging beside it was filled with
+ripe Granada wine; and now behold me ambling over the Vega, accoutred in a
+gay Andalusian jacket, a sash woven by Mateo Ximenes, and one of those
+bandboxy sombreros, which I at first thought so ungainly, but now consider
+quite picturesque and elegant.</p>
+
+<p>My guide, a short but sinewy and well-knit son of the mountains, named
+Jos&eacute; Garcia, set off at a canter down the banks of the Darro. "Don't ride
+so fast!" cried Napoleon, who watched our setting out, from the door of
+the fonda; but Jos&eacute; was already out of hearing. This guide is a companion
+to my liking. Although he is only twenty-seven, he has been for a number
+of years a <i>correo</i>, or mail-rider, and a guide for travelling parties.
+His olive complexion is made still darker by exposure to the sun and wind,
+and his coal-black eyes shine with Southern heat and fire. He has one of
+those rare mouths which are born with a broad smile in each corner, and
+which seem to laugh even in the midst of grief. We had not been two hours
+together, before I knew his history from beginning to end. He had already
+been married eight years, and his only trouble was a debt of twenty-four
+dollars, which the illness of his wife had caused him. This money was
+owing to the pawnbroker, who kept his best clothes in pledge until he
+could pay it. "Se&ntilde;or," said he, "if I had ten million dollars, I would
+rather give them all away than have a sick wife." He had a brother in
+Puerto Principe, Cuba, who sent over money enough to pay the rent of the
+house, but he found that children were a great expense. "It is most
+astonishing," he said, "how much children can eat. From morning till
+night, the bread is never out of their mouths."</p>
+
+<p>Jos&eacute; has recently been travelling with some Spaniards, one of whom made
+him pay two dollars for an umbrella which was lost on the road. This
+umbrella is a thorn in his side. At every venta where we stop, the story
+is repeated, and he is not sparing of his maledictions. The ghost of that
+umbrella is continually raised, and it will be a long time before he can
+shut it. "One reason why I like to travel with foreign Se&ntilde;ors," said he to
+me, "is, that when I lose anything, they never make me pay for it." "For
+all that," I answered, "take care you don't lose my umbrella: it cost
+three dollars." Since then, nothing can exceed Jos&eacute;'s attention to that
+article. He is at his wit's end how to secure it best. It appears
+sometimes before, sometimes behind him, lashed to the saddle with
+innumerable cords; now he sticks it into the alforja, now carries it in
+his hand, and I verily believe that he sleeps with it in his arms. Every
+evening, as he tells his story to the muleteers, around the kitchen fire,
+he always winds up by triumphantly appealing to me with: "Well, Se&ntilde;or,
+have I lost <i>your</i> umbrella yet?"</p>
+
+<p>Our bargain is that I shall feed him on the way, and as we travel in the
+primitive style of the country, we always sit down together to the same
+dish. To his supervision, the olla is often indebted for an additional
+flavor, and no "thorough-bred" gentleman could behave at table with more
+ease and propriety. He is as moderate as a Bedouin in his wants, and never
+touches the burning aguardiente which the muleteers are accustomed to
+drink. I asked him the reason of this. "I drink wine. Senor," he replied,
+"because that, you know, is like meat and bread; but I have made a vow
+never to drink aguardiente again. Two of us got drunk on it, four or five
+years ago, in Granada, and we quarrelled. My comrade drew his knife and
+stabbed me here, in the left shoulder. I was furious and cut him across
+the breast. We both went to the hospital--I for three months and he for
+six--and he died in a few days after getting out. It cost my poor father
+many a thousand reals; and when I was able to go to work, I vowed before
+the Virgin that I would never touch aguardiente again."</p>
+
+<p>For the first league, our road lay over the rich Vega of Granada, but
+gradually became wilder and more waste. Passing the long, desert ridge,
+known as the "Last Sigh of the Moor," we struck across a region of low
+hills. The road was very deep, from the recent rains, and studded, at
+short intervals, by rude crosses, erected to persons who had been
+murdered. Jos&eacute; took a grim delight in giving me the history of each.
+Beyond the village of Lamala, which lies with its salt-pans in a basin of
+the hills, we ascended the mountain ridge which forms the southern
+boundary of the Vega. Granada, nearly twenty miles distant, was still
+visible. The Alhambra was dwindled to a speck, and I took my last view of
+it and the magnificent landscape which lies spread out before it. The
+Sierra Nevada, rising to the height of 13,000 feet above the sea, was
+perfectly free from clouds, and the whole range was visible at one
+glance. All its chasms were filled with snow, and for nearly half-way down
+its sides there was not a speck of any other color. Its summits were
+almost wholly devoid of shadow, and their notched and jagged outlines
+rested flatly against the sky, like ivory inlaid on a table of
+lapis-lazuli.</p>
+
+<p>From these waste hills, we descended into the valley of Cacia, whose
+poplar-fringed river had been so swollen by the rains that the <i>correo</i>
+from Malaga had only succeeded in passing it that morning. We forded it
+without accident, and, crossing a loftier and bleaker range, came down
+into the valley of the Marchan. High on a cliff over the stream stood
+Alhama, my resting-place for the night. The natural warm baths, on account
+of which this spot was so beloved by the Moors, are still resorted to in
+the summer. They lie in the bosom of a deep and rugged gorge, half a mile
+further down the river. The town occupies the crest of a narrow
+promontory, bounded, on all sides but one, by tremendous precipices. It is
+one of the most picturesque spots imaginable, and reminded me--to continue
+the comparison between Syria and Andalusia, which I find so striking--of
+the gorge of the Barrada, near Damascus. Alhama is now a poor,
+insignificant town, only visited by artists and muleteers. The population
+wear long brown cloaks and slouched hats, like the natives of La Mancha.</p>
+
+<p>I found tolerable quarters in a house on the plaza, and took the remaining
+hour of daylight to view the town. The people looked at me with curiosity,
+and some boys, walking on the edge of the <i>tajo</i>, or precipice, threw over
+stones that I might see how deep it was. The rock, in some places, quite
+overhung the bed of the Marchan, which half-girdles its base. The close
+scrutiny to which I was subjected by the crowd in the plaza called to mind
+all I had heard of Spanish spies and robbers. At the venta, I was well
+treated, but received such an exorbitant bill in the morning that I was
+ready to exclaim, with King Boabdil, "Woe is me, Alhama!" On comparing
+notes with Jos&eacute;, I found that he had been obliged to pay, in addition, for
+what he received--a discovery which so exasperated that worthy that he
+folded his hands, bowed his head, made three kisses in the air, and cried
+out: "I swear before the Virgin that I will never again take a traveller
+to that inn."</p>
+
+<p>We left Alhama an hour before daybreak, for we had a rough journey of more
+than forty miles before us. The bridle-path was barely visible in the
+darkness, but we continued ascending to a height of probably 5,000 feet
+above the sea, and thus met the sunrise half-way. Crossing the <i>llano</i> of
+Ace faraya, we reached a tremendous natural portal in the mountains, from
+whence, as from a door, we looked down on all the country lying between us
+and the sea. The valley of the River V&eacute;lez, winding among the hills,
+pointed out the course of our road. On the left towered over us the barren
+Sierra Tejeda, an isolated group of peaks, about 8,000 feet in height. For
+miles, the road was a rocky ladder, which we scrambled down on foot,
+leading our horses. The vegetation gradually became of a warmer and more
+luxuriant cast; the southern slopes were planted with the vine that
+produces the famous Malaga raisins, and the orange groves in the sunny
+depths of the valleys were as yellow as autumnal beeches, with their
+enormous loads of fruit. As the bells of V&eacute;lez Malaga were ringing noon,
+we emerged from the mountains, near the mouth of the river, and rode into
+the town to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>We halted at a queer old inn, more like a Turkish khan than a Christian
+hostlery. It was kept by a fat landlady, who made us an olla of kid and
+garlic, which, with some coarse bread and the red Malaga wine, soon took
+off the sharp edge of our mountain appetites. While I was washing my hands
+at a well in the court-yard, the <i>mozo</i> noticed the pilgrim-seal of
+Jerusalem, which is stamped indelibly on my left arm. His admiration and
+reverence were so great that he called the fat landlady, who, on learning
+that it had been made in Jerusalem, and that I had visited the Holy
+Sepulchre, summoned her children to see it. "Here, my children!" she said;
+"cross yourselves, kneel down, and kiss this holy seal; for, as long as
+you live, you may never see the like of it again." Thus I, a Protestant
+heretic, became a Catholic shrine. The children knelt and kissed my arm
+with touching simplicity; and the seal will henceforth be more sacred to
+me than ever.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining twenty miles or more of the road to Malaga follow the line
+of the coast, passing headlands crowned by the <i>atalayas</i>, or
+watch-towers, of the Moors. It is a new road, and practicable for
+carriages, so that, for Spain, it may be considered an important
+achievement. The late rains have, however, already undermined it in a
+number of places. Here, as among the mountains, we met crowds of
+muleteers, all of whom greeted me with: "<i>Vaya usted con Dios,
+caballero</i>!"--("May you go with God, cavalier!") By this time, all my
+forgotten Spanish had come back again, and a little experience of the
+simple ways of the people made me quite at home among them. In almost
+every instance, I was treated precisely as a Spaniard would have been,
+and less annoyed by the curiosity of the natives than I have been in
+Germany, and even America.</p>
+
+<p>We were still two leagues from Malaga, at sunset, The fishermen along the
+coast were hauling in their nets, and we soon began to overtake companies
+of them, carrying their fish to the city on donkeys. One stout, strapping
+fellow, with flesh as hard and yellow as a sturgeon's, was seated sideways
+on a very small donkey, between two immense panniers of fish, As he
+trotted before us, shouting, and slapping the flanks of the sturdy little
+beast, Jos&eacute; and I began to laugh, whereupon the fellow broke out into the
+following monologue, addressed to the donkey: "Who laughs at this
+<i>burrico</i>? Who says he's not fine gold from head to foot? What is it that
+he can't do? If there was a mountain ever so high, he would gallop over
+it. If there was a river ever so deep, he would swim through it If he
+could but speak, I might send him to market alone with the fish, and not a
+<i>chavo</i> of the money would he spend on the way home. Who says he can't go
+as far as that limping horse? Arrrre, burrico! punate--ar-r-r-r-r-e-e!"</p>
+
+<p>We reached Malaga, at last, our horses sorely fagged. At the Fonda de la
+Alameda, a new and very elegant hotel, I found a bath and a good dinner,
+both welcome things to a tired traveller. The winter of Malaga is like
+spring in other lands and on that account it is much visited by invalids,
+especially English. It is a lively commercial town of about 80,000
+inhabitants, and, if the present scheme of railroad communication with
+Madrid is carried out, must continue to increase in size and importance. A
+number of manufacturing establishments have lately been started, and in
+this department it bids fair to rival Barcelona. The harbor is small, but
+good, and the country around rich in all the productions of temperate and
+even tropical climates. The city contains little to interest the tourist.
+I visited the Cathedral, an immense unfinished mass, without a particle of
+architectural taste outwardly, though the interior has a fine effect from
+its large dimensions.</p>
+
+<p>At noon to-day we were again in the saddle, and took the road to the Baths
+of Caratraca. The tall factory chimneys of Malaga, vomiting forth streams
+of black smoke, marred the serenity of the sky; but the distant view of
+the city is very fine. The broad Vega, watered by the Guadaljorce, is rich
+and well cultivated, and now rejoices in the verdure of spring. The
+meadows are clothed with fresh grass, butter-cups and daisies are in
+blossom, and larks sing in the olive-trees. Now and then, we passed a
+<i>casa del campo</i>, with its front half buried in orange-trees, over which
+towered two or three sentinel palms. After two leagues of this delightful
+travel, the country became more hilly, and the groups of mountains which
+inclosed us assumed the most picturesque and enchanting forms. The soft
+haze in which the distant peaks were bathed, the lovely violet shadows
+filling up their chasms and gorges, and the fresh meadows, vineyards, and
+olive groves below, made the landscape one of the most beautiful I have
+seen in Spain.</p>
+
+<p>As we were trotting along through the palmetto thickets, Jos&eacute; asked me if
+I should not like to hear an Andalusian story. "Nothing would please me
+better," I replied. "Ride close beside me, then," said he, "that you may
+understand every word of it." I complied, and he gave me the following,
+just as I repeat it: "There was once a very rich man, who had thousands of
+cattle in the Sierra Nevada, and hundreds of houses in the city. Well:
+this man put a plate, with his name on it, on the door of the great house
+in which he lived, and the name was this: Don Pedro, without Fear and
+without Care. Now, when the King was making his <i>pas&eacute;o</i>, he happened to
+ride by this house in his carriage, and saw the plate on the door. 'Read
+me the name on that plate!' said he to his officer. Then the officer read
+the name: Don Pedro, without Fear and without Care. 'I will see whether
+Don Pedro is without Fear and without Care,' said the King. The next day
+came a messenger to the house, and, when he saw Don Pedro, said he to him;
+'Don Pedro, without Fear and without Care, the King wants you!' 'What does
+the King want with me?' said Don Pedro. 'He sends you four questions which
+you must answer within four days, or he will have you shot; and the
+questions are:--How can the Sierra Nevada be cleared of snow? How can the
+sea be made smaller? How many arrobas does the moon weigh? And: How many
+leagues from here to the Land of Heavenly Glory?' Then Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care began to sweat from fright, and knew not what he
+should do. He called some of his arrieros and loaded twenty mules with
+money, and went up into the Sierra Nevada, where his herdsmen tended his
+flocks; for, as I said, he had many thousand cattle. 'God keep you, my
+master!' said the chief herdsman, who was young, and <i>buen mozo</i>, and had
+as good a head as ever was set on two shoulders. '<i>Anda, hombre!</i> said Don
+Pedro, 'I am a dead man;' and so he told the herdsman all that the King
+had said. 'Oh, is that all?' said the knowing mozo. 'I can get you out of
+the scrape. Let me go and answer the questions in your name, my master!'
+'Ah, you fool! what can you do?' said Don Pedro without Fear and without
+Care, throwing himself upon the earth, and ready to die.</p>
+
+<p>"But, nevertheless, the herdsman dressed himself up as a <i>caballero</i>, went
+down to the city, and, on the fourth day, presented himself at the King's
+palace. 'What do you want?' said the officers. 'I am Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care, come to answer the questions which the King sent to
+me.' 'Well,' said the King, when he was brought before him, 'let me hear
+your answers, or I will have you shot this day.' 'Your Majesty,' said the
+herdsman, 'I think I can do it. If you were to set a million of children
+to playing among the snow of the Sierra Nevada, they would soon clear it
+all away; and if you were to dig a ditch as wide and as deep as all Spain,
+you would make the sea that much smaller,' 'But,' said the King, 'that
+makes only two questions; there are two more yet,' 'I think I can answer
+those, also,' said the herdsman: 'the moon contains four quarters, and
+therefore weighs only one arroba; and as for the last question, it is not
+even a single league to the Land of Heavenly Glory--for, if your Majesty
+were to die after breakfast, you would get there before you had an
+appetite for dinner,' 'Well done! said the King; and he then made him
+Count, and Marquez, and I don't know how many other titles. In the
+meantime, Don Pedro without Fear and without Care had died of his fright;
+and, as he left no family, the herdsman took possession of all his
+estates, and, until the day of his death, was called Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care."</p>
+
+<p>I write, sitting by the grated window of this lonely inn, looking out on
+the meadows of the Guadaljorce. The chain of mountains which rises to the
+west of Malaga is purpled by the light of the setting sun, and the houses
+and Castle of Carlama hang on its side, in full view. Further to the
+right, I see the smoke of Monda, where one of the greatest battles of
+antiquity was fought--that which overthrew the sons of Pompey, and gave
+the Roman Empire to C&aelig;sar. The mozo of the venta is busy, preparing my kid
+and rice, and Jos&eacute; is at his elbow, gently suggesting ingredients which
+may give the dish a richer flavor. The landscape is softened by the hush
+of coming evening; a few birds are still twittering among the bushes, and
+the half-moon grows whiter and clearer in mid-heaven. The people about me
+are humble, but appear honest and peaceful, and nothing indicates that I
+am in the wild <i>Serrania de Ronda</i>, the country of robbers,
+contrabandistas, and assassins.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='chapter' id='ch37'>
+<h2>Chapter XXXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mountains of Ronda.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">
+  Orange Valleys--Climbing the Mountains--Jos&eacute;'s Hospitality--El
+  Burgo--The Gate of the Wind--The Cliff and Cascades of Ronda--The
+  Mountain Region--Traces of the Moors--Haunts of Robbers--A Stormy
+  Ride--The Inn at Gaucin--Bad News--A Boyish Auxiliary--Descent from the
+  Mountains--The Ford of the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
+  Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with Jos&eacute;--Travelling
+  in Spain--Conclusion.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Gibraltar, <i>Thursday, November</i> 25, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>I passed an uncomfortable night at the Venta de Villalon, lying upon a bag
+stuffed with equal quantities of wool and fleas. Starting before dawn, we
+followed a path which led into the mountains, where herdsmen and boys were
+taking out their sheep and goats to pasture; then it descended into the
+valley of a stream, bordered with rich bottom-lands. I never saw the
+orange in a more flourishing state. We passed several orchards of trees
+thirty feet high, and every bough and twig so completely laden with fruit,
+that the foliage was hardly to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>At the Venta del Vicario, we found a number of soldiers just setting out
+for Ronda. They appeared to be escorting a convoy of goods, for there were
+twenty or thirty laden mules gathered at the door. We now ascended a most
+difficult and stony path, winding through bleak wastes of gray rock, till
+we reached a lofty pass in the mountain range. The wind swept through the
+narrow gateway with a force that almost unhorsed us. From the other side,
+a sublime but most desolate landscape opened to my view. Opposite, at ten
+miles' distance, rose a lofty ridge of naked rock, overhung with clouds.
+The country between was a chaotic jumble of stony hills, separated by deep
+chasms, with just a green patch here and there, to show that it was not
+entirely forsaken by man. Nevertheless as we descended into it, we found
+valleys with vineyards and olive groves, which were invisible from above.
+As we were both getting hungry, Jos&eacute; stopped at a ventorillo and ordered
+two cups of wine, for which he insisted on paying. "If I had as many
+horses as my master, Napoleon," said he, "I would regale the Se&ntilde;ors
+whenever I travelled with them. I would have <i>puros</i>, and sweetmeats, with
+plenty of Malaga or Valdepe&ntilde;as in the bota, and they should never complain
+of their fare." Part of our road was studded with gray cork-trees, at a
+distance hardly to be distinguished from olives, and Jos&eacute; dismounted to
+gather the mast, which was as sweet and palatable as chestnuts, with very
+little of the bitter quercine flavor. At eleven o'clock, we reached El
+Burgo, so called, probably, from its ancient Moorish fortress. It is a
+poor, starved village, built on a barren hill, over a stream which is
+still spanned by a lofty Moorish bridge of a single arch.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining three leagues to Ronda were exceedingly rough and difficult.
+Climbing a barren ascent of nearly a league in length, we reached the
+<i>Puerto del Viento</i>, or Gate of the Wind, through which drove such a
+current that we were obliged to dismount; and even then it required all my
+strength to move against it. The peaks around, far and near, faced with
+precipitous cliffs, wore the most savage and forbidding aspect: in fact,
+this region is almost a counterpart of the wilderness lying between
+Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, Very soon, we touched the skirt of a cloud,
+and were enveloped in masses of chill, whirling vapor, through which we
+travelled for three or four miles to a similar gate on the western side of
+the chain. Descending again, we emerged into a clearer atmosphere, and saw
+below us a wide extent of mountain country, but of a more fertile and
+cheerful character. Olive orchards and wheat-fields now appeared; and, at
+four o'clock, we rode into the streets of Ronda.</p>
+
+<p>No town can surpass this in the grandeur and picturesqueness of its
+position. It is built on the edge of a broad shelf of the mountains, which
+falls away in a sheer precipice of from six to eight hundred feet in
+height, and, from the windows of many of the houses you can look down the
+dizzy abyss. This shelf, again, is divided in the centre by a tremendous
+chasm, three hundred feet wide, and from four to six hundred feet in
+depth, in the bed of which roars the Guadalvin, boiling in foaming
+whirlpools or leaping in sparkling cascades, till it reaches the valley
+below. The town lies on both sides of the chasm, which is spanned by a
+stone bridge of a single arch, with abutments nearly four hundred feet in
+height. The view of this wonderful cleft, either from above or below, is
+one of the finest of its kind in the world. Honda is as far superior to
+Tivoli, as Tivoli is to a Dutch village, on the dead levels of Holland.
+The panorama which it commands is on the grandest scale. The valley below
+is a garden of fruit and vines; bold yet cultivated hills succeed, and in
+the distance rise the lofty summits of another chain of the Serrania de
+Honda. Were these sublime cliffs, these charming cascades of the
+Guadalvin, and this daring bridge, in Italy instead of in Spain, they
+would be sketched and painted every day in the year; but I have yet to
+know where a good picture of Ronda may be found.</p>
+
+<p>In the bottom of the chasm are a number of corn-mills as old as the time
+of the Moors. The water, gushing out from the arches of one, drives the
+wheel of that below, so that a single race supplies them all. I descended
+by a very steep zig-zag path nearly to the bottom. On a little point or
+promontory overhanging the black depths, there is a Moorish gateway still
+standing. The sunset threw a lovely glow over the brown cliffs and the
+airy town above; but they were far grander when the cascades glittered in
+the moonlight, and the gulf out of which they leap was lost in profound
+shadow. The window of my bed-room hung over the chasm.</p>
+
+<p>Honda was wrapped in fog, when Jos&eacute; awoke me on the morning of the 22d. As
+we had but about twenty-four miles to ride that day, we did not leave
+until sunrise. We rode across the bridge, through the old town and down
+the hill, passing the triple lines of the Moorish walls by the original
+gateways. The road, stony and rugged beyond measure, now took to the
+mountains. From the opposite height, there was a fine view of the town,
+perched like an eagle's nest on the verge of its tremendous cliffs; but a
+curtain of rain soon fell before it, and the dense dark clouds settled
+around us, and filled up the gorges on either hand. Hour after hour, we
+toiled along the slippery paths, scaling the high ridges by rocky ladders,
+up which our horses climbed with the greatest difficulty. The scenery,
+whenever I could obtain a misty glimpse of it, was sublime. Lofty mountain
+ridges rose on either hand; bleak jagged summits of naked rock pierced
+the clouds, and the deep chasms which separated them sank far below us,
+dark and indistinct through the rain. Sometimes I caught sight of a little
+hamlet, hanging on some almost inaccessible ledge, the home of the
+lawless, semi-Moorish mountaineers who inhabit this wild region. The faces
+of those we met exhibited marked traces of their Moslem ancestry,
+especially in the almond-shaped eye and the dusky olive complexion. Their
+dialect retains many Oriental forms of expression, and I was not a little
+surprised at finding the Arabic "<i>eiwa</i>" (yes) in general use, instead of
+the Spanish "<i>si</i>."</p>
+
+<p>About eleven o'clock, we reached the rude village of Atajate, where we
+procured a very good breakfast of kid, eggs, and white Ronda wine. The
+wind and rain increased, but I had no time to lose, as every hour swelled
+the mountain floods and made the journey more difficult. This district is
+in the worst repute of any in Spain; it is a very nest of robbers and
+contrabandistas. At the venta in Atajate, they urged us to take a guard,
+but my valiant Jos&eacute; declared that he had never taken one, and yet was
+never robbed; so I trusted to his good luck. The weather, however, was our
+best protection. In such a driving rain, we could bid defiance to the
+flint locks of their escopettes, if, indeed, any could be found, so fond
+of their trade, as to ply it in a storm</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "Wherein the cub-drawn bear would crouch,<br />
+The lion and the belly-pinched wolf<br />
+Keep their furs dry."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I noticed that each of the few convoys of laden mules which
+we met, had one or more of the <i>guardia cicia</i> accompanying it. Besides
+these, the only persons abroad were some wild-looking individuals, armed
+to the teeth, and muffled in long cloaks, towards whom, as they passed,
+Jos&eacute; would give his head a slight toss, and whisper to me: "more
+contrabandistas."</p>
+
+<p>We were soon in a condition to defy the weather. The rain beat furiously
+in our faces, especially when threading the wind-blown passes between the
+higher peaks. I raised my umbrella as a defence, but the first blast
+snapped it in twain. The mountain-sides were veined with rills, roaring
+downward into the hollows, and smaller rills soon began to trickle down my
+own sides. During the last part of our way, the path was notched along
+precipitous steeps, where the storm was so thick that we could see nothing
+either above or below. It was like riding along the outer edge of the
+world, When once you are thoroughly wet, it is a great satisfaction to
+know that you can be no wetter; and so Jos&eacute; and I went forward in the best
+possible humor, finding so much diversion in our plight that the dreary
+leagues were considerably shortened.</p>
+
+<p>At the venta of Gaucin, where we stopped, the people received us kindly.
+The house consisted of one room--stable, kitchen, and dining-room all in
+one. There was a small apartment in a windy loft, where a bed (much too
+short) was prepared for me. A fire of dry heather was made in the wide
+fire-place, and the ruddy flames, with a change of clothing and a draught
+of the amber vintage of Estepona, soon thawed out the chill of the
+journey. But I received news which caused me a great deal of anxiety. The
+River Guadiaro was so high that nobody could cross, and two forlorn
+muleteers had been waiting eight days at the inn, for the waters to
+subside. Augmented by the rain which had fallen, and which seemed to
+increase as night came on, how could I hope to cross it on the morrow? In
+two days, the India steamer would be at Gibraltar; my passage was already
+taken, and I <i>must</i> be there. The matter was discussed for some time; it
+was pronounced impossible to travel by the usual road, but the landlord
+knew a path among the hills which led to a ferry on the Guadiaro, where
+there was a boat, and from thence we could make our way to San Roque,
+which is in sight of Gibraltar. He demanded rather a large fee for
+accompanying me, but there was nothing else to be done. Jos&eacute; and I sat
+down in great tribulation to our accustomed olla, but neither of us could
+do justice to it, and the greater part gladdened the landlord's two
+boys--beautiful little imps, with faces like Murillo's cherubs.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I passed rather a merry evening, chatting with some of the
+villagers over a brazier of coals; and one of the aforesaid boys, who,
+although only eight years old, already performed the duties of mozo,
+lighted me to my loft. When he had put down the lamp, he tried' the door,
+and asked me: "Have you the key?" "No," said I, "I don't want one; I am
+not afraid." "But," he rejoined, "perhaps you may get afraid in the night;
+and if you do, strike on this part of the wall (suiting the action to the
+word)--<i>I</i> sleep on that side." I willingly promised to call him to my
+aid, if I should get alarmed. I slept but little, for the wind was howling
+around the tiles over my head, and I was busy with plans for constructing
+rafts and swimming currents with a rope around my waist. Finally, I found
+a little oblivion, but it seemed that I had scarcely closed my eyes, when
+Jos&eacute; pushed open the door. "Thanks be to God, senor!" said he, "it begins
+to dawn, and the sky is clear: we shall certainly get to Gibraltar
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>The landlord was ready, so we took some bread and a basket of olives, and
+set out at once. Leaving Gaucin, we commenced descending the mountain
+staircase by which the Serrania of Ronda is scaled, on the side towards
+Gibraltar. "The road," says Mr. Ford, "seems made by the Evil One in a
+hanging garden of Eden." After four miles of frightfully rugged descent,
+we reached an orange grove on the banks of the Xenar, and then took a wild
+path leading along the hills on the right of the stream. We overtook a few
+muleteers, who were tempted out by the fine weather, and before long the
+<i>correo</i>, or mail-rider from Ronda to San Roque, joined us. After eight
+miles more of toilsome travel we reached the valley of the Guadiaro. The
+river was not more than twenty yards wide, flowing with a deep, strong
+current, between high banks. Two ropes were stretched across, and a large,
+clumsy boat was moored to the shore. We called to the ferrymen, but they
+hesitated, saying that nobody had yet been able to cross. However, we all
+got in, with our horses, and two of the men, with much reluctance, drew us
+over. The current was very powerful, although the river had fallen a
+little during the night, but we reached the opposite bank without
+accident.</p>
+
+<p>We had still another river, the Guargante, to pass, but we were cheered by
+some peasants whom we met, with the news that the ferry-boat had resumed
+operations. After this current lay behind us, and there was now nothing
+but firm land all the way to Gibraltar, Jos&eacute; declared with much
+earnestness that he was quite as glad, for my sake, as if somebody had
+given him a million of dollars. Our horses, too, seemed to feel that
+something had been achieved, and showed such a fresh spirit that we
+loosened the reins and let them gallop to their hearts' content over the
+green meadows. The mountains were now behind us, and the Moorish castle of
+Gaucin crested a peak blue with the distance. Over hills covered with
+broom and heather in blossom, and through hollows grown with oleander,
+arbutus and the mastic shrub, we rode to the cork-wood forests of San
+Roque, the sporting-ground of Gibraltar officers. The barking of dogs, the
+cracking of whips, and now and then a distant halloo, announced that a
+hunt was in progress, and soon we came upon a company of thirty or forty
+horsemen, in caps, white gloves and top-boots, scattered along the crest
+of a hill. I had no desire to stop and witness the sport, for the
+Mediterranean now lay before me, and the huge gray mass of "The Rock"
+loomed in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>At San Roque, which occupies the summit of a conical hill, about half-way
+between Gibraltar and Algeciras, the landlord left us, and immediately
+started on his return. Having now exchanged the rugged bridle-paths of
+Ronda for a smooth carriage-road, Jos&eacute; and I dashed on at full gallop, to
+the end of our journey. We were both bespattered with mud from head to
+foot, and our jackets and sombreros had lost something of their spruce
+air. We met a great many ruddy, cleanly-shaven Englishmen, who reined up
+on one side to let us pass, with a look of wonder at our Andalusian
+impudence. Nothing diverted Jos&eacute; more than to see one of these Englishmen
+rising in his stirrups, as he went by on a trot. "Look, look, Se&ntilde;or!" he
+exclaimed; "did you ever see the like?" and then broke into a fresh
+explosion of laughter. Passing the Spanish Lines, which stretch across the
+neck of the sandy little peninsula, connecting Gibraltar with the main
+land, we rode under the terrible batteries which snarl at Spain from this
+side of the Rock. Row after row of enormous guns bristle the walls, or
+look out from the galleries hewn in the sides of inaccessible cliffs An
+artificial moat is cut along the base of the Rock, and a simple
+bridge-road leads into the fortress and town. After giving up my passport
+I was allowed to enter, Jos&eacute; having already obtained a permit from the
+Spanish authorities.</p>
+
+<p>I clattered up the long street of the town to the Club House, where I
+found a company of English friends. In the evening, Jos&eacute; made his
+appearance, to settle our accounts and take his leave of me. While
+scrambling down the rocky stair-way of Gaucin, Jos&eacute; had said to me: "Look
+you, Se&ntilde;or, I am very fond of English beer, and if I get you to Gibraltar
+to day you must give me a glass of it." When, therefore, he came in the
+evening, his eyes sparkled at the sight of a bottle of Alsop's Ale, and a
+handful of good Gibraltar cigars. "Ah, Se&ntilde;or," said he, after our books
+were squared, and he had pocketed his <i>gratification</i>, "I am sorry we are
+going to part; for we are good friends, are we not, Se&ntilde;or?" "Yes, Jos&eacute;,"
+said I; "if I ever come to Granada again, I shall take no other guide than
+Jos&eacute; Garcia; and I will have you for a longer journey than this. We shall
+go over all Spain together, <i>mi amigo</i>!" "May God grant it!" responded
+Jos&eacute;, crossing himself; "and now, Se&ntilde;or, I must go. I shall travel back to
+Granada, <i>muy triste</i>, Se&ntilde;or, <i>muy triste</i>" The faithful fellows eyes were
+full of tears, and, as he lifted my hand twice to his lips, some warm
+drops fell upon it. God bless his honest heart; wherever he goes!</p>
+
+<p>And now a word as to travelling in Spain, which is not attended with half
+the difficulties and annoyances I had been led to expect. My experience,
+of course, is limited to the provinces of Andalusia, but my route included
+some of the roughest roads and most dangerous robber-districts in the
+Peninsula. The people with whom I came in contact were invariably friendly
+and obliging, and I was dealt with much more honestly than I should have
+been in Italy. With every disposition to serve you, there is nothing like
+servility among the Spaniards. The native dignity which characterizes
+their demeanor prepossesses me very strongly in their favor. There is but
+one dialect of courtesy, and the muleteers and common peasants address
+each other with the same grave respect as the Dons and Grandees. My friend
+Jos&eacute; was a model of good-breeding.</p>
+
+<p>I had little trouble either with passport-officers or custom-houses. My
+passport, in fact, was never once demanded, although I took the precaution
+to have it vis&egrave;d in all the large cities. In Seville and Malaga, it was
+signed by the American Consuls, without the usual fee of two
+dollars--almost the only instances which have come under my observation.
+The regulations of the American Consular System, which gives the Consuls
+no salary, but permits them, instead, to get their pay out of travellers,
+is a disgrace to our government. It amounts, in effect, to <i>a direct tax
+on travel</i>, and falls heavily on the hundreds of young men of limited
+means, who annually visit Europe for the purpose of completing their
+education. Every American citizen who travels in Italy pays a passport tax
+of ten dollars. In all the ports of the Mediterranean, there is an
+American Vice-Consul, who does not even get the postage paid on his
+dispatches, and to whom the advent of a traveller is of course a welcome
+sight. Misled by a false notion of economy, our government is fast
+becoming proverbial for its meanness. If those of our own citizens who
+represent us abroad only worked as they are paid, and if the foreigners
+who act as Vice-Consuls without pay did not derive some petty trading
+advantages from their position, we should be almost without protection.</p>
+
+<hr width="80%" />
+
+<p>With my departure from Spain closes the record of my journey in the Lands
+of the Saracen; for, although I afterwards beheld more perfect types of
+Saracenic Art on the banks of the Jumna and the Ganges, they grew up under
+the great Empire of the descendants of Tamerlane, and were the creations
+of artists foreign to the soil. It would, no doubt, be interesting to
+contrast the remains of Oriental civilization and refinement, as they
+still exist at the extreme eastern and western limits of the Moslem sway,
+and to show how that Art, which had its birth in the capitals of the
+Caliphs--Damascus and Baghdad--attained its most perfect development in
+Spain and India; but my visit to the latter country connects itself
+naturally with my voyage to China, Loo-Choo, and Japan, forming a separate
+and distinct field of travel.</p>
+
+<p>On the 27th of November, the Overland Mail Steamer arrived at Gibraltar,
+and I embarked in her for Alexandria, entering upon another year of even
+more varied, strange, and adventurous experiences, than that which had
+closed. I am almost afraid to ask those patient readers, who have
+accompanied me thus far, to travel with me through another volume; but
+next to the pleasure of seeing the world, comes the pleasure of telling of
+it, and I must needs finish my story.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10924 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10924 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10924)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lands of the Saracen, by Bayard Taylor
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lands of the Saracen
+       Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain
+
+Author: Bayard Taylor
+
+Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10924]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LANDS OF THE SARACEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distrbibuted Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE LANDS OF THE SARACEN
+
+or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain.
+
+by
+
+Bayard Taylor.
+
+Twentieth Edition.
+
+
+
+1863
+
+
+
+To Washington Irving,
+
+
+This book--the chronicle of my travels through lands once occupied by the
+Saracens--naturally dedicates itself to you, who, more than any other
+American author, have revived the traditions, restored the history, and
+illustrated the character of that brilliant and heroic people. Your
+cordial encouragement confirmed me in my design of visiting the East, and
+making myself familiar with Oriental life; and though I bring you now but
+imperfect returns, I can at least unite with you in admiration of a field
+so rich in romantic interest, and indulge the hope that I may one day
+pluck from it fruit instead of blossoms. In Spain, I came upon your track,
+and I should hesitate to exhibit my own gleanings where you have
+harvested, were it not for the belief that the rapid sketches I have given
+will but enhance, by the contrast, the charm of your finished picture.
+
+Bayard Taylor.
+
+
+
+
+Preface.
+
+
+
+This volume comprises the second portion of a series of travels, of which
+the "Journey to Central Africa," already published, is the first part. I
+left home, intending to spend a winter in Africa, and to return during the
+following summer; but circumstances afterwards occurred, which prolonged
+my wanderings to nearly two years and a half, and led me to visit many
+remote and unexplored portions of the globe. To describe this journey in a
+single work, would embrace too many incongruous elements, to say nothing
+of its great length, and as it falls naturally into three parts, or
+episodes, of very distinct character, I have judged it best to group my
+experiences under three separate heads, merely indicating the links which
+connect them. This work includes my travels in Palestine, Syria, Asia
+Minor, Sicily and Spain, and will be followed by a third and concluding
+volume, containing my adventures in India, China, the Loo-Choo Islands,
+and Japan. Although many of the letters, contained in this volume,
+describe beaten tracks of travel, I have always given my own individual
+impressions, and may claim for them the merit of entire sincerity. The
+journey from Aleppo to Constantinople, through the heart of Asia Minor,
+illustrates regions rarely traversed by tourists, and will, no doubt, be
+new to most of my readers. My aim, throughout the work, has been to give
+correct pictures of Oriental life and scenery, leaving antiquarian
+research and speculation to abler hands. The scholar, or the man of
+science, may complain with reason that I have neglected valuable
+opportunities for adding something to the stock of human knowledge: but if
+a few of the many thousands, who can only travel by their firesides,
+should find my pages answer the purpose of a series of cosmoramic
+views--should in them behold with a clearer inward eye the hills of
+Palestine, the sun-gilded minarets of Damascus, or the lonely pine-forests
+of Phrygia--should feel, by turns, something of the inspiration and the
+indolence of the Orient--I shall have achieved all I designed, and more
+than I can justly hope.
+
+New York, _October_, 1854.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+Life in a Syrian Quarantine.
+
+  Voyage from Alexandria to Beyrout--Landing at Quarantine--The
+  Guardians--Our Quarters--Our Companions--Famine and Feasting--The
+  Morning--The Holy Man of Timbuctoo--Sunday in Quarantine--Islamism--We
+  are Registered--Love through a Grating--Trumpets--The Mystery
+  Explained--Delights of Quarantine--Oriental _vs._ American
+  Exaggeration--A Discussion of Politics--Our
+  Release--Beyrout--Preparations for the Pilgrimage
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+The Coast of Palestine.
+
+  The Pilgrimage Commences--The Muleteers--The Mules--The Donkey--Journey
+  to Sidon--The Foot of Lebanon--Pictures--The Ruins of Tyre--A Wild
+  Morning--The Tyrian Surges--Climbing the Ladder of Tyre--Panorama of the
+  Bay of Acre--The Plain of Esdraelon--Camp in a Garden--Acre--the Shore
+  of the Bay--Haifa--Mount Carmel and its Monastery--A Deserted Coast--The
+  Ruins of Cæsarea--The Scenery of Palestine--We become Robbers--El
+  Haram--Wrecks--the Harbor and Town of Jaffa.
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+From Jaffa to Jerusalem.
+
+  The Garden of Jaffa--Breakfast at a Fountain--The Plain of Sharon--The
+  Ruined Mosque of Ramleh--A Judean Landscape--The Streets Ramleh--Am I in
+  Palestine?--A Heavenly Morning--The Land of Milk and Honey--Entering
+  the Hill Country--The Pilgrim's Breakfast--The Father of Lies--A Church
+  of the Crusaders--The Agriculture of the Hills--The Valley of
+  Elah--Day-Dreams--The Wilderness--The Approach--We See the Holy City
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+The Dead Sea and the River Jordan.
+
+  Bargaining for a Guard---Departure from Jerusalem--The Hill of
+  Offence--Bethany--The Grotto of Lazarus--The Valley of Fire--Scenery of
+  the Wilderness--The Hills of Engaddi--The shore of the Dead Sea--A
+  Bituminous Bath--Gallop to the Jordan--A watch for Robbers--The
+  Jordan--Baptism--The Plains of Jericho--The Fountain of Elisha--The
+  Mount of Temptation--Return to Jerusalem
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+The City of Christ.
+
+  Modern Jerusalem--The Site of the City--Mount Zion--Mount Moriah--The
+  Temple--The Valley of Jehosaphat--The Olives of Gethsemane--The Mount
+  of Olives--Moslem Tradition--Panorama from the Summit--The Interior of
+  the City--The Population--Missions and Missionaries--Christianity in
+  Jerusalem--Intolerance--The Jews of Jerusalem--The Face of Christ--The
+  Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Holy of Holies--The Sacred
+  Localities--Visions of Christ--The Mosque of Omar--The Holy Man of
+  Timbuctoo--Preparations for Departure.
+
+
+Chapter VI.
+
+The Hill-Country of Palestine.
+
+  Leaving Jerusalem--The Tombs of the Kings--El Bireh--The
+  Hill-Country--First View of Mount Hermon--The Tomb of Joseph--Ebal and
+  Gerizim--The Gardens of Nablous--The Samaritans--The Sacred Book--A
+  Scene in the Synagogue--Mentor and Telemachus--Ride to Samaria--The
+  Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
+  Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
+  Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
+  the Annunciation--The Holy Places.
+
+
+Chapter VII.
+
+The Country of Galilee.
+
+  Departure from Nazareth--A Christian Guide--Ascent of Mount
+  Tabor--Wallachian Hermits--The Panorama of Tabor--Ride to Tiberias--A
+  Bath in Genesareth--The Flowers of Galilee--The Mount of
+  Beatitude--Magdala--Joseph's Well--Meeting with a Turk--The Fountain of
+  the Salt-Works--The Upper Valley of the Jordan--Summer Scenery--The
+  Rivers of Lebanon--Tell el-Kadi--An Arcadian Region--The Fountains of
+  Banias
+
+
+Chapter VIII.
+
+Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.
+
+  The Harmless Guard--Cæsarea Philippi--The Valley of the Druses--The
+  Sides of Mount Hermon--An Alarm--Threading a Defile--Distant view of
+  Djebel Hauaran--Another Alarm--Camp at Katana--We Ride into Damascus
+
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+Pictures of Damascus.
+
+  Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
+  Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
+  Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
+  Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
+  of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra
+
+
+Chapter X.
+
+The Visions of Hasheesh.
+
+
+Chapter XI.
+
+A Dissertation on Bathing and Bodies.
+
+
+Chapter XII.
+
+Baalbec and Lebanon.
+
+  Departure from Damascus--The Fountains of the Pharpar--Pass of the
+  Anti-Lebanon--Adventure with the Druses--The Range of Lebanon--The
+  Demon of Hasheesh departs--Impressions of Baalbec--The Temple of the
+  Sun--Titanic Masonry--The Ruined Mosque--Camp on Lebanon--Rascality of
+  the Guide--The Summit of Lebanon--The Sacred Cedars--The Christians of
+  Lebanon--An Afternoon in Eden--Rugged Travel--We Reach the Coast--Return
+  to Beyrout
+
+
+Chapter XIII.
+
+Pipes and Coffee
+
+
+Chapter XIV.
+
+Journey to Antioch and Aleppo.
+
+  Change of Plans--Routes to Baghdad--Asia Minor--We sail from
+  Beyrout--Yachting on the Syrian Coast--Tartus and Latakiyeh--The Coasts
+  of Syria--The Bay of Suediah--The Mouth of the Orontes--Landing--The
+  Garden of Syria--Ride to Antioch--The Modern City--The Plains of the
+  Orontes--Remains of the Greek Empire--The Ancient Road--The Plain of
+  Keftin--Approach to Aleppo.
+
+
+Chapter XV.
+
+Life in Aleppo.
+
+  Our Entry into Aleppo--We are conducted to a House--Our Unexpected
+  Welcome--The Mystery Explained--Aleppo--Its Name--Its Situation--The
+  Trade of Aleppo--The Christians--The Revolt of 1850--Present Appearance
+  of the City--Visit to Osman Pasha--The Citadel--View from the
+  Battlements--Society in Aleppo--Etiquette and Costume--Jewish Marriage
+  Festivities--A Christian Marriage Procession--Ride around the
+  Town--Nightingales--The Aleppo Button--A Hospital for Cats--Ferhat.
+
+
+Chapter XVI.
+
+Through the Syrian Gates.
+
+  An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
+  Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
+  Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
+  Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
+  Town--A Land of Gardens.
+
+
+Chapter XVII.
+
+Adana and Tarsus.
+
+  The Black Gate--The Plain of Cilicia--A Koord Village--Missis--Cilician
+  Scenery--Arrival at Adana--Three days in Quarantine--We receive
+  Pratique--A Landscape--The Plain of Tarsus--The River Cydnus--A Vision
+  of Cleopatra--Tarsus and its Environs--The _Duniktash_--The Moon of
+  Ramazan.
+
+
+Chapter XVIII.
+
+The Pass of Mount Taurus.
+
+  We enter the Taurus--Turcomans--Forest Scenery--the Palace of Pan--Khan
+  Mezarluk--Morning among the Mountains--The Gorge of the Cydnus--The
+  Crag of the Fortress--The Cilician Grate--Deserted Forts--A Sublime
+  Landscape--The Gorge of the Sihoon--The Second Gate--Camp in the
+  Defile--Sunrise--Journey up the Sihoon--A Change of Scenery--A Pastoral
+  Valley--Kolü Kushla--A Deserted Khan--A Guest in Ramazan--Flowers--The
+  Plain of Karamania--Barren Hills--The Town of Eregli--The Hadji again
+
+
+Chapter XIX.
+
+The Plains of Karamania.
+
+  The Plains of Karamania--Afternoon Heat--A Well--Volcanic
+  Phenomena--Karamania--A Grand Ruined Khan--Moonlight Picture--A
+  Landscape of the Plains--Mirages--A Short Interview--The Village of
+  Ismil--Third Day on the Plains--Approach to Konia
+
+
+Chapter XX.
+
+Scenes in Konia.
+
+  Approach to Konia--Tomb of Hazret Mevlana--Lodgings in a Khan--An
+  American Luxury--A Night-Scene in Ramazan--Prayers in the
+  Mosque--Remains of the Ancient City--View from the Mosque--The
+  Interior--A Leaning Minaret--The Diverting History of the Muleteers
+
+
+Chapter XXI.
+
+The Heart of Asia Minor.
+
+  Scenery of the Hills--Ladik, the Ancient Laodicea--The Plague of
+  Gad-Flies--Camp at Ilgün--A Natural Warm Bath--The Gad-Flies Again--A
+  Summer Landscape--Ak-Sheher--The Base of Sultan Dagh--The Fountain of
+  Midas--A Drowsy Journey--The Town of Bolawadün
+
+
+Chapter XXII.
+
+The Forests of Phrygia.
+
+  The Frontier of Phrygia--Ancient Quarries and Tombs--We Enter the Pine
+  Forests--A Guard-House--Encampments of the Turcomans--Pastoral
+  Scenery--A Summer Village--The Valley of the Tombs--Rock Sepulchres of
+  the Phrygian Kings--The Titan's Camp--The Valley of Kümbeh--A Land of
+  Flowers--Turcoman Hospitality--The Exiled Effendis--The Old Turcoman--A
+  Glimpse of Arcadia--A Landscape--Interested Friendship--The Valley of
+  the Pursek--Arrival at Kiutahya
+
+
+Chapter XXIII.
+
+Kiutahya, and the Ruins of OEzani.
+
+  Entrance into Kiutahya--The New Khan--An Unpleasant
+  Discovery--Kiutahya--The Citadel--Panorama from the Walls--The Gorge of
+  the Mountains--Camp in a Meadow--The Valley of the
+  Rhyndacus--Chavdür--The Ruins of OEzani--The Acropolis and
+  Temple--The Theatre and Stadium--Ride down the Valley--Camp at Daghjköi
+
+
+Chapter XXIV.
+
+The Mysian Olympus.
+
+  Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
+  of Taushanlü--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
+  Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
+  Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
+  of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghiöl--A Showery Ride--The
+  Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
+  Furled
+
+
+Chapter XXV.
+
+Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.
+
+  The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
+  Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
+  Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
+  the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
+  Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Caïque--Breakfast with
+  the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
+  View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn
+
+
+Chapter XXVI.
+
+The Night of Predestination.
+
+  Constantinople in Ramazan--The Origin of the Fast--Nightly
+  Illuminations--The Night of Predestination--The Golden Horn at
+  Night--Illumination of the Shores---The Cannon of Constantinople--A
+  Fiery Panorama--The Sultan's Caïque--Close of the Celebration--A Turkish
+  Mob--The Dancing Dervishes
+
+
+Chapter XXVII.
+
+The Solemnities of Bairam.
+
+  The Appearance of the New Moon--The Festival of Bairam--The Interior of
+  the Seraglio--The Pomp of the Sultan's Court--Reschid Pasha--The
+  Sultan's Dwarf--Arabian Stallions--The Imperial Guard--Appearance of the
+  Sultan--The Inner Court--Return of the Procession--The Sultan on his
+  Throne--The Homage of the Pashas--An Oriental Picture--Kissing the
+  Scarf--The Shekh el-Islàm--The Descendant of the Caliphs--Bairam
+  Commences
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII.
+
+The Mosques of Constantinople.
+
+  Sojourn at Constantinople--Semi-European Character of the City--The
+  Mosque--Procuring a Firman--The Seraglio--The Library--The Ancient
+  Throne-Room--Admittance to St. Sophia--Magnificence of the Interior--The
+  Marvellous Dome--The Mosque of Sultan Achmed--The Sulemanye--Great
+  Conflagrations--Political Meaning of the Fires--Turkish Progress--Decay
+  of the Ottoman Power
+
+
+Chapter XXIX.
+
+Farewell to the Orient--Malta.
+
+  Embarcation--Farewell to the Orient--Leaving Constantinople--A
+  Wreck--The Dardanelles--Homeric Scenery--Smyrna Revisited--The Grecian
+  Isles--Voyage to Malta--Detention--La Valetta--The Maltese--The
+  Climate--A Boat for Sicily
+
+
+Chapter XXX.
+
+The Festival of St. Agatha.
+
+  Departure from Malta--The Speronara--Our Fellow-Passengers--The First
+  Night on Board--Sicily--Scarcity of Provisions--Beating in the Calabrian
+  Channel--The Fourth Morning--The Gulf of Catania--A Sicilian
+  Landscape--The Anchorage--The Suspected List--The Streets of
+  Catania--Biography of St. Agatha--The Illuminations--The Procession of
+  the Veil--The Biscari Palace--The Antiquities of Catania--The Convent of
+  St. Nicola
+
+
+Chapter XXXI.
+
+The Eruption of Mount Etna.
+
+  The Mountain Threatens--The Signs Increase--We Leave Catania--Gardens
+  Among the Lava--Etna Labors--Aci Reale--The Groans of Etna--The
+  Eruption--Gigantic Tree of Smoke--Formation of the New Crater--We Lose
+  Sight of the Mountain--Arrival at Messina--Etna is Obscured--Departure
+
+
+Chapter XXXII.
+
+Gibraltar.
+
+  Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
+  Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
+  Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
+  Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII.
+
+Cadiz and Seville.
+
+  Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
+  Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
+  House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
+  Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar--Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
+  House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
+  Evening in Seville
+
+
+Chapter XXXIV.
+
+Journey in a Spanish Diligence.
+
+  Spanish Diligence Lines--Leaving Seville--An Unlucky Start--Alcalà of
+  the Bakers--Dinner at Carmona--A Dehesa--The Mayoral and his
+  Team--Ecija--Night Journey--Cordova--The Cathedral-Mosque--Moorish
+  Architecture--The Sierra Morena--A Rainy Journey--A Chapter of
+  Accidents--Baylen--The Fascination of Spain--Jaen--The Vega of Granada
+
+
+Chapter XXXV.
+
+Granada and the Alhambra.
+
+  Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish
+  Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs
+  of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The
+  Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la
+  Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the
+  Fishpond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the Architecture--
+  Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The Moorish Dynasty
+  in Spain
+
+
+Chapter XXXVI.
+
+The Bridle-Roads of Andalusia.
+
+  Change of Weather--Napoleon and his Horses--Departure from Granada--My
+  Guide, José Garcia--His Domestic Troubles--The Tragedy of the
+  Umbrella--The Vow against Aguardiente--Crossing the Vega--The Sierra
+  Nevada--The Baths of Alhama--"Woe is Me, Alhama!"--The Valley of the
+  River Vélez--Vélez Malaga--The Coast Road--The Fisherman and his
+  Donkey--Malaga--Summer Scenery--The Story of Don Pedro, without Fear and
+  without Care--The Field of Monda--A Lonely Venta
+
+
+Chapter XXXVII.
+
+The Mountains of Fonda.
+
+  Orange Valleys--Climbing the Mountains--José's Hospitality--El
+  Burgo--The Gate of the Wind--The Cliff and Cascades of Ronda--The
+  Mountain Region--Traces of the Moors--Haunts of Robbers--A Stormy
+  Ride--The Inn at Gaucin--Bad News--A Boyish Auxiliary--Descent from the
+  Mountains--The Ford of the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
+  Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with José--Travelling
+  in Spain--Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+The Lands of the Saracen
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+Life in a Syrian Quarantine.
+
+  Voyage from Alexandria to Beyrout--Landing at Quarantine--The
+  Guardiano--Our Quarters--Our Companions--Famine and Feasting--The
+  Morning--The Holy Man of Timbuctoo--Sunday in Quarantine--Islamism--We
+  are Registered--Love through a Grating--Trumpets--The Mystery
+  Explained--Delights of Quarantine--Oriental _vs_. American
+  Exaggeration--A Discussion of Politics--Our
+  Release--Beyrout--Preparations for the Pilgrimage.
+
+
+  "The mountains look on Quarantine,
+  And Quarantine looks on the sea."
+
+  Quarantine MS.
+
+
+In Quarantine, Beyrout, _Saturday, April_ 17, 1852.
+
+Everybody has heard of Quarantine, but in our favored country there are
+many untravelled persons who do not precisely know what it is, and who no
+doubt wonder why it should be such a bugbear to travellers in the Orient.
+I confess I am still somewhat in the same predicament myself, although I
+have already been twenty-four hours in Quarantine. But, as a peculiarity
+of the place is, that one can do nothing, however good a will he has, I
+propose to set down my experiences each day, hoping that I and my readers
+may obtain some insight into the nature of Quarantine, before the term of
+my probation is over.
+
+I left Alexandria on the afternoon of the 14th inst., in company with Mr.
+Carter Harrison, a fellow-countryman, who had joined me in Cairo, for the
+tour through Palestine. We had a head wind, and rough sea, and I remained
+in a torpid state during most of the voyage. There was rain the second
+night; but, when the clouds cleared away yesterday morning, we were
+gladdened by the sight of Lebanon, whose summits glittered with streaks of
+snow. The lower slopes of the mountains were green with fields and
+forests, and Beyrout, when we ran up to it, seemed buried almost out of
+sight, in the foliage of its mulberry groves. The town is built along the
+northern side of a peninsula, which projects about two miles from the main
+line of the coast, forming a road for vessels. In half an hour after our
+arrival, several large boats came alongside, and we were told to get our
+baggage in order and embark for Quarantine. The time necessary to purify a
+traveller arriving from Egypt from suspicion of the plague, is five days,
+but the days of arrival and departure are counted, so that the durance
+amounts to but three full days. The captain of the Osiris mustered the
+passengers together, and informed them that each one would be obliged to
+pay six piastres for the transportation of himself and his baggage. Two
+heavy lighters are now drawn up to the foot of the gangway, but as soon as
+the first box tumbles into them, the men tumble out. They attach the craft
+by cables to two smaller boats, in which they sit, to tow the infected
+loads. We are all sent down together, Jews, Turks, and Christians--a
+confused pile of men, women, children, and goods. A little boat from the
+city, in which there are representatives from the two hotels, hovers
+around us, and cards are thrown to us. The zealous agents wish to supply
+us immediately with tables, beds, and all other household appliances; but
+we decline their help until we arrive at the mysterious spot. At last we
+float off--two lighters full of infected, though respectable, material,
+towed by oarsmen of most scurvy appearance, but free from every suspicion
+of taint.
+
+The sea is still rough, the sun is hot, and a fat Jewess becomes sea-sick.
+An Italian Jew rails at the boatmen ahead, in the Neapolitan patois, for
+the distance is long, the Quarantine being on the land-side of Beyrout. We
+see the rows of little yellow houses on the cliff, and with great apparent
+risk of being swept upon the breakers, are tugged into a small cove, where
+there is a landing-place. Nobody is there to receive us; the boatmen jump
+into the water and push the lighters against the stone stairs, while we
+unload our own baggage. A tin cup filled with sea-water is placed before
+us, and we each drop six piastres into it--for money, strange as it may
+seem, is infectious. By this time, the _guardianos_ have had notice of our
+arrival, and we go up with them to choose our habitations. There are
+several rows of one-story houses overlooking the sea, each containing two
+empty rooms, to be had for a hundred piastres; but a square two-story
+dwelling stands apart from them, and the whole of it may be had for thrice
+that sum. There are seven Frank prisoners, and we take it for ourselves.
+But the rooms are bare, the kitchen empty, and we learn the important
+fact, that Quarantine is durance vile, without even the bread and water.
+The guardiano says the agents of the hotel are at the gate, and we can
+order from them whatever we want. Certainly; but at their own price, for
+we are wholly at their mercy. However, we go down stairs, and the chief
+officer, who accompanies us, gets into a corner as we pass, and holds a
+stick before him to keep us off. He is now clean, but if his garments
+brush against ours, he is lost. The people we meet in the grounds step
+aside with great respect to let us pass, but if we offer them our hands,
+no one would dare to touch a finger's tip.
+
+Here is the gate: a double screen of wire, with an interval between, so
+that contact is impossible. There is a crowd of individuals outside, all
+anxious to execute commissions. Among them is the agent of the hotel, who
+proposes to fill our bare rooms with furniture, send us a servant and
+cook, and charge us the same as if we lodged with him. The bargain is
+closed at once, and he hurries off to make the arrangements. It is now
+four o'clock, and the bracing air of the headland gives a terrible
+appetite to those of us who, like me, have been sea-sick and fasting for
+forty-eight hours. But there is no food within the Quarantine except a
+patch of green wheat, and a well in the limestone rock. We two Americans
+join company with our room-mate, an Alexandrian of Italian parentage, who
+has come to Beyrout to be married, and make the tour of our territory.
+There is a path along the cliffs overhanging the sea, with glorious views
+of Lebanon, up to his snowy top, the pine-forests at his base, and the
+long cape whereon the city lies at full length, reposing beside the waves.
+The Mahommedans and Jews, in companies of ten (to save expense), are
+lodged in the smaller dwellings, where they have already aroused millions
+of fleas from their state of torpid expectancy. We return, and take a
+survey of our companions in the pavilion: a French woman, with two ugly
+and peevish children (one at the breast), in the next room, and three
+French gentlemen in the other--a merchant, a young man with hair of
+extraordinary length, and a _filateur_, or silk-manufacturer, middle-aged
+and cynical. The first is a gentleman in every sense of the word, the
+latter endurable, but the young Absalom is my aversion, I am subject to
+involuntary likings and dislikings, for which I can give no reason, and
+though the man may be in every way amiable, his presence is very
+distasteful to me.
+
+We take a pipe of consolation, but it only whets our appetites. We give up
+our promenade, for exercise is still worse; and at last the sun goes down,
+and yet no sign of dinner. Our pavilion becomes a Tower of Famine, and the
+Italian recites Dante. Finally a strange face appears at the door. By
+Apicius! it is a servant from the hotel, with iron bedsteads, camp-tables,
+and some large chests, which breathe an odor of the Commissary Department.
+We go stealthily down to the kitchen, and watch the unpacking. Our dinner
+is there, sure enough, but alas! it is not yet cooked. Patience is no
+more; my companion manages to filch a raw onion and a crust of bread,
+which we share, and roll under our tongues as a sweet morsel, and it gives
+us strength for another hour. The Greek dragoman and cook, who are sent
+into Quarantine for our sakes, take compassion on us; the fires are
+kindled in the cold furnaces; savory steams creep up the stairs; the
+preparations increase, and finally climax in the rapturous announcement:
+"Messieurs, dinner is ready." The soup is liquified bliss; the _cotelettes
+d'agneau_ are _cotelettes de bonheur_; and as for that broad dish of
+Syrian larks--Heaven forgive us the regret, that more songs had not been
+silenced for our sake! The meal is all nectar and ambrosia, and now,
+filled and contented, we subside into sleep on comfortable couches. So
+closes the first day of our incarceration.
+
+This morning dawned clear and beautiful. Lebanon, except his snowy crest,
+was wrapped in the early shadows, but the Mediterranean gleamed like a
+shield of sapphire, and Beyrout, sculptured against the background of its
+mulberry groves, was glorified beyond all other cities. The turf around
+our pavilion fairly blazed with the splendor of the yellow daisies and
+crimson poppies that stud it. I was satisfied with what I saw, and felt no
+wish to leave Quarantine to-day. Our Italian friend, however, is more
+impatient. His betrothed came early to see him, and we were edified by the
+great alacrity with which he hastened to the grate, to renew his vows at
+two yards' distance from her. In the meantime, I went down to the Turkish
+houses, to cultivate the acquaintance of a singular character I met on
+board the steamer. He is a negro of six feet four, dressed in a long
+scarlet robe. His name is Mahommed Senoosee, and he is a _fakeer_, or holy
+man, from Timbuctoo. He has been two years absent from home, on a
+pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and is now on his way to Jerusalem and
+Damascus. He has travelled extensively in all parts of Central Africa,
+from Dar-Fur to Ashantee, and professes to be on good terms with the
+Sultans of Houssa and Bornou. He has even been in the great kingdom of
+Waday, which has never been explored by Europeans, and as far south as
+Iola, the capital of Adamowa. Of the correctness of his narrations I have
+not the least doubt, as they correspond geographically with all that we
+know of the interior of Africa. In answer to my question whether a
+European might safely make the same tour, he replied that there would be
+no difficulty, provided he was accompanied by a native, and he offered to
+take me even to Timbuctoo, if I would return with him. He was very curious
+to obtain information about America, and made notes of all that I told
+him, in the quaint character used by the Mughrebbins, or Arabs of the
+West, which has considerable resemblance to the ancient Cufic. He wishes
+to join company with me for the journey to Jerusalem, and perhaps I shall
+accept him.
+
+
+_Sunday, April_ 18.
+
+As Quarantine is a sort of limbo, without the pale of civilized society,
+we have no church service to-day. We have done the best we could, however,
+in sending one of the outside dragomen to purchase a Bible, in which we
+succeeded. He brought us a very handsome copy, printed by the American
+Bible Society in New York. I tried vainly in Cairo and Alexandria to find
+a missionary who would supply my heathenish destitution of the Sacred
+Writings; for I had reached the East through Austria, where they are
+prohibited, and to travel through Palestine without them, would be like
+sailing without pilot or compass. It gives a most impressive reality to
+Solomon's "house of the forest of Lebanon," when you can look up from the
+page to those very forests and those grand mountains, "excellent with the
+cedars." Seeing the holy man of Timbuctoo praying with his face towards
+Mecca, I went down to him, and we conversed for a long time on religious
+matters. He is tolerably well informed, having read the Books of Moses and
+the Psalms of David, but, like all Mahommedans, his ideas of religion
+consist mainly of forms, and its reward is a sensual paradise. The more
+intelligent of the Moslems give a spiritual interpretation to the nature
+of the Heaven promised by the Prophet, and I have heard several openly
+confess their disbelief in the seventy houries and the palaces of pearl
+and emerald. Shekh Mahommed Senoosee scarcely ever utters a sentence in
+which is not the word "Allah," and "La illah il' Allah" is repeated at
+least every five minutes. Those of his class consider that there is a
+peculiar merit in the repetition of the names and attributes of God. They
+utterly reject the doctrine of the Trinity, which they believe implies a
+sort of partnership, or God-firm (to use their own words), and declare
+that all who accept it are hopelessly damned. To deny Mahomet's
+prophetship would excite a violent antagonism, and I content myself with
+making them acknowledge that God is greater than all Prophets or Apostles,
+and that there is but one God for all the human race. I have never yet
+encountered that bitter spirit of bigotry which is so frequently ascribed
+to them; but on the contrary, fully as great a tolerance as they would
+find exhibited towards them by most of the Christian sects.
+
+This morning a paper was sent to us, on which we were requested to write
+our names, ages, professions, and places of nativity. We conjectured that
+we were subjected to the suspicion of political as well as physical taint,
+but happily this was not the case. I registered myself as a _voyageur_,
+the French as _negocians_ and when it came to the woman's turn, Absalom,
+who is a partisan of female progress, wished to give her the same
+profession as her husband--a machinist. But she declared that her only
+profession was that of a "married woman," and she was so inscribed. Her
+peevish boy rejoiced in the title of "_pleuricheur_," or "weeper," and the
+infant as "_titeuse_," or "sucker." While this was going on, the
+guardiano of our room came in very mysteriously, and beckoned to my
+companion, saying that "Mademoiselle was at the gate." But it was the
+Italian who was wanted, and again, from the little window of our pavilion,
+we watched his hurried progress over the lawn. No sooner had she departed,
+than he took his pocket telescope, slowly sweeping the circuit of the bay
+as she drew nearer and nearer Beyrout. He has succeeded in distinguishing,
+among the mass of buildings, the top of the house in which she lives, but
+alas! it is one story too low, and his patient espial has only been
+rewarded by the sight of some cats promenading on the roof.
+
+I have succeeded in obtaining some further particulars in relation to
+Quarantine. On the night of our arrival, as we were about getting into our
+beds, a sudden and horrible gush of brimstone vapor came up stairs, and we
+all fell to coughing like patients in a pulmonary hospital. The odor
+increased till we were obliged to open the windows and sit beside them in
+order to breathe comfortably. This was the preparatory fumigation, in
+order to remove the ranker seeds of plague, after which the milder
+symptoms will of themselves vanish in the pure air of the place. Several
+times a day we are stunned and overwhelmed with the cracked brays of three
+discordant trumpets, as grating and doleful as the last gasps of a dying
+donkey. At first I supposed the object of this was to give a greater
+agitation to the air, and separate and shake down the noxious exhalations
+we emit; but since I was informed that the soldiers outside would shoot us
+in case we attempted to escape, I have concluded that the sound is meant
+to alarm us, and prevent our approaching too near the walls. On inquiring
+of our guardiano whether the wheat growing within the grounds was subject
+to Quarantine, he informed me that it did not ecovey infection, and that
+three old geese, who walked out past the guard with impunity, were free to
+go and come, as they had never been known to have the plague. Yesterday
+evening the medical attendant, a Polish physician, came in to inspect us,
+but he made a very hasty review, looking down on us from the top of a high
+horse.
+
+
+_Monday, April_ 19.
+
+Eureka! the whole thing is explained. Talking to day with the guardiano,
+he happened to mention that he had been three years in Quarantine, keeping
+watch over infected travellers. "What!" said I, "you have been sick three
+years." "Oh no," he replied; "I have never been sick at all." "But are not
+people sick in Quarantine?" "_Stafferillah!_" he exclaimed; "they are
+always in better health than the people outside." "What is Quarantine for,
+then?" I persisted. "What is it for?" he repeated, with a pause of blank
+amazement at my ignorance, "why, to get money from the travellers!"
+Indiscreet guardiano! It were better to suppose ourselves under suspicion
+of the plague, than to have such an explanation of the mystery. Yet, in
+spite of the unpalatable knowledge, I almost regret that this is our last
+day in the establishment. The air is so pure and bracing, the views from
+our windows so magnificent, the colonized branch of the Beyrout Hotel so
+comfortable, that I am content to enjoy this pleasant idleness--the more
+pleasant since, being involuntary, it is no weight on the conscience. I
+look up to the Maronite villages, perched on the slopes of Lebanon, with
+scarce a wish to climb to them, or turning to the sparkling Mediterranean,
+view
+
+  "The speronara's sail of snowy hue
+  Whitening and brightening on that field of blue,"
+
+and have none of that unrest which the sight of a vessel in motion
+suggests.
+
+To-day my friend from Timbuctoo came up to have another talk. He was
+curious to know the object of my travels, and as he would not have
+comprehended the exact truth, I was obliged to convey it to him through
+the medium of fiction. I informed him that I had been dispatched by the
+Sultan of my country to obtain information of the countries of Africa;
+that I wrote in a book accounts of everything I saw, and on my return,
+would present this book to the Sultan, who would reward me with a high
+rank--perhaps even that of Grand Vizier. The Orientals deal largely in
+hyperbole, and scatter numbers and values with the most reckless
+profusion. The Arabic, like the Hebrew, its sister tongue, and other old
+original tongues of Man, is a language of roots, and abounds with the
+boldest metaphors. Now, exaggeration is but the imperfect form of
+metaphor. The expression is always a splendid amplification of the simple
+fact. Like skilful archers, in order to hit the mark, they aim above it.
+When you have once learned his standard of truth, you can readily gauge an
+Arab's expressions, and regulate your own accordingly. But whenever I have
+attempted to strike the key-note myself, I generally found that it was
+below, rather than above, the Oriental pitch.
+
+The Shekh had already informed me that the King of Ashantee, whom he had
+visited, possessed twenty-four houses full of gold, and that the Sultan of
+Houssa had seventy thousand horses always standing saddled before his
+palace, in order that he might take his choice, when he wished to ride
+out. By this he did not mean that the facts were precisely so, but only
+that the King was very rich, and the Sultan had a great many horses. In
+order to give the Shekh an idea of the great wealth and power of the
+American Nation, I was obliged to adopt the same plan. I told him,
+therefore, that our country was two years' journey in extent, that the
+Treasury consisted of four thousand houses filled to the roof with gold,
+and that two hundred thousand soldiers on horseback kept continual guard
+around Sultan Fillmore's palace. He received these tremendous statements
+with the utmost serenity and satisfaction, carefully writing them in his
+book, together with the name of Sultan Fillmore, whose fame has ere this
+reached the remote regions of Timbuctoo. The Shekh, moreover, had the
+desire of visiting England, and wished me to give him a letter to the
+English Sultan. This rather exceeded my powers, but I wrote a simple
+certificate explaining who he was, and whence he came, which I sealed with
+an immense display of wax, and gave him. In return, he wrote his name in
+my book, in the Mughrebbin character, adding the sentence: "There is no
+God but God."
+
+This evening the forbidden subject of politics crept into our quiet
+community, and the result was an explosive contention which drowned even
+the braying of the agonizing trumpets outside. The gentlemanly Frenchman
+is a sensible and consistent republican, the old _filateur_ a violent
+monarchist, while Absalom, as I might have foreseen, is a Red, of the
+schools of Proudhon and Considerant. The first predicted a Republic in
+France, the second a Monarchy in America, and the last was in favor of a
+general and total demolition of all existing systems. Of course, with such
+elements, anything like a serious discussion was impossible; and, as in
+most French debates, it ended in a bewildering confusion of cries and
+gesticulations. In the midst of it, I was struck by the cordiality with
+which the Monarchist and the Socialist united in their denunciations of
+England and the English laws. As they sat side by side, pouring out
+anathemas against "perfide Albion," I could not help exclaiming: "_Voilà,
+comme les extrêmes se rencontrent_!" This turned the whole current of
+their wrath against me, and I was glad to make a hasty retreat.
+
+The physician again visited us to-night, to promise a release to-morrow
+morning. He looked us all in the faces, to be certain that there were no
+signs of pestilence, and politely regretted that he could not offer us his
+hand. The husband of the "married woman" also came, and relieved the other
+gentlemen from the charge of the "weeper." He was a stout, ruddy
+Provençal, in a white blouse, and I commiserated him sincerely for having
+such a disagreeable wife.
+
+To-day, being the last of our imprisonment, we have received many tokens
+of attention from dragomen, who have sent their papers through the grate
+to us, to be returned to-morrow after our liberation. They are not very
+prepossessing specimens of their class, with the exception of Yusef Badra,
+who brings a recommendation from my friend, Ross Browne. Yusef is a
+handsome, dashing fellow, with something of the dandy in his dress and
+air, but he has a fine, clear, sparkling eye, with just enough of the
+devil in it to make him attractive. I think, however, that, the Greek
+dragoman, who has been our companion in Quarantine, will carry the day. He
+is by birth a Boeotian, but now a citizen of Athens, and calls himself
+François Vitalis. He speaks French, German, and Italian, besides Arabic
+and Turkish, and as he has been for twelve or fifteen years vibrating
+between Europe and the East, he must by this time have amassed sufficient
+experience to answer the needs of rough-and-tumble travellers like
+ourselves. He has not asked us for the place, which displays so much
+penetration on his part, that we shall end by offering it to him. Perhaps
+he is content to rest his claims upon the memory of our first Quarantine
+dinner. If so, the odors of the cutlets and larks--even of the raw onion,
+which we remember with tears--shall not plead his cause in vain.
+
+
+Beyrout (out of Quarantine), _Wednesday, May_ 21.
+
+The handsome Greek, Diamanti, one of the proprietors of the "Hotel de
+Belle Vue," was on hand bright and early yesterday morning, to welcome us
+out of Quarantine. The gates were thrown wide, and forth we issued between
+two files of soldiers, rejoicing in our purification. We walked through
+mulberry orchards to the town, and through its steep and crooked streets
+to the hotel, which stands beyond, near the extremity of the Cape, or Ras
+Beyrout. The town is small, but has an active population, and a larger
+commerce than any other port in Syria. The anchorage, however, is an open
+road, and in stormy weather it is impossible for a boat to land. There are
+two picturesque old castles on some rocks near the shore, but they were
+almost destroyed by the English bombardment in 1841. I noticed two or
+three granite columns, now used as the lintels of some of the arched ways
+in the streets, and other fragments of old masonry, the only remains of
+the ancient Berytus.
+
+Our time, since our release, has been occupied by preparations for the
+journey to Jerusalem. We have taken François as dragoman, and our
+_mukkairee_, or muleteers, are engaged to be in readiness to-morrow
+morning. I learn that the Druses are in revolt in Djebel Hauaran and parts
+of the Anti-Lebanon, which will prevent my forming any settled plan for
+the tour through Palestine and Syria. Up to this time, the country has
+been considered quite safe, the only robbery this winter having been that
+of the party of Mr. Degen, of New York, which was plundered near Tiberias.
+Dr. Robinson left here two weeks ago for Jerusalem, in company with Dr.
+Eli Smith, of the American Mission at this place.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+The Coast of Palestine.
+
+
+  The Pilgrimage Commences--The Muleteers--The Mules--The Donkey--Journey
+  to Sidon--The Foot of Lebanon--Pictures--The Ruins of Tyre--A Wild
+  Morning--The Tyrian Surges--Climbing the Ladder of Tyre--Panorama of the
+  Bay of Acre--The Plain of Esdraelon--Camp in a Garden--Acre--the Shore
+  of the Bay--Haifa--Mount Carmel and its Monastery--A Deserted Coast--The
+  Ruins of Cæsarea--The Scenery of Palestine--We become Robbers--El
+  Haram--Wrecks--the Harbor and Town of Jaffa.
+
+
+  "Along the line of foam, the jewelled chain,
+  The largesse of the ever-giving main."
+
+  R. H. Stoddard.
+
+
+Ramleh, _April_ 27, 1852.
+
+We left Beyrout on the morning of the 22d. Our caravan consisted of three
+horses, three mules, and a donkey, in charge of two men--Dervish, an
+erect, black-bearded, and most impassive Mussulman, and Mustapha, who is
+the very picture of patience and good-nature. He was born with a smile on
+his face, and has never been able to change the expression. They are both
+masters of their art, and can load a mule with a speed and skill which I
+would defy any Santa Fé trader to excel. The animals are not less
+interesting than their masters. Our horses, to be sure, are slow, plodding
+beasts, with considerable endurance, but little spirit; but the two
+baggage mules deserve gold medals from the Society for the Promotion of
+Industry. I can overlook any amount of waywardness in the creatures, in
+consideration of the steady, persevering energy, the cheerfulness and even
+enthusiasm with which they perform their duties. They seem to be conscious
+that they are doing well, and to take a delight in the consciousness. One
+of them has a band of white shells around his neck, fastened with a tassel
+and two large blue beads; and you need but look at him to see that he is
+aware how becoming it is. He thinks it was given to him for good conduct,
+and is doing his best to merit another. The little donkey is a still more
+original animal. He is a practical humorist, full of perverse tricks, but
+all intended for effect, and without a particle of malice. He generally
+walks behind, running off to one side or the other to crop a mouthful of
+grass, but no sooner does Dervish attempt to mount him, than he sets off
+at full gallop, and takes the lead of the caravan. After having performed
+one of his feats, he turns around with a droll glance at us, as much as to
+say: "Did you see that?" If we had not been present, most assuredly he
+would never have done it. I can imagine him, after his return to Beyrout,
+relating his adventures to a company of fellow-donkeys, who every now and
+then burst into tremendous brays at some of his irresistible dry sayings.
+
+I persuaded Mr. Harrison to adopt the Oriental costume, which, from five
+months' wear in Africa, I greatly preferred to the Frank. We therefore
+rode out of Beyrout as a pair of Syrian Beys, while François, with his
+belt, sabre, and pistols had much the aspect of a Greek brigand. The road
+crosses the hill behind the city, between the Forest of Pines and a long
+tract of red sand-hills next the sea. It was a lovely morning, not too
+bright and hot, for light, fleecy vapors hung along the sides of Lebanon.
+Beyond the mulberry orchards, we entered on wild, half-cultivated tracts,
+covered with a bewildering maze of blossoms. The hill-side and stony
+shelves of soil overhanging the sea fairly blazed with the brilliant dots
+of color which were rained upon them. The pink, the broom, the poppy, the
+speedwell, the lupin, that beautiful variety of the cyclamen, called by
+the Syrians "_deek e-djebel_" (cock o' the mountain), and a number of
+unknown plants dazzled the eye with their profusion, and loaded the air
+with fragrance as rare as it was unfailing. Here and there, clear, swift
+rivulets came down from Lebanon, coursing their way between thickets of
+blooming oleanders. Just before crossing the little river Damoor, François
+pointed out, on one of the distant heights, the residence of the late Lady
+Hester Stanhope. During the afternoon we crossed several offshoots of the
+Lebanon, by paths incredibly steep and stony, and towards evening reached
+Saïda, the ancient Sidon, where we obtained permission to pitch our tent
+in a garden. The town is built on a narrow point of land, jutting out from
+the centre of a bay, or curve in the coast, and contains about five
+thousand inhabitants. It is a quiet, sleepy sort of a place, and contains
+nothing of the old Sidon except a few stones and the fragments of a mole,
+extending into the sea. The fortress in the water, and the Citadel, are
+remnants of Venitian sway. The clouds gathered after nightfall, and
+occasionally there was a dash of rain on our tent. But I heard it with the
+same quiet happiness, as when, in boyhood, sleeping beneath the rafters, I
+have heard the rain beating all night upon the roof. I breathed the sweet
+breath of the grasses whereon my carpet was spread, and old Mother Earth,
+welcoming me back to her bosom, cradled me into calm and refreshing
+sleep. There is no rest more grateful than that which we take on the turf
+or the sand, except the rest below it.
+
+We rose in a dark and cloudy morning, and continued our way between fields
+of barley, completely stained with the bloody hue of the poppy, and
+meadows turned into golden mosaic by a brilliant yellow daisy. Until noon
+our road was over a region of alternate meadow land and gentle though
+stony elevations, making out from Lebanon. We met continually with
+indications of ancient power and prosperity. The ground was strewn with
+hewn blocks, and the foundations of buildings remain in many places.
+Broken sarcophagi lie half-buried in grass, and the gray rocks of the
+hills are pierced with tombs. The soil, though stony, appeared to be
+naturally fertile, and the crops of wheat, barley, and lentils were very
+flourishing. After rounding the promontory which forms the southern
+boundary of the Gulf of Sidon, we rode for an hour or two over a plain
+near the sea, and then came down to a valley which ran up among the hills,
+terminating in a natural amphitheatre. An ancient barrow, or tumulus,
+nobody knows of whom, stands near the sea. During the day I noticed two
+charming little pictures. One, a fountain gushing into a broad square
+basin of masonry, shaded by three branching cypresses. Two Turks sat on
+its edge, eating their bread and curdled milk, while their horses drank
+out of the stone trough below. The other, an old Mahommedan, with a green
+turban and white robe, seated at the foot of a majestic sycamore, over the
+high bank of a stream that tumbled down its bed of white marble rock to
+the sea.
+
+The plain back of the narrow, sandy promontory on which the modern Soor
+is built, is a rich black loam, which a little proper culture would turn
+into a very garden. It helped me to account for the wealth of ancient
+Tyre. The approach to the town, along a beach on which the surf broke with
+a continuous roar, with the wreck of a Greek vessel in the foreground, and
+a stormy sky behind, was very striking. It was a wild, bleak picture, the
+white minarets of the town standing out spectrally against the clouds. We
+rode up the sand-hills, back of the town, and selected a good
+camping-place among the ruins of Tyre. Near us there was an ancient square
+building, now used as a cistern, and filled with excellent fresh water.
+The surf roared tremendously on the rocks, on either hand, and the boom of
+the more distant breakers came to my ear like the wind in a pine forest.
+The remains of the ancient sea-wall are still to be traced for the entire
+circuit of the city, and the heavy surf breaks upon piles of shattered
+granite columns. Along a sort of mole, protecting an inner harbor on the
+north side, are great numbers of these columns. I counted fifteen in one
+group, some of them fine red granite, and some of the marble of Lebanon.
+The remains of the pharos and the fortresses strengthening the sea-wall,
+were pointed out by the Syrian who accompanied us as a guide, but his
+faith was a little stronger than mine. He even showed us the ruins of the
+jetty built by Alexander, by means of which the ancient city, then
+insulated by the sea, was taken. The remains of the causeway gradually
+formed the promontory by which the place is now connected with the main
+land. These are the principal indications of Tyre above ground, but the
+guide informed us that the Arabs, in digging among the sand-hills for the
+stones of the old buildings, which they quarry out and ship to Beyrout,
+come upon chambers, pillars, arches, and other objects. The Tyrian purple
+is still furnished by a muscle found upon the coast, but Tyre is now only
+noted for its tobacco and mill-stones. I saw many of the latter lying in
+the streets of the town, and an Arab was selling a quantity at auction in
+the square, as we passed. They are cut out from a species of dark volcanic
+rock, by the Bedouins of the mountains. There were half a dozen small
+coasting vessels lying in the road, but the old harbors are entirely
+destroyed. Isaiah's prophecy is literally fulfilled: "Howl, ye ships of
+Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering
+in."
+
+On returning from our ramble we passed the house of the Governor, Daood
+Agha, who was dispensing justice in regard to a lawsuit then before him.
+He asked us to stop and take coffee, and received us with much grace and
+dignity. As we rose to leave, a slave brought me a large bunch of choice
+flowers from his garden.
+
+We set out from Tyre at an early hour, and rode along the beach around the
+head of the bay to the Ras-el-Abiad, the ancient Promontorium Album. The
+morning was wild and cloudy, with gleams of sunshine that flashed out over
+the dark violet gloom of the sea. The surf was magnificent, rolling up in
+grand billows, which broke and formed again, till the last of the long,
+falling fringes of snow slid seething up the sand. Something of ancient
+power was in their shock and roar, and every great wave that plunged and
+drew back again, called in its solemn bass: "Where are the ships of Tyre?
+where are the ships of Tyre?" I looked back on the city, which stood
+advanced far into the sea, her feet bathed in thunderous spray. By and by
+the clouds cleared away, the sun came out bold and bright, and our road
+left the beach for a meadowy plain, crossed by fresh streams, and sown
+with an inexhaustible wealth of flowers. Through thickets of myrtle and
+mastic, around which the rue and lavender grew in dense clusters, we
+reached the foot of the mountain, and began ascending the celebrated
+Ladder of Tyre. The road is so steep as to resemble a staircase, and
+climbs along the side of the promontory, hanging over precipices of naked
+white rock, in some places three hundred feet in height. The mountain is a
+mass of magnesian limestone, with occasional beds of marble. The surf has
+worn its foot into hollow caverns, into which the sea rushes with a dull,
+heavy boom, like distant thunder. The sides are covered with thickets of
+broom, myrtle, arbutus, ilex, mastic and laurel, overgrown with woodbine,
+and interspersed with patches of sage, lavender, hyssop, wild thyme, and
+rue. The whole mountain is a heap of balm; a bundle of sweet spices.
+
+Our horses' hoofs clattered up and down the rounds of the ladder, and we
+looked our last on Tyre, fading away behind the white hem of the breakers,
+as we turned the point of the promontory. Another cove of the
+mountain-coast followed, terminated by the Cape of Nakhura, the northern
+point of the Bay of Acre. We rode along a stony way between fields of
+wheat and barley, blotted almost out of sight by showers of scarlet
+poppies and yellow chrysanthemums. There were frequent ruins: fragments of
+sarcophagi, foundations of houses, and about half way between the two
+capes, the mounds of Alexandro-Schoenæ. We stopped at a khan, and
+breakfasted under a magnificent olive tree, while two boys tended our
+horses to see that they ate only the edges of the wheat field. Below the
+house were two large cypresses, and on a little tongue of land the ruins
+of one of those square towers of the corsairs, which line all this coast.
+The intense blue of the sea, seen close at hand over a broad field of
+goldening wheat, formed a dazzling and superb contrast of color. Early in
+the afternoon we climbed the Ras Nakhura, not so bold and grand, though
+quite as flowery a steep as the Promontorium Album. We had been jogging
+half an hour over its uneven summit, when the side suddenly fell away
+below us, and we saw the whole of the great gulf and plain of Acre, backed
+by the long ridge of Mount Carmel. Behind the sea, which makes a deep
+indentation in the line of the coast, extended the plain, bounded on the
+east, at two leagues' distance, by a range of hills covered with luxuriant
+olive groves, and still higher, by the distant mountains of Galilee. The
+fortifications of Acre were visible on a slight promontory near the middle
+of the Gulf. From our feet the line of foamy surf extended for miles along
+the red sand-beach, till it finally became like a chalk-mark on the edge
+of the field of blue.
+
+We rode down the mountain and continued our journey over the plain of
+Esdraelon--a picture of summer luxuriance and bloom. The waves of wheat
+and barley rolled away from our path to the distant olive orchards; here
+the water gushed from a stone fountain and flowed into a turf-girdled
+pool, around which the Syrian women were washing their garments; there, a
+garden of orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees in blossom, was a
+spring of sweet odors, which overflowed the whole land. We rode into some
+of these forests, for they were no less, and finally pitched our tent in
+one of them, belonging to the palace of the former Abdallah Pasha, within
+a mile of Acre. The old Saracen aqueduct, which still conveys water to
+the town, overhung our tent. For an hour before reaching our destination,
+we had seen it on the left, crossing the hollows on light stone arches. In
+one place I counted fifty-eight, and in another one hundred and three of
+these arches, some of which were fifty feet high. Our camp was a charming
+place: a nest of deep herbage, under two enormous fig-trees, and
+surrounded by a balmy grove of orange and citron. It was doubly beautiful
+when the long line of the aqueduct was lit up by the moon, and the orange
+trees became mounds of ambrosial darkness.
+
+In the morning we rode to Acre, the fortifications of which have been
+restored on the land-side. A ponderous double gateway of stone admitted us
+into the city, through what was once, apparently, the court-yard of a
+fortress. The streets of the town are narrow, terribly rough, and very
+dirty, but the bazaars are extensive and well stocked. The principal
+mosque, whose heavy dome is visible at some distance from the city, is
+surrounded with a garden, enclosed by a pillared corridor, paved with
+marble. All the houses of the city are built in the most massive style, of
+hard gray limestone or marble, and this circumstance alone prevented their
+complete destruction during the English bombardment in 1841. The marks of
+the shells are everywhere seen, and the upper parts of the lofty buildings
+are completely riddled with cannon-balls, some of which remain embedded in
+the stone. We made a rapid tour of the town on horseback, followed by the
+curious glances of the people, who were in doubt whether to consider us
+Turks or Franks. There were a dozen vessels in the harbor, which is
+considered the best in Syria.
+
+The baggage-mules had gone on, so we galloped after them along the hard
+beach, around the head of the bay. It was a brilliant morning; a
+delicious south-eastern breeze came to us over the flowery plain of
+Esdraelon; the sea on our right shone blue, and purple, and violet-green,
+and black, as the shadows or sunshine crossed it, and only the long lines
+of roaring foam, for ever changing in form, did not vary in hue. A
+fisherman stood on the beach in a statuesque attitude, his handsome bare
+legs bathed in the frothy swells, a bag of fish hanging from his shoulder,
+and the large square net, with its sinkers of lead in his right hand,
+ready for a cast. He had good luck, for the waves brought up plenty of
+large fish, and cast them at our feet, leaving them to struggle back into
+the treacherous brine. Between Acre and Haifa we passed six or eight
+wrecks, mostly of small trading vessels. Some were half buried in sand,
+some so old and mossy that they were fast rotting away, while a few had
+been recently hurled there. As we rounded the deep curve of the bay, and
+approached the line of palm-trees girding the foot of Mount Carmel, Haifa,
+with its wall and Saracenic town in ruin on the hill above, grew more
+clear and bright in the sun, while Acre dipped into the blue of the
+Mediterranean. The town of Haifa, the ancient Caiapha, is small, dirty,
+and beggarly looking; but it has some commerce, sharing the trade of Acre
+in the productions of Syria. It was Sunday, and all the Consular flags
+were flying. It was an unexpected delight to find the American colors in
+this little Syrian town, flying from one of the tallest poles. The people
+stared at us as we passed, and I noticed among them many bright Frankish
+faces, with eyes too clear and gray for Syria. O ye kind brothers of the
+monastery of Carmel! forgive me if I look to you for an explanation of
+this phenomenon.
+
+We ascended to Mount Carmel. The path led through a grove of carob trees,
+from which the beans, known in Germany as St. John's bread, are produced.
+After this we came into an olive grove at the foot of the mountain, from
+which long fields of wheat, giving forth a ripe summer smell, flowed down
+to the shore of the bay. The olive trees were of immense size, and I can
+well believe, as Fra Carlo informed us, that they were probably planted by
+the Roman colonists, established there by Titus. The gnarled, veteran
+boles still send forth vigorous and blossoming boughs. There were all
+manner of lovely lights and shades chequered over the turf and the winding
+path we rode. At last we reached the foot of an ascent, steeper than the
+Ladder of Tyre. As our horses slowly climbed to the Convent of St. Elijah,
+whence we already saw the French flag floating over the shoulder of the
+mountain, the view opened grandly to the north and east, revealing the bay
+and plain of Acre, and the coast as far as Ras Nakhura, from which we
+first saw Mount Carmel the day previous. The two views are very similar in
+character, one being the obverse of the other. We reached the
+Convent--Dayr Mar Elias, as the Arabs call it--at noon, just in time to
+partake of a bountiful dinner, to which the monks had treated themselves.
+Fra Carlo, the good Franciscan who receives strangers, showed us the
+building, and the Grotto of Elijah, which is under the altar of the
+Convent Church, a small but very handsome structure of Italian marble. The
+sanctity of the Grotto depends on tradition entirely, as there is no
+mention in the Bible of Elijah having resided on Carmel, though it was
+from this mountain that he saw the cloud, "like a man's hand," rising from
+the sea. The Convent, which is quite new--not yet completed, in fact--is a
+large, massive building, and has the aspect of a fortress.
+
+As we were to sleep at Tantura, five hours distant, we were obliged to
+make a short visit, in spite of the invitation of the hospitable Fra Carlo
+to spend the night there. In the afternoon we passed the ruins of Athlit,
+a town of the Middle Ages, and the Castel Pellegrino of the Crusaders. Our
+road now followed the beach, nearly the whole distance to Jaffa, and was
+in many places, for leagues in extent, a solid layer of white, brown,
+purple and rosy shells, which cracked and rattled under our horses' feet.
+Tantura is a poor Arab village, and we had some difficulty in procuring
+provisions. The people lived in small huts of mud and stones, near the
+sea. The place had a thievish look, and we deemed it best to be careful in
+the disposal of our baggage for the night.
+
+In the morning we took the coast again, riding over millions of shells. A
+line of sandy hills, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, shut off
+the view of the plain and meadows between the sea and the hills of
+Samaria. After three hours' ride we saw the ruins of ancient Cæsarea, near
+a small promontory. The road turned away from the sea, and took the wild
+plain behind, which is completely overgrown with camomile, chrysanthemum
+and wild shrubs. The ruins of the town are visible at a considerable
+distance along the coast. The principal remains consist of a massive wall,
+flanked with pyramidal bastions at regular intervals, and with the traces
+of gateways, draw-bridges and towers. It was formerly surrounded by a deep
+moat. Within this space, which may be a quarter of a mile square, are a
+few fragments of buildings, and toward the sea, some high arches and
+masses of masonry. The plain around abounds with traces of houses,
+streets, and court-yards. Cæsarea was one of the Roman colonies, but owed
+its prosperity principally to Herod. St. Paul passed through it on his
+way from Macedon to Jerusalem, by the very road we were travelling.
+
+During the day the path struck inland over a vast rolling plain, covered
+with sage, lavender and other sweet-smelling shrubs, and tenanted by herds
+of gazelles and flocks of large storks. As we advanced further, the
+landscape became singularly beautiful. It was a broad, shallow valley,
+swelling away towards the east into low, rolling hills, far back of which
+rose the blue line of the mountains--the hill-country of Judea. The soil,
+where it was ploughed, was the richest vegetable loam. Where it lay fallow
+it was entirely hidden by a bed of grass and camomile. Here and there
+great herds of sheep and goats browsed on the herbage. There was a quiet
+pastoral air about the landscape, a soft serenity in its forms and colors,
+as if the Hebrew patriarchs still made it their abode. The district is
+famous for robbers, and we kept our arms in readiness, never suffering the
+baggage to be out of our sight.
+
+Towards evening, as Mr. H. and myself, with François, were riding in
+advance of the baggage mules, the former with his gun in his hand, I with
+a pair of pistols thrust through the folds of my shawl, and François with
+his long Turkish sabre, we came suddenly upon a lonely Englishman, whose
+companions were somewhere in the rear. He appeared to be struck with
+terror on seeing us making towards him, and, turning his horse's head,
+made an attempt to fly. The animal, however, was restive, and, after a few
+plunges, refused to move. The traveller gave himself up for lost; his arms
+dropped by his side; he stared wildly at us, with pale face and eyes
+opened wide with a look of helpless fright. Restraining with difficulty a
+shout of laughter, I said to him: "Did you leave Jaffa to-day?" but so
+completely was his ear the fool of his imagination, that he thought I was
+speaking Arabic, and made a faint attempt to get out the only word or two
+of that language which he knew. I then repeated, with as much distinctness
+as I could command: "Did--you--leave--Jaffa--to-day?" He stammered
+mechanically, through his chattering teeth, "Y-y-yes!" and we immediately
+dashed off at a gallop through the bushes. When we last saw him, he was
+standing as we left him, apparently not yet recovered from the shock.
+
+At the little village of El Haram, where we spent the night, I visited the
+tomb of Sultan Ali ebn-Aleym, who is now revered as a saint. It is
+enclosed in a mosque, crowning the top of a hill. I was admitted into the
+court-yard without hesitation, though, from the porter styling me
+"Effendi," he probably took me for a Turk. At the entrance to the inner
+court, I took off my slippers and walked to the tomb of the Sultan--a
+square heap of white marble, in a small marble enclosure. In one of the
+niches in the wall, near the tomb, there is a very old iron box, with a
+slit in the top. The porter informed me that it contained a charm,
+belonging to Sultan Ali, which was of great use in producing rain in times
+of drouth.
+
+In the morning we sent our baggage by a short road across the country to
+this place, and then rode down the beach towards Jaffa. The sun came out
+bright and hot as we paced along the line of spray, our horses' feet
+sinking above the fetlocks in pink and purple shells, while the droll
+sea-crabs scampered away from our path, and the blue gelatinous
+sea-nettles were tossed before us by the surge. Our view was confined to
+the sand-hills--sometimes covered with a flood of scarlet poppies--on one
+hand; and to the blue, surf-fringed sea on the other. The terrible coast
+was still lined with wrecks, and just before reaching the town, we passed
+a vessel of some two hundred tons, recently cast ashore, with her strong
+hull still unbroken. We forded the rapid stream of El Anjeh, which comes
+down from the Plain of Sharon, the water rising to our saddles. The low
+promontory in front now broke into towers and white domes, and great
+masses of heavy walls. The aspect of Jaffa is exceedingly picturesque. It
+is built on a hill, and the land for many miles around it being low and
+flat, its topmost houses overlook all the fields of Sharon. The old
+harbor, protected by a reef of rocks, is on the north side of the town,
+but is now so sanded up that large vessels cannot enter. A number of small
+craft were lying close to the shore. The port presented a different scene
+when the ships of Hiram, King of Tyre, came in with the materials for the
+Temple of Solomon. There is but one gate on the land side, which is rather
+strongly fortified. Outside of this there is an open space, which we found
+filled with venders of oranges and vegetables, camel-men and the like,
+some vociferating in loud dispute, some given up to silence and smoke,
+under the shade of the sycamores.
+
+We rode under the heavily arched and towered gateway, and entered the
+bazaar. The street was crowded, and there was such a confusion of camels,
+donkeys, and men, that we made our way with difficulty along the only
+practicable street in the city, to the sea-side, where François pointed
+out a hole in the wall as the veritable spot where Jonah was cast ashore
+by the whale. This part of the harbor is the receptacle of all the offal
+of the town; and I do not wonder that the whale's stomach should have
+turned on approaching it. The sea-street was filled with merchants and
+traders, and we were obliged to pick our way between bars of iron, skins
+of oil, heaps of oranges, and piles of building timber. At last we reached
+the end, and, as there was no other thoroughfare, returned the same way we
+went, passed out the gate, and took the road to Ramleh and Jerusalem.
+
+But I hear the voice of François, announcing, "_Messieurs, le diner est
+prêt._" We are encamped just beside the pool of Ramleh, and the mongrel
+children of the town are making a great noise in the meadow below it. Our
+horses are enjoying their barley; and Mustapha stands at the tent-door
+tying up his sacks. Dogs are barking and donkeys braying all along the
+borders of the town, whose filth and dilapidation are happily concealed by
+the fig and olive gardens which surround it. I have not curiosity enough
+to visit the Greek and Latin Convents embedded in its foul purlieus, but
+content myself with gazing from my door upon the blue hills of Palestine,
+which we must cross to-morrow, on our way to Jerusalem.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+From Jaffa to Jerusalem.
+
+
+  The Garden of Jaffa--Breakfast at a Fountain--The Plain of Sharon--The
+  Ruined Mosque of Ramleh--A Judean Landscape--The Streets of Ramleh--Am I
+  in Palestine?--A Heavenly Morning--The Land of Milk and Honey--Entering
+  the Hill-Country--The Pilgrim's Breakfast--The Father of Lies--A Church
+  of the Crusaders--The Agriculture of the Hills--The Valley of
+  Elah--Day-Dreams--The Wilderness--The Approach--We see the Holy City.
+
+
+         --"Through the air sublime,
+  Over the wilderness and o'er the plain;
+  Till underneath them fair Jerusalem,
+  The Holy City, lifted high her towers."
+
+  Paradise Regained.
+
+
+Jerusalem, _Thursday, April_ 29, 1852.
+
+Leaving the gate of Jaffa, we rode eastward between delightful gardens of
+fig, citron, orange, pomegranate and palm. The country for several miles
+around the city is a complete level--part of the great plain of
+Sharon--and the gray mass of building crowning the little promontory, is
+the only landmark seen above the green garden-land, on looking towards the
+sea. The road was lined with hedges of giant cactus, now in blossom, and
+shaded occasionally with broad-armed sycamores. The orange trees were in
+bloom, and at the same time laden down with ripe fruit. The oranges of
+Jaffa are the finest in Syria, and great numbers of them are sent to
+Beyrout and other ports further north. The dark foliage of the
+pomegranate fairly blazed with its heavy scarlet blossoms, and here and
+there a cluster of roses made good the Scriptural renown of those of
+Sharon. The road was filled with people, passing to and fro, and several
+families of Jaffa Jews were having a sort of pic-nic in the choice shady
+spots.
+
+Ere long we came to a fountain, at a point where two roads met. It was a
+large square structure of limestone and marble, with a stone trough in
+front, and a delightful open chamber at the side. The space in front was
+shaded with immense sycamore trees, to which we tied our horses, and then
+took our seats in the window above the fountain, where the Greek brought
+us our breakfast. The water was cool and delicious, as were our Jaffa
+oranges. It was a charming spot, for as we sat we could look under the
+boughs of the great trees, and down between the gardens to Jaffa and the
+Mediterranean. After leaving the gardens, we came upon the great plain of
+Sharon, on which we could see the husbandmen at work far and near,
+ploughing and sowing their grain. In some instances, the two operations
+were made simultaneously, by having a sort of funnel attached to the
+plough-handle, running into a tube which entered the earth just behind the
+share. The man held the plough with one hand, while with the other he
+dropped the requisite quantity of seed through the tube into the furrow.
+The people are ploughing now for their summer crops, and the wheat and
+barley which they sowed last winter are already in full head. On other
+parts of the plain, there were large flocks of sheep and goats, with their
+attendant shepherds. So ran the rich landscape, broken only by belts of
+olive trees, to the far hills of Judea.
+
+Riding on over the long, low swells, fragrant with wild thyme and
+camomile, we saw at last the tower of Ramleh, and down the valley, an
+hour's ride to the north-east, the minaret of Ludd, the ancient Lydda.
+Still further, I could see the houses of the village of Sharon, embowered
+in olives. Ramleh is built along the crest and on the eastern slope of a
+low hill, and at a distance appears like a stately place, but this
+impression is immediately dissipated on entering it. West of the town is a
+large square tower, between eighty and ninety feet in height. We rode up
+to it through an orchard of ancient olive trees, and over a field of
+beans. The tower is evidently a minaret, as it is built in the purest
+Saracenic style, and is surrounded by the ruins of a mosque. I have rarely
+seen anything more graceful than the ornamental arches of the upper
+portions. Over the door is a lintel of white marble, with an Arabic
+inscription. The mosque to which the tower is attached is almost entirely
+destroyed, and only part of the arches of a corridor around three sides of
+a court-yard, with the fountain in the centre, still remain. The
+subterranean cisterns, under the court-yard, amazed me with their extent
+and magnitude. They are no less than twenty-four feet deep, and covered by
+twenty-four vaulted ceilings, each twelve feet square, and resting on
+massive pillars. The mosque, when entire, must have been one of the finest
+in Syria.
+
+We clambered over the broken stones cumbering the entrance, and mounted
+the steps to the very summit. The view reached from Jaffa and the sea to
+the mountains near Jerusalem, and southward to the plain of Ascalon--a
+great expanse of grain and grazing land, all blossoming as the rose, and
+dotted, especially near the mountains, with dark, luxuriant olive-groves.
+The landscape had something of the green, pastoral beauty of England,
+except the mountains, which were wholly of Palestine. The shadows of
+fleecy clouds, drifting slowly from east to west, moved across the
+landscape, which became every moment softer and fairer in the light of the
+declining sun.
+
+I did not tarry in Ramleh. The streets are narrow, crooked, and filthy as
+only an Oriental town can be. The houses have either flat roofs or domes,
+out of the crevices in which springs a plentiful crop of weeds. Some
+yellow dogs barked at us as we passed, children in tattered garments
+stared, and old turbaned heads were raised from the pipe, to guess who the
+two brown individuals might be, and why they were attended by such a
+fierce _cawass_. Passing through the eastern gate, we were gladdened by
+the sight of our tents, already pitched in the meadow beside the cistern.
+Dervish had arrived an hour before us, and had everything ready for the
+sweet lounge of an hour, to which we treat ourselves after a day's ride. I
+watched the evening fade away over the blue hills before us, and tried to
+convince myself that I should reach Jerusalem on the morrow. Reason said:
+"You certainly will!"---but to Faith the Holy City was as far off as ever.
+Was it possible that I was in Judea? Was this the Holy Land of the
+Crusades, the soil hallowed by the feet of Christ and his Apostles? I must
+believe it. Yet it seemed once that if I ever trod that earth, then
+beneath my feet, there would be thenceforth a consecration in my life, a
+holy essence, a purer inspiration on the lips, a surer faith in the heart.
+And because I was not other than I had been, I half doubted whether it was
+the Palestine of my dreams.
+
+A number of Arab cameleers, who had come with travellers across the
+Desert from Egypt, were encamped near us. François was suspicious of some
+of them, and therefore divided the night into three watches, which were
+kept by himself and our two men. Mustapha was the last, and kept not only
+himself, but myself, wide awake by his dolorous chants of love and
+religion. I fell sound asleep at dawn, but was roused before sunrise by
+François, who wished to start betimes, on account of the rugged road we
+had to travel. The morning was mild, clear, and balmy, and we were soon
+packed and in motion. Leaving the baggage to follow, we rode ahead over
+the fertile fields. The wheat and poppies were glistening with dew, birds
+sang among the fig-trees, a cool breeze came down from the hollows of the
+hills, and my blood leaped as nimbly and joyously as a young hart on the
+mountains of Bether.
+
+Between Ramleh and the hill-country, a distance of about eight miles, is
+the rolling plain of Arimathea, and this, as well as the greater part of
+the plain of Sharon, is one of the richest districts in the world. The
+soil is a dark-brown loam, and, without manure, produces annually superb
+crops of wheat and barley. We rode for miles through a sea of wheat,
+waving far and wide over the swells of land. The tobacco in the fields
+about Ramleh was the most luxuriant I ever saw, and the olive and fig
+attain a size and lusty strength wholly unknown in Italy. Judea cursed of
+God! what a misconception, not only of God's mercy and beneficence, but of
+the actual fact! Give Palestine into Christian hands, and it will again
+flow with milk and honey. Except some parts of Asia Minor, no portion of
+the Levant is capable of yielding such a harvest of grain, silk, wool,
+fruits, oil, and wine. The great disadvantage under which the country
+labors, is its frequent drouths, but were the soil more generally
+cultivated, and the old orchards replanted, these would neither be so
+frequent nor so severe.
+
+We gradually ascended the hills, passing one or two villages, imbedded in
+groves of olives. In the little valleys, slanting down to the plains, the
+Arabs were still ploughing and sowing, singing the while an old love-song,
+with its chorus of "_ya, ghazalee! ya, ghazalee!_" (oh, gazelle! oh,
+gazelle!) The valley narrowed, the lowlands behind us spread out broader,
+and in half an hour more we were threading a narrow pass, between stony
+hills, overgrown with ilex, myrtle, and dwarf oak. The wild purple rose of
+Palestine blossomed on all sides, and a fragrant white honeysuckle in some
+places hung from the rocks. The path was terribly rough, and barely wide
+enough for two persons on horseback to pass each other. We met a few
+pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, and a straggling company of armed
+Turks, who had such a piratical air, that without the solemn asseveration
+of François that the road was quite safe, I should have felt uneasy about
+our baggage. Most of the persons we passed were Mussulmen, few of whom
+gave the customary "Peace be with you!" but once a Syrian Christian
+saluted me with, "God go with you, O Pilgrim!" For two hours after
+entering the mountains, there was scarcely a sign of cultivation. The rock
+was limestone, or marble, lying in horizontal strata, the broken edges of
+which rose like terraces to the summits. These shelves were so covered
+with wild shrubs--in some places even with rows of olive trees---that to
+me they had not the least appearance of that desolation so generally
+ascribed to them.
+
+In a little dell among the hills there is a small ruined mosque, or
+chapel (I could not decide which), shaded by a group of magnificent
+terebinth trees. Several Arabs were resting in its shade, and we hoped to
+find there the water we were looking for, in order to make breakfast. But
+it was not to be found, and we climbed nearly to the summit of the first
+chain of hills, where in a small olive orchard, there was a cistern,
+filled by the late rains. It belonged to two ragged boys, who brought us
+an earthen vessel of the water, and then asked, "Shall we bring you milk,
+O Pilgrims!" I assented, and received a small jug of thick buttermilk, not
+remarkably clean, but very refreshing. My companion, who had not recovered
+from his horror at finding that the inhabitants of Ramleh washed
+themselves in the pool which supplied us and them, refused to touch it. We
+made but a short rest, for it was now nearly noon, and there were yet many
+rough miles between us and Jerusalem. We crossed the first chain of
+mountains, rode a short distance over a stony upland, and then descended
+into a long cultivated valley, running to the eastward. At the end nearest
+us appeared the village of Aboo 'l Ghosh (the Father of Lies), which takes
+its name from a noted Bedouin shekh, who distinguished himself a few years
+ago by levying contributions on travellers. He obtained a large sum of
+money in this way, but as he added murder to robbery, and fell upon Turks
+as well as Christians, he was finally captured, and is now expiating his
+offences in some mine on the coast of the Black Sea.
+
+Near the bottom of the village there is a large ruined building, now used
+as a stable by the inhabitants. The interior is divided into a nave and
+two side-aisles by rows of square pillars, from which spring pointed
+arches. The door-way is at the side, and is Gothic, with a dash of
+Saracenic in the ornamental mouldings above it. The large window at the
+extremity of the nave is remarkable for having round arches, which
+circumstance, together with the traces of arabesque painted ornaments on
+the columns, led me to think it might have been a mosque; but Dr.
+Robinson, who is now here, considers it a Christian church, of the time of
+the Crusaders. The village of Aboo 'l Ghosh is said to be the site of the
+birth-place of the Prophet Jeremiah, and I can well imagine it to have
+been the case. The aspect of the mountain-country to the east and
+north-east would explain the savage dreariness of his lamentations. The
+whole valley in which the village stands, as well as another which joins
+it on the east, is most assiduously cultivated. The stony mountain sides
+are wrought into terraces, where, in spite of soil which resembles an
+American turnpike, patches of wheat are growing luxuriantly, and olive
+trees, centuries old, hold on to the rocks with a clutch as hard and bony
+as the hand of Death. In the bed of the valley the fig tree thrives, and
+sometimes the vine and fig grow together, forming the patriarchal arbor of
+shade familiar to us all. The shoots of the tree are still young and
+green, but the blossoms of the grape do not yet give forth their goodly
+savor. I did not hear the voice of the turtle, but a nightingale sang in
+the briery thickets by the brook side, as we passed along.
+
+Climbing out of this valley, we descended by a stony staircase, as rugged
+as the Ladder of Tyre, into the Wady Beit-Hanineh. Here were gardens of
+oranges in blossom, with orchards of quince and apple, overgrown with
+vines, and the fragrant hawthorn tree, snowy with its bloom. A stone
+bridge, the only one on the road, crosses the dry bed of a winter stream,
+and, looking up the glen, I saw the Arab village of Kulonieh, at the
+entrance of the valley of Elah, glorious with the memories of the
+shepherd-boy, David. Our road turned off to the right, and commenced
+ascending a long, dry glen between mountains which grew more sterile the
+further we went. It was nearly two hours past noon, the sun fiercely hot,
+and our horses were nigh jaded out with the rough road and our impatient
+spurring. I began to fancy we could see Jerusalem from the top of the
+pass, and tried to think of the ancient days of Judea. But it was in vain.
+A newer picture shut them out, and banished even the diviner images of Our
+Saviour and His Disciples. Heathen that I was, I could only think of
+Godfrey and the Crusaders, toiling up the same path, and the ringing lines
+of Tasso vibrated constantly in my ear:
+
+  "Ecco apparir Gierusalemm' si vede;
+  Ecco additar Gierusalemm' si scorge;
+  Ecco da mille voci unitamente,
+  Gierusalemme salutar si sente!"
+
+The Palestine of the Bible--the Land of Promise to the Israelites, the
+land of Miracle and Sacrifice to the Apostles and their followers--still
+slept in the unattainable distance, under a sky of bluer and more tranquil
+loveliness than that to whose cloudless vault I looked up. It lay as far
+and beautiful as it once seemed to the eye of childhood, and the swords of
+Seraphim kept profane feet from its sacred hills. But these rough rocks
+around me, these dry, fiery hollows, these thickets of ancient oak and
+ilex, had heard the trumpets of the Middle Ages, and the clang and
+clatter of European armor--I could feel and believe that. I entered the
+ranks; I followed the trumpets and the holy hymns, and waited breathlessly
+for the moment when every mailed knee should drop in the dust, and every
+bearded and sunburned cheek be wet with devotional tears.
+
+But when I climbed the last ridge, and looked ahead with a sort of painful
+suspense, Jerusalem did not appear. We were two thousand feet above the
+Mediterranean, whose blue we could dimly see far to the west, through
+notches in the chain of hills. To the north, the mountains were gray,
+desolate, and awful. Not a shrub or a tree relieved their frightful
+barrenness. An upland tract, covered with white volcanic rock, lay before
+us. We met peasants with asses, who looked (to my eyes) as if they had
+just left Jerusalem. Still forward we urged our horses, and reached a
+ruined garden, surrounded with hedges of cactus, over which I saw domes
+and walls in the distance. I drew a long breath and looked at François. He
+was jogging along without turning his head; he could not have been so
+indifferent if that was really the city. Presently, we reached another
+slight rise in the rocky plain. He began to urge his panting horse, and at
+the same instant we both lashed the spirit into ours, dashed on at a
+break-neck gallop, round the corner of an old wall on the top of the hill,
+and lo! the Holy City! Our Greek jerked both pistols from his holsters,
+and fired them into the air, as we reined up on the steep.
+
+From the descriptions of travellers, I had expected to see in Jerusalem an
+ordinary modern Turkish town; but that before me, with its walls,
+fortresses, and domes, was it not still the City of David? I saw the
+Jerusalem of the New Testament, as I had imagined it. Long lines of walls
+crowned with a notched parapet and strengthened by towers; a few domes and
+spires above them; clusters of cypress here and there; this was all that
+was visible of the city. On either side the hill sloped down to the two
+deep valleys over which it hangs. On the east, the Mount of Olives,
+crowned with a chapel and mosque, rose high and steep, but in front, the
+eye passed directly over the city, to rest far away upon the lofty
+mountains of Moab, beyond the Dead Sea. The scene was grand in its
+simplicity. The prominent colors were the purple of those distant
+mountains, and the hoary gray of the nearer hills. The walls were of the
+dull yellow of weather-stained marble, and the only trees, the dark
+cypress and moonlit olive. Now, indeed, for one brief moment, I knew that
+I was in Palestine; that I saw Mount Olivet and Mount Zion; and--I know
+not how it was--my sight grew weak, and all objects trembled and wavered
+in a watery film. Since we arrived, I have looked down upon the city from
+the Mount of Olives, and up to it from the Valley of Jehosaphat; but I
+cannot restore the illusion of that first view.
+
+We allowed our horses to walk slowly down the remaining half-mile to the
+Jaffa gate. An Englishman, with a red silk shawl over his head, was
+sketching the city, while an Arab held an umbrella over him. Inside the
+gate we stumbled upon an Italian shop with an Italian sign, and after
+threading a number of intricate passages under dark archways, and being
+turned off from one hotel, which was full of travellers, reached another,
+kept by a converted German Jew, where we found Dr. Robinson and Dr. Ely
+Smith, who both arrived yesterday. It sounds strange to talk of a hotel
+in Jerusalem, but the world is progressing, and there are already three. I
+leave to-morrow for Jericho, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea, and shall have
+more to say of Jerusalem on my return.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+The Dead Sea and the Jordan River.
+
+
+  Bargaining for a Guard--Departure from Jerusalem--The Hill of
+  Offence--Bethany--The Grotto of Lazarus--The Valley of Fire--Scenery of
+  the Wilderness--The Hills of Engaddi--The shore of the Dead Sea--A
+  Bituminous Bath--Gallop to the Jordan--A watch for Robbers--The
+  Jordan--Baptism--The Plains of Jericho--The Fountain of Elisha--The
+  Mount of Temptation--Return to Jerusalem.
+
+
+  "And the spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape;
+  the valley also shall perish and the plain shall be destroyed, as the
+  Lord hath spoken."
+
+  --Jeremiah, xlviii. 8.
+
+
+Jerusalem, _May_ 1, 1852.
+
+I returned this after noon from an excursion to the Dead Sea, the River
+Jordan, and the site of Jericho. Owing to the approaching heats, an early
+visit was deemed desirable, and the shekhs, who have charge of the road,
+were summoned to meet us on the day after we arrived. There are two of
+these gentlemen, the Shekh el-Aràb (of the Bedouins), and the Shekh
+el-Fellaheen (of the peasants, or husbandmen), to whom each traveller is
+obliged to pay one hundred piastres for an escort. It is, in fact, a sort
+of compromise, by which the shekhs agree not to rob the traveller, and to
+protect him against other shekhs. If the road is not actually safe, the
+Turkish garrison here is a mere farce, but the arrangement is winked at by
+the Pasha, who, of course, gets his share of the 100,000 piastres which
+the two scamps yearly levy upon travellers. The shekhs came to our rooms,
+and after trying to postpone our departure, in order to attach other
+tourists to the same escort, and thus save a little expense, took half the
+pay and agreed to be ready the next morning. Unfortunately for my original
+plan, the Convent of San Saba has been closed within two or three weeks,
+and no stranger is now admitted. This unusual step was caused by the
+disorderly conduct of some Frenchmen who visited San Saba. We sent to the
+Bishop of the Greek Church, asking a simple permission to view the
+interior of the Convent; but without effect.
+
+We left the city yesterday morning by St. Stephen's Gate, descended to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat, rode under the stone wall which encloses the
+supposed Gethsemane, and took a path leading along the Mount of Olives,
+towards the Hill of Offence, which stands over against the southern end of
+the city, opposite the mouth of the Vale of Hinnon. Neither of the shekhs
+made his appearance, but sent in their stead three Arabs, two of whom were
+mounted and armed with sabres and long guns. Our man, Mustapha, had charge
+of the baggage-mule, carrying our tent and the provisions for the trip. It
+was a dull, sultry morning; a dark, leaden haze hung over Jerusalem, and
+the _khamseen_, or sirocco-wind, came from the south-west, out of the
+Arabian Desert. We had again resumed the Oriental costume, but in spite of
+an ample turban, my face soon began to scorch in the dry heat. From the
+crest of the Hill of Offence there is a wide view over the heights on both
+sides of the valley of the Brook Kedron. Their sides are worked into
+terraces, now green with springing grain, and near the bottom planted with
+olive and fig trees. The upland ridge or watershed of Palestine is
+cultivated for a considerable distance around Jerusalem. The soil is light
+and stony, yet appears to yield a good return for the little labor
+bestowed upon it.
+
+Crossing the southern flank of Mount Olivet, in half an hour we reached
+the village of Bethany, hanging on the side of the hill. It is a miserable
+cluster of Arab huts, with not a building which appears to be more than a
+century old. The Grotto of Lazarus is here shown, and, of course, we
+stopped to see it. It belongs to an old Mussulman, who came out of his
+house with a piece of waxed rope, to light us down. An aperture opens from
+the roadside into the hill, and there is barely room enough for a person
+to enter. Descending about twenty steps at a sharp angle, we landed in a
+small, damp vault, with an opening in the floor, communicating with a
+short passage below. The vault was undoubtedly excavated for sepulchral
+purposes, and the bodies were probably deposited (as in many Egyptian
+tombs) in the pit under it. Our guide, however, pointed to a square mass
+of masonry in one corner as the tomb of Lazarus, whose body, he informed
+us, was still walled up there. There was an arch in the side of the vault,
+once leading to other chambers, but now closed up, and the guide stated
+that seventy-four Prophets were interred therein. There seems to be no
+doubt that the present Arab village occupies the site of Bethany; and if
+it could be proved that this pit existed at the beginning of the Christian
+Era, and there never had been any other, we might accept it as the tomb of
+Lazarus. On the crest of a high hill, over against Bethany, is an Arab
+village on the site of Bethpage.
+
+We descended into the valley of a winter stream, now filled with patches
+of sparse wheat, just beginning to ripen. The mountains grew more bleak
+and desolate as we advanced, and as there is a regular descent in the
+several ranges over which one must pass, the distant hills of the lands of
+Moab and Ammon were always in sight, rising like a high, blue wall against
+the sky. The Dead Sea is 4,000 feet below Jerusalem, but the general slope
+of the intervening district is so regular that from the spires of the
+city, and the Mount of Olives, one can look down directly upon its waters.
+This deceived me as to the actual distance, and I could scarcely credit
+the assertion of our Arab escort, that it would require six hours to reach
+it. After we had ridden nearly two hours, we left the Jericho road,
+sending Mustapha and a staunch old Arab direct to our resting-place for
+the night, in the Valley of the Jordan. The two mounted Bedouins
+accompanied us across the rugged mountains lying between us and the Dead
+Sea.
+
+At first, we took the way to the Convent of Mar Saba, following the course
+of the Brook Kedron down the Wady en-Nar (Valley of Fire). In half an hour
+more we reached two large tanks, hewn out under the base of a limestone
+cliff, and nearly filled with rain. The surface was covered with a
+greenish vegetable scum, and three wild and dirty Arabs of the hills were
+washing themselves in the principal one. Our Bedouins immediately
+dismounted and followed their example, and after we had taken some
+refreshment, we had the satisfaction of filling our water-jug from the
+same sweet pool. After this, we left the San Saba road, and mounted the
+height east of the valley. From that point, all signs of cultivation and
+habitation disappeared. The mountains were grim, bare, and frightfully
+rugged. The scanty grass, coaxed into life by the winter rains, was
+already scorched out of all greenness; some bunches of wild sage,
+gnaphalium, and other hardy aromatic herbs spotted the yellow soil, and in
+sheltered places the scarlet poppies burned like coals of fire among the
+rifts of the gray limestone rock. Our track kept along the higher ridges
+and crests of the hills, between the glens and gorges which sank on either
+hand to a dizzy depth below, and were so steep as to be almost
+inaccessible. The region is so scarred, gashed and torn, that no work of
+man's hand can save it from perpetual desolation. It is a wilderness more
+hopeless than the Desert. If I were left alone in the midst of it, I
+should lie down and await death, without thought or hope of rescue.
+
+The character of the day was peculiarly suited to enhance the impression
+of such scenery. Though there were no clouds, the sun was invisible: as
+far as we could see, beyond the Jordan, and away southward to the
+mountains of Moab and the cliffs of Engaddi, the whole country was covered
+as with the smoke of a furnace; and the furious sirocco, that threatened
+to topple us down the gulfs yawning on either hand, had no coolness on its
+wings. The horses were sure-footed, but now and then a gust would come
+that made them and us strain against it, to avoid being dashed against the
+rock on one side, or hurled off the brink on the other. The atmosphere was
+painfully oppressive, and by and by a dogged silence took possession of
+our party. After passing a lofty peak which François called Djebel Nuttar,
+the Mountain of Rain, we came to a large Moslem building, situated on a
+bleak eminence, overlooking part of the valley of the Jordan. This is the
+tomb called Nebbee Moussa by the Arabs, and believed by them to stand
+upon the spot where Moses died. We halted at the gate, but no one came to
+admit us, though my companion thought he saw a man's head at one of the
+apertures in the wall. Arab tradition here is as much at fault as
+Christian tradition in many other places. The true Nebo is somewhere in
+the chain of Pisgah; and though, probably, I saw it, and all see it who go
+down to the Jordan, yet "no man knoweth its place unto this day."
+
+Beyond Nebbee Moussa, we came out upon the last heights overlooking the
+Dead Sea, though several miles of low hills remained to be passed. The
+head of the sea was visible as far as the Ras-el-Feshka on the west; and
+the hot fountains of Callirhoë on the eastern shore. Farther than this,
+all was vapor and darkness. The water was a soft, deep purple hue,
+brightening into blue. Our road led down what seemed a vast sloping
+causeway from the mountains, between two ravines, walled by cliffs several
+hundred feet in height. It gradually flattened into a plain, covered with
+a white, saline incrustation, and grown with clumps of sour willow,
+tamarisk, and other shrubs, among which I looked in vain for the osher, or
+Dead Sea apple. The plants appeared as if smitten with leprosy; but there
+were some flowers growing almost to the margin of the sea. We reached the
+shore about 2 P.M. The heat by this time was most severe, and the air so
+dense as to occasion pains in my ears. The Dead Sea is 1,300 feet below
+the Mediterranean, and without doubt the lowest part of the earth's
+surface. I attribute the oppression I felt to this fact and to the
+sultriness of the day, rather than to any exhalation from the sea itself.
+François remarked, however, that had the wind--which by this time was
+veering round to the north-east--blown from the south, we could scarcely
+have endured it. The sea resembles a great cauldron, sunk between
+mountains from three to four thousand feet in height; and probably we did
+not experience more than a tithe of the summer heat.
+
+I proposed a bath, for the sake of experiment, but François endeavored to
+dissuade us. He had tried it, and nothing could be more disagreeable; we
+risked getting a fever, and, besides, there were four hours of dangerous
+travel yet before us. But by this time we were half undressed, and soon
+were floating on the clear bituminous waves. The beach was fine gravel and
+shelved gradually down. I kept my turban on my head, and was careful to
+avoid touching the water with my face. The sea was moderately warm and
+gratefully soft and soothing to the skin. It was impossible to sink; and
+even while swimming, the body rose half out of the water. I should think
+it possible to dive for a short distance, but prefer that some one else
+would try the experiment. With a log of wood for a pillow, one might sleep
+as on one of the patent mattresses. The taste of the water is salty and
+pungent, and stings the tongue like saltpetre. We were obliged to dress in
+all haste, without even wiping off the detestable liquid; yet I
+experienced very little of that discomfort which most travellers have
+remarked. Where the skin had been previously bruised, there was a slight
+smarting sensation, and my body felt clammy and glutinous, but the bath
+was rather refreshing than otherwise.
+
+We turned our horses' heads towards the Jordan, and rode on over a dry,
+barren plain. The two Bedouins at first dashed ahead at full gallop,
+uttering cries, and whirling their long guns in the air. The dust they
+raised was blown in our faces, and contained so much salt that my eyes
+began to smart painfully. Thereupon I followed them at an equal rate of
+speed, and we left a long cloud of the accursed soil whirling behind us.
+Presently, however, they fell to the rear, and continued to keep at some
+distance from us. The reason of this was soon explained. The path turned
+eastward, and we already saw a line of dusky green winding through the
+wilderness. This was the Jordan, and the mountains beyond, the home of
+robber Arabs, were close at hand. Those robbers frequently cross the river
+and conceal themselves behind the sand-hills on this side. Our brave
+escort was, therefore, inclined to put us forward as a forlorn-hope, and
+secure their own retreat in case of an attack. But as we were all well
+armed, and had never considered their attendance as anything more than a
+genteel way of buying them off from robbing us, we allowed them to lag as
+much as they chose. Finally, as we approached the Pilgrims' Ford, one of
+them took his station at some distance from the river, on the top of a
+mound, while the other got behind some trees near at hand; in order, as
+they said, to watch the opposite hills, and alarm us whenever they should
+see any of the Beni Sukrs, or the Beni Adwams, or the Tyakh, coming down
+upon us.
+
+The Jordan at this point will not average more than ten yards in breadth.
+It flows at the bottom of a gully about fifteen feet deep, which traverses
+the broad valley in a most tortuous course. The water has a white, clayey
+hue, and is very swift. The changes of the current have formed islands and
+beds of soil here and there, which are covered with a dense growth of ash,
+poplar, willow, and tamarisk trees. The banks of the river are bordered
+with thickets, now overgrown with wild vines, and fragrant with flowering
+plants. Birds sing continually in the cool, dark coverts of the trees. I
+found a singular charm in the wild, lonely, luxuriant banks, the tangled
+undergrowth, and the rapid, brawling course of the sacred stream, as it
+slipped in sight and out of sight among the trees. It is almost impossible
+to reach the water at any other point than the Ford of the Pilgrims, the
+supposed locality of the passage of the Israelites and the baptism of
+Christ. The plain near it is still blackened by the camp-fires of the ten
+thousand pilgrims who went down from Jerusalem three weeks ago, to bathe.
+We tied our horses to the trees, and prepared to follow their example,
+which was necessary, if only to wash off the iniquitous slime of the Dead
+Sea. François, in the meantime, filled two tin flasks from the stream and
+stowed them in the saddle-bags. The current was so swift, that one could
+not venture far without the risk of being carried away; but I succeeded in
+obtaining a complete and most refreshing immersion. The taint of Gomorrah
+was not entirely washed away, but I rode off with as great a sense of
+relief as if the baptism had been a moral one, as well, and had purified
+me from sin.
+
+We rode for nearly two hours, in a north-west direction, to the Bedouin
+village of Rihah, near the site of ancient Jericho. Before reaching it,
+the gray salt waste vanishes, and the soil is covered with grass and
+herbs. The barren character of the first region is evidently owing to
+deposits from the vapors of the Dead Sea, as they are blown over the plain
+by the south wind. The channels of streams around Jericho are filled with
+nebbuk trees, the fruit of which is just ripening. It is apparently
+indigenous, and grows more luxuriantly than on the White Nile. It is a
+variety of the _rhamnus_, and is set down by botanists as the Spina
+Christi, of which the Saviour's mock crown of thorns was made. I see no
+reason to doubt this, as the twigs are long and pliant, and armed with
+small, though most cruel, thorns. I had to pay for gathering some of the
+fruit, with a torn dress and bleeding fingers. The little apples which it
+bears are slightly acid and excellent for alleviating thirst. I also
+noticed on the plain a variety of the nightshade with large berries of a
+golden color. The spring flowers, so plentiful now in all other parts of
+Palestine, have already disappeared from the Valley of the Jordan.
+
+Rihah is a vile little village of tents and mud-huts, and the only relic
+of antiquity near it is a square tower, which may possibly be of the time
+of Herod. There are a few gardens in the place, and a grove of superb
+fig-trees. We found our tent already pitched beside a rill which issues
+from the Fountain of Elisha. The evening was very sultry, and the
+musquitoes gave us no rest. We purchased some milk from an old man who
+came to the tent, but such was his mistrust of us that he refused to let
+us keep the earthen vessel containing it until morning. As we had already
+paid the money to his son, we would not let him take the milk away until
+he had brought the money back. He then took a dagger from his waist and
+threw it before us as security, while he carried off the vessel and
+returned the price. I have frequently seen the same mistrustful spirit
+exhibited in Egypt. Our two Bedouins, to whom I gave some tobacco in the
+evening, manifested their gratitude by stealing the remainder of our stock
+during the night.
+
+This morning we followed the stream to its source, the Fountain of
+Elisha, so called as being probably that healed by the Prophet. If so, the
+healing was scarcely complete. The water, which gushes up strong and free
+at the foot of a rocky mound, is warm and slightly brackish. It spreads
+into a shallow pool, shaded by a fine sycamore tree. Just below, there are
+some remains of old walls on both sides, and the stream goes roaring away
+through a rank jungle of canes fifteen feet in height. The precise site of
+Jericho, I believe, has not been fixed, but "the city of the palm trees,"
+as it was called, was probably on the plain, near some mounds which rise
+behind the Fountain. Here there are occasional traces of foundation walls,
+but so ruined as to give no clue to the date of their erection. Further
+towards the mountain there are some arches, which appear to be Saracenic.
+As we ascended again into the hill-country, I observed several traces of
+cisterns in the bottoms of ravines, which collect the rains. Herod, as is
+well known, built many such cisterns near Jericho, where he had a palace.
+On the first crest, to which we climbed, there is part of a Roman tower
+yet standing. The view, looking back over the valley of Jordan, is
+magnificent, extending from the Dead Sea to the mountains of Gilead,
+beyond the country of Ammon. I thought I could trace the point where the
+River Yabbok comes down from Mizpeh of Gilead to join the Jordan.
+
+The wilderness we now entered was fully as barren, but less rugged than
+that through which we passed yesterday. The path ascended along the brink
+of a deep gorge, at the bottom of which a little stream foamed over the
+rocks. The high, bleak summits towards which we were climbing, are
+considered by some Biblical geographers to be Mount Quarantana, the scene
+of Christ's fasting and temptation. After two hours we reached the ruins
+of a large khan or hostlery, under one of the peaks, which François stated
+to be the veritable "high mountain" whence the Devil pointed out all the
+kingdoms of the earth. There is a cave in the rock beside the road, which
+the superstitious look upon as the orifice out of which his Satanic
+Majesty issued. We met large numbers of Arab families, with their flocks,
+descending from the mountains to take up their summer residence near the
+Jordan. They were all on foot, except the young children and goats, which
+were stowed together on the backs of donkeys. The men were armed, and
+appeared to be of the same tribe as our escort, with whom they had a good
+understanding.
+
+The morning was cold and cloudy, and we hurried on over the hills to a
+fountain in the valley of the Brook Kedron, where we breakfasted. Before
+we had reached Bethany a rain came down, and the sky hung dark and
+lowering over Jerusalem, as we passed the crest of Mount Olivet. It still
+rains, and the filthy condition of the city exceeds anything I have seen,
+even in the Orient.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+The City of Christ.
+
+
+  Modern Jerusalem--The Site of the City--Mount Zion--Mount Moriah--The
+  Temple--the Valley of Jehosaphat--The Olives of Gethsemane--The Mount of
+  Olives--Moslem Tradition--Panorama from the Summit--The Interior of the
+  City--The Population--Missions and Missionaries--Christianity in
+  Jerusalem--Intolerance--The Jews of Jerusalem--The Face of Christ--The
+  Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Holy of Holies--The Sacred
+  Localities--Visions of Christ--The Mosque of Omar--The Holy Man of
+  Timbuctoo--Preparations for Departure.
+
+
+  "Cut off thy hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a
+  lamentation in high places; for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the
+  generation of his wrath."--Jeremiah vii. 29.
+
+
+  "Here pilgrims roam, that strayed so far to seek
+  In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heaven."
+
+  Milton.
+
+
+Jerusalem, _Monday, May_ 3, 1852.
+
+Since travel is becoming a necessary part of education, and a journey
+through the East is no longer attended with personal risk, Jerusalem will
+soon be as familiar a station on the grand tour as Paris or Naples. The
+task of describing it is already next to superfluous, so thoroughly has
+the topography of the city been laid down by the surveys of Robinson and
+the drawings of Roberts. There is little more left for Biblical research.
+The few places which can be authenticated are now generally accepted, and
+the many doubtful ones must always be the subjects of speculation and
+conjecture. There is no new light which can remove the cloud of
+uncertainties wherein one continually wanders. Yet, even rejecting all
+these with the most skeptical spirit, there still remains enough to make
+the place sacred in the eyes of every follower of Christ. The city stands
+on the ancient site; the Mount of Olives looks down upon it; the
+foundations of the Temple of Solomon are on Mount Moriah; the Pool of
+Siloam has still a cup of water for those who at noontide go down to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat; the ancient gate yet looketh towards Damascus, and
+of the Palace of Herod, there is a tower which Time and Turk and Crusader
+have spared.
+
+Jerusalem is built on the summit ridge of the hill-country of Palestine,
+just where it begins to slope eastward. Not half a mile from the Jaffa
+Gate, the waters run towards the Mediterranean. It is about 2,700 feet
+above the latter, and 4,000 feet above the Dead Sea, to which the descent
+is much more abrupt. The hill, or rather group of small mounts, on which
+Jerusalem stands, slants eastward to the brink of the Valley of
+Jehosaphat, and the Mount of Olives rises opposite, from the sides and
+summit of which, one sees the entire city spread out like a map before
+him. The Valley of Hinnon, the bed of which is on a much higher level than
+that of Jehosaphat, skirts the south-western and southern part of the
+walls, and drops into the latter valley at the foot of Mount Zion, the
+most southern of the mounts. The steep slope at the junction of the two
+valleys is the site of the city of the Jebusites, the most ancient part of
+Jerusalem. It is now covered with garden-terraces, the present wall
+crossing from Mount Zion on the south to Mount Moriah on the east. A
+little glen, anciently called the Tyropeon, divides the mounts, and winds
+through to the Damascus Gate, on the north, though from the height of the
+walls and the position of the city, the depression which it causes in the
+mass of buildings is not very perceptible, except from the latter point,
+Moriah is the lowest of the mounts, and hangs directly over the Valley of
+Jehosaphat. Its summit was built up by Solomon so as to form a
+quadrangular terrace, five hundred by three hundred yards in dimension.
+The lower courses of the grand wall, composed of huge blocks of gray
+conglomerate limestone, still remain, and there seems to be no doubt that
+they are of the time of Solomon. Some of the stones are of enormous size;
+I noticed several which were fifteen, and one twenty-two feet in length.
+The upper part of the wall was restored by Sultan Selim, the conqueror of
+Egypt, and the level of the terrace now supports the great Mosque of Omar,
+which stands on the very site of the temple. Except these foundation
+walls, the Damascus Gate and the Tower of Hippicus, there is nothing left
+of the ancient city. The length of the present wall of circumference is
+about two miles, but the circuit of Jerusalem, in the time of Herod, was
+probably double that distance.
+
+The best views of the city are from the Mount of Olives, and the hill
+north of it, whence Titus directed the siege which resulted in its total
+destruction. The Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon encamped on the same
+hill. My first walk after reaching here, was to the summit of the Mount of
+Olives. Not far from the hotel we came upon the Via Dolorosa, up which,
+according to Catholic tradition, Christ toiled with the cross upon his
+shoulders. I found it utterly impossible to imagine that I was walking in
+the same path, and preferred doubting the tradition. An arch is built
+across the street at the spot where they say he was shown to the populace.
+(_Ecce Homo_.) The passage is steep and rough, descending to St. Stephen's
+Gate by the Governor's Palace, which stands on the site of the house of
+Pontius Pilate. Here, in the wall forming the northern part of the
+foundation of the temple, there are some very fine remains of ancient
+workmanship. From the city wall, the ground descends abruptly to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat. The Turkish residents have their tombs on the city
+side, just under the terrace of the mosque, while thousands of Jews find a
+peculiar beatitude in having themselves interred on the opposite slope of
+the Mount of Olives, which is in some places quite covered with their
+crumbling tombstones. The bed of the Brook Kedron is now dry and stony. A
+sort of chapel, built in the bottom of the valley, is supposed by the
+Greeks to cover the tomb of the Virgin--a claim which the Latins consider
+absurd. Near this, at the very foot of the Mount of Olives, the latter
+sect have lately built a high stone wall around the Garden of Gethsemane,
+for the purpose, apparently, of protecting the five aged olives. I am
+ignorant of the grounds wherefore Gethsemane is placed here. Most
+travellers have given their faith to the spot, but Dr. Robinson, who is
+more reliable than any amount of mere tradition, does not coincide with
+them. The trees do not appear as ancient as some of those at the foot of
+Mount Carmel, which are supposed to date from the Roman colony established
+by Titus. Moreover, it is well known that at the time of the taking of
+Jerusalem by that Emperor, all the trees, for many miles around, were
+destroyed. The olive-trees, therefore, cannot be those under which Christ
+rested, even supposing this to be the true site of Gethseniane.
+
+The Mount of Olives is a steep and rugged hill, dominating over the city
+and the surrounding heights. It is still covered with olive orchards, and
+planted with patches of grain, which do not thrive well on the stony soil.
+On the summit is a mosque, with a minaret attached, which affords a grand
+panoramic view. As we reached it, the Chief of the College of Dervishes,
+in the court of the Mosque of Omar, came out with a number of attendants.
+He saluted us courteously, which would not have been the case had he been
+the Superior of the Latin Convent, and we Greek Monks. There were some
+Turkish ladies in the interior of the mosque, so that we could not gain
+admittance, and therefore did not see the rock containing the foot-prints
+of Christ, who, according to Moslem tradition, ascended to heaven from
+this spot. The Mohammedans, it may not be generally known, accept the
+history of Christ, except his crucifixion, believing that he passed to
+heaven without death, another person being crucified in his stead. They
+call him the _Roh-Allah,_ or Spirit of God, and consider him, after
+Mahomet, as the holiest of the Prophets.
+
+We ascended to the gallery of the minaret. The city lay opposite, so
+fairly spread out to our view that almost every house might be separately
+distinguished. It is a mass of gray buildings, with dome-roofs, and but
+for the mosques of Omar and El Aksa, with the courts and galleries around
+them, would be exceedingly tame in appearance. The only other prominent
+points are the towers of the Holy Sepulchre, the citadel, enclosing
+Herod's Tower, and the mosque on mount Zion. The Turkish wall, with its
+sharp angles, its square bastions, and the long, embrasured lines of its
+parapet, is the most striking feature of the view. Stony hills stretch
+away from the city on all sides, at present cheered with tracts of
+springing wheat, but later in the season, brown and desolate. In the
+south, the convent of St. Elias is visible, and part of the little town of
+Bethlehem. I passed to the eastern side of the gallery, and looking
+thence, deep down among the sterile mountains, beheld a long sheet of blue
+water, its southern extremity vanishing in a hot, sulphury haze. The
+mountains of Ammon and Moab, which formed the background of my first view
+of Jerusalem, leaned like a vast wall against the sky, beyond the
+mysterious sea and the broad valley of the Jordan. The great depression of
+this valley below the level of the Mediterranean gives it a most
+remarkable character. It appears even deeper than is actually the case,
+and resembles an enormous chasm or moat, separating two different regions
+of the earth. The _khamseen_ was blowing from the south, from out the
+deserts of Edom, and threw its veil of fiery vapor over the landscape. The
+muezzin pointed out to me the location of Jericho, of Kerak in Moab, and
+Es-Salt in the country of Ammon. Ere long the shadow of the minaret
+denoted noon, and, placing his hands on both sides of his mouth, he cried
+out, first on the South side, towards Mecca, and then to the West, and
+North, and East: "God is great: there is no God but God, and Mohammed is
+His Prophet! Let us prostrate ourselves before Him: and to Him alone be
+the glory!"
+
+Jerusalem, internally, gives no impression but that of filth, ruin,
+poverty, and degradation. There are two or three streets in the western or
+higher portion of the city which are tolerably clean, but all the others,
+to the very gates of the Holy Sepulchre, are channels of pestilence. The
+Jewish Quarter, which is the largest, so sickened and disgusted me, that I
+should rather go the whole round of the city walls than pass through it a
+second time. The bazaars are poor, compared with those of other Oriental
+cities of the same size, and the principal trade seems to be in rosaries,
+both Turkish and Christian, crosses, seals, amulets, and pieces of the
+Holy Sepulchre. The population, which may possibly reach 20,000, is
+apparently Jewish, for the most part; at least, I have been principally
+struck with the Hebrew face, in my walks. The number of Jews has increased
+considerably within a few years, and there is also quite a number who,
+having been converted to Protestantism, were brought hither at the expense
+of English missionary societies for the purpose of forming a Protestant
+community. Two of the hotels are kept by families of this class. It is
+estimated that each member of the community has cost the Mission about
+£4,500: a sum which would have Christianized tenfold the number of English
+heathen. The Mission, however, is kept up by its patrons, as a sort of
+religious luxury. The English have lately built a very handsome church
+within the walls, and the Rev. Dr. Gobat, well known by his missionary
+labors in Abyssinia, now has the title of Bishop of Jerusalem. A friend of
+his in Central Africa gave me a letter of introduction for him, and I am
+quite disappointed in finding him absent. Dr. Barclay, of Virginia, a most
+worthy man in every respect, is at the head of the American Mission here.
+There is, besides, what is called the "American Colony," at the village of
+Artos, near Bethlehem: a little community of religious enthusiasts, whose
+experiments in cultivation have met with remarkable success, and are much
+spoken of at present.
+
+Whatever good the various missions here may, in time, accomplish (at
+present, it does not amount to much), Jerusalem is the last place in the
+world where an intelligent heathen would be converted to Christianity.
+Were I cast here, ignorant of any religion, and were I to compare the
+lives and practices of the different sects as the means of making my
+choice--in short, to judge of each faith by the conduct of its
+professors--I should at once turn Mussulman. When you consider that in the
+Holy Sepulchre there are _nineteen_ chapels, each belonging to a different
+sect, calling itself Christian, and that a Turkish police is always
+stationed there to prevent the bloody quarrels which often ensue between
+them, you may judge how those who call themselves followers of the Prince
+of Peace practice the pure faith he sought to establish. Between the Greek
+and Latin churches, especially, there is a deadly feud, and their
+contentions are a scandal, not only to the few Christians here, but to the
+Moslems themselves. I believe there is a sort of truce at present, owing
+to the settlement of some of the disputes--as, for instance, the
+restoration of the silver star, which the Greeks stole from the shrine of
+the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The Latins, however, not long since,
+demolished, _vi et armis_, a chapel which the Greeks commenced building on
+Mount Zion. But, if the employment of material weapons has been abandoned
+for the time, there is none the less a war of words and of sounds still
+going on. Go into the Holy Sepulchre, when mass is being celebrated, and
+you can scarcely endure the din. No sooner does the Greek choir begin its
+shrill chant, than the Latins fly to the assault. They have an organ, and
+terribly does that organ strain its bellows and labor its pipes to drown
+the rival singing. You think the Latins will carry the day, when suddenly
+the cymbals of the Abyssinians strike in with harsh brazen clang, and, for
+the moment, triumph. Then there are Copts, and Maronites, and Armenians,
+and I know not how many other sects, who must have their share; and the
+service that should be a many-toned harmony pervaded by one grand spirit
+of devotion, becomes a discordant orgie, befitting the rites of Belial.
+
+A long time ago--I do not know the precise number of years--the Sultan
+granted a firman, in answer to the application of both Jews and
+Christians, allowing the members of each sect to put to death any person
+belonging to the other sect, who should be found inside of their churches
+or synagogues. The firman has never been recalled, though in every place
+but Jerusalem it remains a dead letter. Here, although the Jews freely
+permit Christians to enter their synagogue, a Jew who should enter the
+Holy Sepulchre would be lucky if he escaped with his life. Not long since,
+an English gentleman, who was taken by the monks for a Jew, was so
+severely beaten that he was confined to his bed for two months. What worse
+than scandal, what abomination, that the spot looked upon by so many
+Christians as the most awfully sacred on earth, should be the scene of
+such brutish intolerance! I never pass the group of Turkish officers,
+quietly smoking their long pipes and sipping their coffee within the
+vestibule of the Church, without a feeling of humiliation. Worse than the
+money-changers whom Christ scourged out of the Temple, the guardians of
+this edifice make use of His crucifixion and resurrection as a means of
+gain. You may buy a piece of the stone covering the Holy Sepulchre, duly
+certified by the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, for about $7. At Bethlehem,
+which I visited this morning, the Latin monk who showed us the manger, the
+pit where 12,000 innocents were buried, and other things, had much less to
+say of the sacredness or authenticity of the place, than of the injustice
+of allowing the Greeks a share in its possession.
+
+The native Jewish families in Jerusalem, as well as those in other parts
+of Palestine, present a marked difference to the Jews of Europe and
+America. They possess the same physical characteristics--the dark, oblong
+eye, the prominent nose, the strongly-marked cheek and jaw--but in the
+latter, these traits have become harsh and coarse. Centuries devoted to
+the lowest and most debasing forms of traffic, with the endurance of
+persecution and contumely, have greatly changed and vulgarized the
+appearance of the race. But the Jews of the Holy City still retain a noble
+beauty, which proved to my mind their descent from the ancient princely
+houses of Israel The forehead is loftier, the eye larger and more frank in
+its expression, the nose more delicate in its prominence, and the face a
+purer oval. I have remarked the same distinction in the countenances of
+those Jewish families of Europe, whose members have devoted themselves to
+Art or Literature. Mendelssohn's was a face that might have belonged to
+the House of David.
+
+On the evening of my arrival in the city, as I set out to walk through the
+bazaars, I encountered a native Jew, whose face will haunt me for the rest
+of my life. I was sauntering slowly along, asking myself "Is this
+Jerusalem?" when, lifting my eyes, they met those of Christ! It was the
+very face which Raphael has painted--the traditional features of the
+Saviour, as they are recognised and accepted by all Christendom. The
+waving brown hair, partly hidden by a Jewish cap, fell clustering about
+the ears; the face was the most perfect oval, and almost feminine in the
+purity of its outline; the serene, child-like mouth was shaded with a
+light moustache, and a silky brown beard clothed the chin; but the
+eyes--shall I ever look into such orbs again? Large, dark, unfathomable,
+they beamed with an expression of divine love and divine sorrow, such as I
+never before saw in human face. The man had just emerged from a dark
+archway, and the golden glow of the sunset, reflected from a white wall
+above, fell upon his face. Perhaps it was this transfiguration which made
+his beauty so unearthly; but, during the moment that I saw him, he was to
+me a revelation of the Saviour. There are still miracles in the Land of
+Judah. As the dusk gathered in the deep streets, I could see nothing but
+the ineffable sweetness and benignity of that countenance, and my friend
+was not a little astonished, if not shocked, when I said to him, with the
+earnestness of belief, on my return: "I have just seen Christ."
+
+I made the round of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday, while the monks were
+celebrating the festival of the Invention of the Cross, in the chapel of
+the Empress Helena. As the finding of the cross by the Empress is almost
+the only authority for the places inclosed within the Holy Sepulchre, I
+went there inclined to doubt their authenticity, and came away with my
+doubt vastly strengthened. The building is a confused labyrinth of
+chapels, choirs, shrines, staircases, and vaults--without any definite
+plan or any architectural beauty, though very rich in parts and full of
+picturesque effects. Golden lamps continually burn before the sacred
+places, and you rarely visit the church without seeing some procession of
+monks, with crosses, censers, and tapers, threading the shadowy passages,
+from shrine to shrine It is astonishing how many localities are assembled
+under one roof. At first, you are shown, the stone on which Christ rested
+from the burden of the cross; then, the place where the soldiers cast lots
+for His garments, both of them adjoining the Sepulchre. After seeing this,
+you are taken to the Pillar of Flagellation; the stocks; the place of
+crowning with thorns; the spot where He met His mother; the cave where the
+Empress Helena found the cross; and, lastly, the summit of Mount Calvary.
+The Sepulchre is a small marble building in the centre of the church. We
+removed our shoes at the entrance, and were taken by a Greek monk, first
+into a sort of ante-chamber, lighted with golden lamps, and having in the
+centre, inclosed in a case of marble, the stone on which the angel sat.
+Stooping through a low door, we entered the Sepulchre itself. Forty lamps
+of gold burn unceasingly above the white marble slab, which, as the monks
+say, protects the stone whereon the body of Christ was laid. As we again
+emerged, our guide led us up a flight of steps to a second story, in which
+stood a shrine, literally blazing with gold. Kneeling on the marble floor,
+he removed a golden shield, and showed us the hole in the rock of Calvary,
+where the cross was planted. Close beside it was the fissure produced by
+the earthquake which followed the Crucifixion. But, to my eyes, aided by
+the light of the dim wax taper, it was no violent rupture, such as an
+earthquake would produce, and the rock did not appear to be the same as
+that of which Jerusalem is built. As we turned to leave, a monk appeared
+with a bowl of sacred rose-water, which he sprinkled on our hands,
+bestowing a double portion on a rosary of sandal-wood which I carried But
+it was a Mohammedan rosary, brought from Mecca, and containing the sacred
+number of ninety-nine beads.
+
+I have not space here to state all the arguments for and against the
+localities in the Holy Sepulchre, I came to the conclusion that none of
+them were authentic, and am glad to have the concurrence of such
+distinguished authority as Dr. Robinson. So far from this being a matter
+of regret, I, for one, rejoice that those sacred spots are lost to the
+world. Christianity does not need them, and they are spared a daily
+profanation in the name of religion. We know that Christ has walked on the
+Mount of Olives, and gone down to the Pool of Siloam, and tarried in
+Bethany; we know that here, within the circuit of our vision, He has
+suffered agony and death, and that from this little point went out all the
+light that has made the world greater and happier and better in its later
+than in its earlier days.
+
+Yet, I must frankly confess, in wandering through this city--revered
+alike by Christians, Jews and Turks as one of the holiest in the world--I
+have been reminded of Christ, the Man, rather, than of Christ, the God. In
+the glory which overhangs Palestine afar off, we imagine emotions which
+never come, when we tread the soil and walk over the hallowed sites. As I
+toiled up the Mount of Olives, in the very footsteps of Christ, panting
+with the heat and the difficult ascent, I found it utterly impossible to
+conceive that the Deity, in human form, had walked there before me. And
+even at night, as I walk on the terraced roof, while the moon, "the balmy
+moon of blessed Israel," restores the Jerusalem of olden days to my
+imagination, the Saviour who then haunts my thoughts is the Man Jesus, in
+those moments of trial when He felt the weaknesses of our common humanity;
+in that agony of struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, in that still more
+bitter cry of human doubt and human appeal from the cross: "My God, my
+God, why hast Thou forsaken me!" Yet there is no reproach for this
+conception of the character of Christ. Better the divinely-inspired Man,
+the purest and most perfect of His race, the pattern and type of all that
+is good and holy in Humanity, than the Deity for whose intercession we
+pray, while we trample His teachings under our feet. It would be well for
+many Christian sects, did they keep more constantly before their eyes the
+sublime humanity of Christ. How much bitter intolerance and persecution
+might be spared the world, if, instead of simply adoring Him as a Divine
+Mediator, they would strive to walk the ways He trod on earth. But
+Christianity is still undeveloped, and there is yet no sect which
+represents its fall and perfect spirit.
+
+It is my misfortune if I give offence by these remarks. I cannot assume
+emotions I do not feel, and must describe Jerusalem as I found it. Since
+being here, I have read the accounts of several travellers, and in many
+cases the devotional rhapsodies--the ecstacies of awe and reverence--in
+which they indulge, strike me as forced and affected. The pious writers
+have described what was expected of them, not what they found. It was
+partly from reading such accounts that my anticipations were raised too
+high, for the view of the city from the Jaffa road and the panorama from
+the Mount of Olives are the only things wherein I have been pleasantly
+disappointed.
+
+By far the most interesting relic left to the city is the foundation wall
+of Solomon's Temple. The Mosque of Omar, according to the accounts of the
+Turks, and Mr. Gather wood's examination, rests on immense vaults, which
+are believed to be the substructions of the Temple itself. Under the dome
+of the mosque there is a large mass of natural rock, revered by the
+Moslems as that from which Mahomet mounted the beast Borak when he visited
+the Seven Heavens, and believed by Mr. Catherwood to have served as part
+of the foundation of the Holy of Holies. No Christian is allowed to enter
+the mosque, or even its enclosure, on penalty of death, and even the
+firman of the Sultan has failed to obtain admission for a Frank. I have
+been strongly tempted to make the attempt in my Egyptian dress, which
+happens to resemble that of a mollah or Moslem priest, but the Dervishes
+in the adjoining college have sharp eyes, and my pronunciation of Arabic
+would betray me in case I was accosted. I even went so far as to buy a
+string of the large beads usually carried by a mollah, but unluckily I do
+not know the Moslem form of prayer, or I might carry out the plan under
+the guise of religious abstraction. This morning we succeeded in getting a
+nearer view of the mosque from the roof of the Governor's palace.
+François, by assuming the character of a Turkish _cawass,_ gained us
+admission. The roof overlooks the entire enclosure of the Haram, and gives
+a complete view of the exterior of the mosque and the paved court
+surrounding it. There is no regularity in the style of the buildings in
+the enclosure, but the general effect is highly picturesque. The great
+dome of the mosque is the grandest in all the Orient, but the body of the
+edifice, made to resemble an octagonal tent, and covered with blue and
+white tiles, is not high enough to do it justice. The first court is paved
+with marble, and has four porticoes, each of five light Saracenic arches,
+opening into the green park, which occupies the rest of the terrace. This
+park is studded with cypress and fig trees, and dotted all over with the
+tombs of shekhs. As we were looking down on the spacious area, behold! who
+should come along but Shekh Mohammed Senoosee, the holy man of Timbuctoo,
+who had laid off his scarlet robe and donned a green one. I called down to
+him, whereupon he looked up and recognised us. For this reason I regret
+our departure from Jerusalem, as I am sure a little persuasion would
+induce the holy man to accompany me within the mosque.
+
+We leave to-morrow for Damascus, by way of Nazareth and Tiberius. My
+original plan was to have gone to Djerash, the ancient Geraza, in the land
+of Gilead, and thence to Bozrah, in Djebel Hauaran. But Djebel Adjeloun,
+as the country about Djerash is called, is under a powerful Bedouin shekh,
+named Abd-el Azeez, and without an escort from him, which involves
+considerable delay and a fee of $150, it would be impossible to make the
+journey. We are therefore restricted to the ordinary route, and in case we
+should meet with any difficulty by the way, Mr. Smith, the American
+Consul, who is now here, has kindly procured us a firman from the Pasha of
+Jerusalem. All the travellers here are making preparations to leave, but
+there are still two parties in the Desert.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI.
+
+The Hill-Country of Palestine.
+
+
+  Leaving Jerusalem--The Tombs of the Kings--El Bireh--The
+  Hill-Country--First View of Mount Hermon--The Tomb of Joseph--Ebal and
+  Gerizim--The Gardens of Nablous--The Samaritans--The Sacred Book--A
+  Scene in the Synagogue--Mentoi and Telemachus--Ride to Samaria--The
+  Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
+  Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
+  Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
+  the Annunciation--The Holy Places.
+
+
+  "Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song,
+  Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng:
+  In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,
+  On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee!"
+
+  J. G. Whittier.
+
+
+Latin Convent, Nazareth, _Friday May_ 7, 1852.
+
+We left Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate, because within a few months neither
+travellers nor baggage are allowed to pass the Damascus Gate, on account
+of smuggling operations having been carried on there. Not far from the
+city wall there is a superb terebinth tree, now in the full glory of its
+shining green leaves. It appears to be bathed in a perpetual dew; the
+rounded masses of foliage sparkle and glitter in the light, and the great
+spreading boughs flood the turf below with a deluge of delicious shade. A
+number of persons were reclining on the grass under it, and one of them, a
+very handsome Christian boy, spoke to us in Italian and English. I
+scarcely remember a brighter and purer day than that of our departure.
+The sky was a sheet of spotless blue; every rift and scar of the distant
+hills was retouched with a firmer pencil, and all the outlines, blurred
+away by the haze of the previous few days, were restored with wonderful
+distinctness. The temperature was hot, but not sultry, and the air we
+breathed was an elixir of immortality.
+
+Through a luxuriant olive grove we reached the Tombs of the Kings,
+situated in a small valley to the north of the city. Part of the valley,
+if not the whole of it, has been formed by quarrying away the crags of
+marble and conglomerate limestone for building the city. Near the edge of
+the low cliffs overhanging it, there are some illustrations of the ancient
+mode of cutting stone, which, as well as the custom of excavating tombs in
+the rock, was evidently borrowed from Egypt. The upper surface of the
+rocks, was first made smooth, after which the blocks were mapped out and
+cut apart by grooves chiselled between them. I visited four or five tombs,
+each of which had a sort of vestibule or open portico in front. The door
+was low, and the chambers which I entered, small and black, without
+sculptures of any kind. The tombs bear some resemblance in their general
+plan to those of Thebes, except that they are without ornaments, either
+sculptured or painted. There are fragments of sarcophagi in some of them.
+On the southern side of the valley is a large quarry, evidently worked for
+marble, as the blocks have been cut out from below, leaving a large
+overhanging mass, part of which has broken off and fallen down. Some
+pieces which I picked up were of a very fine white marble, somewhat
+resembling that of Carrara. The opening of the quarry made a striking
+picture, the soft pink hue of the weather-stained rock contrasting
+exquisitely with the vivid green of the vines festooning the entrance.
+
+From the long hill beyond the Tombs, we took our last view of Jerusalem,
+far beyond whose walls I saw the Church of the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The
+Jewish synagogue on the top of the mountain called Nebbee Samwil, the
+highest peak in Palestine, was visible at some distance to the west.
+Notwithstanding its sanctity, I felt little regret at leaving Jerusalem,
+and cheerfully took the rough road northward, over the stony hills. There
+were few habitations in sight, yet the hill-sides were cultivated,
+wherever it was possible for anything to grow. The wheat was just coming
+into head, and the people were at work, planting maize. After four hours'
+ride, we reached El Bireh, a little village on a hill, with the ruins of a
+convent and a large khan. The place takes its name from a fountain of
+excellent water, beside which we found our tents already pitched. In the
+evening, two Englishmen, an ancient Mentor, with a wild young Telemachus
+in charge, arrived, and camped near us. The night was calm and cool, and
+the full moon poured a flood of light over the bare and silent hills.
+
+We rose long before sunrise, and rode off in the brilliant morning--the
+sky unstained by a speck of vapor. In the valley, beyond El Bireh, the
+husbandmen were already at their ploughs, and the village boys were on
+their way to the uncultured parts of the hills, with their flocks of sheep
+and goats. The valley terminated in a deep gorge, with perpendicular walls
+of rock on either side. Our road mounted the hill on the eastern side, and
+followed the brink of the precipice through the pass, where an enchanting
+landscape opened upon us. The village of Yebrood crowned a hill which rose
+opposite, and the mountain slopes leaning towards it on all sides were
+covered with orchards of fig trees; and either rustling with wheat or
+cleanly ploughed for maize. The soil was a dark brown loam, and very rich.
+The stones have been laboriously built into terraces; and, even where
+heavy rocky boulders almost hid the soil, young fig and olive trees were
+planted in the crevices between them. I have never seen more thorough and
+patient cultivation. In the crystal of the morning air, the very hills
+laughed with plenty, and the whole landscape beamed with the signs of
+gladness on its countenance.
+
+The site of ancient Bethel was not far to the right of our road. Over
+hills laden with the olive, fig, and vine, we passed to Ain el-Haramiyeh,
+or the Fountain of the Bobbers. Here there are tombs cut in the rock on
+both sides of the valley. Over another ridge, we descended to a large,
+bowl-shaped valley, entirely covered with wheat, and opening eastward
+towards the Jordan. Thence to Nablous (the Shechem of the Old and Sychar
+of the New Testament) is four hours through a winding dell of the richest
+harvest land; On the way, we first caught sight of the snowy top of Mount
+Hermon, distant at least eighty miles in a straight line. Before reaching
+Nablous, I stopped to drink at a fountain of clear and sweet water, beside
+a square pile of masonry, upon which sat two Moslem dervishes. This, we
+were told, was the Tomb of Joseph, whose body, after having accompanied
+the Israelites in all their wanderings, was at last deposited near
+Shechem. There is less reason to doubt this spot than most of the sacred
+places of Palestine, for the reason that it rests, not on Christian, but
+on Jewish tradition. The wonderful tenacity with which the Jews cling to
+every record or memento of their early history, and the fact that from
+the time of Joseph a portion of them have always lingered near the spot,
+render it highly probable that the locality of a spot so sacred should
+have been preserved from generation to generation to the present time. It
+has been recently proposed to open this tomb, by digging under it from the
+side. If the body of Joseph was actually deposited here, there are, no
+doubt, some traces of it remaining. It must have been embalmed, according
+to the Egyptian custom, and placed in a coffin of the Indian sycamore, the
+wood of which is so nearly incorruptible, that thirty-five centuries would
+not suffice for its decomposition. The singular interest of such a
+discovery would certainly justify the experiment. Not far from the tomb is
+Jacob's Well, where Christ met the Woman of Samaria. This place is also
+considered as authentic, for the same reasons. If not wholly convincing to
+all, there is, at least, so much probability in them that one is freed
+from that painful coldness and incredulity with which he beholds the
+sacred shows of Jerusalem.
+
+Leaving the Tomb of Joseph, the road turned to the west, and entered the
+narrow pass between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. The former is a steep, barren
+peak, clothed with terraces of cactus, standing on the northern side of
+the pass. Mount Gerizim is cultivated nearly to the top, and is truly a
+mountain of blessing, compared with its neighbor. Through an orchard of
+grand old olive-trees, we reached Nablous, which presented a charming
+picture, with its long mass of white, dome-topped stone houses, stretching
+along the foot of Gerizim through a sea of bowery orchards. The bottom of
+the valley resembles some old garden run to waste. Abundant streams,
+poured from the generous heart of the Mount of Blessing, leap and gurgle
+with pleasant noises through thickets of orange, fig, and pomegranate,
+through bowers of roses and tangled masses of briars and wild vines. We
+halted in a grove of olives, and, after our tent was pitched, walked
+upward through the orchards to the Ras-el-Ain (Promontory of the
+Fountain), on the side of Mount Gerizim. A multitude of beggars sat at the
+city gate; and, as they continued to clamor after I had given sufficient
+alms, I paid them with "_Allah deelek_!"--(God give it to you!)--the
+Moslem's reply to such importunity--and they ceased in an instant. This
+exclamation, it seems, takes away from them the power of demanding a
+second time.
+
+From under the Ras-el-Ain gushes forth the Fountain of Honey, so called
+from the sweetness and purity of the water. We drank of it, and I found
+the taste very agreeable, but my companion declared that it had an
+unpleasant woolly flavor. When we climbed a little higher, we found that
+the true source from which the fountain is supplied was above, and that an
+Arab was washing a flock of sheep in it! We continued our walk along the
+side of the mountain to the other end of the city, through gardens of
+almond, apricot, prune, and walnut-trees, bound each to each by great
+vines, whose heavy arms they seemed barely able to support. The interior
+of the town is dark and filthy; but it has a long, busy bazaar extending
+its whole length, and a café, where we procured the best coffee in Syria.
+
+Nablous is noted for the existence of a small remnant of the ancient
+Samaritans. The stock has gradually dwindled away, and amounts to only
+forty families, containing little more than a hundred and fifty
+individuals. They live in a particular quarter of the city, and are
+easily distinguished from the other inhabitants by the cast of their
+features. After our guide, a native of Nablous, had pointed out three or
+four, I had no difficulty in recognising all the others we met. They have
+long, but not prominent noses, like the Jews; small, oblong eyes, narrow
+lips, and fair complexions, most of them having brown hair. They appear to
+be held in considerable obloquy by the Moslems. Our attendant, who was of
+the low class of Arabs, took the boys we met very unceremoniously by the
+head, calling out: "Here is another Samaritan!" He then conducted us to
+their synagogue, to see the celebrated Pentateuch, which is there
+preserved. We were taken to a small, open court, shaded by an
+apricot-tree, where the priest, an old man in a green robe and white
+turban, was seated in meditation. He had a long grey beard, and black
+eyes, that lighted up with a sudden expression of eager greed when we
+promised him backsheesh for a sight of the sacred book. He arose and took
+us into a sort of chapel, followed by a number of Samaritan boys. Kneeling
+down at a niche in the wall, he produced from behind a wooden case a piece
+of ragged parchment, written with Hebrew characters. But the guide was
+familiar with this deception, and rated him so soundly that, after a
+little hesitation, he laid the fragment away, and produced a large tin
+cylinder, covered with a piece of green satin embroidered in gold. The
+boys stooped down and reverently kissed the blazoned cover, before it was
+removed. The cylinder, sliding open by two rows of hinges, opened at the
+same time the parchment scroll, which was rolled at both ends. It was,
+indeed, a very ancient manuscript, and in remarkable preservation. The
+rents have been carefully repaired and the scroll neatly stitched upon
+another piece of parchment, covered on the outside with violet satin. The
+priest informed me that it was written by the son of Aaron; but this does
+not coincide with the fact that the Samaritan Pentateuch is different from
+that of the Jews. It is, however, no doubt one of the oldest parchment
+records in the world, and the Samaritans look upon it with unbounded faith
+and reverence. The Pentateuch, according to their version, contains their
+only form of religion. They reject everything else which the Old Testament
+contains. Three or four days ago was their grand feast of sacrifice, when
+they made a burnt offering of a lamb, on the top of Mount Gerizim. Within
+a short time, it is said they have shown some curiosity to become
+acquainted with the New Testament, and the High Priest sent to Jerusalem
+to procure Arabic copies.
+
+I asked one of the wild-eyed boys whether he could read the sacred book.
+"Oh, yes," said the priest, "all these boys can read it;" and the one I
+addressed immediately pulled a volume from his breast, and commenced
+reading in fluent Hebrew. It appeared to be a part of their church
+service, for both the priest and _boab_, or door-keeper, kept up a running
+series of responses, and occasionally the whole crowd shouted out some
+deep-mouthed word in chorus. The old man leaned forward with an expression
+as fixed and intense as if the text had become incarnate in him, following
+with his lips the sound of the boy's voice. It was a strange picture of
+religious enthusiasm, and was of itself sufficient to convince me of the
+legitimacy of the Samaritan's descent. When I rose to leave I gave him the
+promised fee, and a smaller one to the boy who read the service. This was
+the signal for a general attack from the door-keeper and all the boys who
+were present. They surrounded me with eyes sparkling with the desire of
+gain, kissed the border of my jacket, stroked my beard coaxingly with
+their hands, which they then kissed, and, crowding up with a boisterous
+show of affection, were about to fall on my neck in a heap, after the old
+Hebrew fashion. The priest, clamorous for more, followed with glowing
+face, and the whole group had a riotous and bacchanalian character, which
+I should never have imagined could spring from such a passion as avarice.
+
+On returning to our camp, we found Mentor and Telemachus arrived, but not
+on such friendly terms as their Greek prototypes. We were kept awake for a
+long time that night by their high words, and the first sound I heard the
+next morning came from their tent. Telemachus, I suspect, had found some
+island of Calypso, and did not relish the cold shock of the plunge into
+the sea, by which Mentor had forced him away. He insisted on returning to
+Jerusalem, but as Mentor would not allow him a horse, he had not the
+courage to try it on foot. After a series of altercations, in which he
+took a pistol to shoot the dragoman, and applied very profane terms to
+everybody in the company, his wrath dissolved into tears, and when we
+left, Mentor had decided to rest a day at Nablous, and let him recover
+from the effects of the storm.
+
+We rode down the beautiful valley, taking the road to Sebaste (Samaria),
+while our luggage-mules kept directly over the mountains to Jenin. Our
+path at first followed the course of the stream, between turfy banks and
+through luxuriant orchards. The whole country we overlooked was planted
+with olive-trees, and, except the very summits of the mountains, covered
+with grain-fields. For two hours our course was north-east, leading over
+the hills, and now and then dipping into beautiful dells. In one of these
+a large stream gushes from the earth in a full fountain, at the foot of a
+great olive-tree. The hill-side above it was a complete mass of foliage,
+crowned with the white walls of a Syrian village. Descending the valley,
+which is very deep, we came in sight of Samaria, situated on the summit of
+an isolated hill. The sanctuary of the ancient Christian church of St.
+John towers high above the mud walls of the modern village. Riding between
+olive-orchards and wheat-fields of glorious richness and beauty, we passed
+the remains of an acqueduct, and ascended the hill The ruins of the church
+occupy the eastern summit. Part of them have been converted into a mosque,
+which the Christian foot is not allowed to profane. The church, which is
+in the Byzantine style, is apparently of the time of the Crusaders. It had
+originally a central and two side-aisles, covered with groined Gothic
+vaults. The sanctuary is semi-circular, with a row of small arches,
+supported by double pillars. The church rests on the foundations of some
+much more ancient building--probably a temple belonging to the Roman
+city.
+
+Behind the modern village, the hill terminates in a long, elliptical
+mound, about one-third of a mile in length. We made the tour of it, and
+were surprised at finding a large number of columns, each of a single
+piece of marble. They had once formed a double colonnade, extending from
+the church to a gate on the western side of the summit. Our native guide
+said they had been covered with an arch, and constituted a long market or
+bazaar--a supposition in which he may be correct. From the gate, which is
+still distinctly marked, we overlooked several deep valleys to the west,
+and over them all, the blue horizon of the Mediterranean, south of
+Cæsarea. On the northern side of the hill there are upwards of twenty more
+pillars standing, besides a number hurled down, and the remains of a
+quadrangular colonnade, on the side of the hill below. The total number of
+pillars on the summit cannot be less than one hundred, from twelve to
+eighteen feet in height. The hill is strewn, even to its base, with large
+hewn blocks and fragments of sculptured stone. The present name of the
+city was given to it by Herod, and it must have been at that time a most
+stately and beautiful place.
+
+We descended to a valley on the east, climbed a long ascent, and after
+crossing the broad shoulder of a mountain beyond, saw below us a landscape
+even more magnificent than that of Nablous. It was a great winding valley,
+its bottom rolling in waves of wheat and barley, while every hill-side, up
+to the bare rock, was mantled with groves of olive. The very summits which
+looked into this garden of Israel, were green with fragrant plants--wild
+thyme and sage, gnaphalium and camomile. Away to the west was the sea, and
+in the north-west the mountain chain of Carmel. We went down to the
+gardens and pasture-land, and stopped to rest at the Village of Geba,
+which hangs on the side of the mountain. A spring of whitish but delicious
+water gushed out of the soil, in the midst of a fig orchard. The women
+passed us, going back and forth with tall water-jars on their heads. Some
+herd-boys brought down a flock of black goats, and they were all given
+drink in a large wooden bowl. They were beautiful animals, with thick
+curved horns, white eyes, and ears a foot long. It was a truly Biblical
+picture in every feature.
+
+Beyond this valley we passed a circular basin, which has no outlet, so
+that in winter the bottom of it must be a lake. After winding among the
+hills an hour more, we came out upon the town of Jenin, a Turkish village,
+with a tall white minaret, at the head of the great plain of Esdraelon. It
+is supposed to be the ancient Jezreel, where the termagant Jezebel was
+thrown out of the window. We pitched our tent in a garden near the town,
+under a beautiful mulberry tree, and, as the place is in very bad repute,
+engaged a man to keep guard at night. An English family was robbed there
+two or three weeks ago. Our guard did his duty well, pacing back and
+forth, and occasionally grounding his musket to keep up his courage by the
+sound. In the evening, François caught a chameleon, a droll-looking little
+creature, which changed color in a marvellous manner.
+
+Our road, next day, lay directly across the Plain of Esdraelon, one of the
+richest districts in the world. It is now a green sea, covered with fields
+of wheat and barley, or great grazing tracts, on which multitudes of sheep
+and goats are wandering. In some respects it reminded me of the Valley of
+San José, and if I were to liken Palestine to any other country I have
+seen, it would be California. The climate and succession of the seasons
+are the same, the soil is very similar in quality, and the landscapes
+present the same general features. Here, in spring, the plains are covered
+with that deluge of floral bloom, which makes California seem a paradise.
+Here there are the same picturesque groves, the same rank fields of wild
+oats clothing the mountain-sides, the same aromatic herbs impregnating the
+air with balm, and above all, the same blue, cloudless days and dewless
+nights. While travelling here, I am constantly reminded of our new Syria
+on the Pacific.
+
+Towards noon, Mount Tabor separated itself from the chain of hills before
+us, and stood out singly, at the extremity of the plain. We watered our
+horses at a spring in a swamp, were some women were collected, beating
+with sticks the rushes they had gathered to make mats. After reaching the
+mountains on the northern side of the plain, an ascent of an hour and
+a-half, through a narrow glen, brought us to Nazareth, which is situated
+in a cul-de-sac, under the highest peaks of the range. As we were passing
+a rocky part of the road, Mr. Harrison's horse fell with him and severely
+injured his leg. We were fortunately near our destination, and on reaching
+the Latin Convent, Fra Joachim, to whose surgical abilities the
+traveller's book bore witness, took him in charge. Many others besides
+ourselves have had reason to be thankful for the good offices of the Latin
+monks in Palestine. I have never met with a class more kind, cordial, and
+genial. All the convents are bound to take in and entertain all
+applicants--of whatever creed or nation--for the space of three days.
+
+In the afternoon, Fra Joachim accompanied me to the Church of the Virgin,
+which is inclosed within the walls of the convent. It is built over the
+supposed site of the house in which the mother of Christ was living, at
+the time of the angelic annunciation. Under the high altar, a flight of
+steps leads down to the shrine of the Virgin, on the threshold of the
+house, where the Angel Gabriel's foot rested, as he stood, with a lily in
+his hand, announcing the miraculous conception. The shrine, of white
+marble and gold, gleaming in the light of golden lamps, stands under a
+rough arch of the natural rock, from the side of which hangs a heavy
+fragment of a granite pillar, suspended, as the devout believe, by divine
+power. Fra Joachim informed me that, when the Moslems attempted to
+obliterate all tokens of the holy place, this pillar was preserved by a
+miracle, that the locality might not be lost to the Christians. At the
+same time, he said, the angels of God carried away the wooden house which
+stood at the entrance of the grotto; and, after letting it drop in
+Marseilles, while they rested, picked it up again and set it down in
+Loretto, where it still remains. As he said this, there was such entire,
+absolute belief in the good monk's eyes, and such happiness in that
+belief, that not for ten times the gold on the shrine would I have
+expressed a doubt of the story. He then bade me kneel, that I might see
+the spot where the angel stood, and devoutly repeated a paternoster while
+I contemplated the pure plate of snowy marble, surrounded with vases of
+fragrant flowers, between which hung cressets of gold, wherein perfumed
+oils were burning. All the decorations of the place conveyed the idea of
+transcendent purity and sweetness; and, for the first time in Palestine, I
+wished for perfect faith in the spot. Behind the shrine, there are two or
+three chambers in the rock, which served as habitations for the family of
+the Virgin.
+
+A young Christian Nazarene afterwards conducted me to the House of Joseph,
+the Carpenter, which is now inclosed in a little chapel. It is merely a
+fragment of wall, undoubtedly as old as the time of Christ, and I felt
+willing to consider it a genuine relic. There was an honest roughness
+about the large stones, inclosing a small room called the carpenter's
+shop, which I could not find it in my heart to doubt. Besides, in a quiet
+country town like Nazareth, which has never knows such vicissitudes as
+Jerusalem, much more dependence can be placed on popular tradition. For
+the same reason, I looked with reverence on the Table of Christ, also
+inclosed within a chapel. This is a large, natural rock, about nine feet
+by twelve, nearly square, and quite flat on the top. It is said that it
+once served as a table for Christ and his Disciples. The building called
+the School of Christ, where he went with other children of his age, is now
+a church of the Syrian Christians, who were performing a doleful mass, in
+Arabic, at the time of my visit. It is a vaulted apartment, about forty
+feet long, and only the lower part of the wall is ancient. At each of
+these places, the Nazarene put into my hand a piece of pasteboard, on
+which was printed a prayer in Latin, Italian, and Arabic, with the
+information that whoever visited the place, and made the prayer, would be
+entitled to seven years' indulgence. I duly read all the prayers, and,
+accordingly, my conscience ought to be at rest for twenty-one years.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII.
+
+The Country of Galilee.
+
+
+  Departure from Nazareth--A Christian Guide--Ascent of Mount
+  Tabor--Wallachian Hermits--The Panorama of Tabor--Ride to Tiberias--A
+  Bath in Genesareth--The Flowers of Galilee--The Mount of
+  Beatitude--Magdala--Joseph's Well--Meeting with a Turk--The Fountain of
+  the Salt-Works--The Upper Valley of the Jordan--Summer Scenery--The
+  Rivers of Lebanon--Tell el-Kadi--An Arcadian Region--The Fountains of
+  Banias.
+
+  "Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,
+  And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene;
+  And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see
+  The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee!"--Whittier.
+
+
+Banias (Cæsarea Philippi), _May_ 10, 1852.
+
+We left Nazareth on the morning of the 8th inst. My companion had done so
+well under the care of Fra Joachim that he was able to ride, and our
+journey was not delayed by his accident. The benedictions of the good
+Franciscans accompanied us as we rode away from the Convent, past the
+Fountain of the Virgin, and out of the pleasant little valley where the
+boy Jesus wandered for many peaceful years. The Christian guide we engaged
+for Mount Tabor had gone ahead, and we did not find him until we had
+travelled for more than two hours among the hills. As we approached the
+sacred mountain, we came upon the region of oaks--the first oak I had seen
+since leaving Europe last autumn. There are three or four varieties, some
+with evergreen foliage, and in their wild luxuriance and the
+picturesqueness of their forms and groupings, they resemble those of
+California. The sea of grass and flowers in which they stood was sprinkled
+with thick tufts of wild oats--another point of resemblance to the latter
+country. But here, there is no gold; there, no sacred memories.
+
+The guide was waiting for us beside a spring, among the trees. He was a
+tall youth of about twenty, with a mild, submissive face, and wore the
+dark-blue turban, which appears to be the badge of a native Syrian
+Christian. I found myself involuntarily pitying him for belonging to a
+despised sect. There is no disguising the fact that one feels much more
+respect for the Mussulman rulers of the East, than for their oppressed
+subjects who profess his own faith. The surest way to make a man
+contemptible is to treat him contemptuously, and the Oriental Christians,
+who have been despised for centuries, are, with some few exceptions,
+despicable enough. Now, however, since the East has become a favorite
+field of travel, and the Frank possesses an equal dignity with the Moslem,
+the native Christians are beginning to hold up their heads, and the return
+of self-respect will, in the course of time, make them respectable.
+
+Mount Tabor stands a little in advance of the hill-country, with which it
+is connected only by a low spur or shoulder, its base being the Plain of
+Esdraelon. This is probably the reason why it has been fixed upon as the
+place of the Transfiguration, as it is not mentioned by name in the New
+Testament. The words are: "an high mountain apart," which some suppose to
+refer to the position of the mountain, and not to the remoteness of Christ
+and the three Disciples from men. The sides of the mountain are covered
+with clumps of oak, hawthorn and other trees, in many places overrun with
+the white honeysuckle, its fingers dropping with odor of nutmeg and
+cloves. The ascent, by a steep and winding path, occupied an hour. The
+summit is nearly level, and resembles some overgrown American field, or
+"oak opening." The grass is more than knee-deep; the trees grow high and
+strong, and there are tangled thickets and bowers of vines without end.
+The eastern and highest end of the mountain is covered with the remains of
+an old fortress-convent, once a place of great strength, from the
+thickness of its walls. In a sort of cell formed among the ruins we found
+two monk-hermits. I addressed them in all languages of which I know a
+salutation, without effect, but at last made out that they were
+Wallachians. They were men of thirty-five, with stupid faces, dirty
+garments, beards run to waste, and fur caps. Their cell was a mere hovel,
+without furniture, except a horrid caricature of the Virgin and Child, and
+four books of prayers in the Bulgarian character. One of them walked about
+knitting a stocking, and paid no attention to us; but the other, after
+giving us some deliciously cold water, got upon a pile of rubbish, and
+stood regarding us with open mouth while we took breakfast. So far from
+this being a cause of annoyance, I felt really glad that our presence had
+agitated the stagnant waters of his mind.
+
+The day was hazy and sultry, but the panoramic view from Mount Tabor was
+still very fine. The great Plain of Esdraelon lay below us like a vast
+mosaic of green and brown--jasper and verd-antique. On the west, Mount
+Carmel lifted his head above the blue horizon line of the Mediterranean.
+Turning to the other side, a strip of the Sea of Galilee glimmered deep
+down among the hills, and the Ghor, or the Valley of the Jordan,
+stretched like a broad gash through them. Beyond them, the country of
+Djebel Adjeloun, the ancient Decapolis, which still holds the walls of
+Gadara and the temples and theatres of Djerash, faded away into vapor,
+and, still further to the south, the desolate hills of Gilead, the home of
+Jephthah. Mount Hermon is visible when the atmosphere is clear but we were
+not able to see it.
+
+From the top of Mount Tabor to Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, is a
+journey of five hours, through a wild country, with but one single
+miserable village on the road. At first we rode through lonely dells,
+grown with oak and brilliant with flowers, especially the large purple
+mallow, and then over broad, treeless tracts of rolling land, but
+partially cultivated. The heat was very great; I had no thermometer, but
+should judge the temperature to have been at least 95° in the shade. From
+the edge of the upland tract, we looked down on the Sea of Galilee--a
+beautiful sheet of water sunk among the mountains, and more than 300 feet
+below the level of the Mediterranean. It lay unruffled in the bottom of
+the basin, reflecting the peaks of the bare red mountains beyond it.
+Tiberias was at our very feet, a few palm trees alone relieving the
+nakedness of its dull walls. After taking a welcome drink at the Fountain
+of Fig-trees, we descended to the town, which has a desolate and forlorn
+air. Its walls have been partly thrown down by earthquakes, and never
+repaired. We found our tents already pitched on the bank above the lake,
+and under one of the tottering towers.
+
+Not a breath of air was stirring; the red hills smouldered in the heat,
+and the waters of Genesareth at our feet glimmered with an oily
+smoothness, unbroken by a ripple. We untwisted our turbans, kicked off our
+baggy trowsers, and speedily releasing ourselves from the barbarous
+restraints of dress, dipped into the tepid sea and floated lazily out
+until we could feel the exquisite coldness of the living springs which
+sent up their jets from the bottom. I was lying on my back, moving my fins
+just sufficiently to keep afloat, and gazing dreamily through half-closed
+eyes on the forlorn palms of Tiberias, when a shrill voice hailed me with:
+"O Howadji, get out of our way!" There, at the old stone gateway below our
+tent, stood two Galilean damsels, with heavy earthen jars upon their
+heads. "Go away yourselves, O maidens!" I answered, "if you want us to
+come out of the water." "But we must fill our pitchers," one of them
+replied. "Then fill them at once, and be not afraid; or leave them, and we
+will fill them for you." Thereupon they put the pitchers down, but
+remained watching us very complacently while we sank the vessels to the
+bottom of the lake, and let them fill from the colder and purer tide of
+the springs. In bringing them back through the water to the gate, the one
+I propelled before me happened to strike against a stone, and its fair
+owner, on receiving it, immediately pointed to a crack in the side, which
+she declared I had made, and went off lamenting. After we had resumed our
+garments, and were enjoying the pipe of indolence and the coffee of
+contentment, she returned and made such an outcry, that I was fain to
+purchase peace by the price of a new pitcher. I passed the first hours
+of-the night in looking out of my tent-door, as I lay, on the stars
+sparkling in the bosom of Galilee, like the sheen of Assyrian spears, and
+the glare of the great fires kindled on the opposite shore.
+
+The next day, we travelled northward along the lake, passing through
+continuous thickets of oleander, fragrant with its heavy pink blossoms.
+The thistles were more abundant and beautiful than ever. I noticed, in
+particular, one with a superb globular flower of a bright blue color,
+which would make a choice ornament for our gardens at home. At the
+north-western head of the lake, the mountains fall back and leave a large
+tract of the richest meadow-land, which narrows away into a deep dell,
+overhung by high mountain headlands, faced with naked cliffs of red rock.
+The features of the landscape are magnificent. Up the dell, I saw plainly
+the Mount of Beatitude, beyond which lies the village of Cana of Galilee.
+In coming up the meadow, we passed a miserable little village of thatched
+mud huts, almost hidden by the rank weeds which grew around them. A
+withered old crone sat at one of the doors, sunning herself. "What is the
+name of this village?" I asked. "It is Mejdel," was her reply. This was
+the ancient Magdala, the home of that beautiful but sinful Magdalene,
+whose repentance has made her one of the brightest of the Saints. The
+crystal waters of the lake here lave a shore of the cleanest pebbles. The
+path goes winding through oleanders, nebbuks, patches of hollyhock,
+anise-seed, fennel, and other spicy plants, while, on the west, great
+fields of barley stand ripe for the cutting. In some places, the Fellahs,
+men and women, were at work, reaping and binding the sheaves. After
+crossing this tract, we came to the hill, at the foot of which was a
+ruined khan, and on the summit, other undistinguishable ruins, supposed by
+some to be those of Capernaum. The site of that exalted town, however, is
+still a matter of discussion.
+
+We journeyed on in a most sweltering atmosphere over the ascending hills,
+the valley of the Upper Jordan lying deep on our right. In a shallow
+hollow, under one of the highest peaks, there stands a large deserted
+khan; over a well of very cold; sweet water, called _Bir Youssuf_ by the
+Arabs. Somewhere near it, according to tradition, is the field where
+Joseph was sold by his brethren; and the well is, no doubt, looked upon by
+many as the identical pit into which he was thrown. A stately Turk of
+Damascus, with four servants behind him, came riding up as we were resting
+in the gateway of the khan, and, in answer to my question, informed me
+that the well was so named from Nebbee Youssuf (the Prophet Joseph), and
+not from Sultan Joseph Saladin. He took us for his countrymen, accosting
+me first in Turkish, and, even after I had talked with him some time in
+bad Arabic, asked me whether I had been making a pilgrimage to the tombs
+of certain holy Moslem saints, in the neighborhood of Jaffa. He joined
+company with us, however, and shared his pipe with me, as we continued our
+journey. We rode for two hours more over hills bare of trees, but covered
+thick with grass and herbs, and finally lost our way. François went ahead,
+dashing through the fields of barley and lentils, and we reached the path
+again, as the Waters of Merom came in sight. We then descended into the
+Valley of the Upper Jordan, and encamped opposite the lake, at Ain
+el-Mellaha (the Fountain of the Salt-Works), the first source of the
+sacred river. A stream of water, sufficient to turn half-a-dozen mills,
+gushes and gurgles up at the foot of the mountain. There are the remains
+of an ancient dam, by which a large pool was formed for the irrigation of
+the valley. It still supplies a little Arab mill below the fountain. This
+is a frontier post, between the jurisdictions of the Pashas of Jerusalem
+and Damascus, and the _mukkairee_ of the Greek Caloyer, who left us at
+Tiberias, was obliged to pay a duty of seven and a half piastres on
+fifteen mats, which he had bought at Jerusalem for one and a half piastres
+each. The poor man will perhaps make a dozen piastres (about half a
+dollar) on these mats at Damascus, after carrying them on his mule for
+more than two hundred miles.
+
+We pitched our tents on the grassy meadow below the mill--a charming spot,
+with Tell el-Khanzir (the hill of wild boars) just in front, over the
+Waters of Merom, and the snow-streaked summit of Djebel esh-Shekh--the
+great Mount Hermon--towering high above the valley. This is the loftiest
+peak of the Anti-Lebanon, and is 10,000 feet above the sea. The next
+morning, we rode for three hours before reaching the second spring of the
+Jordan, at a place which François called Tell el-Kadi, but which did not
+at all answer with the description given me by Dr. Robinson, at Jerusalem.
+The upper part of the broad valley, whence the Jordan draws his waters, is
+flat, moist, and but little cultivated. There are immense herds of sheep,
+goats, and buffaloes wandering over it. The people are a dark Arab tribe,
+and live in tents and miserable clay huts. Where the valley begins to
+slope upward towards the hills, they plant wheat, barley, and lentils. The
+soil is the fattest brown loam, and the harvests are wonderfully rich. I
+saw many tracts of wheat, from half a mile to a mile in extent, which
+would average forty bushels to the acre. Yet the ground is never manured,
+and the Arab plough scratches up but a few inches of the surface. What a
+paradise might be made of this country, were it in better hands!
+
+The second spring is not quite so large as Ain el-Mellaha but, like it,
+pours out a strong stream from a single source The pool was filled with
+women, washing the heavy fleeces of their sheep, and beating the dirt out
+of their striped camel's hair abas with long poles. We left it, and
+entered on a slope of stony ground, forming the head of the valley. The
+view extended southward, to the mountains closing the northern cove of the
+Sea of Galilee. It was a grand, rich landscape--so rich that its
+desolation seems forced and unnatural. High on the summit of a mountain to
+the west, the ruins of a large Crusader fortress looked down upon us. The
+soil, which slowly climbs upward through a long valley between Lebanon and
+Anti-Lebanon, is cut with deep ravines. The path is very difficult to
+find; and while we were riding forward at random, looking in all
+directions for our baggage mules, we started up a beautiful gazelle. At
+last, about noon, hot, hungry, and thirsty, we reached a swift stream,
+roaring at the bottom of a deep ravine, through a bed of gorgeous foliage.
+The odor of the wild grape-blossoms, which came up to us, as we rode along
+the edge, was overpowering in its sweetness. An old bridge of two arches
+crossed the stream. There was a pile of rocks against the central pier,
+and there we sat and took breakfast in the shade of the maples, while the
+cold green waters foamed at our feet. By all the Naiads and Tritons, what
+a joy there is in beholding a running stream! The rivers of Lebanon are
+miracles to me, after my knowledge of the Desert. A company of Arabs,
+seven in all, were gathered under the bridge; and, from a flute which one
+of them blew, I judged they were taking a pastoral holiday. We kept our
+pistols beside us; for we did not like their looks. Before leaving, they
+told us that the country was full of robbers, and advised us to be on the
+lookout. We rode more carefully, after this, and kept with our baggage on
+reaching it, An hour after leaving the bridge, we came to a large
+circular, or rather annular mound, overgrown with knee-deep grass and
+clumps of oak-trees. A large stream, of a bright blue color, gushed down
+the north side, and after half embracing the mound swept off across the
+meadows to the Waters of Merom. There could be no doubt that this was Tell
+el-Kadi, the site of Dan, the most northern town of ancient Israel. The
+mound on which it was built is the crater of an extinct volcano. The
+Hebrew word _Dan_ signifies "judge," and Tell el-Kadi, in Arabic, is "The
+Hill of the Judge."
+
+The Anti-Lebanon now rose near us, its northern and western slopes green
+with trees and grass. The first range, perhaps 5,000 feet in height, shut
+out the snowy head of Hermon; but still the view was sublime in its large
+and harmonious outlines. Our road was through a country resembling
+Arcadia--the earth hidden by a dense bed of grass and flowers; thickets of
+blossoming shrubs; old, old oaks, with the most gnarled of trunks, the
+most picturesque of boughs, and the glossiest of green leaves; olive-trees
+of amazing antiquity; and, threading and enlivening all, the clear-cold
+floods of Lebanon. This was the true haunt of Pan, whose altars are now
+before me, graven on the marble crags of Hermon. Looking on those altars,
+and on the landscape, lovely as a Grecian dream, I forget that the lament
+has long been sung:
+
+  "Pan, Pan is dead!"
+
+In another hour, we reached this place, the ancient Cæsarea Philippi, now
+a poor village, embowered in magnificent trees, and washed by glorious
+waters. There are abundant remains of the old city: fragments of immense
+walls; broken granite columns; traces of pavements; great blocks of hewn
+stone; marble pedestals, and the like. In the rock at the foot of the
+mountain, there are several elegant niches, with Greek inscriptions,
+besides a large natural grotto. Below them, the water gushes up through
+the stones, in a hundred streams, forming a flood of considerable size. We
+have made our camp in an olive grove near the end of the village, beside
+an immense terebinth tree, which is inclosed in an open court, paved with
+stone. This is the town-hall of Banias, where the Shekh dispenses justice,
+and at the same time, the resort of all the idlers of the place. We went
+up among them, soon after our arrival, and were given seats of honor near
+the Shekh, who talked with me a long time about America. The people
+exhibit a very sensible curiosity, desiring to know the extent of our
+country, the number of inhabitants, the amount of taxation, the price of
+grain, and other solid information.
+
+The Shekh and the men of the place inform us that the Druses are infesting
+the road to Damascus. This tribe is in rebellion in Djebel Hauaran, on
+account of the conscription, and some of them, it appears, have taken
+refuge in the fastnesses of Hermon, where they are beginning to plunder
+travellers. While I was talking with the Shekh, a Druse came down from the
+mountains, and sat for half an hour among the villagers, under the
+terebinth, and we have just heard that he has gone back the way he came.
+This fact has given us some anxiety, as he may have been a spy sent down
+to gather news and, if so, we are almost certain to be waylaid. If we were
+well armed, we should not fear a dozen, but all our weapons consist of a
+sword and four pistols. After consulting together, we decided to apply to
+the Shekh for two armed men, to accompany us. I accordingly went to him
+again, and exhibited the firman of the Pasha of Jerusalem, which he read,
+stating that, even without it, he would have felt it his duty to grant our
+request. This is the graceful way in which the Orientals submit to a
+peremptory order. He thinks that one man will be sufficient, as we shall
+probably not meet with any large party.
+
+The day has been, and still is, excessively hot. The atmosphere is
+sweltering, and all around us, over the thick patches of mallow and wild
+mustard, the bees are humming with a continuous sultry sound. The Shekh,
+with a number of lazy villagers, is still seated under the terebinth, in a
+tent of shade, impervious to the sun. I can hear the rush of the fountains
+of Banias--the holy springs of Hermon, whence Jordan is born. But what is
+this? The odor of the velvety weed of Shiraz meets my nostrils; a
+dark-eyed son of Pan places the narghileh at my feet; and, bubbling more
+sweetly than the streams of Jordan, the incense most dear to the god dims
+the crystal censer, and floats from my lips in rhythmic ejaculations. I,
+too, am in Arcadia!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII.
+
+Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.
+
+
+  The Harmless Guard--Cæsarea Philippi--The Valley of the Druses--The
+  Sides of Mount Hermon--An Alarm--Threading a Defile--Distant view of
+  Djebel Hauaran--Another Alarm--Camp at Katana--We Ride into Damascus.
+
+
+Damascus, _May_ 12, 1852.
+
+We rose early, so as to be ready for a long march. The guard came--a
+mild-looking Arab--without arms; but on our refusing to take him thus, he
+brought a Turkish musket, terrible to behold, but quite guiltless of any
+murderous intent. We gave ourselves up to fate, with true
+Arab-resignation, and began ascending the Anti-Lebanon. Up and up, by
+stony paths, under the oaks, beside the streams, and between the
+wheat-fields, we climbed for two hours, and at last reached a comb or
+dividing ridge, whence we could look into a valley on the other side, or
+rather inclosed between the main chain and the offshoot named Djebel
+Heish, which stretches away towards the south-east. About half-way up the
+ascent, we passed the ruined acropolis of Cæsarea Philippi, crowning the
+summit of a lower peak. The walls and bastions cover a great extent of
+ground, and were evidently used as a stronghold in the Middle Ages.
+
+The valley into which we descended lay directly under one of the peaks of
+Hermon and the rills that watered it were fed from his snow-fields. It was
+inhabited by Druses, but no men were to be seen, except a few poor
+husbandmen, ploughing on the mountain-sides. The women, wearing those
+enormous horns on their heads which distinguish them from the Mohammedan
+females, were washing at a pool below. We crossed the valley, and slowly
+ascended the height on the opposite side, taking care to keep with the
+baggage-mules. Up to this time, we met very few persons; and we forgot the
+anticipated perils in contemplating the rugged scenery of the
+Anti-Lebanon. The mountain-sides were brilliant with flowers, and many new
+and beautiful specimens arrested our attention. The asphodel grew in
+bunches beside the streams, and the large scarlet anemone outshone even
+the poppy, whose color here is the quintessence of flame. Five hours after
+leaving Banias, we reached the highest part of the pass--a dreary volcanic
+region, covered with fragments of lava. Just at this place, an old Arab
+met us, and, after scanning us closely, stopped and accosted Dervish. The
+latter immediately came running ahead, quite excited with the news that
+the old man had seen a company of about fifty Druses descend from the
+sides of Mount Hermon, towards the road we were to travel. We immediately
+ordered the baggage to halt, and Mr. Harrison, François, and myself rode
+on to reconnoitre. Our guard, the valiant man of Banias, whose teeth
+already chattered with fear, prudently kept with the baggage. We crossed
+the ridge and watched the stony mountain-sides for some time; but no spear
+or glittering gun-barrel could we see. The caravan was then set in motion;
+and we had not proceeded far before we met a second company of Arabs, who
+informed us that the road was free.
+
+Leaving the heights, we descended cautiously into a ravine with walls of
+rough volcanic rock on each side. It was a pass where three men might have
+stood their ground against a hundred; and we did not feel thoroughly
+convinced of our safety till we had threaded its many windings and emerged
+upon a narrow valley. A village called Beit Jenn nestled under the rocks;
+and below it, a grove of poplar-trees shaded the banks of a rapid stream.
+We had now fairly crossed the Anti-Lebanon. The dazzling snows of Mount
+Hermon overhung us on the west; and, from the opening of the valley, we
+looked across a wild, waste country, to the distant range of Djebel
+Hauaran, the seat of the present rebellion, and one of the most
+interesting regions of Syria. I regretted more than ever not being able to
+reach it. The ruins of Bozrah, Ezra, and other ancient cities, would well
+repay the arduous character of the journey, while the traveller might
+succeed in getting some insight into the life and habits of that singular
+people, the Druses. But now, and perhaps for some time to come, there is
+no chance of entering the Hauaran.
+
+Towards the middle of the afternoon, we reached a large village, which is
+usually the end of the first day's journey from Banias. Our men wanted to
+stop here, but we considered that to halt then would be to increase the
+risk, and decided to push on to Katana, four hours' journey from Damascus.
+They yielded with a bad grace; and we jogged on over the stony road,
+crossing the long hills which form the eastern base of the Anti-Lebanon.
+Before long, another Arab met us with the news that there was an
+encampment of Druses on the plain between us and Katana. At this, our
+guard, who had recovered sufficient spirit to ride a few paces in advance,
+fell back, and the impassive Dervish became greatly agitated. Where there
+is an uncertain danger, it is always better to go ahead than to turn back;
+and we did so. But the guard reined up on the top of the first ridge,
+trembling as he pointed to a distant hill, and cried out: _"Ahò, ahò
+henàk!"_ (There they are!) There were, in fact, the shadows of some rocks,
+which bore a faint resemblance to tents. Before sunset, we reached the
+last declivity of the mountains, and saw far in the dusky plain, the long
+green belt of the gardens of Damascus, and here and there the indistinct
+glimmer of a minaret. Katana, our resting-place for the night, lay below
+us, buried in orchards of olive and orange. We pitched our tents on the
+banks of a beautiful stream, enjoyed the pipe of tranquillity, after our
+long march, and soon forgot the Druses, in a slumber that lasted unbroken
+till dawn.
+
+In the morning we sent back the man of Banias, left the baggage to take
+care of itself, and rode on to Damascus, as fast as our tired horses could
+carry us. The plain, at first barren and stony, became enlivened with
+vineyards and fields of wheat, as we advanced. Arabs were everywhere at
+work, ploughing and directing the water-courses. The belt of living green,
+the bower in which the great city, the Queen of the Orient, hides her
+beauty, drew nearer and nearer, stretching out a crescent of foliage for
+miles on either hand, that gradually narrowed and received us into its
+cool and fragrant heart. We sank into a sea of olive, pomegranate, orange,
+plum, apricot, walnut, and plane trees, and were lost. The sun sparkled in
+the rolling surface above; but we swam through the green depths, below
+his reach, and thus, drifted on through miles of shade, entered the city.
+
+Since our arrival, I find that two other parties of travellers, one of
+which crossed the Anti-Lebanon on the northern side of Mount Hermon, were
+obliged to take guards, and saw several Druse spies posted on the heights,
+as they passed. A Russian gentleman travelling from here to Tiberias, was
+stopped three times on the road, and only escaped being plundered from the
+fact of his having a Druse dragoman. The disturbances are more serious
+than I had anticipated. Four regiments left here yesterday, sent to the
+aid of a company of cavalry, which is surrounded by the rebels in a valley
+of Dejebel Hauaran, and unable to get out.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+Pictures of Damascus.
+
+
+  Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
+  Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
+  Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
+  Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
+  of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra.
+
+  "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the
+  waters of Israel?"--2 Kings, v. 12.
+
+
+Damascus, _Wednesday, May_ 19, 1852.
+
+Damascus is considered by many travellers as the best remaining type of an
+Oriental city. Constantinople is semi-European; Cairo is fast becoming so;
+but Damascus, away from the highways of commerce, seated alone between the
+Lebanon and the Syrian Desert, still retains, in its outward aspect and in
+the character of its inhabitants, all the pride and fancy and fanaticism
+of the times of the Caliphs. With this judgment, in general terms, I
+agree; but not to its ascendancy, in every respect, over Cairo. True, when
+you behold Damascus from the Salahiyeh, the last slope of the
+Anti-Lebanon, it is the realization of all that you have dreamed of
+Oriental splendor; the world has no picture more dazzling. It is Beauty
+carried to the Sublime, as I have felt when overlooking some boundless
+forest of palms within the tropics. From the hill, whose ridges heave
+behind you until in the south they rise to the snowy head of Mount Hermon,
+the great Syrian plain stretches away to the Euphrates, broken at
+distances of ten and fifteen miles, by two detached mountain chains. In a
+terrible gorge at your side, the river Barrada, the ancient Pharpar,
+forces its way to the plain, and its waters, divided into twelve different
+channels, make all between you and those blue island-hills of the desert,
+one great garden, the boundaries of which your vision can barely
+distinguish. Its longest diameter cannot be less than twenty miles. You
+look down on a world of foliage, and fruit, and blossoms, whose hue, by
+contrast with the barren mountains and the yellow rim of the desert which
+incloses it, seems brighter than all other gardens in the world. Through
+its centre, following the course of the river, lies Damascus; a line of
+white walls, topped with domes and towers and tall minarets, winding away
+for miles through the green sea. Nothing less than a city of palaces,
+whose walls are marble and whose doors are ivory and pearl, could keep up
+the enchantment of that distant view.
+
+We rode for an hour through the gardens before entering the gate. The
+fruit-trees, of whatever variety---walnut, olive, apricot, or fig--were
+the noblest of their kind. Roses and pomegranates in bloom starred the
+dark foliage, and the scented jasmine overhung the walls. But as we
+approached the city, the view was obscured by high mud walls on either
+side of the road, and we only caught glimpses now and then of the fragrant
+wilderness. The first street we entered was low and mean, the houses of
+clay. Following this, we came to an uncovered bazaar, with rude shops on
+either side, protected by mats stretched in front and supported by poles.
+Here all sorts of common stuns and utensils were sold, and the street was
+filled with crowds of Fellahs and Desert Arabs. Two large sycamores shaded
+it, and the Seraglio of the Pasha of Damascus, a plain two-story building,
+faced the entrance of the main bazaar, which branched off into the city.
+We turned into this, and after passing through several small bazaars
+stocked with dried fruits, pipes and pipe-bowls, groceries, and all the
+primitive wares of the East, reached a large passage, covered with a steep
+wooden roof, and entirely occupied by venders of silk stuffs. Out of this
+we passed through another, devoted to saddles and bridles; then another,
+full of spices, and at last reached the grand bazaar, where all the
+richest stuffs of Europe and the East were displayed in the shops. We rode
+slowly along through the cool twilight, crossed here and there by long
+pencils of white light, falling through apertures in the roof, and
+illuminating the gay turbans and silk caftans of the lazy merchants. But
+out of this bazaar, at intervals, opened the grand gate of a khan, giving
+us a view of its marble court, its fountains, and the dark arches of its
+storerooms; or the door of a mosque, with its mosaic floor and pillared
+corridor. The interminable lines of bazaars, with their atmospheres of
+spice and fruit and fragrant tobacco, the hushed tread of the slippered
+crowds; the plash of falling fountains and the bubbling of innumerable
+narghilehs; the picturesque merchants and their customers, no longer in
+the big trowsers of Egypt, but the long caftans and abas of Syria; the
+absence of Frank faces and dresses--in all these there was the true spirit
+of the Orient, and so far, we were charmed with Damascus.
+
+At the hotel in the Soog el-Haràb, or Frank quarter, the illusion was not
+dissipated. It had once been the house of some rich merchant. The court
+into which we were ushered is paved with marble, with a great stone basin,
+surrounded with vases of flowering plants, in the centre. Two large lemon
+trees shade the entrance, and a vine, climbing to the top of the house,
+makes a leafy arbor over the flat roof. The walls of the house are painted
+in horizontal bars of blue, white, orange and white--a gay grotesqueness
+of style which does not offend the eye under an eastern sun. On the
+southern side of the court is the _liwan_, an arrangement for which the
+houses of Damascus are noted. It is a vaulted apartment, twenty feet high,
+entirely open towards the court, except a fine pointed arch at the top,
+decorated with encaustic ornaments of the most brilliant colors. In front,
+a tesselated pavement of marble leads to the doors of the chambers on each
+side. Beyond this is a raised floor covered with matting, and along the
+farther end a divan, whose piled cushions are the most tempting trap ever
+set to catch a lazy man. Although not naturally indolent, I find it
+impossible to resist the fascination of this lounge. Leaning back,
+cross-legged, against the cushions, with the inseparable pipe in one's
+hand, the view of the court, the water-basin, the flowers and lemon trees,
+the servants and dragomen going back and forth, or smoking their
+narghilehs in the shade--all framed in the beautiful arched entrance, is
+so perfectly Oriental, so true a tableau from the times of good old Haroun
+Al-Raschid, that one is surprised to find how many hours have slipped away
+while he has been silently enjoying it.
+
+Opposite the _liwan_ is a large room paved with marble, with a handsome
+fountain in the centre. It is the finest in the hotel, and now occupied
+by Lord Dalkeith and his friends. Our own room is on the upper floor, and
+is so rich in decorations that I have not yet finished the study of them.
+Along the side, looking down on the court, we have a mosaic floor of
+white, red, black and yellow marble. Above this is raised a second floor,
+carpeted and furnished in European style. The walls, for a height of ten
+feet, are covered with wooden panelling, painted with arabesque devices in
+the gayest colors, and along the top there is a series of Arabic
+inscriptions in gold. There are a number of niches or open closets in the
+walls, whose arched tops are adorned with pendent wooden ornaments,
+resembling stalactites, and at the corners of the room the heavy gilded
+and painted cornice drops into similar grotesque incrustations. A space of
+bare white wall intervenes between this cornice and the ceiling, which is
+formed of slim poplar logs, laid side by side, and so covered with paint
+and with scales and stripes and network devices in gold and silver, that
+one would take them to be clothed with the skins of the magic serpents
+that guard the Valley of Diamonds. My most satisfactory remembrance of
+Damascus will be this room.
+
+My walks through the city have been almost wholly confined to the bazaars,
+which are of immense extent. One can walk for many miles, without going
+beyond the cover of their peaked wooden roofs, and in all this round will
+find no two precisely alike. One is devoted entirely to soap; another to
+tobacco, through which you cough and sneeze your way to the bazaar of
+spices, and delightedly inhale its perfumed air. Then there is the bazaar
+of sweetmeats; of vegetables; of red slippers; of shawls; of caftans; of
+bakers and ovens; of wooden ware; of jewelry---a great stone building,
+covered with vaulted passages; of Aleppo silks; of Baghdad carpets; of
+Indian stuffs; of coffee; and so on, through a seemingly endless variety.
+As I have already remarked, along the line of the bazaars are many khans,
+the resort of merchants from all parts of Turkey and Persia, and even
+India. They are large, stately buildings, and some of them have superb
+gateways of sculptured marble. The interior courts are paved with stone,
+with fountains in the centre, and many of them are covered with domes
+resting on massive pillars. The largest has a roof of nine domes,
+supported by four grand pillars, which inclose a fountain. The mosques,
+into which no Christian is allowed to enter, are in general inferior to
+those of Cairo, but their outer courts are always paved with marble,
+adorned with fountains, and surrounded by light and elegant corridors. The
+grand mosque is an imposing edifice, and is said to occupy the site of a
+former Christian church.
+
+Another pleasant feature of the city is its coffee shops, which abound in
+the bazaars and on the outskirts of the gardens, beside the running
+streams. Those in the bazaars are spacious rooms with vaulted ceilings,
+divans running around the four walls, and fountains in the centre. During
+the afternoon they are nearly always filled with Turks, Armenians and
+Persians, smoking the narghileh, or water-pipe, which is the universal
+custom in Damascus. The Persian tobacco, brought here by the caravans from
+Baghdad, is renowned for this kind of smoking. The most popular
+coffee-shop is near the citadel, on the banks and over the surface of the
+Pharpar. It is a rough wooden building, with a roof of straw mats, but the
+sight and sound of the rushing waters, as they shoot away with arrowy
+swiftness under your feet, the shade of the trees that line the banks,
+and the cool breeze that always visits the spot, beguile you into a second
+pipe ere you are aware. _"El mà, wa el khòdra, wa el widj el
+hassàn_--water, verdure and a beautiful face," says an old Arab proverb,
+"are three things which delight the heart," and the Syrians avow that all
+three are to be found in Damascus. Not only on the three Sundays of each
+week, but every day, in the gardens about the city, you may see whole
+families (and if Jews or Christians, many groups of families) spending the
+day in the shade, beside the beautiful waters. There are several gardens
+fitted up purposely for these picnics, with kiosks, fountains and pleasant
+seats under the trees. You bring your pipes, your provisions and the like
+with you, but servants are in attendance to furnish fire and water and
+coffee, for which, on leaving, you give them a small gratuity. Of all the
+Damascenes I have yet seen, there is not one but declares his city to be
+the Garden of the World, the Pearl of the Orient, and thanks God and the
+Prophet for having permitted him to be born and to live in it. But, except
+the bazaars, the khans and the baths, of which there are several most
+luxurious establishments, the city itself is neither so rich nor so purely
+Saracenic in its architecture as Cairo. The streets are narrow and dirty,
+and the houses, which are never more than two low stories in height, are
+built of sun-dried bricks, coated with plaster. I miss the solid piles of
+stone, the elegant doorways, and, above all, the exquisite hanging
+balconies of carved wood, which meet one in the old streets of Cairo.
+Damascus is the representative of all that is gay, brilliant, and
+picturesque, in Oriental life; but for stately magnificence, Cairo, and, I
+suspect, Baghdad, is its superior.
+
+We visited the other day the houses of some of the richest Jews and
+Christians. Old Abou-Ibrahim, the Jewish servant of the hotel, accompanied
+and introduced us. It is customary for travellers to make these visits,
+and the families, far from being annoyed, are flattered by it. The
+exteriors of the houses are mean; but after threading a narrow passage, we
+emerged into a court, rivalling in profusion of ornament and rich contrast
+of colors one's early idea of the Palace of Aladdin. The floors and
+fountains are all of marble mosaic; the arches of the _liwan_ glitter with
+gold, and the walls bewilder the eye with the intricacy of their
+adornments. In the first house, we were received by the family in a room
+of precious marbles, with niches in the walls, resembling grottoes of
+silver stalactites. The cushions of the divan were of the richest silk,
+and a chandelier of Bohemian crystal hung from the ceiling. Silver
+narghilehs were brought to us, and coffee was served in heavy silver
+_zerfs_. The lady of the house was a rather corpulent lady of about
+thirty-five, and wore a semi-European robe of embroidered silk and lace,
+with full trowsers gathered at the ankles, and yellow slippers. Her black
+hair was braided, and fastened at the end with golden ornaments, and the
+light scarf twisted around her head blazed with diamonds. The lids of her
+large eyes were stained with _kohl_, and her eyebrows were plucked out and
+shaved away so as to leave only a thin, arched line, as if drawn with a
+pencil, above each eye. Her daughter, a girl of fifteen, who bore the
+genuine Hebrew name of Rachel, had even bigger and blacker eyes than her
+mother; but her forehead was low, her mouth large, and the expression of
+her face exceedingly stupid. The father of the family was a middle-aged
+man, with a well-bred air, and talked with an Oriental politeness which
+was very refreshing. An English lady, who was of our party, said to him,
+through me, that if she possessed such a house she should be willing to
+remain in Damascus. "Why does she leave, then?" he immediately answered:
+"this is her house, and everything that is in it." Speaking of visiting
+Jerusalem, he asked me whether it was not a more beautiful city than
+Damascus. "It is not more beautiful," I said, "but it is more holy," an
+expression which the whole company received with great satisfaction.
+
+The second house we visited was even larger and richer than the first, but
+had an air of neglect and decay. The slabs of rich marble were loose and
+broken, about the edges of the fountains; the rich painting of the
+wood-work was beginning to fade; and the balustrades leading to the upper
+chambers were broken off in places. We were ushered into a room, the walls
+and ceilings of which were composed entirely of gilded arabesque
+frame-work, set with small mirrors. When new, it must have had a gorgeous
+effect; but the gold is now tarnished, and the glasses dim. The mistress
+of the house was seated on the cushions, dividing her time between her
+pipe and her needle-work. She merely made a slight inclination of her head
+as we entered, and went on with her occupation. Presently her two
+daughters and an Abyssinian slave appeared, and took their places on the
+cushions at her feet, the whole forming a charming group, which I
+regretted some of my artist friends at home could not see. The mistress
+was so exceedingly dignified, that she bestowed but few words on us. She
+seemed to resent our admiration of the slave, who was a most graceful
+creature; yet her jealousy, it afterwards appeared, had reference to her
+own husband, for we had scarcely left, when a servant followed to inform
+the English lady that if she was willing to buy the Abyssinian, the
+mistress would sell her at once for two thousand piastres.
+
+The last visit we paid was to the dwelling of a Maronite, the richest
+Christian in Damascus. The house resembled those we had already seen,
+except that, having been recently built, it was in better condition, and
+exhibited better taste in the ornaments. No one but the lady was allowed
+to enter the female apartments, the rest of us being entertained by the
+proprietor, a man of fifty, and without exception the handsomest and most
+dignified person of that age I have ever seen. He was a king without a
+throne, and fascinated me completely by the noble elegance of his manner.
+In any country but the Orient, I should have pronounced him incapable of
+an unworthy thought: here, he may be exactly the reverse.
+
+Although Damascus is considered the oldest city in the world, the date of
+its foundation going beyond tradition, there are very few relics of
+antiquity in or near it. In the bazaar are three large pillars, supporting
+half the pediment, which are said to have belonged to the Christian Church
+of St. John, but, if so, that church must have been originally a Roman
+temple. Part of the Roman walls and one of the city gates remain; and we
+saw the spot where, according to tradition, Saul was let down from the
+wall in a basket. There are two localities pointed out as the scene of his
+conversion, which, from his own account, occurred near the city. I visited
+a subterranean chapel claimed by the Latin monks to be the cellar of the
+house of Ananias, in which the Apostle was concealed. The cellar is,
+undoubtedly, of great antiquity; but as the whole quarter was for many
+centuries inhabited wholly by Turks, it would be curious to know how the
+monks ascertained which was the house of Ananias. As for the "street
+called Straight," it would be difficult at present to find any in Damascus
+corresponding to that epithet.
+
+The famous Damascus blades, so renowned in the time of the Crusaders, are
+made here no longer. The art has been lost for three or four centuries.
+Yet genuine old swords, of the true steel, are occasionally to be found.
+They are readily distinguished from modern imitations by their clear and
+silvery ring when struck, and by the finely watered appearance of the
+blade, produced by its having been first made of woven wire, and then
+worked over and over again until it attained the requisite temper. A droll
+Turk, who is the _shekh ed-dellàl,_ or Chief of the Auctioneers, and is
+nicknamed Abou-Anteeka (the Father of the Antiques), has a large
+collection of sabres, daggers, pieces of mail, shields, pipes, rings,
+seals, and other ancient articles. He demands enormous prices, but
+generally takes about one-third of what he first asks. I have spent
+several hours in his curiosity shop, bargaining for turquoise rings,
+carbuncles, Persian amulets, and Circassian daggers. While looking over
+some old swords the other day, I noticed one of exquisite temper, but with
+a shorter blade than usual. The point had apparently been snapped off in
+fight, but owing to the excellence of the sword, or the owner's affection
+for it, the steel had been carefully shaped into a new point. Abou-Anteeka
+asked five hundred piastres, and I, who had taken a particular fancy to
+possess it, offered him two hundred in an indifferent way, and then laid
+it aside to examine other articles. After his refusal to accept my offer,
+I said nothing more, and was leaving the shop, when the old fellow called
+me back, saying: "You have forgotten your sword,"--which I thereupon took
+at my own price. I have shown it to Mr. Wood, the British Consul, who
+pronounced it an extremely fine specimen of Damascus steel; and, on
+reading the inscription enamelled upon the blade, ascertains that it was
+made in the year of the Hegira, 181, which corresponds to A.D. 798. This
+was during the Caliphate of Haroun Al-Raschid, and who knows but the sword
+may have once flashed in the presence of that great and glorious
+sovereign--nay, been drawn by his own hand! Who knows but that the Milan
+armor of the Crusaders may have shivered its point, on the field of
+Askalon! I kiss the veined azure of thy blade, O Sword of Haroun! I hang
+the crimson cords of thy scabbard upon my shoulder, and thou shalt
+henceforth clank in silver music at my side, singing to my ear, and mine
+alone, thy chants of battle, thy rejoicing songs of slaughter!
+
+Yesterday evening, three gentlemen of Lord Dalkeith's party arrived from a
+trip to Palmyra. The road thither lies through a part of the Syrian Desert
+belonging to the Aneyzeh tribe, who are now supposed to be in league with
+the Druses, against the Government. Including this party, only six persons
+have succeeded in reaching Palmyra within a year, and two of them, Messrs.
+Noel and Cathcart, were imprisoned four days by the Arabs, and only
+escaped by the accidental departure of a caravan for Damascus. The present
+party was obliged to travel almost wholly by night, running the gauntlet
+of a dozen Arab encampments, and was only allowed a day's stay at Palmyra.
+They were all disguised as Bedouins, and took nothing with them but the
+necessary provisions. They made their appearance here last evening, in
+long, white abas, with the Bedouin _keffie_ bound over their heads, their
+faces burnt, their eyes inflamed, and their frames feverish with seven
+days and nights of travel. The shekh who conducted them was not an
+Aneyzeh, and would have lost his life had they fallen in with any of that
+tribe.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X.
+
+The Visions of Hasheesh.
+
+
+  "Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
+  Possessed beyond the Muse's painting."
+
+  Collins.
+
+
+During my stay in Damascus, that insatiable curiosity which leads me to
+prefer the acquisition of all lawful knowledge through the channels of my
+own personal experience, rather than in less satisfactory and less
+laborious ways, induced me to make a trial of the celebrated
+_Hasheesh_--that remarkable drug which supplies the luxurious Syrian with
+dreams more alluring and more gorgeous than the Chinese extracts from his
+darling opium pipe. The use of Hasheesh--which is a preparation of the
+dried leaves of the _cannabis indica_--has been familiar to the East for
+many centuries. During the Crusades, it was frequently used by the Saracen
+warriors to stimulate them to the work of slaughter, and from the Arabic
+term of "_Hashasheën,"_ or Eaters of Hasheesh, as applied to them, the
+word "assassin" has been naturally derived. An infusion of the same plant
+gives to the drink called "_bhang_," which is in common use throughout
+India and Malaysia, its peculiar properties. Thus prepared, it is a more
+fierce and fatal stimulant than the paste of sugar and spices to which the
+Turk resorts, as the food of his voluptuous evening reveries. While its
+immediate effects seem to be more potent than those of opium, its
+habitual use, though attended with ultimate and permanent injury to the
+system, rarely results in such utter wreck of mind and body as that to
+which the votaries of the latter drug inevitably condemn themselves.
+
+A previous experience of the effects of hasheesh--which I took once, and
+in a very mild form, while in Egypt--was so peculiar in its character,
+that my curiosity, instead of being satisfied, only prompted me the more
+to throw myself, for once, wholly under its influence. The sensations it
+then produced were those, physically, of exquisite lightness and
+airiness--of a wonderfully keen perception of the ludicrous, in the most
+simple and familiar objects. During the half hour in which it lasted, I
+was at no time so far under its control, that I could not, with the
+clearest perception, study the changes through which I passed. I noted,
+with careful attention, the fine sensations which spread throughout the
+whole tissue of my nervous fibre, each thrill helping to divest my frame
+of its earthy and material nature, until my substance appeared to me no
+grosser than the vapors of the atmosphere, and while sitting in the calm
+of the Egyptian twilight, I expected to be lifted up and carried away by
+the first breeze that should ruffle the Nile. While this process was going
+on, the objects by which I was surrounded assumed a strange and whimsical
+expression. My pipe, the oars which my boatmen plied, the turban worn by
+the captain, the water-jars and culinary implements, became in themselves
+so inexpressibly absurd and comical, that I was provoked into a long fit
+of laughter. The hallucination died away as gradually as it came, leaving
+me overcome with a soft and pleasant drowsiness, from which I sank into a
+deep, refreshing sleep.
+
+My companion and an English gentleman, who, with his wife, was also
+residing in Antonio's pleasant caravanserai--agreed to join me in the
+experiment. The dragoman of the latter was deputed to procure a sufficient
+quantity of the drug. He was a dark Egyptian, speaking only the _lingua
+franca_ of the East, and asked me, as he took the money and departed on
+his mission, whether he should get hasheesh "_per ridere, a per dormire?_"
+"Oh, _per ridere_, of course," I answered; "and see that it be strong and
+fresh." It is customary with the Syrians to take a small portion
+immediately before the evening meal, as it is thus diffused through the
+stomach and acts more gradually, as well as more gently, upon the system.
+As our dinner-hour was at sunset, I proposed taking hasheesh at that time,
+but my friends, fearing that its operation might be more speedy upon fresh
+subjects, and thus betray them into some absurdity in the presence of the
+other travellers, preferred waiting until after the meal. It was then
+agreed that we should retire to our room, which, as it rose like a tower
+one story higher than the rest of the building, was in a manner isolated,
+and would screen us from observation.
+
+We commenced by taking a tea-spoonful each of the mixture which Abdallah
+had procured. This was about the quantity I had taken in Egypt, and as the
+effect then had been so slight, I judged that we ran no risk of taking an
+over-dose. The strength of the drug, however, must have been far greater
+in this instance, for whereas I could in the former case distinguish no
+flavor but that of sugar and rose leaves, I now found the taste intensely
+bitter and repulsive to the palate. We allowed the paste to dissolve
+slowly on our tongues, and sat some time, quietly waiting the result. But,
+having been taken upon a full stomach, its operation was hindered, and
+after the lapse of nearly an hour, we could not detect the least change in
+our feelings. My friends loudly expressed their conviction of the humbug
+of hasheesh, but I, unwilling to give up the experiment at this point,
+proposed that we should take an additional half spoonful, and follow it
+with a cup of hot tea, which, if there were really any virtue in the
+preparation, could not fail to call it into action. This was done, though
+not without some misgivings, as we were all ignorant of the precise
+quantity which constituted a dose, and the limits within which the drug
+could be taken with safety. It was now ten o'clock; the streets of
+Damascus were gradually becoming silent, and the fair city was bathed in
+the yellow lustre of the Syrian moon. Only in the marble court-yard below
+us, a few dragomen and _mukkairee_ lingered under the lemon-trees, and
+beside the fountain in the centre.
+
+I was seated alone, nearly in the middle of the room, talking with my
+friends, who were lounging upon a sofa placed in a sort of alcove, at the
+farther end, when the same fine nervous thrill, of which I have spoken,
+suddenly shot through me. But this time it was accompanied with a burning
+sensation at the pit of the stomach; and, instead of growing upon me with
+the gradual pace of healthy slumber, and resolving me, as before, into
+air, it came with the intensity of a pang, and shot throbbing along the
+nerves to the extremities of my body. The sense of limitation---of the
+confinement of our senses within the bounds of our own flesh and
+blood--instantly fell away. The walls of my frame were burst outward and
+tumbled into ruin; and, without thinking what form I wore--losing sight
+even of all idea of form--I felt that I existed throughout a vast extent
+of space. The blood, pulsed from my heart, sped through uncounted leagues
+before it reached my extremities; the air drawn into my lungs expanded
+into seas of limpid ether, and the arch of my skull was broader than the
+vault of heaven. Within the concave that held my brain, were the
+fathomless deeps of blue; clouds floated there, and the winds of heaven
+rolled them together, and there shone the orb of the sun. It was--though I
+thought not of that at the time--like a revelation of the mystery of
+omnipresence. It is difficult to describe this sensation, or the rapidity
+with which it mastered me. In the state of mental exaltation in which I
+was then plunged, all sensations, as they rose, suggested more or less
+coherent images. They presented themselves to me in a double form: one
+physical, and therefore to a certain extent tangible; the other spiritual,
+and revealing itself in a succession of splendid metaphors. The physical
+feeling of extended being was accompanied by the image of an exploding
+meteor, not subsiding into darkness, but continuing to shoot from its
+centre or nucleus--which corresponded to the burning spot at the pit of my
+stomach--incessant adumbrations of light that finally lost themselves in
+the infinity of space. To my mind, even now, this image is still the best
+illustration of my sensations, as I recall them; but I greatly doubt
+whether the reader will find it equally clear.
+
+My curiosity was now in a way of being satisfied; the Spirit (demon, shall
+I not rather say?) of Hasheesh had entire possession of me. I was cast
+upon the flood of his illusions, and drifted helplessly whithersoever they
+might choose to bear me. The thrills which ran through my nervous system
+became more rapid and fierce, accompanied with sensations that steeped my
+whole being in unutterable rapture. I was encompassed by a sea of light,
+through which played the pure, harmonious colors that are born of light.
+While endeavoring, in broken expressions, to describe my feelings to my
+friends, who sat looking upon me incredulously--not yet having been
+affected by the drug--I suddenly found myself at the foot of the great
+Pyramid of Cheops. The tapering courses of yellow limestone gleamed like
+gold in the sun, and the pile rose so high that it seemed to lean for
+support upon the blue arch of the sky. I wished to ascend it, and the wish
+alone placed me immediately upon its apex, lifted thousands of feet above
+the wheat-fields and palm-groves of Egypt. I cast my eyes downward, and,
+to my astonishment, saw that it was built, not of limestone, but of huge
+square plugs of Cavendish tobacco! Words cannot paint the overwhelming
+sense of the ludicrous which I then experienced. I writhed on my chair in
+an agony of laughter, which was only relieved by the vision melting away
+like a dissolving view; till, out of my confusion of indistinct images and
+fragments of images, another and more wonderful vision arose.
+
+The more vividly I recall the scene which followed, the more carefully I
+restore its different features, and separate the many threads of sensation
+which it wove into one gorgeous web, the more I despair of representing
+its exceeding glory. I was moving over the Desert, not upon the rocking
+dromedary, but seated in a barque made of mother-of-pearl, and studded
+with jewels of surpassing lustre. The sand was of grains of gold, and my
+keel slid through them without jar or sound. The air was radiant with
+excess of light, though no sun was to be seen. I inhaled the most
+delicious perfumes; and harmonies, such as Beethoven may have heard in
+dreams, but never wrote, floated around me. The atmosphere itself was
+light, odor, music; and each and all sublimated beyond anything the sober
+senses are capable of receiving. Before me--for a thousand leagues, as it
+seemed--stretched a vista of rainbows, whose colors gleamed with the
+splendor of gems--arches of living amethyst, sapphire, emerald, topaz, and
+ruby. By thousands and tens of thousands, they flew past me, as my
+dazzling barge sped down the magnificent arcade; yet the vista still
+stretched as far as ever before me. I revelled in a sensuous elysium,
+which was perfect, because no sense was left ungratified. But beyond all,
+my mind was filled with a boundless feeling of triumph. My journey was
+that of a conqueror--not of a conqueror who subdues his race, either by
+Love or by Will, for I forgot that Man existed--but one victorious over
+the grandest as well as the subtlest forces of Nature. The spirits of
+Light, Color, Odor, Sound, and Motion were my slaves; and, having these, I
+was master of the universe.
+
+Those who are endowed to any extent with the imaginative faculty, must
+have at least once in their lives experienced feelings which may give them
+a clue to the exalted sensuous raptures of my triumphal march. The view of
+a sublime mountain landscape, the hearing of a grand orchestral symphony,
+or of a choral upborne by the "full-voiced organ," or even the beauty and
+luxury of a cloudless summer day, suggests emotions similar in kind, if
+less intense. They took a warmth and glow from that pure animal joy which
+degrades not, but spiritualizes and ennobles our material part, and which
+differs from cold, abstract, intellectual enjoyment, as the flaming
+diamond of the Orient differs from the icicle of the North. Those finer
+senses, which occupy a middle ground between our animal and intellectual
+appetites, were suddenly developed to a pitch beyond what I had ever
+dreamed, and being thus at one and the same time gratified to the fullest
+extent of their preternatural capacity, the result was a single harmonious
+sensation, to describe which human language has no epithet. Mahomet's
+Paradise, with its palaces of ruby and emerald, its airs of musk and
+cassia, and its rivers colder than snow and sweeter than honey, would have
+been a poor and mean terminus for my arcade of rainbows. Yet in the
+character of this paradise, in the gorgeous fancies of the Arabian Nights,
+in the glow and luxury of all Oriental poetry, I now recognize more or
+less of the agency of hasheesh.
+
+The fulness of my rapture expanded the sense of time; and though the whole
+vision was probably not more than five minutes in passing through my mind,
+years seemed to have elapsed while I shot under the dazzling myriads of
+rainbow arches. By and by, the rainbows, the barque of pearl and jewels,
+and the desert of golden sand, vanished; and, still bathed in light and
+perfume, I found myself in a land of green and flowery lawns, divided by
+hills of gently undulating outline. But, although the vegetation was the
+richest of earth, there were neither streams nor fountains to be seen; and
+the people who came from the hills, with brilliant garments that shone in
+the sun, besought me to give them the blessing of water. Their hands were
+full of branches of the coral honeysuckle, in bloom. These I took; and,
+breaking off the flowers one by one, set them in the earth. The slender,
+trumpet-like tubes immediately became shafts of masonry, and sank deep
+into the earth; the lip of the flower changed into a circular mouth of
+rose-colored marble, and the people, leaning over its brink, lowered their
+pitchers to the bottom with cords, and drew them up again, filled to the
+brim, and dripping with honey.
+
+The most remarkable feature of these illusions was, that at the time when
+I was most completely under their influence, I knew myself to be seated in
+the tower of Antonio's hotel in Damascus, knew that I had taken hasheesh,
+and that the strange, gorgeous and ludicrous fancies which possessed me,
+were the effect of it. At the very same instant that I looked upon the
+Valley of the Nile from the pyramid, slid over the Desert, or created my
+marvellous wells in that beautiful pastoral country, I saw the furniture
+of my room, its mosaic pavement, the quaint Saracenic niches in the walls,
+the painted and gilded beams of the ceiling, and the couch in the recess
+before me, with my two companions watching me. Both sensations were
+simultaneous, and equally palpable. While I was most given up to the
+magnificent delusion, I saw its cause and felt its absurdity most clearly.
+Metaphysicians say that the mind is incapable of performing two operations
+at the same time, and may attempt to explain this phenomenon by supposing
+a rapid and incessant vibration of the perceptions between the two states.
+This explanation, however, is not satisfactory to me; for not more clearly
+does a skilful musician with the same breath blow two distinct musical
+notes from a bugle, than I was conscious of two distinct conditions of
+being in the same moment. Yet, singular as it may seem, neither conflicted
+with the other. My enjoyment of the visions was complete and absolute,
+undisturbed by the faintest doubt of their reality, while, in some other
+chamber of my brain, Reason sat coolly watching them, and heaping the
+liveliest ridicule on their fantastic features. One set of nerves was
+thrilled with the bliss of the gods, while another was convulsed with
+unquenchable laughter at that very bliss. My highest ecstacies could not
+bear down and silence the weight of my ridicule, which, in its turn, was
+powerless to prevent me from running into other and more gorgeous
+absurdities. I was double, not "swan and shadow," but rather, Sphinx-like,
+human and beast. A true Sphinx, I was a riddle and a mystery to myself.
+
+The drug, which had been retarded in its operation on account of having
+been taken after a meal, now began to make itself more powerfully felt.
+The visions were more grotesque than ever, but less agreeable; and there
+was a painful tension throughout my nervous system--the effect of
+over-stimulus. I was a mass of transparent jelly, and a confectioner
+poured me into a twisted mould. I threw my chair aside, and writhed and
+tortured myself for some time to force my loose substance into the mould.
+At last, when I had so far succeeded that only one foot remained outside,
+it was lifted off, and another mould, of still more crooked and intricate
+shape, substituted. I have no doubt that the contortions through which I
+went, to accomplish the end of my gelatinous destiny, would have been
+extremely ludicrous to a spectator, but to me they were painful and
+disagreeable. The sober half of me went into fits of laughter over them,
+and through that laughter, my vision shifted into another scene. I had
+laughed until my eyes overflowed profusely. Every drop that fell,
+immediately became a large loaf of bread, and tumbled upon the shop-board
+of a baker in the bazaar at Damascus. The more I laughed, the faster the
+loaves fell, until such a pile was raised about the baker, that I could
+hardly see the top of his head. "The man will be suffocated," I cried,
+"but if he were to die, I cannot stop!"
+
+My perceptions now became more dim and confused. I felt that I was in the
+grasp of some giant force; and, in the glimmering of my fading reason,
+grew earnestly alarmed, for the terrible stress under which my frame
+labored increased every moment. A fierce and furious heat radiated from my
+stomach throughout my system; my mouth and throat were as dry and hard as
+if made of brass, and my tongue, it seemed to me, was a bar of rusty iron.
+I seized a pitcher of water, and drank long and deeply; but I might as
+well have drunk so much air, for not only did it impart no moisture, but
+my palate and throat gave me no intelligence of having drunk at all. I
+stood in the centre of the room, brandishing my arms convulsively, an
+heaving sighs that seemed to shatter my whole being. "Will no one," I
+cried in distress, "cast out this devil that has possession of me?" I no
+longer saw the room nor my friends, but I heard one of them saying, "It
+must be real; he could not counterfeit such an expression as that. But it
+don't look much like pleasure." Immediately afterwards there was a scream
+of the wildest laughter, and my countryman sprang upon the floor,
+exclaiming, "O, ye gods! I am a locomotive!" This was his ruling
+hallucination; and, for the space of two or three hours, he continued to
+pace to and fro with a measured stride, exhaling his breath in violent
+jets, and when he spoke, dividing his words into syllables, each of which
+he brought out with a jerk, at the same time turning his hands at his
+sides, as if they were the cranks of imaginary wheels, The Englishman, as
+soon as he felt the dose beginning to take effect, prudently retreated to
+his own room, and what the nature of his visions was, we never learned,
+for he refused to tell, and, moreover, enjoined the strictest silence on
+his wife.
+
+By this time it was nearly midnight. I had passed through the Paradise of
+Hasheesh, and was plunged at once into its fiercest Hell. In my ignorance
+I had taken what, I have since learned, would have been a sufficient
+portion for six men, and was now paying a frightful penalty for my
+curiosity. The excited blood rushed through my frame with a sound like the
+roaring of mighty waters. It was projected into my eyes until I could no
+longer see; it beat thickly in my ears, and so throbbed in my heart, that
+I feared the ribs would give way under its blows. I tore open my vest,
+placed my hand over the spot, and tried to count the pulsations; but there
+were two hearts, one beating at the rate of a thousand beats a minute, and
+the other with a slow, dull motion. My throat, I thought, was filled to
+the brim with blood, and streams of blood were pouring from my ears. I
+felt them gushing warm down my cheeks and neck. With a maddened, desperate
+feeling, I fled from the room, and walked over the flat, terraced roof of
+the house. My body seemed to shrink and grow rigid as I wrestled with the
+demon, and my face to become wild, lean and haggard. Some lines which had
+struck me, years before, in reading Mrs. Browning's "Rhyme of the Duchess
+May," flashed into my mind:--
+
+  "And the horse, in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air,
+    On the last verge, rears amain;
+  And he hangs, he rocks between--and his nostrils curdle in--
+  And he shivers, head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off;
+    And his face grows fierce and thin."
+
+That picture of animal terror and agony was mine. I was the horse,
+hanging poised on the verge of the giddy tower, the next moment to be
+borne sheer down to destruction. Involuntarily, I raised my hand to feel
+the leanness and sharpness of my face. Oh horror! the flesh had fallen
+from my bones, and it was a skeleton head that I carried on my shoulders!
+With one bound I sprang to the parapet, and looked down into the silent
+courtyard, then filled with the shadows thrown into it by the sinking
+moon. Shall I cast myself down headlong? was the question I proposed to
+myself; but though the horror of that skeleton delusion was greater than
+my fear of death, there was an invisible hand at my breast which pushed me
+away from the brink.
+
+I made my way back to the room, in a state of the keenest suffering. My
+companion was still a locomotive, rushing to and fro, and jerking out his
+syllables with the disjointed accent peculiar to a steam-engine. His mouth
+had turned to brass, like mine, and he raised the pitcher to his lips in
+the attempt to moisten it, but before he had taken a mouthful, set the
+pitcher down again with a yell of laughter, crying out: "How can I take
+water into my boiler, while I am letting off steam?"
+
+But I was now too far gone to feel the absurdity of this, or his other
+exclamations. I was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of unutterable
+agony and despair. For, although I was not conscious of real pain in any
+part of my body, the cruel tension to which my nerves had been subjected
+filled me through and through with a sensation of distress which was far
+more severe than pain itself. In addition to this, the remnant of will
+with which I struggled against the demon, became gradually weaker, and I
+felt that I should soon be powerless in his hands. Every effort to
+preserve my reason was accompanied by a pang of mortal fear, lest what I
+now experienced was insanity, and would hold mastery over me for ever. The
+thought of death, which also haunted me, was far less bitter than this
+dread. I knew that in the struggle which was going on in my frame, I was
+borne fearfully near the dark gulf, and the thought that, at such a time,
+both reason and will were leaving my brain, filled me with an agony, the
+depth and blackness of which I should vainly attempt to portray. I threw
+myself on my bed, with the excited blood still roaring wildly in my ears,
+my heart throbbing with a force that seemed to be rapidly wearing away my
+life, my throat dry as a pot-sherd, and my stiffened tongue cleaving to
+the roof of my mouth--resisting no longer, but awaiting my fate with the
+apathy of despair.
+
+My companion was now approaching the same condition, but as the effect of
+the drug on him had been less violent, so his stage of suffering was more
+clamorous. He cried out to me that he was dying, implored me to help him,
+and reproached me vehemently, because I lay there silent, motionless, and
+apparently careless of his danger. "Why will he disturb me?" I thought;
+"he thinks he is dying, but what is death to madness? Let him die; a
+thousand deaths were more easily borne than the pangs I suffer." While I
+was sufficiently conscious to hear his exclamations, they only provoked my
+keen anger; but after a time, my senses became clouded, and I sank into a
+stupor. As near as I can judge, this must have been three o'clock in the
+morning, rather more than five hours after the hasheesh began to take
+effect. I lay thus all the following day and night, in a state of gray,
+blank oblivion, broken only by a single wandering gleam of consciousness.
+I recollect hearing François' voice. He told me afterwards that I arose,
+attempted to dress myself, drank two cups of coffee, and then fell back
+into the same death-like stupor; but of all this, I did not retain the
+least knowledge. On the morning of the second day, after a sleep of thirty
+hours, I awoke again to the world, with a system utterly prostrate and
+unstrung, and a brain clouded with the lingering images of my visions. I
+knew where I was, and what had happened to me, but all that I saw still
+remained unreal and shadowy. There was no taste in what I ate, no
+refreshment in what I drank, and it required a painful effort to
+comprehend what was said to me and return a coherent answer. Will and
+Reason had come back, but they still sat unsteadily upon their thrones.
+
+My friend, who was much further advanced in his recovery, accompanied me
+to the adjoining bath, which I hoped would assist in restoring me. It was
+with great difficulty that I preserved the outward appearance of
+consciousness. In spite of myself, a veil now and then fell over my mind,
+and after wandering for years, as it seemed, in some distant world, I
+awoke with a shock, to find myself in the steamy halls of the bath, with a
+brown Syrian polishing my limbs. I suspect that my language must have been
+rambling and incoherent, and that the menials who had me in charge
+understood my condition, for as soon as I had stretched myself upon the
+couch which follows the bath, a glass of very acid sherbet was presented
+to me, and after drinking it I experienced instant relief. Still the spell
+was not wholly broken, and for two or three days I continued subject to
+frequent involuntary fits of absence, which made me insensible, for the
+time, to all that was passing around me. I walked the streets of Damascus
+with a strange consciousness that I was in some other place at the same
+time, and with a constant effort to reunite my divided perceptions.
+
+Previous to the experiment, we had decided on making a bargain with the
+shekh for the journey to Palmyra. The state, however, in which we now
+found ourselves, obliged us to relinquish the plan. Perhaps the excitement
+of a forced march across the desert, and a conflict with the hostile
+Arabs, which was quite likely to happen, might have assisted us in
+throwing off the baneful effects of the drug; but all the charm which lay
+in the name of Palmyra and the romantic interest of the trip, was gone. I
+was without courage and without energy, and nothing remained for me but to
+leave Damascus.
+
+Yet, fearful as my rash experiment proved to me, I did not regret having
+made it. It revealed to me deeps of rapture and of suffering which my
+natural faculties never could have sounded. It has taught me the majesty
+of human reason and of human will, even in the weakest, and the awful
+peril of tampering with that which assails their integrity. I have here
+faithfully and fully written out my experience, on account of the lesson
+which it may convey to others. If I have unfortunately failed in my
+design, and have but awakened that restless curiosity which I have
+endeavored to forestall, let me beg all who are thereby led to repeat the
+experiment upon themselves, that they be content to take the portion of
+hasheesh which is considered sufficient for one man, and not, like me,
+swallow enough for six.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI.
+
+A Dissertation on Bathing and Bodies.
+
+
+  "No swan-soft woman, rubbed with lucid oils,
+  The gift of an enamored god, more fair."
+
+  Browning.
+
+
+We shall not set out from Damascus--we shall not leave the Pearl of the
+Orient to glimmer through the seas of foliage wherein it lies
+buried--without consecrating a day to the Bath, that material agent of
+peace and good-will unto men. We have bathed in the Jordan, like Naaman,
+and been made clean; let us now see whether Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
+Damascus, are better than the waters of Israel.
+
+The Bath is the "peculiar institution" of the East. Coffee has become
+colonized in France and America; the Pipe is a cosmopolite, and his blue,
+joyous breath congeals under the Arctic Circle, or melts languidly into
+the soft airs of the Polynesian Isles; but the Bath, that sensuous elysium
+which cradled the dreams of Plato, and the visions of Zoroaster, and the
+solemn meditations of Mahomet, is only to be found under an Oriental sky.
+The naked natives of the Torrid Zone are amphibious; they do not bathe,
+they live in the water. The European and Anglo-American wash themselves
+and think they have bathed; they shudder under cold showers and perform
+laborious antics with coarse towels. As for the Hydropathist, the Genius
+of the Bath, whose dwelling is in Damascus, would be convulsed with
+scornful laughter, could he behold that aqueous Diogenes sitting in his
+tub, or stretched out in his wet wrappings, like a sodden mummy, in a
+catacomb of blankets and feather beds. As the rose in the East has a rarer
+perfume than in other lands, so does the Bath bestow a superior
+purification and impart a more profound enjoyment.
+
+Listen not unto the lamentations of travellers, who complain of the heat,
+and the steam, and the dislocations of their joints. They belong to the
+stiff-necked generation, who resist the processes, whereunto the Oriental
+yields himself body and soul. He who is bathed in Damascus, must be as
+clay in the hands of a potter. The Syrians marvel how the Franks can walk,
+so difficult is it to bend their joints. Moreover, they know the
+difference between him who comes to the Bath out of a mere idle curiosity,
+and him who has tasted its delight and holds it in due honor. Only the
+latter is permitted to know all its mysteries. The former is carelessly
+hurried through the ordinary forms of bathing, and, if any trace of the
+cockney remain in him, is quite as likely to be disgusted as pleased.
+Again, there are many second and third-rate baths, whither cheating
+dragomen conduct their victims, in consideration of a division of spoils
+with the bath-keeper. Hence it is, that the Bath has received but partial
+justice at the hands of tourists in the East. If any one doubts this, let
+him clothe himself with Oriental passiveness and resignation, go to the
+Hamman el-Khyateën, at Damascus, or the Bath of Mahmoud Pasha, at
+Constantinople, and demand that he be perfectly bathed.
+
+Come with me, and I will show you the mysteries of the perfect bath. Here
+is the entrance, a heavy Saracenic arch, opening upon the crowded bazaar.
+We descend a few steps to the marble pavement of a lofty octagonal hall,
+lighted by a dome. There is a jet of sparkling water in the centre,
+falling into a heavy stone basin. A platform about five feet in height
+runs around the hall, and on this are ranged a number of narrow couches,
+with their heads to the wall, like the pallets in a hospital ward. The
+platform is covered with straw matting, and from the wooden gallery which
+rises above it are suspended towels, with blue and crimson borders. The
+master of the bath receives us courteously, and conducts us to one of the
+vacant couches. We kick off our red slippers below, and mount the steps to
+the platform. Yonder traveller, in Frank dress, who has just entered, goes
+up with his boots on, and we know, from that fact, what sort of a bath he
+will get.
+
+As the work of disrobing proceeds, a dark-eyed boy appears with a napkin,
+which he holds before us, ready to bind it about the waist, as soon as we
+regain our primitive form. Another attendant throws a napkin over our
+shoulders and wraps a third around our head, turban-wise. He then thrusts
+a pair of wooden clogs upon our feet, and, taking us by the arm, steadies
+our tottering and clattering steps, as we pass through a low door and a
+warm ante-chamber into the first hall of the bath. The light, falling
+dimly through a cluster of bull's-eyes in the domed ceiling, shows, first,
+a silver thread of water, playing in a steamy atmosphere; next, some dark
+motionless objects, stretched out on a low central platform of marble. The
+attendant spreads a linen sheet in one of the vacant places, places a
+pillow at one end, takes off our clogs, deposits us gently on our back,
+and leaves us. The pavement is warm beneath us, and the first breath we
+draw gives us a sense of suffocation. But a bit of burning aloe-wood has
+just been carried through the hall, and the steam is permeated with
+fragrance. The dark-eyed boy appears with a narghileh, which he places
+beside us, offering the amber mouth-piece to our submissive lips. The
+smoke we inhale has an odor of roses; and as the pipe bubbles with our
+breathing, we feel that the dews of sweat gather heavily upon us. The
+attendant now reappears, kneels beside us, and gently kneads us with
+dexterous hands. Although no anatomist, he knows every muscle and sinew
+whose suppleness gives ease to the body, and so moulds and manipulates
+them that we lose the rigidity of our mechanism, and become plastic in his
+hands. He turns us upon our face, repeats the same process upon the back,
+and leaves us a little longer to lie there passively, glistening in our
+own dew.
+
+We are aroused from a reverie about nothing by a dark-brown shape, who
+replaces the clogs, puts his arm around our waist and leads us into an
+inner hall, with a steaming tank in the centre. Here he slips us off the
+brink, and we collapse over head and ears in the fiery fluid.
+Once--twice--we dip into the delicious heat, and then are led into a
+marble alcove, and seated flat upon the floor. The attendant stands behind
+us, and we now perceive that his hands are encased in dark hair-gloves. He
+pounces upon an arm, which he rubs until, like a serpent, we slough the
+worn-out skin, and resume our infantile smoothness and fairness. No man
+can be called clean until he has bathed in the East. Let him walk directly
+from his accustomed bath and self-friction with towels, to the Hammam
+el-Khyateën, and the attendant will exclaim, as he shakes out his
+hair-gloves: "O Frank! it is a long time since you have bathed." The other
+arm follows, the back, the breast, the legs, until the work is complete,
+and we know precisely how a horse feels after he has been curried.
+
+Now the attendant turns two cocks at the back of the alcove, and holding a
+basin alternately under the cold and hot streams, floods us at first with
+a fiery dash, that sends a delicious warm shiver through every nerve;
+then, with milder applications, lessening the temperature of the water by
+semi-tones, until, from the highest key of heat which we can bear, we
+glide rapturously down the gamut until we reach the lowest bass of
+coolness. The skin has by this time attained an exquisite sensibility, and
+answers to these changes of temperature with thrills of the purest
+physical pleasure. In fact, the whole frame seems purged of its earthy
+nature and transformed into something of a finer and more delicate
+texture.
+
+After a pause, the attendant makes his appearance with a large wooden
+bowl, a piece of soap, and a bunch of palm-fibres. He squats down beside
+the bowl, and speedily creates a mass of snowy lather, which grows up to a
+pyramid and topples over the edge. Seizing us by the crown-tuft of hair
+upon our shaven head, he plants the foamy bunch of fibres full in our
+face. The world vanishes; sight, hearing, smell, taste (unless we open our
+mouth), and breathing, are cut off; we have become nebulous. Although our
+eyes are shut, we seem to see a blank whiteness; and, feeling nothing but
+a soft fleeciness, we doubt whether we be not the Olympian cloud which
+visited lo. But the cloud clears away before strangulation begins, and the
+velvety mass descends upon the body. Twice we are thus "slushed" from head
+to foot, and made more slippery than the anointed wrestlers of the Greek
+games. Then the basin comes again into play, and we glide once more
+musically through the scale of temperature.
+
+The brown sculptor has now nearly completed his task. The figure of clay
+which entered the bath is transformed into polished marble. He turns the
+body from side to side, and lifts the limbs to see whether the workmanship
+is adequate to his conception. His satisfied gaze proclaims his success. A
+skilful bath-attendant has a certain aesthetic pleasure in his occupation.
+The bodies he polishes become to some extent his own workmanship, and he
+feels responsible for their symmetry or deformity. He experiences a degree
+of triumph in contemplating a beautiful form, which has grown more airily
+light and beautiful under his hands. He is a great connoisseur of bodies,
+and could pick you out the finest specimens with as ready an eye as an
+artist.
+
+I envy those old Greek bathers, into whose hands were delivered Pericles,
+and Alcibiades, and the perfect models of Phidias. They had daily before
+their eyes the highest types of Beauty which the world has ever produced;
+for of all things that are beautiful, the human body is the crown. Now,
+since the delusion of artists has been overthrown, and we know that
+Grecian Art is but the simple reflex of Nature--that the old masterpieces
+of sculpture were no miraculous embodiments of a _beau ideal_, but copies
+of living forms--we must admit that in no other age of the world has the
+physical Man been so perfectly developed. The nearest approach I have ever
+seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of
+Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo.
+
+Oriental life is too full of repose, and the Ottoman race has become too
+degenerate through indulgence, to exhibit many striking specimens of
+physical beauty. The face is generally fine, but the body is apt to be
+lank, and with imperfect muscular development. The best forms I saw in the
+baths were those of laborers, who, with a good deal of rugged strength,
+showed some grace and harmony of proportion. It may be received as a
+general rule, that the physical development of the European is superior to
+that of the Oriental, with the exception of the Circassians and Georgians,
+whose beauty well entitles them to the distinction of giving their name to
+our race.
+
+So far as female beauty is concerned, the Circassian women have no
+superiors. They have preserved in their mountain home the purity of the
+Grecian models, and still display the perfect physical loveliness, whose
+type has descended to us in the Venus de Medici. The Frank who is addicted
+to wandering about the streets of Oriental cities can hardly fail to be
+favored with a sight of the faces of these beauties. More than once it has
+happened to me, in meeting a veiled lady, sailing along in her
+balloon-like feridjee, that she has allowed the veil to drop by a skilful
+accident, as she passed, and has startled me with the vision of her
+beauty, recalling the line of the Persian poet: "Astonishment! is this the
+dawn of the glorious sun, or is it the full moon?" The Circassian face is
+a pure oval; the forehead is low and fair, "an excellent thing in woman,"
+and the skin of an ivory whiteness, except the faint pink of the cheeks
+and the ripe, roseate stain of the lips. The hair is dark, glossy, and
+luxuriant, exquisitely outlined on the temples; the eyebrows slightly
+arched, and drawn with a delicate pencil; while lashes like "rays of
+darkness" shade the large, dark, humid orbs below them. The alabaster of
+the face, so pure as scarcely to show the blue branching of the veins on
+the temples, is lighted by those superb eyes--
+
+  "Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone,"
+
+--whose wells are so dark and deep, that you are cheated into the belief
+that a glorious soul looks out of them.
+
+Once, by an unforeseen chance, I beheld the Circassian form, in its most
+perfect development. I was on board an Austrian steamer in the harbor of
+Smyrna, when the harem of a Turkish pasha came out in a boat to embark for
+Alexandria. The sea was rather rough, and nearly all the officers of the
+steamer were ashore. There were six veiled and swaddled women, with a
+black eunuch as guard, in the boat, which lay tossing for some time at the
+foot of the gangway ladder, before the frightened passengers could summon
+courage to step out. At last the youngest of them--a Circassian girl of
+not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age--ventured upon the ladder,
+clasping the hand-rail with one hand, while with the other she held
+together the folds of her cumbrous feridjee. I was standing in the
+gangway, watching her, when a slight lurch of the steamer caused her to
+loose her hold of the garment, which, fastened at the neck, was blown back
+from her shoulders, leaving her body screened but by a single robe
+of-light, gauzy silk. Through this, the marble whiteness of her skin, the
+roundness, the glorious symmetry of her form, flashed upon me, as a vision
+of Aphrodite, seen
+
+  "Through leagues of shimmering water, like a star."
+
+It was but a momentary glimpse; yet that moment convinced me that forms
+of Phidian perfection are still nurtured in the vales of Caucasus.
+
+The necessary disguise of dress hides from us much of the beauty and
+dignity of Humanity, I have seen men who appeared heroic in the freedom of
+nakedness, shrink almost into absolute vulgarity, when clothed. The soul
+not only sits at the windows of the eyes, and hangs upon the gateway of
+the lips; she speaks as well in the intricate, yet harmonious lines of the
+body, and the ever-varying play of the limbs. Look at the torso of
+Ilioneus, the son of Niobe, and see what an agony of terror and
+supplication cries out from that headless and limbless trunk! Decapitate
+Laocoön, and his knotted muscles will still express the same dreadful
+suffering and resistance. None knew this better than the ancient
+sculptors; and hence it was that we find many of their statues of
+distinguished men wholly or partly undraped. Such a view of Art would be
+considered transcendental now-a-days, when our dress, our costumes, and
+our modes of speech either ignore the existence of our bodies, or treat
+them with little of that reverence which is their due.
+
+But, while we have been thinking these thoughts, the attendant has been
+waiting to give us a final plunge into the seething tank. Again we slide
+down to the eyes in the fluid heat, which wraps us closely about until we
+tingle with exquisite hot shiverings. Now comes the graceful boy, with
+clean, cool, lavendered napkins, which he folds around our waist and wraps
+softly about the head. The pattens are put upon our feet, and the brown
+arm steadies us gently through the sweating-room and ante-chamber into the
+outer hall, where we mount to our couch. We sink gently upon the cool
+linen, and the boy covers us with a perfumed sheet. Then, kneeling beside
+the couch, he presses the folds of the sheet around us, that it may absorb
+the lingering moisture and the limpid perspiration shed by the departing
+heat. As fast as the linen becomes damp, he replaces it with fresh,
+pressing the folds about us as tenderly as a mother arranges the drapery
+of her sleeping babe; for we, though of the stature of a man, are now
+infantile in our helpless happiness. Then he takes our passive hand and
+warms its palm by the soft friction of his own; after which, moving to the
+end of the couch, he lifts our feet upon his lap, and repeats the friction
+upon their soles, until the blood comes back to the surface of the body
+with a misty glow, like that which steeps the clouds of a summer
+afternoon.
+
+We have but one more process to undergo, and the attendant already stands
+at the head of our couch. This is the course of passive gymnastics, which
+excites so much alarm and resistance in the ignorant Franks. It is only
+resistance that is dangerous, completely neutralizing the enjoyment of the
+process. Give yourself with a blind submission into the arms of the brown
+Fate, and he will lead you to new chambers of delight. He lifts us to a
+sitting posture, places himself behind us, and folds his arms around our
+body, alternately tightening and relaxing his clasp, as if to test the
+elasticity of the ribs. Then seizing one arm, he draws it across the
+opposite shoulder, until the joint cracks like a percussion-cap. The
+shoulder-blades, the elbows, the wrists, and the finger-joints are all
+made to fire off their muffled volleys; and then, placing one knee between
+our shoulders, and clasping both hands upon our forehead, he draws our
+head back until we feel a great snap of the vertebral column. Now he
+descends to the hip-joints, knees, ankles, and feet, forcing each and all
+to discharge a salvo _de joie_. The slight languor left from the bath is
+gone, and an airy, delicate exhilaration, befitting the winged Mercury,
+takes its place.
+
+The boy, kneeling, presents us with _finjan_ of foamy coffee, followed by
+a glass of sherbet cooled with the snows of Lebanon. He presently returns
+with a narghileh, which we smoke by the effortless inhalation of the
+lungs. Thus we lie in perfect repose, soothed by the fragrant weed, and
+idly watching the silent Orientals, who are undressing for the bath or
+reposing like ourselves. Through the arched entrance, we see a picture of
+the bazaars: a shadowy painting of merchants seated amid their silks and
+spices, dotted here and there with golden drops and splashes of sunshine,
+which have trickled through the roof. The scene paints itself upon our
+eyes, yet wakes no slightest stir of thought. The brain is a becalmed sea,
+without a ripple on its shores. Mind and body are drowned in delicious
+rest; and we no longer remember what we are. We only know that there is an
+Existence somewhere in the air, and that wherever it is, and whatever it
+may be, it is happy.
+
+More and more dim grows the picture. The colors fade and blend into each
+other, and finally merge into a bed of rosy clouds, flooded with the
+radiance of some unseen sun. Gentlier than "tired eyelids upon tired
+eyes," sleep lies upon our senses: a half-conscious sleep, wherein we know
+that we behold light and inhale fragrance. As gently, the clouds dissipate
+into air, and we are born again into the world. The Bath is at an end. We
+arise and put on our garments, and walk forth into the sunny streets of
+Damascus. But as we go homewards, we involuntarily look down to see
+whether we are really treading upon the earth, wondering, perhaps, that we
+should be content to do so, when it would be so easy to soar above the
+house-tops.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII.
+
+Baalbec and Lebanon.
+
+
+  Departure from Damascus--The Fountains of the Pharpar--Pass of the
+  Anti-Lebanon--Adventure with the Druses--The Range of Lebanon--The Demon
+  of Hasheesh departs--Impressions of Baalbec--The Temple of the
+  Sun--Titanic Masonry--The Ruined Mosque--Camp on Lebanon--Rascality of
+  the Guide--The Summit of Lebanon--The Sacred Cedars--The Christians of
+  Lebanon--An Afternoon in Eden--Rugged Travel--We Reach the Coast--Return
+  to Beyrout.
+
+
+  "Peor and Baälim
+  Forsake their temples dim."
+
+  Milton.
+
+
+  "The cedars wave on Lebanon,
+  But Judah's statelier maids are gone."
+
+  Byron.
+
+
+Beyrout, _Thursday, May_ 27, 1852.
+
+After a stay of eight days in Damascus, we called our men, Dervish and
+Mustapha, again into requisition, loaded our enthusiastic mules, and
+mounted our despairing horses. There were two other parties on the way to
+Baalbec--an English gentleman and lady, and a solitary Englishman, so that
+our united forces made an imposing caravan. There is always a custom-house
+examination, not on entering, but on issuing from an Oriental city, but
+travellers can avoid it by procuring the company of a Consular Janissary
+as far as the gate. Mr. Wood, the British Consul, lent us one of his
+officers for the occasion, whom we found waiting, outside of the wall, to
+receive his private fee for the service. We mounted the long, barren hill
+west of the plain, and at the summit, near the tomb of a Moslem shekh,
+turned to take a last long look at the bowery plain, and the minarets of
+the city, glittering through the blue morning vapor.
+
+A few paces further on the rocky road, a different scene presented itself
+to us. There lay, to the westward, a long stretch of naked yellow
+mountains, basking in the hot glare of the sun, and through the centre,
+deep down in the heart of the arid landscape, a winding line of living
+green showed the course of the Barrada. We followed the river, until the
+path reached an impassable gorge, which occasioned a detour of two or
+three hours. We then descended to the bed of the dell, where the
+vegetation, owing to the radiated heat from the mountains and the
+fertilizing stimulus of the water below, was even richer than on the plain
+of Damascus. The trees were plethoric with an overplus of life. The boughs
+of the mulberries were weighed down with the burden of the leaves;
+pomegranates were in a violent eruption of blossoms; and the foliage of
+the fig and poplar was of so deep a hue that it shone black in the sun.
+
+Passing through a gateway of rock, so narrow that we were often obliged to
+ride in the bed of the stream, we reached a little meadow, beyond which
+was a small hamlet, almost hidden in the leaves. Here the mountains again
+approached each other, and from the side of that on the right hand, the
+main body of the Barrada, or Pharpar, gushed forth in one full stream. The
+fountain is nearly double the volume of that of the Jordan at Banias, and
+much more beautiful. The foundations of an ancient building, probably a
+temple, overhang it, and tall poplars and sycamores cover it with
+impenetrable shade. From the low aperture, where it bursts into the light,
+its waters, white with foam, bound away flashing in the chance rays of
+sunshine, until they are lost to sight in the dense, dark foliage. We sat
+an hour on the ruined walls, listening to the roar and rush of the flood,
+and enjoying the shade of the walnuts and sycamores. Soon after leaving,
+our path crossed a small stream, which comes down to the Barrada from the
+upper valleys of the Anti-Lebanon, and entered a wild pass, faced with
+cliffs of perpendicular rock. An old bridge, of one arch, spanned the
+chasm, out of which we climbed to a tract of high meadow land. In the pass
+there were some fragments of ancient columns, traces of an aqueduct, and
+inscriptions on the rocks, among which Mr. H. found the name of Antoninus.
+The place is not mentioned in any book of travel I have seen, as it is not
+on the usual road from Damascus to Baalbec.
+
+As we were emerging from the pass, we saw a company of twelve armed men
+seated in the grass, near the roadside. They were wild-looking characters,
+and eyed us somewhat sharply as we passed. We greeted them with the usual
+"salaam aleikoom!" which they did not return. The same evening, as we
+encamped at the village of Zebdeni, about three hours further up the
+valley, we were startled by a great noise and outcry, with the firing of
+pistols. It happened, as we learned on inquiring the cause of all this
+confusion, that the men we saw in the pass were rebel Druses, who were
+then lying in wait for the Shekh of Zebdeni, whom, with his son, they had
+taken captive soon after we passed. The news had by some means been
+conveyed to the village, and a company of about two hundred persons was
+then marching out to the rescue. The noise they made was probably to give
+the Druses intimation of their coming, and thus avoid a fight. I do not
+believe that any of the mountaineers of Lebanon would willingly take part
+against the Druses, who, in fact, are not fighting so much against the
+institution of the conscription law, as its abuse. The law ordains that
+the conscript shall serve for five years; but since its establishment, as
+I have been informed, there has not been a single instance of discharge.
+It amounts, therefore, to lifelong servitude, and there is little wonder
+that these independent sons of the mountains, as well as the tribes
+inhabiting the Syrian Desert, should rebel rather than submit.
+
+The next day, we crossed a pass in the Anti-Lebanon beyond Zebdeni,
+descended a beautiful valley on the western side, under a ridge which was
+still dotted with patches of snow, and after travelling for some hours
+over a wide, barren height, the last of the range, saw below us the plain
+of Baalbec. The grand ridge of Lebanon opposite, crowned with glittering
+fields of snow, shone out clearly through the pure air, and the hoary head
+of Hermon, far in the south, lost something of its grandeur by the
+comparison. Though there is a "divide," or watershed, between Husbeiya, at
+the foot of Mount Hermon, and Baalbec, whose springs join the Orontes,
+which flows northward to Antioch, the great natural separation of the two
+chains continues unbroken to the Gulf of Akaba, in the Red Sea. A little
+beyond Baalbec, the Anti-Lebanon terminates, sinking into the Syrian
+plain, while the Lebanon, though its name and general features are lost,
+about twenty miles further to the north is succeeded by other ranges,
+which, though broken at intervals, form a regular series, connecting with
+the Taurus, in Asia Minor.
+
+On leaving Damascus, the Demon of Hasheesh still maintained a partial
+control over me. I was weak in body and at times confused in my
+perceptions, wandering away from the scenes about me to some unknown
+sphere beyond the moon. But the healing balm of my sleep at Zebdeni, and
+the purity of the morning air among the mountains, completed my cure. As I
+rode along the valley, with the towering, snow-sprinkled ridge of the
+Anti-Lebanon on my right, a cloudless heaven above my head, and meads
+enamelled with the asphodel and scarlet anemone stretching before me, I
+felt that the last shadow had rolled away from my brain. My mind was now
+as clear as that sky--my heart as free and joyful as the elastic morning
+air. The sun never shone so brightly to my eyes; the fair forms of Nature
+were never penetrated with so perfect a spirit of beauty. I was again
+master of myself, and the world glowed as if new-created in the light of
+my joy and gratitude. I thanked God, who had led me out of a darkness more
+terrible than that of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and while my feet
+strayed among the flowery meadows of Lebanon, my heart walked on the
+Delectable Hills of His Mercy.
+
+By the middle of the afternoon, we reached Baalbec. The distant view of
+the temple, on descending the last slope of the Anti-Lebanon, is not
+calculated to raise one's expectations. On the green plain at the foot of
+the mountain, you see a large square platform of masonry, upon which stand
+six columns, the body of the temple, and a quantity of ruined walls. As a
+feature in the landscape, it has a fine effect, but you find yourself
+pronouncing the speedy judgment, that "Baalbec, without Lebanon, would be
+rather a poor show." Having come to this conclusion, you ride down the
+hill with comfortable feelings of indifference. There are a number of
+quarries on the left hand; you glance at them with an expression which
+merely says: "Ah! I suppose they got the stones here," and so you saunter
+on, cross a little stream that flows down from the modern village, pass a
+mill, return the stare of the quaint Arab miller who comes to the door to
+see you, and your horse is climbing a difficult path among the broken
+columns and friezes, before you think it worth while to lift your eyes to
+the pile above you. Now re-assert your judgment, if you dare! This is
+Baalbec: what have you to say? Nothing; but you amazedly measure the
+torsos of great columns which lie piled across one another in magnificent
+wreck; vast pieces which have dropped from the entablature, beautiful
+Corinthian capitals, bereft of the last graceful curves of their acanthus
+leaves, and blocks whose edges are so worn away that they resemble
+enormous natural boulders left by the Deluge, till at last you look up to
+the six glorious pillars, towering nigh a hundred feet above your head,
+and there is a sensation in your brain which would be a shout, if you
+could give it utterance, of faultless symmetry and majesty, such as no
+conception of yours and no other creation of art, can surpass.
+
+I know of nothing so beautiful in all remains of ancient Art as these six
+columns, except the colonnade of the Memnonium, at Thebes, which is of
+much smaller proportions. From every position, and with all lights of the
+day or night, they are equally perfect, and carry your eyes continually
+away from the peristyle of the smaller temple, which is better preserved,
+and from the exquisite architecture of the outer courts and pavilions.
+The two temples of Baalbec stand on an artificial platform of masonry, a
+thousand feet in length, and from fifteen to thirty feet (according to the
+depression of the soil) in height, The larger one, which is supposed to
+have been a Pantheon, occupies the whole length of this platform. The
+entrance was at the north, by a grand flight of steps, now broken away,
+between two lofty and elegant pavilions which are still nearly entire.
+Then followed a spacious hexagonal court, and three grand halls, parts of
+which, with niches for statues, adorned with cornices and pediments of
+elaborate design, still remain entire to the roof. This magnificent series
+of chambers was terminated at the southern extremity of the platform by
+the main temple, which had originally twenty columns on a side, similar to
+the six now standing.
+
+The Temple of the Sun stands on a smaller and lower platform, which
+appears to have been subsequently added to the greater one. The cella, or
+body of the temple, is complete except the roof, and of the colonnade
+surrounding it, nearly one-half of its pillars are still standing,
+upholding the frieze, entablature, and cornice, which altogether form
+probably the most ornate specimen of the Corinthian order of architecture
+now extant. Only four pillars of the superb portico remain, and the
+Saracens have nearly ruined these by building a sort of watch-tower upon
+the architrave. The same unscrupulous race completely shut up the portal
+of the temple with a blank wall, formed of the fragments they had hurled
+down, and one is obliged to creep through a narrow hole in order to reach
+the interior. Here the original doorway faces you--and I know not how to
+describe the wonderful design of its elaborate sculptured mouldings and
+cornices. The genius of Greek art seems to have exhausted itself in
+inventing ornaments, which, while they should heighten the gorgeous effect
+of the work, must yet harmonize with the grand design of the temple. The
+enormous keystone over the entrance has slipped down, no doubt from the
+shock of an earthquake, and hangs within six inches of the bottom of the
+two blocks which uphold it on either side. When it falls, the whole
+entablature of the portal will be destroyed. On its lower side is an eagle
+with outspread wings, and on the side-stones a genius with garlands of
+flowers, exquisitely sculptured in bas relief. Hidden among the wreaths of
+vines which adorn the jambs are the laughing heads of fauns. This portal
+was a continual study to me, every visit revealing new refinements of
+ornament, which I had not before observed. The interior of the temple,
+with its rich Corinthian pilasters, its niches for statues, surmounted by
+pediments of elegant design, and its elaborate cornice, needs little aid
+of the imagination to restore it to its original perfection. Like that of
+Dendera, in Egypt, the Temple of the Sun leaves upon the mind an
+impression of completeness which makes you forget far grander remains.
+
+But the most wonderful thing at Baalbec is the foundation platform upon
+which the temples stand. Even the colossal fabrics of Ancient Egypt
+dwindle before this superhuman masonry. The platform itself, 1,000 feet
+long, and averaging twenty feet in height, suggests a vast mass of stones,
+but when you come to examine the single blocks of which it is composed,
+you are crushed with their incredible bulk. On the western side is a row
+of eleven foundation stones, each of which is thirty-two feet in length,
+twelve in height, and ten in thickness, forming a wall three hundred and
+fifty-two feet long! But while you are walking on, thinking of the art
+which cut and raised these enormous blocks, you turn the southern corner
+and come upon _three_ stones, the united length of which is _one hundred
+and eighty-seven feet_--two of them being sixty-two and the other
+sixty-three feet in length! There they are, cut with faultless exactness,
+and so smoothly joined to each other, that you cannot force a cambric
+needle into the crevice. There is one joint so perfect that it can only be
+discerned by the minutest search; it is not even so perceptible as the
+junction of two pieces of paper which have been pasted together. In the
+quarry, there still lies a finished block, ready for transportation, which
+is sixty-seven feet in length. The weight of one of these masses has been
+reckoned at near 9,000 tons, yet they do not form the base of the
+foundation, but are raised upon other courses, fifteen feet from the
+ground. It is considered by some antiquarians that they are of a date
+greatly anterior to that of the temples, and were intended as the basement
+of a different edifice.
+
+In the village of Baalbec there is a small circular Corinthian temple of
+very elegant design. It is not more than thirty feet in diameter, and may
+have been intended as a tomb. A spacious mosque, now roofless and
+deserted, was constructed almost entirely out of the remains of the
+temples. Adjoining the court-yard and fountain are five rows of ancient
+pillars, forty (the sacred number) in all, supporting light Saracenic
+arches. Some of them are marble, with Corinthian capitals, and eighteen
+are single shafts of red Egyptian granite. Beside the fountain lies a
+small broken pillar of porphyry, of a dark violet hue, and of so fine a
+grain that the stone has the soft rich lustre of velvet. This fragment is
+the only thing I would carry away if I had the power.
+
+After a day's sojourn, we left Baalbec at noon, and took the road for the
+Cedars, which lie on the other side of Lebanon, in the direction of
+Tripoli. Our English fellow-travellers chose the direct road to Beyrout.
+We crossed the plain in three hours; to the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, and
+then commenced ascending the lowest slopes of the great range, whose
+topmost ridge, a dazzling parapet of snow, rose high above us. For several
+hours, our path led up and down stony ridges, covered with thickets of oak
+and holly, and with wild cherry, pear, and olive-trees. Just as the sun
+threw the shadows of the highest Lebanon over us, we came upon a narrow,
+rocky glen at his very base. Streams that still kept the color and the
+coolness of the snow-fields from which they oozed, foamed over the stones
+into the chasm at the bottom. The glen descended into a mountain basin, in
+which lay the lake of Yemouni, cold and green under the evening shadows.
+But just opposite us, on a little shelf of soil, there was a rude mill,
+and a group of superb walnut-trees, overhanging the brink of the largest
+torrent. We had sent our baggage before us, and the men, with an eye to
+the picturesque which I should not have suspected in Arabs, had pitched
+our tents under those trees, where the stream poured its snow-cold beakers
+beside us, and the tent-door looked down on the plain of Baalbec and
+across to the Anti-Lebanon. The miller and two or three peasants, who were
+living in this lonely spot, were Christians.
+
+The next morning we commenced ascending the Lebanon. We had slept just
+below the snow-line, for the long hollows with which the ridge is cloven
+were filled up to within a short distance of the glen, out of which we
+came. The path was very steep, continually ascending, now around the
+barren shoulder of the mountain, now up some ravine, where the holly and
+olive still flourished, and the wild rhubarb-plant spread its large,
+succulent leaves over the soil. We had taken a guide, the day before, at
+the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, but as the way was plain before us, and he
+demanded an exorbitant sum, we dismissed him, We had not climbed far,
+however, before he returned, professing to be content with whatever we
+might give him, and took us into another road, the first, he said, being
+impracticable. Up and up we toiled, and the long hollows of snow lay below
+us, and the wind came cold from the topmost peaks, which began to show
+near at hand. But now the road, as we had surmised, turned towards that we
+had first taken, and on reaching the next height we saw the latter at a
+short distance from us. It was not only a better, but a shorter road, the
+rascal of a guide having led us out of it in order to give the greater
+effect to his services. In order to return to it, as was necessary, there
+were several dangerous snow-fields to be passed. The angle of their
+descent was so great that a single false step would have hurled our
+animals, baggage and all, many hundred feet below. The snow was melting,
+and the crust frozen over the streams below was so thin in places that the
+animals broke through and sank to their bellies.
+
+It were needless to state the number and character of the anathemas
+bestowed upon the guide. The impassive Dervish raved; Mustapha stormed;
+François broke out in a frightful eruption of Greek and Turkish oaths, and
+the two travellers, though not (as I hope and believe) profanely inclined,
+could not avoid using a few terse Saxon expressions. When the general
+indignation had found vent, the men went to work, and by taking each
+animal separately, succeeded, at imminent hazard, in getting them all
+over the snow. We then dismissed the guide, who, far from being abashed by
+the discovery of his trickery, had the impudence to follow us for some
+time, claiming his pay. A few more steep pulls, over deep beds of snow and
+patches of barren stone, and at length the summit ridge--a sharp, white
+wall, shining against the intense black-blue of the zenith--stood before
+us. We climbed a toilsome zig-zag through the snow, hurried over the
+stones cumbering the top, and all at once the mountains fell away, ridge
+below ridge, gashed with tremendous chasms, whose bottoms were lost in
+blue vapor, till the last heights, crowned with white Maronite convents,
+hung above the sea, whose misty round bounded the vision. I have seen many
+grander mountain views, but few so sublimely rugged and broken in their
+features. The sides of the ridges dropped off in all directions into sheer
+precipices, and the few villages we could see were built like eagles'
+nests on the brinks. In a little hollow at our feet was the sacred Forest
+of Cedars, appearing like a patch of stunted junipers. It is the highest
+speck of vegetation on Lebanon, and in winter cannot be visited, on
+account of the snow. The summit on which we stood was about nine thousand
+feet above the sea, but there were peaks on each side at least a thousand
+feet higher.
+
+We descended by a very steep path, over occasional beds of snow, and
+reached the Cedars in an hour and a half. Not until we were within a
+hundred yards of the trees, and below their level, was I at all impressed
+with their size and venerable aspect. But, once entered into the heart of
+the little wood, walking over its miniature hills and valleys, and
+breathing the pure, balsamic exhalations of the trees, all the
+disappointment rising to my mind was charmed away in an instant There are
+about three hundred trees, in all, many of which are of the last century's
+growth, but at least fifty of them would be considered grand in any
+forest. The patriarchs are five in number, and are undoubtedly as old as
+the Christian Era, if not the Age of Solomon. The cypresses in the Garden
+of Montezuma, at Chapultepec, are even older and grander trees, but they
+are as entire and shapely as ever, whereas these are gnarled and twisted
+into wonderful forms by the storms of twenty centuries, and shivered in
+some places by lightning. The hoary father of them all, nine feet in
+diameter, stands in the centre of the grove, on a little knoll, and
+spreads his ponderous arms, each a tree in itself, over the heads of the
+many generations that have grown up below, as if giving his last
+benediction before decay. He is scarred less with storm and lightning,
+than with the knives of travellers, and the marble crags of Lebanon do not
+more firmly retain their inscriptions than his stony trunk. Dates of the
+last century are abundant, and I recollect a tablet inscribed: "Souard,
+1670," around which the newer wood has grown to the height of three or
+four inches. The seclusion of the grove, shut in by peaks of barren snow,
+is complete. Only the voice of the nightingale, singing here by daylight
+in the solemn shadows, breaks the silence. The Maronite monk, who has
+charge of a little stone chapel standing in the midst, moves about like a
+shade, and, not before you are ready to leave, brings his book for you to
+register your name therein, I was surprised to find how few of the crowd
+that annually overrun Syria reach the Cedars, which, after Baalbec, are
+the finest remains of antiquity in the whole country.
+
+After a stay of three hours, we rode on to Eden, whither our men had
+already gone with the baggage. Our road led along the brink of a
+tremendous gorge, a thousand feet deep, the bottom of which was only
+accessible here and there by hazardous foot-paths. On either side, a long
+shelf of cultivated land sloped down to the top, and the mountain streams,
+after watering a multitude of orchards and grain-fields, tumbled over the
+cliffs in long, sparkling cascades, to join the roaring flood below. This
+is the Christian region of Lebanon, inhabited almost wholly by Maronites,
+who still retain a portion of their former independence, and are the most
+thrifty, industrious, honest, and happy people in Syria. Their villages
+are not concrete masses of picturesque filth, as are those of the Moslems,
+but are loosely scattered among orchards of mulberry, poplar, and vine,
+washed by fresh rills, and have an air of comparative neatness and
+comfort. Each has its two or three chapels, with their little belfries,
+which toll the hours of prayer. Sad and poetic as is the call from the
+minaret, it never touched me as when I heard the sweet tongues of those
+Christian bells, chiming vespers far and near on the sides of Lebanon.
+
+Eden merits its name. It is a mountain paradise, inhabited by people so
+kind and simple-hearted, that assuredly no vengeful angel will ever drive
+them out with his flaming sword. It hangs above the gorge, which is here
+nearly two thousand feet deep, and overlooks a grand wilderness of
+mountain-piles, crowded on and over each other, from the sea that gleams
+below, to the topmost heights that keep off the morning sun. The houses
+are all built of hewn stone, and grouped in clusters under the shade of
+large walnut-trees. In walking among them, we received kind greetings
+everywhere, and every one who was seated rose and remained standing as we
+passed. The women are beautiful, with sprightly, intelligent faces, quite
+different from the stupid Mahometan females.
+
+The children were charming creatures, and some of the girls of ten or
+twelve years were lovely as angels. They came timidly to our tent (which
+the men had pitched as before, under two superb trees, beside a fountain),
+and offered us roses and branches of fragrant white jasmine. They expected
+some return, of course, but did not ask it, and the delicate grace with
+which the offering was made was beyond all pay. It was Sunday, and the men
+and boys, having nothing better to do, all came to see and talk with us. I
+shall not soon forget the circle of gay and laughing villagers, in which
+we sat that evening, while the dark purple shadows gradually filled up the
+gorges, and broad golden lights poured over the shoulders of the hills.
+The men had much sport in inducing the smaller boys to come up and salute
+us. There was one whom they called "the Consul," who eluded them for some
+time, but was finally caught and placed in the ring before us. "Peace be
+with you, O Consul," I said, making him a profound inclination, "may your
+days be propitious! may your shadow be increased!" but I then saw, from
+the vacant expression on the boy's face, that he was one of those
+harmless, witless creatures, whom yet one cannot quite call idiots. "He is
+an unfortunate; he knows nothing; he has no protector but God," said the
+men, crossing themselves devoutly. The boy took off his cap, crept up and
+kissed my hand, as I gave him some money, which he no sooner grasped, than
+he sprang up like a startled gazelle, and was out of sight in an instant.
+
+In descending from Eden to the sea-coast, we were obliged to cross the
+great gorge of which I spoke. Further down, its sides are less steep, and
+clothed even to the very bottom with magnificent orchards of mulberry,
+fig, olive, orange, and pomegranate trees. We were three hours in reaching
+the opposite side, although the breadth across the top is not more than a
+mile. The path was exceedingly perilous; we walked down, leading our
+horses, and once were obliged to unload our mules to get them past a tree,
+which would have forced them off the brink of a chasm several hundred feet
+deep. The view from the bottom was wonderful. We were shut in by steeps of
+foliage and blossoms from two to three thousand feet high, broken by crags
+of white marble, and towering almost precipitously to the very clouds. I
+doubt if Melville saw anything grander in the tropical gorges of Typee.
+After reaching the other side, we had still a journey of eight hours to
+the sea, through a wild and broken, yet highly cultivated country.
+
+Beyrout was now thirteen hours distant, but by making a forced march we
+reached it in a day, travelling along the shore, past the towns of Jebeil,
+the ancient Byblus, and Joonieh. The hills about Jebeil produce the
+celebrated tobacco known in Egypt as the _Jebelee_, or "mountain" tobacco,
+which is even superior to the Latakiyeh.
+
+Near Beyrout, the mulberry and olive are in the ascendant. The latter tree
+bears the finest fruit in all the Levant, and might drive all other oils
+out of the market, if any one had enterprise enough to erect proper
+manufactories. Instead of this the oil of the country is badly prepared,
+rancid from the skins in which it is kept, and the wealthy natives import
+from France and Italy in preference to using it. In the bottoms near the
+sea, I saw several fields of the taro-plant, the cultivation of which I
+had supposed was exclusively confined to the Islands of the Pacific. There
+would be no end to the wealth of Syria were the country in proper hands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII.
+
+Pipes and Coffee.
+
+
+  --"the kind nymph to Bacchus born
+  By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems
+  Gifted upon her natal morn
+  By him with fire, by her with dreams--
+  Nicotia, dearer to the Muse
+  Than all the grape's bewildering juice." Lowell.
+
+
+In painting the picture of an Oriental, the pipe and the coffee-cup are
+indispensable accessories. There is scarce a Turk, or Arab, or
+Persian--unless he be a Dervish of peculiar sanctity--but breathes his
+daily incense to the milder Bacchus of the moderns. The custom has become
+so thoroughly naturalized in the East, that we are apt to forget its
+comparatively recent introduction, and to wonder that no mention is made
+of the pipe in the Arabian Nights. The practice of smoking harmonizes so
+thoroughly with the character of Oriental life, that it is difficult for
+us to imagine a time when it never existed. It has become a part of that
+supreme patience, that wonderful repose, which forms so strong a contrast
+to the over-active life of the New World--the enjoyment of which no one
+can taste, to whom the pipe is not familiar. Howl, ye Reformers! but I
+solemnly declare unto you, that he who travels through the East without
+smoking, does not know the East.
+
+It is strange that our Continent, where the meaning of Rest is unknown,
+should have given to the world this great agent of Rest. There is nothing
+more remarkable in history than the colonization of Tobacco over the whole
+Earth. Not three centuries have elapsed since knightly Raleigh puffed its
+fumes into the astonished eyes of Spenser and Shakspeare; and now, find me
+any corner of the world, from Nova Zembla to the Mountains of the Moon,
+where the use of the plant is unknown! Tarshish (if India was Tarshish) is
+less distinguished by its "apes, ivory, and peacocks," than by its
+hookahs; the valleys of Luzon, beyond Ternate and Tidore, send us more
+cheroots than spices; the Gardens of Shiraz produce more velvety _toombek_
+than roses, and the only fountains which bubble in Samarcand are those of
+the narghilehs: Lebanon is no longer "excellent with the Cedars," as in
+the days of Solomon, but most excellent with its fields of Jebelee and
+Latakiyeh. On the unvisited plains of Central Africa, the table-lands of
+Tartary, and in the valleys of Japan, the wonderful plant has found a
+home. The naked negro, "panting at the Line," inhales it under the palms,
+and the Lapp and Samoyed on the shores of the Frozen Sea.
+
+It is idle for those who object to the use of Tobacco to attribute these
+phenomena wholly to a perverted taste. The fact that the custom was at
+once adopted by all the races of men, whatever their geographical position
+and degree of civilization, proves that there must be a reason for it in
+the physical constitution of man. Its effect, when habitually used, is
+slightly narcotic and sedative, not stimulating--or if so, at times, it
+stimulates only the imagination and the social faculties. It lulls to
+sleep the combative and destructive propensities, and hence--so far as a
+material agent may operate--it exercises a humanizing and refining
+influence. A profound student of Man, whose name is well known to the
+world, once informed me that he saw in the eagerness with which savage
+tribes adopt the use of Tobacco, a spontaneous movement of Nature towards
+Civilization.
+
+I will not pursue these speculations further, for the narghileh (bubbling
+softly at my elbow, as I write) is the promoter of repose and the begetter
+of agreeable reverie. As I inhale its cool, fragrant breath, and partly
+yield myself to the sensation of healthy rest which wraps my limbs as with
+a velvet mantle, I marvel how the poets and artists and scholars of olden
+times nursed those dreams which the world calls indolence, but which are
+the seeds that germinate into great achievements. How did Plato
+philosophize without the pipe? How did gray Homer, sitting on the
+temple-steps in the Grecian twilights, drive from his heart the bitterness
+of beggary and blindness? How did Phidias charm the Cerberus of his animal
+nature to sleep, while his soul entered the Elysian Fields and beheld the
+forms of heroes? For, in the higher world of Art, Body and Soul are sworn
+enemies, and the pipe holds an opiate more potent than all the drowsy
+syrups of the East, to drug the former into submission. Milton knew this,
+as he smoked his evening pipe at Chalfont, wandering, the while, among the
+palms of Paradise.
+
+But it is also our loss, that Tobacco was unknown to the Greeks. They
+would else have given us, in verse and in marble, another divinity in
+their glorious Pantheon--a god less drowsy than Morpheus and Somnus, less
+riotous than Bacchus, less radiant than Apollo, but with something of the
+spirit of each: a figure, beautiful with youth, every muscle in perfect
+repose, and the vague expression of dreams in his half-closed eyes. His
+temple would have been built in a grove of Southern pines, on the borders
+of a land-locked gulf, sheltered from the surges that buffet without,
+where service would have been rendered him in the late hours of the
+afternoon, or in the evening twilight. From his oracular tripod words of
+wisdom would have been spoken, and the fanes of Delphi and Dodona would
+have been deserted for his.
+
+Oh, non-smoking friends, who read these lines with pain and
+incredulity--and you, ladies, who turn pale at the thought of a pipe--let
+me tell you that you are familiar only with the vulgar form of tobacco,
+and have never passed between the wind and its gentility. The word conveys
+no idea to you but that of "long nines," and pig-tail, and cavendish.
+Forget these for a moment, and look upon this dark-brown cake of dried
+leaves and blossoms, which exhales an odor of pressed flowers. These are
+the tender tops of the _Jebelee_, plucked as the buds begin to expand, and
+carefully dried in the shade. In order to be used, it is moistened with
+rose-scented water, and cut to the necessary degree of fineness. The test
+of true Jebelee is, that it burns with a slow, hidden fire, like tinder,
+and causes no irritation to the eye when held under it. The smoke, drawn
+through a long cherry-stick pipe and amber mouth-piece, is pure, cool, and
+sweet, with an aromatic flavor, which is very pleasant in the mouth. It
+excites no salivation, and leaves behind it no unpleasant, stale odor.
+
+The narghileh (still bubbling beside me) is an institution known only in
+the East. It requires a peculiar kind of tobacco, which grows to
+perfection in the southern provinces of Persia. The smoke, after passing
+through water (rose-flavored, if you choose), is inhaled through a long,
+flexible tube directly into the lungs. It occasions not the slightest
+irritation or oppression, but in a few minutes produces a delicious sense
+of rest, which is felt even in the finger-ends. The pure physical
+sensation of rest is one of strength also, and of perfect contentment.
+Many an impatient thought, many an angry word, have I avoided by a resort
+to the pipe. Among our aborigines the pipe was the emblem of Peace, and I
+strongly recommend the Peace Society to print their tracts upon papers of
+smoking tobacco (Turkish, if possible), and distribute pipes with them.
+
+I know of nothing more refreshing, after the fatigue of a long day's
+journey, than a well-prepared narghileh. That slight feverish and
+excitable feeling which is the result of fatigue yields at once to its
+potency. The blood loses its heat and the pulse its rapidity; the muscles
+relax, the nerves are soothed into quiet, and the frame passes into a
+condition similar to sleep, except that the mind is awake and active. By
+the time one has finished his pipe, he is refreshed for the remainder of
+the day, and his nightly sleep is sound and healthy. Such are some of the
+physical effects of the pipe, in Eastern lands. Morally and
+psychologically, it works still greater transformations; but to describe
+them now, with the mouth-piece at my lips, would require an active
+self-consciousness which the habit does not allow.
+
+A servant enters with a steamy cup of coffee, seated in a silver _zerf_,
+or cup-holder. His thumb and fore-finger are clasped firmly upon the
+bottom of the zerf, which I inclose near the top with my own thumb and
+finger, so that the transfer is accomplished without his hand having
+touched mine.
+
+After draining the thick brown liquid, which must be done with due
+deliberation and a pause of satisfaction between each sip, I return the
+zerf, holding it in the middle, while the attendant places a palm of each
+hand upon the top and bottom and carries it off without contact. The
+beverage is made of the berries of Mocha, slightly roasted, pulverized in
+a mortar, and heated to a foam, without the addition of cream or sugar.
+Sometimes, however, it is flavored with the extract of roses or violets.
+When skilfully made, each cup is prepared separately, and the quantity of
+water and coffee carefully measured.
+
+Coffee is a true child of the East, and its original home was among the
+hills of Yemen, the Arabia Felix of the ancients. Fortunately for
+Mussulmen, its use was unknown in the days of Mahomet, or it would
+probably have fallen under the same prohibition as wine. The word _Kahweh_
+(whence _café_) is an old Arabic term for wine. The discovery of the
+properties of coffee is attributed to a dervish, who, for some
+misdemeanor, was carried into the mountains of Yemen by his brethren and
+there left to perish by starvation. In order to appease the pangs of
+hunger he gathered the ripe berries from the wild coffee-trees, roasted
+and ate them. The nourishment they contained, with water from the springs,
+sustained his life, and after two or three months he returned in good
+condition to his brethren, who considered his preservation as a miracle,
+and ever afterwards looked upon him as a pattern of holiness. He taught
+the use of the miraculous fruit, and the demand for it soon became so
+great as to render the cultivation of the tree necessary. It was a long
+time, however, before coffee was introduced into Europe. As late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century, Sandys, the quaint old traveller,
+describes the appearance and taste of the beverage, which he calls
+"Coffa," and sagely asks: "Why not that black broth which the
+Lacedemonians used?"
+
+On account of the excellence of the material, and the skilful manner of
+its preparation, the Coffee of the East is the finest in the world. I have
+found it so grateful and refreshing a drink, that I can readily pardon the
+pleasant exaggeration of the Arabic poet, Abd-el Kader Anazari Djezeri
+Hanbali, the son of Mahomet, who thus celebrates its virtues. After such
+an exalted eulogy, my own praises would sound dull and tame; and I
+therefore resume my pipe, commending Abd-el Kader to the reader.
+
+"O Coffee! thou dispellest the cares of the great; thou bringest back
+those who wander from the paths of knowledge. Coffee is the beverage of
+the people of God, and the cordial of his servants who thirst for wisdom.
+When coffee is infused into the bowl, it exhales the odor of musk, and is
+of the color of ink. The truth is not known except to the wise, who drink
+it from the foaming coffee-cup. God has deprived fools of coffee, who,
+with invincible obstinacy, condemn it as injurious.
+
+"Coffee is our gold; and in the place of its libations we are in the
+enjoyment of the best and noblest society. Coffee is even as innocent a
+drink as the purest milk, from which it is distinguished only by its
+color. Tarry with thy coffee in the place of its preparation, and the good
+God will hover over thee and participate in his feast. There the graces of
+the saloon, the luxury of life, the society of friends, all furnish a
+picture of the abode of happiness.
+
+"Every care vanishes when the cup-bearer presents the delicious chalice.
+It will circulate fleetly through thy veins, and will not rankle there:
+if thou doubtest this, contemplate the youth and beauty of those who drink
+it. Grief cannot exist where it grows; sorrow humbles itself in obedience
+before its powers.
+
+"Coffee is the drink of God's people; in it is health. Let this be the
+answer to those who doubt its qualities. In it we will drown our
+adversities, and in its fire consume our sorrows. Whoever has once seen
+the blissful chalice, will scorn the wine-cup. Glorious drink! thy color
+is the seal of purity, and reason proclaims it genuine. Drink with
+confidence, and regard not the prattle of fools, who condemn without
+foundation."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV.
+
+Journey to Antioch and Aleppo.
+
+
+  Change of Plans--Routes to Baghdad--Asia Minor--We sail from
+  Beyrout--Yachting on the Syrian Coast--Tartus and Latakiyeh--The Coasts
+  of Syria--The Bay of Suediah--The Mouth of the Orontes--Landing--The
+  Garden of Syria--Ride to Antioch--The Modern City--The Plains of the
+  Orontes--Remains of the Greek Empire--The Ancient Road--The Plain of
+  Keftin--Approach to Aleppo.
+
+
+  "The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,
+     The living breath is fresh behind,
+  As, with dews and sunrise fed,
+     Comes the laughing morning wind."
+
+  Shelley.
+
+
+Aleppo, _Friday, June_ 4, 1852.
+
+A Traveller in the East, who has not unbounded time and an extensive
+fortune at his disposal, is never certain where and how far he shall go,
+until his journey is finished. With but a limited portion of both these
+necessaries, I have so far carried out my original plan with scarcely a
+variation; but at present I am obliged to make a material change of route.
+My farthest East is here at Aleppo. At Damascus, I was told by everybody
+that it was too late in the season to visit either Baghdad or Mosul, and
+that, on account of the terrible summer heats and the fevers which prevail
+along the Tigris, it would be imprudent to undertake it. Notwithstanding
+this, I should probably have gone (being now so thoroughly acclimated that
+I have nothing to fear from the heat), had I not met with a friend of
+Col. Rawlinson, the companion of Layard, and the sharer in his discoveries
+at Nineveh. This gentleman, who met Col. R. not long since in
+Constantinople, on his way to Baghdad (where he resides as British
+Consul), informed me that since the departure of Mr. Layard from Mosul,
+the most interesting excavations have been filled up, in order to preserve
+the sculptures. Unless one was able to make a new exhumation, he would be
+by no means repaid for so long and arduous a journey. The ruins of Nineveh
+are all below the surface of the earth, and the little of them that is now
+left exposed, is less complete and interesting than the specimens in the
+British Museum.
+
+There is a route from Damascus to Baghdad, across the Desert, by way of
+Palmyra, but it is rarely travelled, even by the natives, except when the
+caravans are sufficiently strong to withstand the attacks of the Bedouins.
+The traveller is obliged to go in Arab costume, to leave his baggage
+behind, except a meagre scrip for the journey, and to pay from $300 to
+$500 for the camels and escort. The more usual route is to come northward
+to this city, then cross to Mosul and descend the Tigris--a journey of
+four or five weeks. After weighing all the advantages and disadvantages of
+undertaking a tour of such length as it would be necessary to make before
+reaching Constantinople, I decided at Beyrout to give up the fascinating
+fields of travel in Media, Assyria and Armenia, and take a rather shorter
+and-perhaps equally interesting route from Aleppo to Constantinople, by
+way of Tarsus, Konia (Iconium), and the ancient countries of Phrygia,
+Bithynia, and Mysia. The interior of Asia Minor is even less known to us
+than the Persian side of Asiatic Turkey, which has of late received more
+attention from travellers; and, as I shall traverse it in its whole
+length, from Syria to the Bosphorus, I may find it replete with "green
+fields and pastures new," which shall repay me for relinquishing the first
+and more ambitious undertaking. At least, I have so much reason to be
+grateful for the uninterrupted good health and good luck I have enjoyed
+during seven months in Africa and the Orient, that I cannot be otherwise
+than content with the prospect before me.
+
+I left Beyrout on the night of the 28th of May, with Mr. Harrison, who has
+decided to keep me company as far as Constantinople. François, our classic
+dragoman, whose great delight is to recite Homer by the sea-side, is
+retained for the whole tour, as we have found no reason to doubt his
+honesty or ability. Our first thought was to proceed to Aleppo by land, by
+way of Homs and Hamah, whence there might be a chance of reaching Palmyra;
+but as we found an opportunity of engaging an American yacht for the
+voyage up the coast, it was thought preferable to take her, and save time.
+She was a neat little craft, called the "American Eagle," brought out by
+Mr. Smith, our Consul at Beyrout. So, one fine moonlit night, we slowly
+crept out of the harbor, and after returning a volley of salutes from our
+friends at Demetri's Hotel, ran into the heart of a thunder-storm, which
+poured down more rain than all I had seen for eight months before. But our
+raïs, Assad (the Lion), was worthy of his name, and had two good Christian
+sailors at his command, so we lay in the cramped little cabin, and heard
+the floods washing our deck, without fear.
+
+In the morning, we were off Tripoli, which is even more deeply buried than
+Beyrout in its orange and mulberry groves, and slowly wafted along the
+bold mountain-coast, in the afternoon reached Tartus, the Ancient Tortosa.
+A mile from shore is the rocky island of Aradus, entirely covered by a
+town. There were a dozen vessels lying in the harbor. The remains of a
+large fortress and ancient mole prove it to have been a place of
+considerable importance. Tartus is a small old place on the sea-shore--not
+so large nor so important in appearance as its island-port. The country
+behind is green and hilly, though but partially cultivated, and rises into
+Djebel Ansairiyeh, which divides the valley of the Orontes from the sea.
+It is a lovely coast, especially under the flying lights and shadows of
+such a breezy day as we had. The wind fell at sunset; but by the next
+morning, we had passed the tobacco-fields of Latakiyeh, and were in sight
+of the southern cape of the Bay of Suediah. The mountains forming this
+cape culminate in a grand conical peak, about 5,000 feet in height, called
+Djebel Okrab. At ten o'clock, wafted along by a slow wind, we turned the
+point and entered the Bay of Suediah, formed by the embouchure of the
+River Orontes. The mountain headland of Akma Dagh, forming the portal of
+the Gulf of Scanderoon, loomed grandly in front of us across the bay; and
+far beyond it, we could just distinguish the coast of Karamania, the
+snow-capped range of Taurus.
+
+The Coasts of Syria might be divided, like those of Guinea, according to
+the nature of their productions. The northern division is bold and bare,
+yet flocks of sheep graze on the slopes of its mountains; and the inland
+plains behind them are covered with orchards of pistachio-trees. Silk is
+cultivated in the neighborhood of Suediah, but forms only a small portion
+of the exports. This region may be called the Wool and Pistachio Coast.
+Southward, from Latakiyeh to Tartus and the northern limit of Lebanon,
+extends the Tobacco Coast, whose undulating hills are now clothed with the
+pale-green leaves of the renowned plant. From Tripoli to Tyre, embracing
+all the western slope of Lebanon, and the deep, rich valleys lying between
+his knees, the mulberry predominates, and the land is covered with the
+houses of thatch and matting which shelter the busy worms. This is the
+Silk Coast. The palmy plains of Jaffa, and beyond, until Syria meets the
+African sands between Gaza and El-Arish, constitute the Orange Coast. The
+vine, the olive, and the fig flourish everywhere.
+
+We were all day getting up the bay, and it seemed as if we should never
+pass Djebel Okrab, whose pointed top rose high above a long belt of fleecy
+clouds that girdled his waist. At sunset we made the mouth of the Orontes.
+Our lion of a Captain tried to run into the river, but the channel was
+very narrow, and when within three hundred yards of the shore the yacht
+struck. We had all sail set, and had the wind been a little stronger, we
+should have capsized in an instant. The lion went manfully to work, and by
+dint of hard poling, shoved us off, and came to anchor in deep water. Not
+until the danger was past did he open his batteries on the unlucky
+helmsman, and then the explosion of Arabic oaths was equal to a broadside
+of twenty-four pounders. We lay all night rocking on the swells, and the
+next morning, by firing a number of signal guns, brought out a boat, which
+took us off. We entered the mouth of the Orontes, and sailed nearly a mile
+between rich wheat meadows before reaching the landing-place of
+Suediah--two or three uninhabited stone huts, with three or four small
+Turkish craft, and a health officer. The town lies a mile or two inland,
+scattered along the hill-side amid gardens so luxuriant as almost to
+conceal it from view.
+
+This part of the coast is ignorant of travellers, and we were obliged to
+wait half a day before we could find a sufficient number of horses to take
+us to Antioch, twenty miles distant. When they came, they were solid
+farmers' horses, with the rudest gear imaginable. I was obliged to mount
+astride of a broad pack-saddle, with my legs suspended in coils of rope.
+Leaving the meadows, we entered a lane of the wildest, richest and
+loveliest bloom and foliage. Our way was overhung with hedges of
+pomegranate, myrtle, oleander, and white rose, in blossom, and
+occasionally with quince, fig, and carob trees, laced together with grape
+vines in fragrant bloom. Sometimes this wilderness of color and odor met
+above our heads and made a twilight; then it opened into long, dazzling,
+sun-bright vistas, where the hues of the oleander, pomegranate and white
+rose made the eye wink with their gorgeous profusion. The mountains we
+crossed were covered with thickets of myrtle, mastic, daphne, and arbutus,
+and all the valleys and sloping meads waved with fig, mulberry, and olive
+trees. Looking towards the sea, the valley broadened out between mountain
+ranges whose summits were lost in the clouds. Though the soil was not so
+rich as in Palestine, the general aspect of the country was much wilder
+and more luxuriant.
+
+So, by this glorious lane, over the myrtled hills and down into valleys,
+whose bed was one hue of rose from the blossoming oleanders, we travelled
+for five hours, crossing the low ranges of hills through which the Orontes
+forces his way to the sea. At last we reached a height overlooking the
+valley of the river, and saw in the east, at the foot of the mountain
+chain, the long lines of barracks built by Ibrahim Pasha for the defence
+of Antioch. Behind them the ancient wall of the city clomb the mountains,
+whose crest it followed to the last peak of the chain, From the next hill
+we saw the city--a large extent of one-story houses with tiled roofs,
+surrounded with gardens, and half buried in the foliage of sycamores. It
+extends from the River Orontes, which washes its walls, up the slope of
+the mountain to the crags of gray rock which overhang it. We crossed the
+river by a massive old bridge, and entered the town. Riding along the
+rills of filth which traverse the streets, forming their central avenues,
+we passed through several lines of bazaars to a large and dreary-looking
+khan, the keeper of which gave us the best vacant chamber--a narrow place,
+full of fleas.
+
+Antioch presents not even a shadow of its former splendor. Except the
+great walls, ten to fifteen miles in circuit, which the Turks have done
+their best to destroy, every vestige of the old city has disappeared. The
+houses are all of one story, on account of earthquakes, from which Antioch
+has suffered more than any other city in the world. At one time, during
+the Middle Ages, it lost 120,000 inhabitants in one day. Its situation is
+magnificent, and the modern town, notwithstanding its filth, wears a
+bright and busy aspect. Situated at the base of a lofty mountain, it
+overlooks, towards the east, a plain thirty or forty miles in length,
+producing the most abundant harvests. A great number of the inhabitants
+are workers in wood and leather, and very thrifty and cheerful people they
+appear to be.
+
+We remained until the next day at noon, by which time a gray-bearded
+scamp, the chief of the _mukkairees_, or muleteers, succeeded in getting
+us five miserable beasts for the journey to Aleppo. On leaving the city,
+we travelled along a former street of Antioch, part of the ancient
+pavement still remaining, and after two miles came to the old wall of
+circuit, which we passed by a massive gateway, of Roman time. It is now
+called _Bab Boulos_, or St. Paul's Gate. Christianity, it will be
+remembered, was planted in Antioch by Paul and Barnabas, and the Apostle
+Peter was the first bishop of the city. We now entered the great plain of
+the Orontes--a level sea, rioting in the wealth of its ripening harvests.
+The river, lined with luxuriant thickets, meandered through the centre of
+this glorious picture. We crossed it during the afternoon, and keeping on
+our eastward course, encamped at night in a meadow near the tents of some
+wandering Turcomans, who furnished us with butter and milk from their
+herds.
+
+Leaving the plain the next morning, we travelled due east all day, over
+long stony ranges of mountains, inclosing only one valley, which bore
+evidence of great fertility. It was circular, about ten miles in its
+greater diameter, and bounded on the north by the broad peak of Djebel
+Saman, or Mount St. Simon. In the morning we passed a ruined castle,
+standing in a dry, treeless dell, among the hot hills. The muleteers
+called it the Maiden's Palace, and said that it was built long ago by a
+powerful Sultan, as a prison for his daughter. For several hours
+thereafter, our road was lined with remains of buildings, apparently
+dating from the time of the Greek Empire. There were tombs, temples of
+massive masonry, though in a bad style of architecture, and long rows of
+arched chambers, which resembled store-houses. They were all more or less
+shattered by earthquakes, but in one place I noticed twenty such arches,
+each of at least twenty feet span. All-the hills, on either hand, as far
+as we could see, were covered with the remains of buildings. In the plain
+of St. Simon, I saw two superb pillars, apparently part of a portico, or
+gateway, and the village of Dana is formed almost entirely of churches and
+convents, of the Lower Empire. There were but few inscriptions, and these
+I could not read; but the whole of this region would, no doubt, richly
+repay an antiquarian research. I am told here that the entire chain of
+hills, which extends southward for more than a hundred miles, abounds with
+similar remains, and that, in many places, whole cities stand almost
+entire, as if recently deserted by their inhabitants.
+
+During the afternoon, we came upon a portion of the ancient road from
+Antioch to Aleppo, which is still as perfect as when first constructed. It
+crossed a very stony ridge, and is much the finest specimen of road-making
+I ever saw, quite putting to shame the Appian and Flaminian Ways at Rome.
+It is twenty feet wide, and laid with blocks of white marble, from two to
+four feet square. It was apparently raised upon a more ancient road, which
+diverges here and there from the line, showing the deeply-cut traces of
+the Roman chariot-wheels. In the barren depths of the mountains we found
+every hour cisterns cut in the rock and filled with water left by the
+winter rains. Many of them, however, are fast drying up, and a month later
+this will be a desert road.
+
+Towards night we descended from the hills upon the Plain of Keftin, which
+stretches south-westward from Aleppo, till the mountain-streams which
+fertilize it are dried up, when it is merged into the Syrian Desert. Its
+northern edge, along which we travelled, is covered with fields of wheat,
+cotton, and castor-beans. We stopped all night at a village called Taireb,
+planted at the foot of a tumulus, older than tradition. The people were
+in great dread of the Aneyzeh Arabs, who come in from the Desert to
+destroy their harvests and carry off their cattle. They wanted us to take
+a guard, but after our experience on the Anti-Lebanon, we felt safer
+without one.
+
+Yesterday we travelled for seven hours over a wide, rolling country, now
+waste and barren, but formerly covered with wealth and supporting an
+abundant population, evidences of which are found in the buildings
+everywhere scattered over the hills. On and on we toiled in the heat, over
+this inhospitable wilderness, and though we knew Aleppo must be very near,
+yet we could see neither sign of cultivation nor inhabitants. Finally,
+about three o'clock, the top of a line of shattered wall and the points of
+some minarets issued out of the earth, several miles in front of us, and
+on climbing a glaring chalky ridge, the renowned city burst at once upon
+our view. It filled a wide hollow or basin among the white hills, against
+which its whiter houses and domes glimmered for miles, in the dead, dreary
+heat of the afternoon, scarcely relieved by the narrow belt of gardens on
+the nearer side, or the orchards of pistachio trees beyond. In the centre
+of the city rose a steep, abrupt mound, crowned with the remains of the
+ancient citadel, and shining minarets shot up, singly or in clusters,
+around its base. The prevailing hue of the landscape was a whitish-gray,
+and the long, stately city and long, monotonous hills, gleamed with equal
+brilliancy under a sky of cloudless and intense blue. This singular
+monotony of coloring gave a wonderful effect to the view, which is one of
+the most remarkable in all the Orient.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV.
+
+Life in Aleppo.
+
+
+  Our Entry into Aleppo--We are conducted to a House--Our Unexpected
+  Welcome--The Mystery Explained--Aleppo--Its Name--Its Situation--The
+  Trade of Aleppo--The Christians--The Revolt of 1850--Present Appearance
+  of the City--Visit to Osman Pasha--The Citadel--View from the
+  Battlements--Society in Aleppo--Etiquette and Costume--Jewish Marriage
+  Festivities--A Christian Marriage Procession--Ride around the
+  Town--Nightingales--The Aleppo Button--A Hospital for Cats--Ferhat
+  Pasha.
+
+
+Aleppo, _Tuesday, June_ 8, 1852.
+
+Our entry into Aleppo was a fitting preliminary to our experiences during
+the five days we have spent here. After passing a blackamoor, who acted as
+an advanced guard of the Custom House, at a ragged tent outside of the
+city, and bribing him with two piastres, we crossed the narrow line of
+gardens on the western side, and entered the streets. There were many
+coffee-houses, filled with smokers, nearly all of whom accosted us in
+Turkish, though Arabic is the prevailing language here. Ignorance made us
+discourteous, and we slighted every attempt to open a conversation. Out of
+the narrow streets of the suburbs, we advanced to the bazaars, in order to
+find a khan where we could obtain lodgings. All the best khans, however,
+were filled, and we were about to take a very inferior room, when a
+respectable individual came up to François and said: "The house is ready
+for the travellers, and I will show you the way." We were a little
+surprised at this address, but followed him to a neat, quiet and pleasant
+street near the bazaars, where we were ushered into a spacious court-yard,
+with a row of apartments opening upon it, and told to make ourselves at
+home.
+
+The place had evidently been recently inhabited, for the rooms were well
+furnished, with not only divans, but beds in the Frank style. A lean
+kitten was scratching at one of the windows, to the great danger of
+overturning a pair of narghilehs, a tame sea-gull was walking about the
+court, and two sheep bleated in a stable at the further end. In the
+kitchen we not only found a variety of utensils, but eggs, salt, pepper,
+and other condiments. Our guide had left, and the only information we
+could get, from a dyeing establishment next door, was that the occupants
+had gone into the country. "Take the good the gods provide thee," is my
+rule in such cases, and as we were very hungry, we set François to work at
+preparing dinner. We arranged a divan in the open air, had a table brought
+out, and by the aid of the bakers in the bazaar, and the stores which the
+kitchen supplied, soon rejoiced over a very palatable meal. The romantic
+character of our reception made the dinner a merry one. It was a chapter
+out of the Arabian Nights, and be he genie or afrite, caliph or merchant
+of Bassora, into whose hands we had fallen, we resolved to let the
+adventure take its course. We were just finishing a nondescript pastry
+which François found at a baker's, and which, for want of a better name,
+he called _méringues à la Khorassan,_ when there was a loud knock at the
+street door. We felt at first some little trepidation, but determined to
+maintain our places, and gravely invite the real master to join us.
+
+It was a female servant, however, who, to our great amazement, made a
+profound salutation, and seemed delighted to see us. "My master did not
+expect your Excellencies to-day; he has gone into the gardens, but will
+soon return. Will your Excellencies take coffee after your dinner?" and
+coffee was forthwith served. The old woman was unremitting in her
+attentions; and her son, a boy of eight years, and the most venerable
+child I ever saw, entertained us with the description of a horse which his
+master had just bought--a horse which had cost two thousand piastres, and
+was ninety years old. Well, this Aleppo is an extraordinary place, was my
+first impression, and the inhabitants are remarkable people; but I waited
+the master's arrival, as the only means of solving the mystery. About
+dusk, there was another rap at the door. A lady dressed in white, with an
+Indian handkerchief bound over her black hair, arrived. "Pray excuse us,"
+said she; "we thought you would not reach here before to-morrow; but my
+brother will come directly." In fact, the brother did come soon
+afterwards, and greeted us with a still warmer welcome. "Before leaving
+the gardens," he said, "I heard of your arrival, and have come in a full
+gallop the whole way." In order to put an end to this comedy of errors, I
+declared at once that he was mistaken; nobody in Aleppo could possibly
+know of our coming, and we were, perhaps, transgressing on his
+hospitality. But no: he would not be convinced. He was a dragoman to the
+English Consulate; his master had told him we would be here the next day,
+and he must be prepared to receive us. Besides, the janissary of the
+Consulate had showed us the way to his house. We, therefore, let the
+matter rest until next morning, when we called on Mr. Very, the Consul,
+who informed us that the janissary had mistaken us for two gentlemen we
+had met in Damascus, the travelling companions of Lord Dalkeith. As they
+had not arrived, he begged us to remain in the quarters which had been
+prepared for them. We have every reason to be glad of this mistake, as it
+has made us acquainted with one of the most courteous and hospitable
+gentlemen in the East.
+
+Aleppo lies so far out of the usual routes of travel, that it is rarely
+visited by Europeans. One is not, therefore, as in the case of Damascus,
+prepared beforehand by volumes of description, which preclude all
+possibility of mistake or surprise. For my part, I only knew that Aleppo
+had once been the greatest commercial city of the Orient, though its power
+had long since passed into other hands. But there were certain stately
+associations lingering around the name, which drew me towards it, and
+obliged me to include it, at all hazards, in my Asiatic tour. The scanty
+description of Captains Irby and Mangles, the only one I had read, gave me
+no distinct idea of its position or appearance; and when, the other day, I
+first saw it looming grand and gray among the gray hills, more like a vast
+natural crystallization than the product of human art, I revelled in the
+novelty of that startling first impression.
+
+The tradition of the city's name is curious, and worth relating. It is
+called, in Arabic, _Haleb el-Shahba_--Aleppo, the Gray--which most persons
+suppose to refer to the prevailing color of the soil. The legend, however,
+goes much farther. _Haleb_, which the Venetians and Genoese softened into
+Aleppo, means literally: "has milked," According to Arab tradition, the
+patriarch Abraham once lived here: his tent being pitched near the mound
+now occupied by the citadel. He had a certain gray cow (_el-shahba_)
+which was milked every morning for the benefit of the poor. When,
+therefore, it was proclaimed: "_Ibrahim haleb el-shahba_" (Abraham has
+milked the gray cow), all the poor of the tribe came up to receive their
+share. The repetition of this morning call attached itself to the spot,
+and became the name of the city which was afterwards founded.
+
+Aleppo is built on the eastern slope of a shallow upland basin, through
+which flows the little River Koweik. There are low hills to the north and
+south, between which the country falls into a wide, monotonous plain,
+extending unbroken to the Euphrates. The city is from eight to ten miles
+in circuit, and, though not so thickly populated, covers a greater extent
+of space than Damascus. The population is estimated at 100,000. In the
+excellence (not the elegance) of its architecture, it surpasses any
+Oriental city I have yet seen. The houses are all of hewn stone,
+frequently three and even four stories in height, and built in a most
+massive and durable style, on account of the frequency of earthquakes. The
+streets are well paved, clean, with narrow sidewalks, and less tortuous
+and intricate than the bewildering alleys of Damascus. A large part of the
+town is occupied with bazaars, attesting the splendor of its former
+commerce. These establishments are covered with lofty vaults of stone,
+lighted from the top; and one may walk for miles beneath the spacious
+roofs. The shops exhibit all the stuffs of the East, especially of Persia
+and India. There is also an extensive display of European fabrics, as the
+eastern provinces of Asiatic Turkey, as far as Baghdad, are supplied
+entirely from Aleppo and Trebizond.
+
+Within ten years--in fact, since the Allied Powers drove Ibrahim Pasha
+out of Syria--the trade of Aleppo has increased, at the expense of
+Damascus. The tribes of the Desert, who were held in check during the
+Egyptian occupancy, are now so unruly that much of the commerce between
+the latter place and Baghdad goes northward to Mosul, and thence by a
+safer road to this city. The khans, of which there are a great number,
+built on a scale according with the former magnificence of Aleppo, are
+nearly all filled, and Persian, Georgian, and Armenian merchants again
+make their appearance in the bazaars. The principal manufactures carried
+on are the making of shoes (which, indeed, is a prominent branch in every
+Turkish city), and the weaving of silk and golden tissues. Two long
+bazaars are entirely occupied with shoe-shops, and there is nearly a
+quarter of a mile of confectionery, embracing more varieties than I ever
+saw, or imagined possible. I saw yesterday the operation of weaving silk
+and gold, which is a very slow process. The warp and the body of the woof
+were of purple silk. The loom only differed from the old hand-looms in
+general use in having some thirty or forty contrivances for lifting the
+threads of the warp, so as to form, by variation, certain patterns. The
+gold threads by which the pattern was worked were contained in twenty
+small shuttles, thrust by hand under the different parcels of the warp, as
+they were raised by a boy trained for that purpose, who sat on the top of
+the loom. The fabric was very brilliant in its appearance, and sells, as
+the weavers informed me, at 100 piastres per _pik_--about $7 per yard.
+
+We had letters to Mr. Ford, an American Missionary established here, and
+Signor di Picciotto, who acts as American Vice-Consul. Both gentlemen have
+been very cordial in their offers of service, and by their aid we have
+been enabled to see something of Aleppo life and society. Mr. Ford, who
+has been here four years, has a pleasant residence at Jedaida, a Christian
+suburb of the city. His congregation numbers some fifty or sixty
+proselytes, who are mostly from the schismatic sects of the Armenians. Dr.
+Smith, who established the mission at Ain-tab (two days' journey north of
+this), where he died last year, was very successful among these sects, and
+the congregation there amounts to nine hundred. The Sultan, a year ago,
+issued a firman, permitting his Christian subjects to erect houses of
+worship; but, although this was proclaimed in Constantinople and much
+lauded in Europe as an act of great generosity and tolerance, there has
+been no official promulgation of it here. So of the aid which the Turkish
+Government was said to have afforded to its destitute Christian subjects,
+whose houses were sacked during the fanatical rebellion of 1850. The world
+praised the Sultan's charity and love of justice, while the sufferers, to
+this day, lack the first experience of it. But for the spontaneous relief
+contributed in Europe and among the Christian communities of the Levant,
+the amount of misery would have been frightful.
+
+To Feridj Pasha, who is at present the commander of the forces here, is
+mainly due the credit of having put down the rebels with a strong hand.
+There were but few troops in the city at the time of the outbreak, and as
+the insurgents, who were composed of the Turkish and Arab population, were
+in league with the Aneyzehs of the Desert, the least faltering or delay
+would have led to a universal massacre of the Christians. Fortunately, the
+troops were divided into two portions, one occupying the barracks on a
+hill north of the city, and the other, a mere corporal's guard of a dozen
+men, posted in the citadel. The leaders of the outbreak went to the latter
+and offered him a large sum of money (the spoils of Christian houses) to
+give up the fortress. With a loyalty to his duty truly miraculous among
+the Turks, he ordered his men to fire upon them, and they beat a hasty
+retreat. The quarter of the insurgents lay precisely between the barracks
+and the citadel, and by order of Feridj Pasha a cannonade was immediately
+opened on it from both points. It was not, however, until many houses had
+been battered down, and a still larger number destroyed by fire, that the
+rebels were brought to submission. Their allies, the Aneyzehs, appeared on
+the hill east of Aleppo, to the number of five or six thousand, but a few
+well-directed cannon-balls told them what they might expect, and they
+speedily retreated. Two or three hundred Christian families lost nearly
+all of their property during the sack, and many were left entirely
+destitute. The house in which Mr. Ford lives was plundered of jewels and
+furniture to the amount of 400,000 piastres ($20,000). The robbers, it is
+said, were amazed at the amount of spoil they found. The Government made
+some feeble efforts to recover it, but the greater part was already sold
+and scattered through a thousand hands, and the unfortunate Christians
+have only received about seven per cent. of their loss.
+
+The burnt quarter has since been rebuilt, and I noticed several Christians
+occupying shops in various parts of it. But many families, who fled at the
+time, still remain in various parts of Syria, afraid to return to their
+homes. The Aneyzehs and other Desert tribes have latterly become more
+daring than ever. Even in the immediate neighborhood of the city, the
+inhabitants are so fearful of them that all the grain is brought up to
+the very walls to be threshed. The burying-grounds on both sides are now
+turned into threshing-floors, and all day long the Turkish peasants drive
+their heavy sleds around among the tomb-stones.
+
+On the second day after our arrival, we paid a visit to Osman Pasha,
+Governor of the City and Province of Aleppo. We went in state, accompanied
+by the Consul, with two janissaries in front, bearing silver maces, and a
+dragoman behind. The _seraï_, or palace, is a large, plain wooden
+building, and a group of soldiers about the door, with a shabby carriage
+in the court, were the only tokens of its character. We were ushered at
+once into the presence of the Pasha, who is a man of about seventy years,
+with a good-humored, though shrewd face. He was quite cordial in his
+manners, complimenting us on our Turkish costume, and vaunting his skill
+in physiognomy, which at once revealed to him that we belonged to the
+highest class of American nobility. In fact, in the firman which he has
+since sent us, we are mentioned as "nobles." He invited us to pass a day
+or two with him, saying that he should derive much benefit from our
+superior knowledge. We replied that such an intercourse could only benefit
+ourselves, as his greater experience, and the distinguished wisdom which
+had made his name long since familiar to our ears, precluded the hope of
+our being of any service to him. After half an hour's stay, during which
+we were regaled with jewelled pipes, exquisite Mocha coffee, and sherbet
+breathing of the gardens of Gülistan, we took our leave.
+
+The Pasha sent an officer to show us the citadel. We passed around the
+moat to the entrance on the western side, consisting of a bridge and
+double gateway. The fortress, as I have already stated, occupies the crest
+of an elliptical mound, about one thousand feet by six hundred, and two
+hundred feet in height. It is entirely encompassed by the city and forms a
+prominent and picturesque feature in the distant view thereof. Formerly,
+it was thickly inhabited, and at the time of the great earthquake of 1822,
+there were three hundred families living within the walls, nearly all of
+whom perished. The outer walls were very much shattered on that occasion,
+but the enormous towers and the gateway, the grandest specimen of
+Saracenic architecture in the East, still remain entire. This gateway, by
+which we entered, is colossal in its proportions. The outer entrance,
+through walls ten feet thick, admitted us into a lofty vestibule lined
+with marble, and containing many ancient inscriptions in mosaic. Over the
+main portal, which is adorned with sculptured lions' heads, there is a
+tablet stating that the fortress was built by El Melek el Ashraf (the
+Holiest of Kings), after which follows: "Prosperity to the True
+Believers--Death to the Infidels!" A second tablet shows that it was
+afterwards repaired by Mohammed ebn-Berkook, who, I believe, was one of
+the Fatimite Caliphs. The shekh of the citadel, who accompanied us, stated
+the age of the structure at nine hundred years, which, as nearly as I can
+recollect the Saracenic chronology, is correct. He called our attention to
+numbers of iron arrow-heads sticking in the solid masonry--the marks of
+ancient sieges. Before leaving, we were presented with a bundle of arrows
+from the armory--undoubted relics of Saracen warfare.
+
+The citadel is now a mass of ruins, having been deserted since the
+earthquake. Grass is growing on the ramparts, and the caper plant, with
+its white-and-purple blossoms, flourishes among the piles of rubbish.
+Since the late rebellion, however, a small military barrack has been
+built, and two companies of soldiers are stationed there, We walked around
+the walls, which command a magnificent view of the city and the wide
+plains to the south and east. It well deserves to rank with the panorama
+of Cairo from the citadel, and that of Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon, in
+extent, picturesqueness and rich oriental character. Out of the gray ring
+of the city, which incloses the mound, rise the great white domes and the
+whiter minarets of its numerous mosques, many of which are grand and
+imposing structures. The course of the river through the centre of the
+picture is marked by a belt of the greenest verdure, beyond which, to the
+west, rises a chain of naked red hills, and still further, fading on the
+horizon, the blue summit of Mt. St. Simon, and the coast range of Akma
+Dagh. Eastward, over vast orchards of pistachio trees, the barren plain of
+the Euphrates fades away to a glimmering, hot horizon. Looking downwards
+on the heart of the city, I was surprised to see a number of open, grassy
+tracts, out of which, here and there, small trees were growing. But,
+perceiving what appeared to be subterranean entrances at various points, I
+found that these tracts were upon the roofs of the houses and bazaars,
+verifying what I had frequently heard, that in Aleppo the inhabitants
+visit their friends in different parts of the city, by passing over the
+roofs of the houses. Previous to the earthquake of 1822, these vast
+roof-plains were cultivated as gardens, and presented an extent of airy
+bowers as large, if not as magnificent, as the renowned Hanging Gardens of
+ancient Babylon.
+
+Accompanied by Signor di Picciotto, we spent two or three days in
+visiting the houses of the principal Jewish and Christian families in
+Aleppo. We found, it is true, no such splendor as in Damascus, but more
+solid and durable architecture, and a more chastened elegance of taste.
+The buildings are all of hewn stone, the court-yards paved with marble,
+and the walls rich with gilding and carved wood. Some of the larger
+dwellings have small but beautiful gardens attached to them. We were
+everywhere received with the greatest hospitality, and the visits were
+considered as a favor rather than an intrusion. Indeed, I was frequently
+obliged to run the risk of giving offence, by declining the refreshments
+which were offered us. Each round of visits was a feat of strength, and we
+were obliged to desist from sheer inability to support more coffee,
+rose-water, pipes, and aromatic sweetmeats. The character of society in
+Aleppo is singular; its very life and essence is etiquette. The laws which
+govern it are more inviolable than those of the Medes and Persians. The
+question of precedence among the different families is adjusted by the
+most delicate scale, and rigorously adhered to in the most trifling
+matters. Even we, humble voyagers as we are, have been obliged to regulate
+our conduct according to it. After our having visited certain families,
+certain others would have been deeply mortified had we neglected to call
+upon them. Formerly, when a traveller arrived here, he was expected to
+call upon the different Consuls, in the order of their established
+precedence: the Austrian first, English second, French third, &c. After
+this, he was obliged to stay at home several days, to give the Consuls an
+opportunity of returning the visits, which they made in the same order.
+There was a diplomatic importance about all his movements, and the least
+violation of etiquette, through ignorance or neglect, was the town talk
+for days.
+
+This peculiarity in society is evidently a relic of the formal times, when
+Aleppo was a semi-Venetian city, and the opulent seat of Eastern commerce.
+Many of the inhabitants are descended from the traders of those times, and
+they all speak the _lingua franca_, or Levantine Italian. The women wear a
+costume partly Turkish and partly European, combining the graces of both;
+it is, in my eyes, the most beautiful dress in the world. They wear a rich
+scarf of some dark color on the head, which, on festive occasions, is
+almost concealed by their jewels, and the heavy scarlet pomegranate
+blossoms which adorn their dark hair. A Turkish vest and sleeves of
+embroidered silk, open in front, and a skirt of white or some light color,
+completes the costume. The Jewesses wear in addition a short Turkish
+_caftan_, and full trousers gathered at the ankles. At a ball given by Mr.
+Very, the English Consul, which we attended, all the Christian beauties of
+Aleppo were present. There was a fine display of diamonds, many of the
+ladies wearing several thousand dollars' worth on their heads. The
+peculiar etiquette of the place was again illustrated on this occasion.
+The custom is, that the music must be heard for at least one hour before
+the guests come. The hour appointed was eight, but when we went there, at
+nine, nobody had arrived. As it was generally supposed that the ball was
+given on our account, several of the families had servants in the
+neighborhood to watch our arrival; and, accordingly, we had not been there
+five minutes before the guests crowded through the door in large numbers.
+When the first dance (an Arab dance, performed by two ladies at a time)
+was proposed, the wives of the French and Spanish Consuls were first led,
+or rather dragged, out. When a lady is asked to dance, she invariably
+refuses. She is asked a second and a third time; and if the gentleman does
+not solicit most earnestly, and use some gentle force in getting her upon
+the floor, she never forgives him.
+
+At one of the Jewish houses which we visited, the wedding festivities of
+one of the daughters were being celebrated. We were welcomed with great
+cordiality, and immediately ushered into the room of state, an elegant
+apartment, overlooking the gardens below the city wall. Half the room was
+occupied by a raised platform, with a divan of blue silk cushions. Here
+the ladies reclined, in superb dresses of blue, pink, and gold, while the
+gentlemen were ranged on the floor below. They all rose at our entrance,
+and we were conducted to seats among the ladies. Pipes and perfumed drinks
+were served, and the bridal cake, made of twenty-six different fruits, was
+presented on a golden salver. Our fair neighbors, some of whom literally
+blazed with jewels, were strikingly beautiful. Presently the bride
+appeared at the door, and we all rose and remained standing, as she
+advanced, supported on each side by the two _shebeeniyeh_, or bridesmaids.
+She was about sixteen, slight and graceful in appearance, though not
+decidedly beautiful, and was attired with the utmost elegance. Her dress
+was a pale blue silk, heavy with gold embroidery; and over her long dark
+hair, her neck, bosom, and wrists, played a thousand rainbow gleams from
+the jewels which covered them. The Jewish musicians, seated at the bottom
+of the hall, struck up a loud, rejoicing harmony on their violins,
+guitars, and dulcimers, and the women servants, grouped at the door,
+uttered in chorus that wild, shrill cry, which accompanies all such
+festivals in the East. The bride was careful to preserve the decorum
+expected of her, by speaking no word, nor losing the sad, resigned
+expression of her countenance. She ascended to the divan, bowed to each of
+us with a low, reverential inclination, and seated herself on the
+cushions. The music and dances lasted some time, accompanied by the
+_zughàreet_, or cry of the women, which was repeated with double force
+when we rose to take leave. The whole company waited on us to the street
+door, and one of the servants, stationed in the court, shouted some long,
+sing-song phrases after us as we passed out. I could not learn the words,
+but was told that it was an invocation of prosperity upon us, in return
+for the honor which our visit had conferred.
+
+In the evening I went to view a Christian marriage procession, which,
+about midnight, conveyed the bride to the house of the bridegroom. The
+house, it appeared, was too small to receive all the friends of the
+family, and I joined a large number of them, who repaired to the terrace
+of the English Consulate, to greet the procession as it passed. The first
+persons who appeared were a company of buffoons; after them four
+janissaries, carrying silver maces; then the male friends, bearing colored
+lanterns and perfumed torches, raised on gilded poles; then the females,
+among whom I saw some beautiful Madonna faces in the torchlight; and
+finally the bride herself, covered from head to foot with a veil of cloth
+of gold, and urged along by two maidens: for it is the etiquette of such
+occasions that the bride should resist being taken, and must be forced
+every step of the way, so that she is frequently three hours in going the
+distance of a mile. We watched the procession a long time, winding away
+through the streets--a line of torches, and songs, and incense, and noisy
+jubilee--under the sweet starlit heaven.
+
+The other evening, Signor di Picciotto mounted us from his fine Arabian
+stud, and we rode around the city, outside of the suburbs. The sun was
+low, and a pale yellow lustre touched the clusters of minarets that rose
+out of the stately masses of buildings, and the bare, chalky hills to the
+north. After leaving the gardens on the banks of the Koweik, we came upon
+a dreary waste of ruins, among which the antiquarian finds traces of the
+ancient Aleppo of the Greeks, the Mongolian conquerors of the Middle Ages,
+and the Saracens who succeeded them. There are many mosques and tombs,
+which were once imposing specimens of Saracenic art; but now, split and
+shivered by wars and earthquakes, are slowly tumbling into utter decay. On
+the south-eastern side of the city, its chalk foundations have been
+hollowed into vast, arched caverns, which extend deep into the earth.
+Pillars have been left at regular intervals, to support the masses above,
+and their huge, dim labyrinths resemble the crypts of some great
+cathedral. They are now used as rope-walks, and filled with cheerful
+workmen.
+
+Our last excursion was to a country-house of Signor di Picciotto, in the
+Gardens of Babala, about four miles from Aleppo. We set out in the
+afternoon on our Arabians, with our host's son on a large white donkey of
+the Baghdad breed. Passing the Turkish cemetery, where we stopped to view
+the tomb of General Bem, we loosened rein and sped away at full gallop
+over the hot, white hills. In dashing down a stony rise, the ambitious
+donkey, who was doing his best to keep up with the horses, fell, hurling
+Master Picciotto over his head. The boy was bruised a little, but set his
+teeth together and showed no sign of pain, mounted again, and followed
+us. The Gardens of Babala are a wilderness of fruit-trees, like those of
+Damascus. Signor P.'s country-house is buried in a wild grove of apricot,
+fig, orange, and pomegranate-trees. A large marble tank, in front of the
+open, arched _liwan_, supplies it with water. We mounted to the flat roof,
+and watched the sunset fade from the beautiful landscape. Beyond the
+bowers of dazzling greenness which surrounded us, stretched the wide, gray
+hills; the minarets of Aleppo, and the walls of its castled mount shone
+rosily in the last rays of the sun; an old palace of the Pashas, with the
+long, low barracks of the soldiery, crowned the top of a hill to the
+north; dark, spiry cypresses betrayed the place of tombs; and, to the
+west, beyond the bare red peak of Mount St. Simon, rose the faint blue
+outline of Giaour Dagh, whose mural chain divides Syria from the plains of
+Cilicia. As the twilight deepened over the scene, there came a long,
+melodious cry of passion and of sorrow from the heart of a starry-flowered
+pomegranate tree in the garden. Other voices answered it from the gardens
+around, until not one, but fifty nightingales charmed the repose of the
+hour. They vied with each other in their bursts of passionate music. Each
+strain soared over the last, or united with others, near and far, in a
+chorus of the divinest pathos--an expression of sweet, unutterable,
+unquenchable longing. It was an ecstasy, yet a pain, to listen. "Away!"
+said Jean Paul to Music: "thou tellest me of that which I have not, and
+never can have--which I forever seek, and never find!"
+
+But space fails me to describe half the incidents of our stay in Aleppo.
+There are two things peculiar to the city, however, which I must not omit
+mentioning. One is the Aleppo Button, a singular ulcer, which attacks
+every person born in the city, and every stranger who spends more than a
+month there. It can neither be prevented nor cured, and always lasts for a
+year. The inhabitants almost invariably have it on the face--either on the
+cheek, forehead, or tip of the nose--where it often leaves an indelible
+and disfiguring scar. Strangers, on the contrary, have it on one of the
+joints; either the elbow, wrist, knee, or ankle. So strictly is its
+visitation confined to the city proper, that in none of the neighboring
+villages, nor even in a distant suburb, is it known. Physicians have
+vainly attempted to prevent it by inoculation, and are at a loss to what
+cause to ascribe it. We are liable to have it, even after five days' stay;
+but I hope it will postpone its appearance until after I reach home.
+
+The other remarkable thing here is the Hospital for Cats. This was founded
+long ago by a rich, cat-loving Mussulman, and is one of the best endowed
+institutions in the city. An old mosque is appropriated to the purpose,
+under the charge of several directors; and here sick cats are nursed,
+homeless cats find shelter, and decrepit cats gratefully purr away their
+declining years. The whole category embraces several hundreds, and it is
+quite a sight to behold the court, the corridors, and terraces of the
+mosque swarming with them. Here, one with a bruised limb is receiving a
+cataplasm; there, a cataleptic patient is tenderly cared for; and so on,
+through the long concatenation of feline diseases. Aleppo, moreover,
+rejoices in a greater number of cats than even Jerusalem. At a rough
+guess, I should thus state the population of the city: Turks and Arabs,
+70,000; Christians of all denominations, 15,000; Jews, 10,000; dogs,
+12,000; and cats, 8,000.
+
+Among other persons whom I have met here, is Ferhat Pasha, formerly
+General Stein, Hungarian Minister of War, and Governor of Transylvania. He
+accepted Moslemism with Bem and others, and now rejoices in his
+circumcision and 7,000 piastres a month. He is a fat, companionable sort
+of man; who, by his own confession, never labored very zealously for the
+independence of Hungary, being an Austrian by birth. He conversed with me
+for several hours on the scenes in which he had participated, and
+attributed the failure of the Hungarians to the want of material means.
+General Bem, who died here, is spoken of with the utmost respect, both by
+Turks and Christians. The former have honored him with a large tomb, or
+mausoleum, covered with a dome.
+
+But I must close, leaving half unsaid. Suffice it to say that no Oriental
+city has interested me so profoundly as Aleppo, and in none have I
+received such universal and cordial hospitality. We leave to-morrow for
+Asia Minor, having engaged men and horses for the whole route to
+Constantinople.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI.
+
+Through the Syrian Gates.
+
+
+  An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
+  Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
+  Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
+  Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
+  Town--A Land of Gardens.
+
+
+  "Mountains, on whose barren breast
+  The lab'ring clouds do often rest."
+
+  Milton.
+
+
+In Quarantine (Adana, Asia Minor), _Tuesday, June_ 15, 1852.
+
+We left Aleppo on the morning of the 9th, under circumstances not the most
+promising for the harmony of our journey. We had engaged horses and
+baggage-mules from the _capidji_, or chief of the muleteers, and in order
+to be certain of having animals that would not break down on the way, made
+a particular selection from a number that were brought us. When about
+leaving the city, however, we discovered that one of the horses had been
+changed. Signor di Picciotto, who accompanied us past the Custom-House
+barriers, immediately dispatched the delinquent muleteer to bring back the
+true horse, and the latter made a farce of trying to find him, leading the
+Consul and the capidji (who, I believe, was at the bottom of the cheat) a
+wild-goose chase over the hills around Aleppo, where of course, the animal
+was not to be seen. When, at length, we had waited three hours, and had
+wandered about four miles from the city, we gave up the search, took leave
+of the Consul and went on with the new horse. Our proper plan would have
+been to pitch the tent and refuse to move till the matter was settled. The
+animal, as we discovered during the first day's journey, was hopelessly
+lame, and we only added to the difficulty by taking him.
+
+We rode westward all day over barren and stony hills, meeting with
+abundant traces of the power and prosperity of this region during the
+times of the Greek Emperors. The nevastation wrought by earthquakes has
+been terrible; there is scarcely a wall or arch standing, which does not
+bear marks of having been violently shaken. The walls inclosing the
+fig-orchards near the villages contain many stones with Greek
+inscriptions, and fragments of cornices. We encamped the first night on
+the plain at the foot of Mount St. Simon, and not far from the ruins of
+the celebrated Church of the same name. The building stands in a stony
+wilderness at the foot of the mountain. It is about a hundred feet long
+and thirty in height, with two lofty square towers in front. The pavement
+of the interior is entirely concealed by the masses of pillars, capitals,
+and hewn blocks that lie heaped upon it. The windows, which are of the
+tall, narrow, arched form, common in Byzantine Churches, have a common
+moulding which falls like a mantle over and between them. The general
+effect of the Church is very fine, though there is much inelegance in the
+sculptured details. At the extremity is a half-dome of massive stone, over
+the place of the altar, and just in front of this formerly stood the
+pedestal whereon, according to tradition, St. Simeon Stylites commenced
+his pillar-life. I found a recent excavation at the spot, but no
+pedestal, which has probably been carried off by the Greek monks. Beside
+the Church stands a large building, with an upper and lower balcony,
+supported by square stone pillars, around three sides. There is also a
+paved court-yard, a large cistern cut in the rock and numerous
+out-buildings, all going to confirm the supposition of its having been a
+monastery. The main building is three stories high, with pointed gables,
+and bears a strong resemblance to an American summer hotel, with verandas.
+Several ancient fig and walnut trees are growing among the ruins, and add
+to their picturesque appearance.
+
+The next day we crossed a broad chain of hills to the Plain of Antioch,
+which we reached near its northern extremity. In one of the valleys
+through which the road lay, we saw a number of hot sulphur springs, some
+of them of a considerable volume of water. Not far from them was a
+beautiful fountain of fresh and cold water gushing from the foot of a high
+rock. Soon after reaching the plain, we crossed the stream of Kara Su,
+which feeds the Lake of Antioch. This part of the plain is low and swampy,
+and the streams are literally alive with fish. While passing over the
+bridge I saw many hundreds, from one to two feet in length. We wandered
+through the marshy meadows for two or three hours, and towards sunset
+reached a Turcoman encampment, where the ground was dry enough to pitch
+our tents. The rude tribe received us hospitably, and sent us milk and
+cheese in abundance. I visited the tent of the Shekh, who was very
+courteous, but as he knew no language but Turkish, our conversation was
+restricted to signs. The tent was of camel's-hair cloth, spacious, and
+open at the sides. A rug was spread for me, and the Shekh's wife brought
+me a pipe of tolerable tobacco. The household were seated upon the
+ground, chatting pleasantly with one another, and apparently not in the
+least disturbed by my presence. One of the Shekh's sons, who was deaf and
+dumb, came and sat before me, and described by very expressive signs the
+character of the road to Scanderoon. He gave me to understand that there
+were robbers in the mountains, with many grim gestures descriptive of
+stabbing and firing muskets.
+
+The mosquitoes were so thick during the night that we were obliged to fill
+the tent with smoke in order to sleep. When morning came, we fancied there
+would be a relief for us, but it only brought a worse pest, in the shape
+of swarms of black gnats, similar to those which so tormented me in Nubia.
+I know of no infliction so terrible as these gnats, which you cannot drive
+away, and which assail ears, eyes, and nostrils in such quantities that
+you become mad and desperate in your efforts to eject them. Through glens
+filled with oleander, we ascended the first slopes of Akma Dagh, the
+mountain range which divides the Gulf of Scanderoon from the Plain of
+Antioch. Then, passing a natural terrace, covered with groves of oak, our
+road took the mountain side, climbing upwards in the shadow of pine and
+wild olive trees, and between banks of blooming lavender and myrtle. We
+saw two or three companies of armed guards, stationed by the road-side,
+for the mountain is infested with robbers, and a caravan had been
+plundered only three days before. The view, looking backward, took in the
+whole plain, with the Lake of Antioch glittering in the centre, the valley
+of the Orontes in the south, and the lofty cone of Djebel-Okrab far to the
+west. As we approached the summit, violent gusts of wind blew through the
+pass with such force as almost to overturn our horses. Here the road from
+Antioch joins that from Aleppo, and both for some distance retain the
+ancient pavement.
+
+From the western side we saw the sea once more, and went down through the
+_Pylæ Syriæ_, or Syrian Gates, as this defile was called by the Romans. It
+is very narrow and rugged, with an abrupt descent. In an hour from the
+summit we came upon an aqueduct of a triple row of arches, crossing the
+gorge. It is still used to carry water to the town of Beilan, which hangs
+over the mouth of the pass, half a mile below. This is one of the most
+picturesque spots in Syria. The houses cling to the sides and cluster on
+the summits of precipitous crags, and every shelf of soil, every crevice
+where a tree can thrust its roots, upholds a mass of brilliant vegetation.
+Water is the life of the place. It gushes into the street from exhaustless
+fountains; it trickles from the terraces in showers of misty drops; it
+tumbles into the gorge in sparkling streams; and everywhere it nourishes a
+life as bright and beautiful as its own. The fruit trees are of enormous
+size, and the crags are curtained with a magnificent drapery of vines.
+This green gateway opens suddenly upon another, cut through a glittering
+mass of micaceous rock, whence one looks down on the town and Gulf of
+Scanderoon, the coast of Karamania beyond, and the distant snows of the
+Taurus. We descended through groves of pine and oak, and in three hours
+more reached the shore.
+
+Scanderoon is the most unhealthy place on the Syrian Coast, owing to the
+malaria from a marsh behind it. The inhabitants are a wretched pallid set,
+who are visited every year with devastating fevers. The marsh was partly
+drained some forty years ago by the Turkish government, and a few
+thousand dollars would be sufficient to remove it entirely, and make the
+place--which is of some importance as the seaport of Aleppo--healthy and
+habitable. At present, there are not five hundred inhabitants, and half of
+these consist of the Turkish garrison and the persons attached to the
+different Vice-Consulates. The streets are depositories of filth, and
+pools of stagnant water, on all sides, exhale the most fetid odors. Near
+the town are the ruins of a castle built by Godfrey of Bouillon. We
+marched directly down to the sea-shore, and pitched our tent close beside
+the waves, as the place most free from malaria. There were a dozen vessels
+at anchor in the road, and one of them proved to be the American bark
+Columbia, Capt. Taylor. We took a skiff and went on board, where we were
+cordially welcomed by the mate. In the evening, the captain came to our
+tent, quite surprised to find two wandering Americans in such a lonely
+corner of the world. Soon afterwards, with true seaman-like generosity, he
+returned, bringing a jar of fine Spanish olives and a large bottle of
+pickles, which he insisted on adding to our supplies. The olives have the
+choicest Andalusian flavor, and the pickles lose none of their relish from
+having been put up in New York.
+
+The road from Scanderoon to this place lies mostly along the shore of the
+gulf, at the foot of Akma Dagh, and is reckoned dangerous on account of
+the marauding bands of Koords who infest the mountains. These people, like
+the Druses, have rebelled against the conscription, and will probably hold
+their ground with equal success, though the Turks talk loudly of invading
+their strongholds. Two weeks ago, the post was robbed, about ten miles
+from Scanderoon, and a government vessel, now lying at anchor in the bay,
+opened a cannonade on the plunderers, before they could be secured. In
+consequence of the warnings of danger in everybody's mouth, we decided to
+take an escort, and therefore waited upon the commander of the forces,
+with the firman of the Pasha of Aleppo. A convoy of two soldiers was at
+once promised us; and at sunrise, next morning, they took the lead of our
+caravan.
+
+In order to appear more formidable, in case we should meet with robbers,
+we put on our Frank pantaloons, which had no other effect than to make the
+heat more intolerable. But we formed rather a fierce cavalcade, six armed
+men in all. Our road followed the shore of the bay, having a narrow,
+uninhabited flat, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, between us
+and the mountains. The two soldiers, more valiant than the guard of
+Banias, rode in advance, and showed no signs of fear as we approached the
+suspicious places. The morning was delightfully clear, and the
+snow-crowned range of Taurus shone through the soft vapors hanging over
+the gulf. In one place, we skirted the shore for some distance, under a
+bank twenty feet in height, and so completely mantled with shrubbery, that
+a small army might have hidden in it. There were gulleys at intervals,
+opening suddenly on our path, and we looked up them, expecting every
+moment to see the gleam of a Koordish gun-barrel, or a Turcoman spear,
+above the tops of the myrtles.
+
+Crossing a promontory which makes out from the mountains, we came upon the
+renowned plain of Issus, where Darius lost his kingdom to Alexander. On a
+low cliff overhanging the sea, there are the remains of a single tower of
+gray stone. The people in Scanderoon call it "Jonah's Pillar," and say
+that it marks the spot where the Ninevite was cast ashore by the whale.
+[This makes three places on the Syrian coast where Jonah was vomited
+forth.] The plain of Issus is from two to three miles long, but not more
+than half a mile wide, It is traversed by a little river, supposed to be
+the Pinarus, which comes down through a tremendous cleft in the Akma Dagh.
+The ground seems too small for the battle-field of such armies as were
+engaged on the occasion. It is bounded on the north by a low hill,
+separating it from the plain of Baïas, and it is possible that Alexander
+may have made choice of this position, leaving the unwieldy forces of
+Darius to attack him from the plain. His advantage would be greater, on
+account of the long, narrow form of the ground, which would prevent him
+from being engaged with more than a small portion of the Persian army, at
+one time. The plain is now roseate with blooming oleanders, but almost
+entirely uncultivated. About midway there are the remains of an ancient
+quay jutting into the sea.
+
+Soon after leaving the field of Issus, we reached the town of Baïas, which
+is pleasantly situated on the shore, at the mouth of a river whose course
+through the plain is marked with rows of tall poplar trees. The walls of
+the town, and the white dome and minaret of its mosque, rose dazzlingly
+against the dark blue of the sea, and the purple stretch of the mountains
+of Karamania. A single palm lifted its crest in the foreground. We
+dismounted for breakfast under the shade of an old bridge which crosses
+the river. It was a charming spot, the banks above and below being
+overhung with oleander, white rose, honeysuckle and clematis. The two
+guardsmen finished the remaining half of our Turcoman cheese, and almost
+exhausted our supply of bread. I gave one of them a cigar, which he was at
+a loss how to smoke, until our muleteer showed him.
+
+Baïas was celebrated fifty years ago, as the residence of the robber
+chief, Kutchuk Ali, who, for a long time, braved the authority of the
+Porte itself. He was in the habit of levying a yearly tribute on the
+caravan to Mecca, and the better to enforce his claims, often suspended
+two or three of his captives at the gates of the town, a day or two before
+the caravan arrived. Several expeditions were sent against him, but he
+always succeeded in bribing the commanders, who, on their return to
+Constantinople, made such representations that Kutchuk Ali, instead of
+being punished, received one dignity after another, until finally he
+attained the rank of a Pasha of two tails. This emboldened him to commit
+enormities too great to be overlooked, and in 1812 Baïas was taken, and
+the atrocious nest of land-pirates broken up.
+
+I knew that the town had been sacked on this occasion, but was not
+prepared to find such a complete picture of desolation. The place is
+surrounded with a substantial wall, with two gateways, on the north and
+south. A bazaar, covered with a lofty vaulted roof of stone, runs directly
+through from gate to gate; and there was still a smell of spices in the
+air, on entering. The massive shops on either hand, with their open doors,
+invited possession, and might readily be made habitable again. The great
+iron gates leading from the bazaar into the khans and courts, still swing
+on their rusty hinges. We rode into the court of the mosque, which is
+surrounded with a light and elegant corridor, supported by pillars. The
+grass has as yet but partially invaded the marble pavement, and a stone
+drinking-trough still stands in the centre. I urged my horse up the steps
+and into the door of the mosque. It is in the form of a Greek cross, with
+a dome in the centre, resting on four very elegant pointed arches. There
+is an elaborately gilded and painted gallery of wood over the entrance,
+and the pulpit opposite is as well preserved as if the _mollah_ had just
+left it. Out of the mosque we passed into a second court, and then over a
+narrow bridge into the fortress. The moat is perfect, and the walls as
+complete as if just erected. Only the bottom is dry, and now covered with
+a thicket of wild pomegranate trees. The heavy iron doors of the fortress
+swung half open, as we entered unchallenged. The interior is almost
+entire, and some of the cannon still lie buried in the springing grass.
+The plan of the little town, which appears to have been all built at one
+time, is most admirable. The walls of circuit, including the fortress,
+cannot be more than 300 yards square, and yet none of the characteristics
+of a large Oriental city are omitted.
+
+Leaving Baïas, we travelled northward, over a waste, though fertile plain.
+The mountains on our right made a grand appearance, with their feet
+mantled in myrtle, and their tops plumed with pine. They rise from the sea
+with a long, bold sweep, but each peak falls off in a precipice on the
+opposite side, as if the chain were the barrier of the world and there was
+nothing but space beyond. In the afternoon we left the plain for a belt of
+glorious garden land, made by streams that came down from the mountains.
+We entered a lane embowered in pomegranate, white rose, clematis, and
+other flowering vines and shrubs, and overarched by superb plane, lime,
+and beech trees, chained together with giant grape vines. On either side
+were fields of ripe wheat and barley, mulberry orchards and groves of
+fruit trees, under the shade of which the Turkish families sat or slept
+during the hot hours of the day. Birds sang in the boughs, and the
+gurgling of water made a cool undertone to their music. Out of fairyland
+where shall I see again such lovely bowers? We were glad when the soldiers
+announced that it was necessary to encamp there; as we should find no
+other habitations for more than twenty miles.
+
+Our tent was pitched under a grand sycamore, beside a swift mountain
+stream which almost made the circuit of our camp. Beyond the tops of the
+elm, beech, and fig groves, we saw the picturesque green summits of the
+lower ranges of Giaour Dagh, in the north-east, while over the southern
+meadows a golden gleam of sunshine lay upon the Gulf of Scanderoon. The
+village near us was Chaya, where there is a military station. The guards
+we had brought from Scanderoon here left us; but the commanding officer
+advised us to take others on the morrow, as the road was still considered
+unsafe.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII.
+
+Adana and Tarsus.
+
+
+  The Black Gate--The Plain of Cilicia--A Koord Village--Missis--Cilician
+  Scenery--Arrival at Adana--Three days in Quarantine--We receive
+  Pratique--A Landscape--The Plain of Tarsus--The River Cydnus--A Vision
+  of Cleopatra--Tarsus and its Environs--The _Duniktash_--The Moon of
+  Ramazan.
+
+
+  "Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a
+  citizen of no mean city."--Acts, xxi. 89.
+
+
+Khan on Mt. Taurus, _Saturday, June_ 19, 1852.
+
+We left our camp at Chaya at dawn, with an escort of three soldiers, which
+we borrowed from the guard stationed at that place. The path led along the
+shore, through clumps of myrtle beaten inland by the wind, and rounded as
+smoothly as if they had been clipped by a gardener's shears. As we
+approached the head of the gulf, the peaked summits of Giaour Dagh, 10,000
+feet in height, appeared in the north-east. The streams we forded swarmed
+with immense trout. A brown hedgehog ran across our road, but when I
+touched him with the end of my pipe, rolled himself into an impervious
+ball of prickles. Soon after turning the head of the gulf, the road
+swerved off to the west, and entered a narrow pass, between hills covered
+with thick copse-wood. Here we came upon an ancient gateway of black lava
+stone, which bears marks of great antiquity It is now called _Kara Kapu,_
+the "Black Gate," and some suppose it to have been one of the ancient
+gates of Cilicia.
+
+Beyond this, our road led over high, grassy hills, without a sign of human
+habitation, to the ruined khan of Koord Koolak, We dismounted and unloaded
+our baggage in the spacious stone archway, and drove our beasts into the
+dark, vaulted halls behind. The building was originally intended for a
+magazine of supplies, and from the ruined mosque near it, I suspect it was
+formerly one of the caravan stations for the pilgrims from Constantinople
+to Mecca. The weather was intensely hot and sultry, and our animals were
+almost crazy from the attacks of a large yellow gad-fly. After the noonday
+heat was over we descended to the first Cilician plain, which is bounded
+on the west by the range of Durdun Dagh. As we had now passed the most
+dangerous part of the road, we dismissed the three soldiers and took but a
+single man with us. The entire plain is covered with wild fennel, six to
+eight feet in height, and literally blazing with its bloomy yellow tops.
+Riding through it, I could barely look over them, and far and wide, on all
+sides, spread a golden sea, out of which the long violet hills rose with
+the liveliest effect. Brown, shining serpents, from four to six feet in
+length, frequently slid across our path. The plain, which must be sixty
+miles in circumference, is wholly uncultivated, though no land could
+possibly be richer.
+
+Out of the region of fennel we passed into one of red and white clover,
+timothy grass and wild oats. The thistles were so large as to resemble
+young palm-trees, and the salsify of our gardens grew rank and wild. At
+length we dipped into the evening shadow of Durdun Dagh, and reached the
+village of Koord Keui, on his lower slope. As there was no place for our
+tent on the rank grass of the plain or the steep side of the hill, we took
+forcible possession of the winnowing-floor, a flat terrace built up under
+two sycamores, and still covered with the chaff of the last threshing. The
+Koords took the whole thing as a matter of course, and even brought us a
+felt carpet to rest upon. They came and seated themselves around us,
+chatting sociably, while we lay in the tent-door, smoking the pipe of
+refreshment. The view over the wide golden plain, and the hills beyond, to
+the distant, snow-tipped peaks of Akma Dagh, was superb, as the shadow of
+the mountain behind us slowly lengthened over it, blotting out the mellow
+lights of sunset. There were many fragments of pillars and capitals of
+white marble built up in the houses, showing that they occupied the site
+of some ancient village or temple.
+
+The next morning, we crossed Durdun Dagh, and entered the great plain of
+Cilicia. The range, after we had passed it, presented a grand, bold,
+broken outline, blue in the morning vapor, and wreathed with shifting
+belts of cloud. A stately castle, called the Palace of Serpents, on the
+summit of an isolated peak to the north, stood out clear and high, in the
+midst of a circle of fog, like a phantom picture of the air. The River
+Jyhoon, the ancient Pyramus, which rises on the borders of Armenia, sweeps
+the western base of the mountains. It is a larger stream than the Orontes,
+with a deep, rapid current, flowing at the bottom of a bed lower than the
+level of the plain. In three hours, we reached Missis, the ancient
+Mopsuestia, on the right bank of the river. There are extensive ruins on
+the left bank, which were probably those of the former city. The soil for
+some distance around is scattered with broken pillars, capitals, and hewn
+stones. The ancient bridge still crosses the river, but the central arch
+having been broken away, is replaced with a wooden platform. The modern
+town is a forlorn place, and all the glorious plain around it is
+uncultivated. The view over this plain was magnificent: unbounded towards
+the sea, but on the north girdled by the sublime range of Taurus, whose
+great snow-fields gleamed in the sun. In the afternoon, we reached the old
+bridge over the Jyhoon, at Adana. The eastern bank is occupied with the
+graves of the former inhabitants, and there are at least fifteen acres of
+tombstones, as thickly planted as the graves can be dug. The fields of
+wheat and barley along the river are very rich, and at present the natives
+are busily occupied in drawing the sheaves on large sleds to the open
+threshing-floors.
+
+The city is built over a low eminence, and its four tall minarets, with a
+number of palm-trees rising from the mass of brown brick walls, reminded
+me of Egypt. At the end of the bridge, we were met by one of the
+Quarantine officers, who preceded us, taking care that we touched nobody
+in the streets, to the Quarantine building. This land quarantine, between
+Syria and Asia Minor, when the former country is free from any epidemic,
+seems a most absurd thing. We were detained at Adana three days and a
+half, to be purified, before proceeding further. Lately, the whole town
+was placed in quarantine for five days, because a Turkish Bey, who lives
+near Baïas, entered the gates without being noticed, and was found in the
+bazaars. The Quarantine building was once a palace of the Pashas of Adana,
+but is now in a half-ruined condition. The rooms are large and airy, and
+there is a spacious open divan which affords ample shade and a cool
+breeze throughout the whole day. Fortunately for us, there were only three
+persons in Quarantine, who occupied a room distant from ours. The
+Inspector was a very obliging person, and procured us a table and two
+chairs. The only table to be had in the whole place--a town of 15,000
+inhabitants--belonged to an Italian merchant, who kindly gave it for our
+use. We employed a messenger to purchase provisions in the bazaars; and
+our days passed quietly in writing, smoking, and gazing indolently from
+our windows upon the flowery plains beyond the town. Our nights, however,
+were tormented by small white gnats, which stung us unmercifully. The
+physician of Quarantine, Dr. Spagnolo, is a Venetian refugee, and formerly
+editor of _La Lega Italiana_, a paper published in Venice during the
+revolution. He informed us that, except the Princess Belgioioso, who
+passed through Adana on her way to Jerusalem, we were the only travellers
+he had seen for eleven months.
+
+After three days and four nights of grateful, because involuntary,
+indolence, Dr. Spagnolo gave us _pratique_, and we lost no time in getting
+under weigh again. We were the only occupants of Quarantine; and as we
+moved out of the portal of the old seraï, at sunrise, no one was guarding
+it. The Inspector and Mustapha, the messenger, took their back-sheeshes
+with silent gratitude. The plain on the west side of the town is well
+cultivated; and as we rode along towards Tarsus, I was charmed with the
+rich pastoral air of the scenery. It was like one of the midland
+landscapes of England, bathed in Southern sunshine. The beautiful level,
+stretching away to the mountains, stood golden with the fields of wheat
+which the reapers were cutting. It was no longer bare, but dotted with
+orange groves, clumps of holly, and a number of magnificent
+terebinth-trees, whose dark, rounded masses of foliage remind one of the
+Northern oak. Cattle were grazing in the stubble, and horses, almost
+buried under loads of fresh grass, met us as they passed to the city. The
+sheaves were drawn to the threshing-floor on sleds, and we could see the
+husbandmen in the distance treading out and winnowing the grain. Over
+these bright, busy scenes, rose the lesser heights of the Taurus, and
+beyond them, mingled in white clouds, the snows of the crowning range.
+
+The road to Tarsus, which is eight hours distant, lies over an unbroken
+plain. Towards the sea, there are two tumuli, resembling those on the
+plains east of Antioch. Stone wells, with troughs for watering horses,
+occur at intervals of three or four miles; but there is little cultivation
+after leaving the vicinity of Adana. The sun poured down an intense summer
+heat, and hundreds of large gad-flies, swarming around us, drove the
+horses wild with their stings. Towards noon, we stopped at a little
+village for breakfast. We took possession of a shop, which the
+good-natured merchant offered us, and were about to spread our provisions
+upon the counter, when the gnats and mosquitoes fairly drove us away. We
+at once went forward in search of a better place, which gave occasion to
+our chief mukkairee, Hadji Youssuf, for a violent remonstrance. The terms
+of the agreement at Aleppo gave the entire control of the journey into our
+own hands, and the Hadji now sought to violate it. He protested against
+our travelling more than six hours a day, and conducted himself so
+insolently, that we threatened to take him before the Pasha of Tarsus.
+This silenced him for the time; but we hate him so cordially since then,
+that I foresee we shall have more trouble. In the afternoon, a gust,
+sweeping along the sides of Taurus, cooled the air and afforded us a
+little relief.
+
+By three o'clock we reached the River Cydnus, which is bare of trees on
+its eastern side, but flows between banks covered with grass and shrubs.
+It is still spanned by the ancient bridge, and the mules now step in the
+hollow ruts worn long ago by Roman and Byzantine chariot wheels. The
+stream is not more than thirty yards broad, but has a very full and rapid
+current of a bluish-white color, from the snows which feed it. I rode down
+to the brink and drank a cup of the water. It was exceedingly cold, and I
+do not wonder that a bath in it should have killed the Emperor Barbarossa.
+From the top of the bridge, there is a lovely view, down the stream, where
+it washes a fringe of willows and heavy fruit-trees on its western bank,
+and then winds away through the grassy plain, to the sea. For once, my
+fancy ran parallel with the inspiration of the scene. I could think of
+nothing but the galley of Cleopatra slowly stemming the current of the
+stream, its silken sails filled with the sea-breeze, its gilded oars
+keeping time to the flutes, whose voluptuous melodies floated far out over
+the vernal meadows. Tarsus was probably almost hidden then, as now, by its
+gardens, except just where it touched the river; and the dazzling vision
+of the Egyptian Queen, as she came up conquering and to conquer, must have
+been all the more bewildering, from the lovely bowers through which she
+sailed.
+
+From the bridge an ancient road still leads to the old Byzantine gate of
+Tarsus. Part of the town is encompassed by a wall, built by the Caliph
+Haroun Al-Raschid, and there is a ruined fortress, which is attributed to
+Sultan Bajazet Small streams, brought from the Cydnus, traverse the
+environs, and, with such a fertile soil, the luxuriance of the gardens in
+which the city lies buried is almost incredible. In our rambles in search
+of a place to pitch the tent, we entered a superb orange-orchard, the
+foliage of which made a perpetual twilight. Many of the trunks were two
+feet in diameter. The houses are mostly of one story, and the materials
+are almost wholly borrowed from the ancient city. Pillars, capitals,
+fragments of cornices and entablatures abound. I noticed here, as in
+Adana, a high wooden frame on the top of every house, raised a few steps
+above the roof, and covered with light muslin, like a portable
+bathing-house. Here the people put up their beds in the evening, sleep,
+and come down to the roofs in the morning--an excellent plan for getting
+better air in these malarious plains and escaping from fleas and
+mosquitoes. In our search for the Armenian Church, which is said to have
+been founded by St. Paul ("Saul of Tarsus"), we came upon a mosque, which
+had been originally a Christian Church, of Greek times.
+
+From the top of a mound, whereupon stand the remains of an ancient
+circular edifice, we obtained a fine view of the city and plain of Tarsus.
+A few houses or clusters of houses stood here and there like reefs amid
+the billowy green, and the minarets--one of them with a nest of young
+storks on its very summit--rose like the masts of sunken ships. Some palms
+lifted their tufted heads from the gardens, beyond which the great plain
+extended from the mountains to the sea. The tumulus near Mersyn, the port
+of Tarsus, was plainly visible. Two hours from Mersyn are the ruins of
+Pompeiopolis, the name given by Pompey to the town of Soli, after his
+conquest of the Cilician pirates. From Soli, on account of the bad Greek
+spoken by its inhabitants, came the term "solecism." The ruins of
+Pompeiopolis consist of a theatre, temples, and a number of houses, still
+in good preservation. The whole coast, as far as Aleya, three hundred
+miles west of this, is said to abound with ruined cities, and I regret
+exceedingly that time will not permit me to explore it.
+
+While searching for the antiquities about Tarsus, I accosted a man in a
+Frank dress, who proved to be the Neapolitan Consul. He told us that the
+most remarkable relic was the _Duniktash_ (the Round Stone), and procured
+us a guide. It lies in a garden near the city, and is certainly one of the
+most remarkable monuments in the East. It consists of a square inclosure
+of solid masonry, 350 feet long by 150 feet wide, the walls of which are
+eighteen feet in thickness and twenty feet high. It appears to have been
+originally a solid mass, without entrance, but a passage has been broken
+in one place, and in another there is a split or fissure, evidently
+produced by an earthquake. The material is rough stone, brick and mortar.
+Inside of the inclosure are two detached square masses of masonry, of
+equal height, and probably eighty feet on a side, without opening of any
+kind. One of them has been pierced at the bottom, a steep passage leading
+to a pit or well, but the sides of the passage thus broken indicate that
+the whole structure is one solid mass. It is generally supposed that they
+were intended as tombs: but of whom? There is no sign by which they may be
+recognized, and, what is more singular, no tradition concerning them.
+
+The day we reached Tarsus was the first of the Turkish fast-month of
+Ramazan, the inhabitants having seen the new moon the night before. At
+Adana, where they did not keep such a close look-out, the fast had not
+commenced. During its continuance, which is from twenty-eight to
+twenty-nine days, no Mussulman dares eat, drink, or smoke, from an hour
+before sunrise till half an hour after sunset. The Mohammedan months are
+lunar, and each month makes the whole round of the seasons, once in
+thirty-three years. When, therefore, the Ramazan comes in midsummer, as at
+present, the fulfilment of this fast is a great trial, even to the
+strongest and most devout. Eighteen hours without meat or drink, and what
+is still worse to a genuine Turk, without a pipe, is a rigid test of
+faith. The rich do the best they can to avoid it, by feasting all night
+and sleeping all day, but the poor, who must perform their daily
+avocations, as usual, suffer exceedingly. In walking through Tarsus I saw
+many wretched faces in the bazaars, and the guide who accompanied us had a
+painfully famished air. Fortunately the Koran expressly permits invalids,
+children, and travellers to disregard the fast, so that although we eat
+and drink when we like, we are none the less looked upon as good
+Mussulmans. About dark a gun is fired and a rocket sent up from the
+mosque, announcing the termination of the day's fast. The meals are
+already prepared, the pipes filled, the coffee smokes in the _finjans_,
+and the echoes have not died away nor the last sparks of the rocket become
+extinct, before half the inhabitants are satisfying their hunger, thirst
+and smoke-lust.
+
+We left Tarsus this morning, and are now encamped among the pines of Mount
+Taurus. The last flush of sunset is fading from his eternal snows, and I
+drop my pen to enjoy the silence of twilight in this mountain solitude.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII.
+
+The Pass of Mount Taurus.
+
+  We enter the Taurus--Turcomans--Forest Scenery--the Palace of Pan--Khan
+  Mezarluk--Morning among the Mountains--The Gorge of the Cydnus--The Crag
+  of the Fortress--The Cilician Gate--Deserted Forts--A Sublime
+  Landscape--The Gorge of the Sihoon--The Second Gate--Camp in the
+  Defile--Sunrise--Journey up the Sihoon--A Change of Scenery--A Pastoral
+  Valley--Kolü Kushla--A Deserted Khan--A Guest in Ramazan--Flowers--The
+  Plain of Karamania--Barren Hills--The Town of Eregli--The Hadji again.
+
+
+        "Lo! where the pass expands
+  Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,
+  And seems, with its accumulated crags,
+  To overhang the world." Shelley.
+
+
+Eregli, _in Karamania, June_ 22, 1852.
+
+Striking our tent in the gardens of Tarsus, we again crossed the Cydnus,
+and took a northern course across the plain. The long line of Taurus rose
+before us, seemingly divided into four successive ranges, the highest of
+which was folded in clouds; only the long streaks of snow, filling the
+ravines, being visible. The outlines of these ranges were very fine, the
+waving line of the summits cut here and there by precipitous gorges--the
+gateways of rivers that came down to the plain. In about two hours, we
+entered the lower hills. They are barren and stony, with a white, chalky
+soil; but the valleys were filled with myrtle, oleander, and lauristinus
+in bloom, and lavender grew in great profusion on the hill-sides. The
+flowers of the oleander gave out a delicate, almond-like fragrance, and
+grew in such dense clusters as frequently to hide the foliage. I amused
+myself with finding a derivation of the name of this beautiful plant,
+which may answer until somebody discovers a better one. Hero, when the
+corpse of her lover was cast ashore by the waves, buried him under an
+oleander bush, where she was accustomed to sit daily, and lament over his
+untimely fate. Now, a foreign horticulturist, happening to pass by when
+the shrub was in blossom, was much struck with its beauty, and asked Hero
+what it was called. But she, absorbed in grief, and thinking only of her
+lover, clasped her hands, and sighed out: "O Leander! O Leander!" which
+the horticulturist immediately entered in his note-book as the name of the
+shrub; and by that name it is known, to the present time.
+
+For two or three hours, the scenery was rather tame, the higher summits
+being obscured with a thunder-cloud. Towards noon, however, we passed the
+first chain, and saw, across a strip of rolling land intervening, the
+grand ramparts of the second, looming dark and large under the clouds. A
+circular watch-tower of white stone, standing on the summit of a
+promontory at the mouth of a gorge on our right, flashed out boldly
+against the storm. We stopped under an oak-tree to take breakfast; but
+there was no water; and two Turks, who were resting while their horses
+grazed in the meadow, told us we should find a good spring half a mile
+further. We ascended a long slope, covered with wheat-fields, where
+numbers of Turcoman reapers were busy at work, passed their black tents,
+surrounded with droves of sheep and goats, and reached a rude stone
+fountain of good water, where two companies of these people had stopped
+to rest, on their way to the mountains. It was the time of noon prayer,
+and they went through their devotions with great solemnity. We nestled
+deep in a bed of myrtles, while we breakfasted; for the sky was clouded,
+and the wind blew cool and fresh from the region of rain above us. Some of
+the Turcomans asked us for bread, and were very grateful when we gave it
+to them.
+
+In the afternoon, we came into a higher and wilder region, where the road
+led through thickets of wild olive, holly, oak, and lauristinus, with
+occasional groves of pine. What a joy I felt in hearing, once more, the
+grand song of my favorite tree! Our way was a woodland road; a storm had
+passed over the region in the morning; the earth was still fresh and
+moist, and there was an aromatic smell of leaves in the air. We turned
+westward into the entrance of a deep valley, over which hung a
+perpendicular cliff of gray and red rock, fashioned by nature so as to
+resemble a vast fortress, with windows, portals and projecting bastions.
+François displayed his knowledge of mythology, by declaring it to be the
+Palace of Pan. While we were carrying out the idea, by making chambers for
+the Fauns and Nymphs in the basement story of the precipice, the path
+wound around the shoulder of the mountain, and the glen spread away before
+us, branching up into loftier ranges, disclosing through its gateway of
+cliffs, rising out of the steeps of pine forest, a sublime vista of blue
+mountain peaks, climbing to the topmost snows. It was a magnificent Alpine
+landscape, more glowing and rich than Switzerland, yet equalling it in all
+the loftier characteristics of mountain scenery. Another and greater
+precipice towered over us on the right, and the black eagles which had
+made their eyries in its niched and caverned vaults, were wheeling around
+its crest. A branch of the Cydnus foamed along the bottom of the gorge,
+and soma Turcoman boys were tending their herds on its banks.
+
+Further up the glen, we found a fountain of delicious water, beside the
+deserted Khan of Mezarluk, and there encamped for the night. Our tent was
+pitched on the mountain side, near a fountain of the coolest, clearest and
+sweetest water I have seen in all the East. There was perfect silence
+among the mountains, and the place was as lonely as it was sublime. The
+night was cool and fresh; but I could not sleep until towards morning.
+When I opened my belated eyes, the tall peaks on the opposite side of the
+glen were girdled below their waists with the flood of a sparkling
+sunrise. The sky was pure as crystal, except a soft white fleece that
+veiled the snowy pinnacles of Taurus, folding and unfolding, rising and
+sinking, as if to make their beauty still more attractive by the partial
+concealment. The morning air was almost cold, but so pure and bracing--so
+aromatic with the healthy breath of the pines--that I took it down in the
+fullest possible draughts.
+
+We rode up the glen, following the course of the Cydnus, through scenery
+of the wildest and most romantic character. The bases of the mountains
+were completely enveloped in forests of pine, but their summits rose in
+precipitous crags, many hundreds of feet in height, hanging above our very
+heads. Even after the sun was five hours high, their shadows fell upon us
+from the opposite side of the glen. Mixed with the pine were occasional
+oaks, an undergrowth of hawthorn in bloom, and shrubs covered with yellow
+and white flowers. Over these the wild grape threw its rich festoons,
+filling the air with exquisite fragrance.
+
+Out of this glen, we passed into another, still narrower and wilder. The
+road was the old Roman way, and in tolerable condition, though it had
+evidently not been mended for many centuries. In half an hour, the pass
+opened, disclosing an enormous peak in front of us, crowned with the ruins
+of an ancient fortress of considerable extent. The position was almost
+impregnable, the mountain dropping on one side into a precipice five
+hundred feet in perpendicular height. Under the cliffs of the loftiest
+ridge, there was a terrace planted with walnut-trees: a charming little
+hamlet in the wilderness. Wild sycamore-trees, with white trunks and
+bright green foliage, shaded the foamy twists of the Cydnus, as it plunged
+down its difficult bed. The pine thrust its roots into the naked
+precipices, and from their summits hung out over the great abysses below.
+I thought of OEnone's
+
+  --"tall, dark pines, that fringed the craggy ledge
+  High over the blue gorge, and all between
+  The snowy peak and snow-white cataract
+  Fostered the callow eaglet;"
+
+and certainly she had on Mount Ida no more beautiful trees than these.
+
+We had doubled the Crag of the Fortress, when the pass closed before us,
+shut in by two immense precipices of sheer, barren rock, more than a
+thousand feet in height. Vast fragments, fallen from above, choked up the
+entrance, whence the Cydnus, spouting forth in foam, leaped into the
+defile. The ancient road was completely destroyed, but traces of it were
+to be seen on the rocks, ten feet above the present bed of the stream, and
+on the broken masses which had been hurled below. The path wound with
+difficulty among these wrecks, and then merged into the stream itself, as
+we entered the gateway. A violent wind blew in our faces as we rode
+through the strait, which is not ten yards in breadth, while its walls
+rise to the region of the clouds. In a few minutes we had traversed it,
+and stood looking back on the enormous gap. There were several Greek
+tablets cut in the rock above the old road, but so defaced as to be
+illegible. This is undoubtedly the principal gate of the Taurus, and the
+pass through which the armies of Cyrus and Alexander entered Cilicia.
+
+Beyond the gate the mountains retreated, and we climbed up a little dell,
+past two or three Turcoman houses, to the top of a hill, whence opened a
+view of the principal range, now close at hand. The mountains in front
+were clothed with dark cedars to their very tops, and the snow-fields
+behind them seemed dazzlingly bright and near. Our course for several
+miles now lay through a more open valley, drained by the upper waters of
+the Cydnus. On two opposing terraces of the mountain chains are two
+fortresses, built by Ibraham Pasha, but now wholly deserted. They are
+large and well-constructed works of stone, and surrounded by ruins of
+stables, ovens, and the rude houses of the soldiery. Passing between
+these, we ascended to the shelf dividing the waters of the Cydnus and the
+Sihoon. From the point where the slope descends to the latter river, there
+opened before me one of the most glorious landscapes I ever beheld. I
+stood at the extremity of a long hollow or depression between the two
+ranges of the Taurus--not a valley, for it was divided by deep cloven
+chasms, hemmed in by steeps overgrown with cedars. On my right rose a
+sublime chain, soaring far out of the region of trees, and lifting its
+peaked summits of gray rock into toe sky. Another chain, nearly as lofty,
+but not so broken, nor with such large, imposing features, overhung me on
+the left; and far in front, filling up the magnificent vista--filling up
+all between the lower steeps, crowned with pine, and the round white
+clouds hanging on the verge of heaven--were the shining snows of the
+Taurus. Great God, how shall I describe the grandeur of that view! How
+draw the wonderful outlines of those mountains! How paint the airy hue of
+violet-gray, the soft white lights, the thousandfold pencillings of mellow
+shadow, the height, the depth, the far-reaching vastness of the landscape!
+
+In the middle distance, a great blue gorge passed transversely across the
+two ranges and the region between. This, as I rightly conjectured, was the
+bed of the Sihoon. Our road led downward through groves of fragrant
+cedars, and we travelled thus for two hours before reaching the river.
+Taking a northward course up his banks, we reached the second of the _Pylæ
+Ciliciæ_ before sunset. It is on a grander scale than the first gate,
+though not so startling and violent in its features. The bare walls on
+either side fall sheer to the water, and the road, crossing the Sihoon by
+a lofty bridge of a single arch, is cut along the face of the rock. Near
+the bridge a subterranean stream, almost as large as the river, bursts
+forth from the solid heart of the mountain. On either side gigantic masses
+of rock, with here and there a pine to adorn their sterility, tower to the
+height of 6,000 feet, in some places almost perpendicular from summit to
+base. They are worn and broken into all fantastic forms. There are
+pyramids, towers, bastions, minarets, and long, sharp spires, splintered
+and jagged as the turrets of an iceberg. I have seen higher mountains,
+but I have never seen any which looked so high as these. We camped on a
+narrow plot of ground, in the very heart of the tremendous gorge. A
+soldier, passing along at dusk, told us that a merchant and his servant
+were murdered in the same place last winter, and advised us to keep watch.
+But we slept safely all night, while the stars sparkled over the chasm,
+and slips of misty cloud hung low on the thousand pinnacles of rock.
+
+When I awoke, the gorge lay in deep shadow; but high up on the western
+mountain, above the enormous black pyramids that arose from the river, the
+topmost pinnacles of rock sparkled like molten silver, in the full gush of
+sunrise. The great mountain, blocking up the gorge behind us, was bathed
+almost to its foot in the rays, and, seen through such a dark vista, was
+glorified beyond all other mountains of Earth. The air was piercingly cold
+and keen, and I could scarcely bear the water of the Sihoon on my
+sun-inflamed face. There was a little spring not far off, from which we
+obtained sufficient water to drink, the river being too muddy. The spring
+was but a thread oozing from the soil; but the Hadji collected it in
+handfuls, which he emptied into his water-skin, and then brought to us.
+
+The morning light gave a still finer effect to the manifold forms of the
+mountains than that of the afternoon sun. The soft gray hue of the rocks
+shone clearly against the cloudless sky, fretted all over with the shadows
+thrown by their innumerable spires and jutting points, and by the natural
+arches scooped out under the cliffs. After travelling less than an hour,
+we passed the riven walls of the mighty gateway, and rode again under the
+shade of pine forests. The height of the mountains now gradually
+diminished, and their sides, covered with pine and cedar, became less
+broken and abrupt. The summits, nevertheless, still retained the same
+rocky spine, shooting up into tall, single towers, or long lines of even
+parapets Occasionally, through gaps between, we caught glimpses of the
+snow-fields, dazzlingly high and white.
+
+After travelling eight or nine miles, we emerged from the pass, and left
+the Sihoon at a place called Chiftlik Khan--a stone building, with a small
+fort adjoining, wherein fifteen splendid bronze cannon lay neglected on
+their broken and rotting carriages. As we crossed the stone bridge over
+the river, a valley opened suddenly on the left, disclosing the whole
+range of the Taurus, which we now saw on its northern side, a vast stretch
+of rocky spires, with sparkling snow-fields between, and long ravines
+filled with snow, extending far down between the dark blue cliffs and the
+dark green plumage of the cedars.
+
+Immediately after passing the central chain of the Taurus, the character
+of the scenery changed. The heights were rounded, the rocky strata only
+appearing on the higher peaks, and the slopes of loose soil were deeply
+cut and scarred by the rains of ages. Both in appearance, especially in
+the scattered growth of trees dotted over the dark red soil, and in their
+formation, these mountains strongly resemble the middle ranges of the
+Californian Sierra Nevada. We climbed a long, winding glen, until we had
+attained a considerable height, when the road reached a dividing ridge,
+giving us a view of a deep valley, beyond which a chain of barren
+mountains rose to the height of some five thousand feet. As we descended
+the rocky path, a little caravan of asses and mules clambered up to meet
+us, along the brinks of steep gulfs. The narrow strip of bottom land
+along the stream was planted with rye, now in head, and rolling in silvery
+waves before the wind.
+
+After our noonday halt, we went over the hills to another stream, which
+came from the north-west. Its valley was broader and greener than that we
+had left, and the hills inclosing it had soft and undulating outlines.
+They were bare of trees, but colored a pale green by their thin clothing
+of grass and herbs. In this valley the season was so late, owing to its
+height above the sea, that the early spring-flowers were yet in bloom.
+Poppies flamed among the wheat, and the banks of the stream were brilliant
+with patches of a creeping plant, with a bright purple blossom. The
+asphodel grew in great profusion, and an ivy-leaved shrub, covered with
+flakes of white bloom, made the air faint with its fragrance. Still
+further up, we came to orchards of walnut and plum trees, and vineyards
+There were no houses, but the innabitants, who were mostly Turcomans, live
+in villages during the winter, and in summer pitch their tents on the
+mountains where they pasture their flocks. Directly over this quiet
+pastoral, vale towered the Taurus, and I looked at once on its secluded
+loveliness and on the wintry heights, whose bleak and sublime heads were
+mantled in clouds. From no point is there a more imposing view of the
+whole snowy range. Near the head of the valley we passed a large Turcoman
+encampment, surrounded with herds of sheep and cattle.
+
+We halted for the evening at a place called Kolü-Kushla---an immense
+fortress-village, resembling Baïas, and like it, wholly deserted. Near it
+there is a small town of very neat houses, which is also deserted, the
+inhabitants having gone into the mountains with their flocks. I walked
+through the fortress, which is a massive building of stone, about 500
+feet square, erected by Sultan Murad as a resting-place for the caravans
+to Mecca. It has two spacious portals, in which the iron doors are still
+hanging, connected by a vaulted passage, twenty feet high and forty wide,
+with bazaars on each side. Side gateways open into large courts,
+surrounded with arched chambers. There is a mosque entire, with its pulpit
+and galleries, and the gilded crescent still glittering over its dome.
+Behind it is a bath, containing an entrance hall and half a dozen
+chambers, in which the water-pipes and stone tanks still remain. With a
+little alteration, the building would make a capital Phalanstery, where
+the Fourierites might try their experiment without contact with Society.
+There is no field for them equal to Asia Minor--a glorious region,
+abounding in natural wealth, almost depopulated, and containing a great
+number of Phalansteries ready built.
+
+We succeeded in getting some eggs, fowls, and milk from an old Turcoman
+who had charge of the village. A man who rode by on a donkey sold us a bag
+of _yaourt_ (sour milk-curds), which was delicious, notwithstanding the
+suspicious appearance of the bag. It was made before the cream had been
+removed, and was very rich and nourishing. The old Turcoman sat down and
+watched us while we ate, but would not join us, as these wandering tribes
+are very strict in keeping Ramazan. When we had reached our dessert--a
+plate of fine cherries--another white-bearded and dignified gentleman
+visited us. We handed him the cherries, expecting that he would take a few
+and politely return the dish: but no such thing. He coolly produced his
+handkerchief, emptied everything into it, and marched off. He also did not
+venture to eat, although we pointed to the Taurus, on whose upper snows
+the last gleam of daylight was just melting away.
+
+We arose this morning in a dark, cloudy dawn. There was a heavy black
+storm hanging low in the west, and another was gathering its forces along
+the mountains behind us. A cold wind blew down the valley, and long peals
+of thunder rolled grandly among the gorges of Taurus. An isolated hill,
+crowned with a shattered crag which bore a striking resemblance to a
+ruined fortress, stood out black and sharp against the far, misty, sunlit
+peaks. As far as the springs were yet undried, the land was covered with
+flowers. In one place I saw a large square plot of the most brilliant
+crimson hue, burning amid the green wheat-fields, as if some Tyrian mantle
+had been flung there. The long, harmonious slopes and rounded summits of
+the hills were covered with drifts of a beautiful purple clover, and a
+diminutive variety of the _achillea_, or yarrow, with glowing yellow
+blossoms. The leaves had a pleasant aromatic odor, and filled the air with
+their refreshing breath, as they were crushed under the hoofs of our
+horses.
+
+We had now reached the highest ridge of the hilly country along the
+northern base of Taurus, and saw, far and wide before us, the great
+central plain of Karamania. Two isolated mountains, at forty or fifty
+miles distance, broke the monotony of the desert-like level: Kara Dagh in
+the west, and the snow-capped summits of Hassan Dagh in the north-east.
+Beyond the latter, we tried to catch a glimpse of the famous Mons Argseus,
+at the base of which is Kaisariyeh, the ancient Cæsarea of Cappadocia.
+This mountain, which is 13,000 feet high, is the loftiest peak of Asia
+Minor. The clouds hung low on the horizon, and the rains were falling,
+veiling it from our sight.
+
+Our road, for the remainder of the day, was over barren hills, covered
+with scanty herbage. The sun shone out intensely hot, and the glare of the
+white soil was exceedingly painful to my eyes. The locality of Eregli was
+betrayed, some time before we reached it, by its dark-green belt of fruit
+trees. It stands in the mouth of a narrow valley which winds down from the
+Taurus, and is watered by a large rapid stream that finally loses itself
+in the lakes and morasses of the plain. There had been a heavy black
+thunder-cloud gathering, and as we reached our camping-ground, under some
+fine walnut-trees near the stream, a sudden blast of cold wind swept over
+the town, filling the air with dust. We pitched the tent in all haste,
+expecting a storm, but the rain finally passed to the northward. We then
+took a walk through the town, which is a forlorn place. A spacious khan,
+built apparently for the Mecca pilgrims, is in ruins, but the mosque has
+an exquisite minaret, eighty feet high, and still bearing traces of the
+devices, in blue tiles, which once covered it. The shops were mostly
+closed, and in those which were still open the owners lay at full length
+on their bellies, their faces gaunt with fasting. They seemed annoyed at
+our troubling them, even with purchases. One would have thought that some
+fearful pestilence had fallen upon the town. The cobblers only, who
+somewhat languidly plied their implements, seemed to retain a little life.
+The few Jews and Armenians smoked their pipes in a tantalizing manner, in
+the very faces of the poor Mussulmans. We bought an oka of excellent
+cherries, which we were cruel enough to taste in the streets, before the
+hungry eyes of the suffering merchants.
+
+This evening the asses belonging to the place were driven in from
+pasture--four or five hundred in all; and such a show of curious asinine
+specimens as I never before beheld. A Dervish, who was with us in
+Quarantine, at Adana, has just arrived. He had lost his _teskeré_
+(passport), and on issuing forth purified, was cast into prison. Finally
+he found some one who knew him, and procured his release. He had come on
+foot to this place in five days, suffering many privations, having been
+forty-eight hours without food. He is bound to Konia, on a pilgrimage to
+the tomb of Hazret Mevlana, the founder of the sect of dancing Dervishes.
+We gave him food, in return for which he taught me the formula of his
+prayers. He tells me I should always pronounce the name of Allah when my
+horse stumbles, or I see a man in danger of his life, as the word has a
+saving power. Hadji Youssuf, who has just been begging for an advance of
+twenty piastres to buy grain for his horses, swore "by the pardon of God"
+that he would sell the lame horse at Konia and get a better one. We have
+lost all confidence in the old villain's promises, but the poor beasts
+shall not suffer for his delinquencies.
+
+Our tent is in a charming spot, and, from without, makes a picture to be
+remembered. The yellow illumination from within strikes on the under sides
+of the walnut boughs, while the moonlight silvers them from above. Beyond
+gardens where the nightingales are singing, the tall minaret of Eregli
+stands revealed in the vapory glow. The night is too sweet and balmy for
+sleep, and yet I must close my eyes upon it, for the hot plains of
+Karamania await us to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX.
+
+The Plains of Karamania.
+
+
+  The Plains of Karamania--Afternoon Heat--A Well--Volcanic
+  Phenomena--Kara-bounar--A Grand Ruined Khan--Moonlight Picture--A
+  Landscape of the Plains-Mirages--A Short Interview--The Village of
+  Ismil---Third Day on the Plains--Approach to Konia.
+
+
+  "A weary waste, expanding to the skies."--Goldsmith.
+
+
+Konia, Capital of Karamania, _Friday, June_ 25, 1854.
+
+François awoke us at the break of day, at Eregli, as we had a journey of
+twelve hours before us. Passing through the town, we traversed a narrow
+belt of garden and orchard land, and entered the great plain of Karamania.
+Our road led at first northward towards a range called Karadja Dagh, and
+then skirted its base westward. After three hours' travel we passed a
+village of neat, whitewashed houses, which were entirely deserted, all the
+inhabitants having gone off to the mountains. There were some herds
+scattered over the plain, near the village. As the day wore on, the wind,
+which had been chill in the morning, ceased, and the air became hot and
+sultry. The glare from the white soil was so painful that I was obliged to
+close my eyes, and so ran a continual risk of falling asleep and tumbling
+from my horse. Thus, drowsy and half unconscious of my whereabouts, I rode
+on in the heat and arid silence of the plain until noon, when we reached
+a well. It was a shaft, sunk about thirty feet deep, with a long, sloping
+gallery slanting off to the surface. The well was nearly dry, but by
+descending the gallery we obtained a sufficient supply of cold, pure
+water. We breakfasted in the shaded doorway, sharing our provisions with a
+Turcoman boy, who was accompanying his father to Eregli with a load of
+salt.
+
+Our road now crossed a long, barren pass, between two parts of Karadja
+Dagh. Near the northern side there was a salt lake of one hundred yards in
+diameter, sunk in a deep natural basin. The water was intensely saline. On
+the other side of the road, and a quarter of a mile distant, is an extinct
+volcano, the crater of which, near two hundred feet deep, is a salt lake,
+with a trachytic cone three hundred feet high rising from the centre. From
+the slope of the mountain we overlooked another and somewhat deeper plain,
+extending to the north and west. It was bounded by broken peaks, all of
+which betrayed a volcanic origin. Far before us we saw the tower on the
+hill of Kara-bounar, our resting-place for the night. The road thither was
+over a barren plain, cheered here and there by patches of a cushion-like
+plant, which was covered with pink blossoms. Mr. Harrison scared up some
+coveys of the frankolin, a large bird resembling the pheasant, and
+enriched our larder with a dozen starlings.
+
+Kara-bounar is built on the slope of a mound, at the foot of which stands
+a spacious mosque, visible far over the plain. It has a dome, and two
+tall, pencil-like towers, similar to those of the Citadel-mosque of Cairo.
+Near it are the remains of a magnificent khan-fortress, said to have been
+built by the eunuch of one of the former Sultans. As there was no water in
+the wells outside of the town, we entered the khan and pitched the tent
+in its grass-grown court. Six square pillars of hewn stone made an aisle
+to our door, and the lofty, roofless walls of the court, 100 by 150 feet,
+inclosed us. Another court, of similar size, communicated with it by a
+broad portal, and the remains of baths and bazaars lay beyond. A handsome
+stone fountain, with two streams of running water, stood in front of the
+khan. We were royally lodged, but almost starved in our splendor, as only
+two or three Turcomans remained out of two thousand (who had gone off with
+their herds to the mountains), and they were unable to furnish us with
+provisions. But for our frankolins and starlings we should have gone
+fasting.
+
+The mosque was a beautiful structure of white limestone, and the galleries
+of its minarets were adorned with rich arabesque ornaments. While the
+muezzin was crying his sunset-call to prayer, I entered the portico and
+looked into the interior, which was so bare as to appear incomplete. As we
+sat in our palace-court, after dinner, the moon arose, lighting up the
+niches in the walls, the clusters of windows in the immense eastern gable,
+and the rows of massive columns. The large dimensions of the building gave
+it a truly grand effect, and but for the whine of a distant jackal I could
+have believed that we were sitting in the aisles of a roofless Gothic
+cathedral, in the heart of Europe. François was somewhat fearful of
+thieves, but the peace and repose of the place we've so perfect that I
+would not allow any such apprehensions to disturb me. In two minutes after
+I touched my bed I was insensible, and I did not move a limb until
+sunrise.
+
+Beyond Kara-bounar, there is a low, barren ridge, climbing which, we
+overlooked an immense plain, uncultivated, apparently unfertile, and
+without a sign of life as far as the eye could reach. Kara Dagh, in the
+south, lifted nearer us its cluster of dark summits; to the north, the
+long ridge of Üsedjik Dagh (the Pigmy Mountain) stretched like a cape into
+the plain; Hassan Dagh; wrapped in a soft white cloud, receded behind us,
+and the snows of Taurus seemed almost as distant as when we first beheld
+them from the Syrian Gates. We rode for four hours over the dead level,
+the only objects that met our eyes being an occasional herd of camels in
+the distance. About noon, we reached a well, similar to that of the
+previous day, but of recent construction. A long, steep gallery led down
+to the water, which was very cold, but had a villainous taste of lime,
+salt, and sulphur.
+
+After an hour's halt, we started again. The sun was intensely hot, and for
+hours we jogged on over the dead level, the bare white soil blinding our
+eyes with its glare. The distant hills were lifted above the horizon by a
+mirage. Long sheets of blue water were spread along their bases, islanding
+the isolated peaks, and turning into ships and boats the black specks of
+camels far away. But the phenomena were by no means on so grand a scale as
+I had seen in the Nubian Desert. On the south-western horizon, we
+discerned the summits of the Karaman range of Taurus, covered with snow.
+In the middle of the afternoon, we saw a solitary tent upon the plain,
+from which an individual advanced to meet us. As he drew nearer, we
+noticed that he wore white Frank pantaloons, similar to the Turkish
+soldiery, with a jacket of brown cloth, and a heavy sabre. When he was
+within convenient speaking distance, he cried out: "Stop! why are you
+running away from me?" "What do you call running away?" rejoined François;
+"we are going on our journey." "Where do you come from?" he then asked.
+"From there," said François, pointing behind us "Where are you going?"
+"There!" and the provoking Greek simply pointed forwards. "You have
+neither faith nor religion!" said the man, indignantly; then, turning upon
+his heel, he strode back across the plain.
+
+About four o'clock, we saw a long line of objects rising before us, but so
+distorted by the mirage that it was impossible to know what they were.
+After a while, however, we decided that they were houses interspersed with
+trees; but the trees proved to be stacks of hay and lentils, heaped on the
+flat roofs. This was Ismil, our halting-place. The houses were miserable
+mud huts; but the village was large, and, unlike most of those we have
+seen this side of Taurus, inhabited. The people are Turcomans, and their
+possessions appear to be almost entirely in their herds. Immense numbers
+of sheep and goats were pasturing on the plain. There were several wells
+in the place, provided with buckets attached to long swing-poles; the
+water was very cold, but brackish. Our tent was pitched on the plain, on a
+hard, gravelly strip of soil. A crowd of wild-haired Turcoman boys
+gathered in front, to stare at us, and the shepherds quarrelled at the
+wells, as to which should take his turn at watering his flocks. In the
+evening a handsome old Turk visited us, and, finding that we were bound to
+Constantinople, requested François to take a letter to his son, who was
+settled there.
+
+François aroused us this morning before the dawn, as we had a journey of
+thirty-five miles before us. He was in a bad humor; for a man, whom he had
+requested to keep watch over his tent, while he went into the village, had
+stolen a fork and spoon. The old Turk, who had returned as soon as we
+were stirring, went out to hunt the thief, but did not succeed in finding
+him. The inhabitants of the village were up long before sunrise, and
+driving away in their wooden-wheeled carts to the meadows where they cut
+grass. The old Turk accompanied us some distance, in order to show us a
+nearer way, avoiding a marshy spot. Our road lay over a vast plain,
+seemingly boundless, for the lofty mountain-ranges that surrounded it on
+all sides were so distant and cloud-like, and so lifted from the horizon
+by the deceptive mirage, that the eye did not recognize their connection
+with it. The wind blew strongly from the north-west, and was so cold that
+I dismounted and walked ahead for two or three hours.
+
+Before noon, we passed two villages of mud huts, partly inhabited, and
+with some wheat-fields around them. We breakfasted at another well, which
+furnished us with a drink that tasted like iced sea-water. Thence we rode
+forth again into the heat, for the wind had fallen by this time, and the
+sun shone out with great force. There was ever the same dead level, and we
+rode directly towards the mountains, which, to my eyes, seemed nearly as
+distant as ever. At last, there was a dark glimmer through the mirage, at
+their base, and a half-hour's ride showed it to be a line of trees. In
+another hour, we could distinguish a minaret or two, and finally, walls
+and the stately domes of mosques. This was Konia, the ancient Iconium, one
+of the most renowned cities of Asia Minor.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+Scenes in Konia.
+
+
+  Kpproach to Konia---Tomb of Hazret Mevlana--Lodgings in a Khan--An
+  American Luxury--A Night-Scene in Ramazan--Prayers in the
+  Mosque--Remains of the Ancient City--View from the Mosque--The
+  Interior--A Leaning Minaret--The Diverting History of the Muleteers.
+
+
+  "But they shook off the dust on their feet, and came unto
+  Iconium."--Acts, xiii. 51.
+
+
+Konia (Ancient Iconium), _June_ 27, 1852.
+
+The view of Konia from the plain is not striking until one has approached
+within a mile of the suburbs, when the group of mosques, with their heavy
+central domes lifted on clusters of smaller ones, and their tall, light,
+glittering minarets, rising above the foliage of the gardens, against the
+background of airy hills, has a very pleasing effect. We approached
+through a long line of dirty suburbs, which looked still more forlorn on
+account of the Ramazan. Some Turkish officials, in shabby Frank dresses,
+followed us to satisfy their curiosity by talking with our _Katurjees_, or
+muleteers. Outside the city walls, we passed some very large barracks for
+cavalry, built by Ibrahim Pasha. On the plain north-east of the city, the
+battle between him and the forces of the Sultan, resulting in the defeat
+of the latter, was fought.
+
+We next came upon two magnificent mosques, built of white limestone, with
+a multitude of leaden domes and lofty minarets, adorned with galleries
+rich in arabesque ornaments. Attached to one of them is the tomb, of
+Hazret Mevlana, the founder of the sect of Mevlevi Dervishes, which is
+reputed one of the most sacred places in the East. The tomb is surmounted
+by a dome, upon which stands a tall cylindrical tower, reeded, with
+channels between each projection, and terminating in a long, tapering
+cone. This tower is made of glazed tiles, of the most brilliant sea-blue
+color, and sparkles in the sun like a vast pillar of icy spar in some
+Polar grotto. It is a most striking and fantastic object, surrounded by a
+cluster of minarets and several cypress-trees, amid which it seems placed
+as the central ornament and crown of the group.
+
+The aspect of the city was so filthy and uninviting that we preferred
+pitching our tent; but it was impossible to find a place without going
+back upon the plain; so we turned into the bazaar, and asked the way to a
+khan. There was a tolerable crowd in the street, although many of the
+shops were shut. The first khan we visited was too filthy to enter; but
+the second, though most unpromising in appearance, turned out to be better
+than it looked. The _oda-bashi_ (master of the rooms) thoroughly swept and
+sprinkled the narrow little chamber he gave us, laid clean mats upon the
+floor, and, when our carpets and beds were placed within, its walls of mud
+looked somewhat comfortable. Its single window, with an iron grating in
+lieu of glass, looked upon an oblong court, on the second story,
+surrounded by the rooms of Armenian merchants. The main court (the gate of
+which is always closed at sunset) is two stories in height, with a rough
+wooden balcony running around it, and a well of muddy water in the centre.
+
+The oda-bashi lent us a Turkish table and supplied us with dinner from
+his own kitchen; kibabs, stewed beans, and cucumber salad. Mr. H. and I,
+forgetting the Ramazan, went out to hunt for an iced sherbet; but all the
+coffee-shops were closed until sunset. The people stared at our Egyptian
+costumes, and a fellow in official dress demanded my _teskeré_. Soon after
+we returned, François appeared with a splendid lump of ice in a basin and
+some lemons. The ice, so the _khangee_ said, is taken from a lake among
+the mountains, which in winter freezes to the thickness of a foot. Behind
+the lake is a natural cavern, which the people fill with ice, and then
+close up. At this season they take it out, day by day, and bring it down
+to the city. It is very pure and thick, and justifies the Turkish proverb
+in regard to Konia, which is celebrated for three excellent things:
+"_dooz, booz, küz_"--salt, ice, and girls.
+
+Soon after sunset, a cannon announced the close of the fast. We waited an
+hour or two longer, to allow the people time to eat, and then sallied out
+into the streets. Every minaret in the city blazed with a crown of lighted
+lamps around its upper gallery, while the long shafts below, and the
+tapering cones above, topped with brazen crescents, shone fair in the
+moonlight. It was a strange, brilliant spectacle. In the square before the
+principal mosque we found a crowd of persons frolicking around the
+fountain, in the light of a number of torches on poles planted in the
+ground. Mats were spread on the stones, and rows of Turks of all classes
+sat thereon, smoking their pipes. Large earthen water-jars stood here and
+there, and the people drank so often and so long that they seemed
+determined to provide against the morrow. The boys were having their
+amusement in wrestling, shouting and firing off squibs, which they threw
+into the crowd. We kicked off our slippers, sat down among the Turks,
+smoked a narghileh, drank a cup of coffee and an iced sherbet of raisin
+juice, and so enjoyed the Ramazan as well as the best of them.
+
+Numbers of True Believers were drinking and washing themselves at the
+picturesque fountain, and just as we rose to depart, the voice of a
+boy-muezzin, on one of the tallest minarets, sent down a musical call to
+prayer. Immediately the boys left off their sports and started on a run
+for the great mosque, and the grave, gray-bearded Turks got up from the
+mats, shoved on their slippers, and marched after them. We followed,
+getting a glimpse of the illuminated interior of the building, as we
+passed; but the oda-bashi conducted us still further, to a smaller though
+more beautiful mosque, surrounded with a garden-court. It was a truly
+magical picture. We entered the gate, and passed on by a marble pavement,
+under trees and arbors of vines that almost shut out the moonlight, to a
+paved space, in the centre whereof was a beautiful fountain, in the purest
+Saracenic style. Its heavy, projecting cornices and tall pyramidal roof
+rested on a circle of elegant arches, surrounding a marble structure,
+whence the water gushed forth in a dozen sparkling streams. On three sides
+it was inclosed by the moonlit trees and arbors; on the fourth by the
+outer corridor of the mosque, the door of entrance being exactly opposite.
+
+Large numbers of persons were washing their hands and feet at the
+fountain, after which they entered and knelt on the floor. We stood
+unobserved in the corridor, and looked in on the splendidly illuminated
+interior and the crowd at prayer, all bending their bodies to the earth at
+regular intervals and murmuring the name of Allah. They resembled a
+plain, of reeds bending before the gusts of wind which precede a storm.
+When all had entered and were united in solemn prayer, we returned,
+passing the grand mosque. I stole up to the door, lifted the heavy carpet
+that hung before it, and looked in. There was a Mevlevi Dervish standing
+in the entrance, but his eyes were lifted in heavenly abstraction, and he
+did not see me. The interior was brilliantly lit by white and colored
+lamps, suspended from the walls and the great central dome. It was an
+imposing structure, simple in form, yet grand from its dimensions. The
+floor was covered with kneeling figures, and a deep voice, coming from the
+other end of the mosque, was uttering pious phrases in a kind of chant. I
+satisfied my curiosity quickly, and we then returned to the khan.
+
+Yesterday afternoon I made a more thorough examination of the city.
+Passing through the bazaars, I reached the Serai, or Pasha's Palace, which
+stands on the site of that of the Sultans of Iconium. It is a long, wooden
+building, with no pretensions to architectural beauty. Near it there is a
+large and ancient mosque, with a minaret of singular elegance. It is about
+120 feet high, with two hanging galleries; the whole built of blue and red
+bricks, the latter projecting so as to form quaint patterns or designs.
+Several ancient buildings near this mosque are surmounted with pyramidal
+towers, resembling Pagodas of India. Following the long, crooked lanes
+between mud buildings, we passed these curious structures and reached the
+ancient wall of the city. In one of the streets lay a marble lion, badly
+executed, and apparently of the time of the Lower Empire. In the wall were
+inserted many similar figures, with fragments of friezes and cornices.
+This is the work of the Seljook Kings, who, in building the wall, took
+great pains to exhibit the fragments of the ancient city. The number of
+altars they have preserved is quite remarkable. On the square towers are
+sunken tablets, containing long Arabic inscriptions.
+
+The high walls of a ruined building in the southern part of the city
+attracted us, and on going thither we found it to be an ancient mosque,
+standing on an eminence formed apparently of the debris of other
+buildings. Part of the wall was also ancient, and in some places showed
+the marks of an earthquake. A long flight of steps led up to the door of
+the mosque, and as we ascended we were rewarded by the most charming view
+of the city and the grand plain. Konia lay at our feet--a wide, straggling
+array of low mud dwellings, dotted all over with patches of garden
+verdure, while its three superb mosques, with the many smaller tombs and
+places of worship, appeared like buildings left from some former and more
+magnificent capital. Outside of this circle ran a belt of garden land,
+adorned with groves and long lines of fruit trees; still further, the
+plain, a sea of faded green, flecked with the softest cloud-shadows, and
+beyond all, the beautiful outlines and dreamy tints of the different
+mountain chains. It was in every respect a lovely landscape, and the city
+is unworthy such surroundings. The sky, which in this region is of a pale,
+soft, delicious blue, was dotted with scattered fleeces of white clouds,
+and there was an exquisite play of light and shade over the hills.
+
+There were half a dozen men and boys about the door, amusing themselves
+with bursting percussion caps on the stone. They addressed us as
+"_hadji_!" (pilgrims), begging for more caps. I told them I was not a
+Turk, but an Arab, which they believed at once, and requested me to enter
+the mosque. The interior had a remarkably fine effect. It was a maze of
+arches, supported by columns of polished black marble, forty in number. In
+form it was nearly square, and covered with a flat, wooden roof. The floor
+was covered with a carpet, whereon several persons were lying at full
+length, while an old man, seated in one of the most remote corners, was
+reading in a loud, solemn voice. It is a peculiar structure, which I
+should be glad to examine more in detail.
+
+Not far from this eminence is a remarkable leaning minaret, more than a
+hundred feet in height, while in diameter it cannot be more than fifteen
+feet. In design it is light and elegant, and the effect is not injured by
+its deviation from the perpendicular, which I should judge to be about six
+feet. From the mosque we walked over the mounds of old Iconium to the
+eastern wall, passing another mosque, wholly in ruin, but which must have
+once been more splendid than any now standing. The portal is the richest
+specimen of Saracenic sculpture I have ever seen: a very labyrinth of
+intricate ornaments. The artist must have seen the great portal of the
+Temple of the Sun at Baalbec. The minarets have tumbled down, the roof has
+fallen in, but the walls are still covered with white and blue tiles, of
+the finest workmanship, resembling a mosaic of ivory and lapis lazuli.
+Some of the chambers seem to be inhabited, for two old men with white
+beards lay in the shade, and were not a little startled by our sudden
+appearance.
+
+We returned to the great mosque, which we had visited on the evening of
+our arrival, and listened for some time to the voice of a mollah who was
+preaching an afternoon sermon to a small and hungry congregation. We then
+entered the court before the tomb of Hazret Mevlana. It was apparently
+forbidden ground to Christians, but as the Dervishes did not seem to
+suspect us we walked about boldly, and were about to enter, when an
+indiscretion of my companion frustrated our plans. Forgetting his assumed
+character, he went to the fountain and drank, although it was no later
+than the _asser_, or afternoon prayer. The Dervishes were shocked and
+scandalized by this violation of the fast, in the very court-yard of their
+holiest mosque, and we judged it best to retire by degrees. We sent this
+morning to request an interview with the Pasha, but he had gone to pass
+the day in a country palace, about three hours distant. It is a still,
+hot, bright afternoon, and the silence of the famished populace disposes
+us to repose. Our view is bounded by the mud walls of the khan, and I
+already long for the freedom of the great Karamanian Plain. Here, in the
+heart of Asia Minor, all life seems to stagnate. There is sleep
+everywhere, and I feel that a wide barrier separates me from the living
+world.
+
+We have been detained here a whole day, through a chain of accidents, all
+resulting from the rascality of our muleteers on leaving Aleppo. The lame
+horse they palmed upon us was unable to go further, so we obliged them to
+buy another animal, which they succeeded in getting for 350 piastres. We
+advanced the money, although they were still in our debt, hoping to work
+our way through with the new horse, and thus avoid the risk of loss or
+delay. But this morning at sunrise Hadji Youssuf comes with a woeful face
+to say that the new horse has been stolen in the night, and we, who are
+ready to start, must sit down and wait till he is recovered. I suspected
+another trick, but when, after the lapse of three hours, François found
+the hadji sitting on the ground, weeping, and Achmet beating his breast,
+it seemed probable that the story was true. All search for the horse being
+vain, François went with them to the shekh of the horses, who promised, in
+case it should hereafter be found, to place it in the general pen, where
+they would be sure to get it on their return. The man who sold them the
+horse offered them another for the lame one and 150 piastres, and there
+was no other alternative but to accept it. But _we_ must advance the 150
+piastres, and so, in mid-journey, we have already paid them to the end,
+with the risk of their horses breaking down, or they, horses and all,
+absconding from us. But the knavish varlets are hardly bold enough for
+such a climax of villany.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI.
+
+The Heart of Asia Minor.
+
+
+  Scenery of the Hills--Ladik, the Ancient Laodicea--The Plague of
+  Gad-Flies--Camp at Ilgün--A Natural Warm Bath--The Gad-Flies Again--A
+  Summer Landscape--Ak-Sheher--The Base of Sultan Dagh--The Fountain of
+  Midas--A Drowsy Journey--The Town of Bolawadün.
+
+
+  "By the forests, lakes, and fountains,
+  Though the many-folded mountains." Shelley.
+
+
+Bolawadün, _July_ 1, 1852.
+
+Our men brought all the beasts into the court-yard of the khan at Konia,
+the evening before our departure, so that no more were stolen during the
+night. The oda-bashi, indefatigable to the last in his attention to us,
+not only helped load the mules, but accompanied us some distance on our
+way. All the merchants in the khan collected in the gallery to see us
+start, and we made our exit in some state. The morning was clear, fresh,
+and delightful. Turning away from the city walls, we soon emerged from the
+lines of fruit-trees and interminable fields of tomb-stones, and came out
+upon the great bare plain of Karamania. A ride of three hours brought us
+to a long, sloping hill, which gave us a view of the whole plain, and its
+circuit of mountains. A dark line in the distance marked the gardens of
+Konia. On the right, near the centre of the plain, the lake, now
+contracted to very narrow limits, glimmered in the sun. Notwithstanding
+the waste and unfertile appearance of the country, the soft, sweet sky
+that hangs over it, the pure, transparent air, the grand sweep of the
+plain, and the varied forms of the different mountain chains that
+encompass it, make our journey an inspiring one. A descent of the hills
+soon shut out the view; and the rest of the day's journey lay among them,
+skirting the eastern base of Allah Dagh.
+
+The country improved in character, as we advanced. The bottoms of the dry
+glens were covered with wheat, and shrubbery began to make its appearance
+on the mountain-sides In the afternoon, we crossed a watershed, dividing
+Karamania from the great central plain of Asia Minor, and descended to a
+village called Ladik, occupying the site of the ancient Laodicea, at the
+foot of Allah Dagh. The plain upon which we came was greener and more
+flourishing than that we had left. Trees were scattered here and there in
+clumps, and the grassy wastes, stretching beyond the grain-fields, were
+dotted with herds of cattle. Emir Dagh stood in the north-west, blue and
+distant, while, towards the north and north-east, the plain extended to
+the horizon--a horizon fifty miles distant--without a break. In that
+direction lay the great salt lake of Yüzler, and the strings of camels we
+met on the road, laden with salt, were returning from it. Ladik is
+surrounded with poppy-fields, brilliant with white and purple blossoms.
+When the petals have fallen, the natives go carefully over the whole field
+and make incisions in every stalk, whence the opium exudes.
+
+We pitched our tent under a large walnut tree, which we found standing in
+a deserted inclosure. The graveyard of the village is studded with relics
+of the ancient town. There are pillars, cornices, entablatures, jambs,
+altars, mullions and sculptured tablets, all of white marble, and many of
+them in an excellent state of preservation. They appear to date from the
+early time of the Lower Empire, and the cross has not yet been effaced
+from some which serve as head-stones for the True Believers. I was
+particularly struck with the abundance of altars, some of which contained
+entire and legible inscriptions. In the town there is the same abundance
+of ruins. The lid of a sarcophagus, formed of a single block of marble,
+now serves as a water-trough, and the fountain is constructed of ancient
+tablets. The town stands on a mound which appears to be composed entirely
+of the debris of the former place, and near the summit there are many
+holes which the inhabitants have dug in their search for rings, seals and
+other relics.
+
+The next day we made a journey of nine hours over a hilly country lying
+between the ranges of Allah Dagh and Emir Dagh. There were wells of
+excellent water along the road, at intervals of an hour or two. The day
+was excessively hot and sultry during the noon hours, and the flies were
+so bad as to give great inconvenience to our horses. The animal I bestrode
+kicked so incessantly that I could scarcely keep my seat. His belly was
+swollen and covered with clotted blood, from their bites. The hadji's mule
+began to show symptoms of illness, and we had great difficulty in keeping
+it on its legs. Mr. Harrison bled it in the mouth, as a last resource, and
+during the afternoon it partly recovered.
+
+An hour before sunset we reached Ilgün, a town on the plain, at the foot
+of one of the spurs of Emir Dagh. To the west of it there is a lake of
+considerable size, which receives the streams that flow through the town
+and water its fertile gardens. We passed through the town and pitched our
+tent upon a beautiful grassy meadow. Our customary pipe of refreshment was
+never more heartily enjoyed than at this place. Behind us was a barren
+hill, at the foot of which was a natural hot bath, wherein a number of
+women and children were amusing themselves. The afternoon heat had passed
+away, the air was calm, sweet, and tempered with the freshness of coming
+evening, and the long shadows of the hills, creeping over the meadows, had
+almost reached the town. Beyond the line of sycamore, poplar and fig-trees
+that shaded the gardens of Ilgün, rose the distant chain of Allah Dagh,
+and in the pale-blue sky, not far above it, the dim face of the gibbous
+moon showed like the ghost of a planet. Our horses were feeding on the
+green meadow; an old Turk sat beside us, silent with fasting, and there
+was no sound but the shouts of the children in the bath. Such hours as
+these, after a day's journey made in the drowsy heat of an Eastern summer,
+are indescribably grateful.
+
+After the women had retired from the bath, we were allowed to enter. The
+interior consisted of a single chamber, thirty feet high, vaulted and
+almost dark. In the centre was a large basin of hot water, filled by four
+streams which poured into it. A ledge ran around the sides, and niches in
+the wall supplied places for our clothes. The bath-keeper furnished us
+with towels, and we undressed and plunged in. The water was agreeably warm
+(about 90°), had a sweet taste, and a very slight sulphury smell. The
+vaulted hall redoubled the slightest noise, and a shaven Turk, who kept us
+company, sang in his delight, that he might hear the echo of his own
+voice. When we went back to the tent we found our visitor lying on the
+ground, trying to stay his hunger. It was rather too bad in us to light
+our pipes, make a sherbet and drink and smoke in his face, while we joked
+him about the Ramazan; and he at last got up and walked off, the picture
+of distress.
+
+We made an early start the next morning, and rode on briskly over the
+rolling, grassy hills. A beautiful lake, with an island in it, lay at the
+foot of Emir Dagh. After two hours we reached a guard-house, where our
+_teskerés_ were demanded, and the lazy guardsman invited us in to take
+coffee, that he might establish a right to the backsheesh which he could
+not demand. He had seen us afar off, and the coffee was smoking in the
+_finjans_ when we arrived. The sun was already terribly hot, and the
+large, green gad-flies came in such quantities that I seemed to be riding
+in the midst of a swarm of bees. My horse suffered very much, and struck
+out his hind feet so violently, in his endeavors to get rid of them, that
+he racked every joint in my body. They were not content with sucking his
+blood, but settling on the small segment of my calf, exposed between the
+big Tartar boot and the flowing trowsers, bit through my stockings with
+fierce bills. I killed hundreds of them, to no purpose, and at last, to
+relieve my horse, tied a bunch of hawthorn to a string, by which I swung
+it under his belly and against the inner side of his flanks. In this way I
+gave him some relief--a service which he acknowledged by a grateful motion
+of his head.
+
+As we descended towards Ak-Sheher the country became exceedingly rich and
+luxuriant. The range of Sultan Dagh (the Mountain of the Sultan) rose on
+our left, its sides covered with a thick screen of shrubbery, and its
+highest peak dotted with patches of snow; opposite, the lower range of
+Emir Dagh (the Mountain of the Prince) lay blue and bare in the sun
+shine. The base of Sultan Dagh was girdled with groves of fruit-trees,
+stretching out in long lines on the plain, with fields of ripening wheat
+between. In the distance the large lake of Ak-Sheher glittered in the sun.
+Towards the north-west, the plain stretched away for fifty miles before
+reaching the hills. It is evidently on a much lower level than the plain
+of Konia; the heat was not only greater, but the season was further
+advanced. Wheat was nearly ready for cutting, and the poppy-fields where,
+the day previous, the men were making their first incisions for opium,
+here had yielded their harvest and were fast ripening their seed.
+Ak-Sheher is beautifully situated at the entrance of a deep gorge in the
+mountains. It is so buried in its embowered gardens that little, except
+the mosque, is seen as you approach it. It is a large place, and boasts a
+fine mosque, but contains nothing worth seeing. The bazaar, after that of
+Konia, was the largest we had seen since leaving Tarsus. The greater part
+of the shopkeepers lay at full length, dozing, sleeping, or staying their
+appetites till the sunset gun. We found some superb cherries, and plenty
+of snow, which is brought down from the mountain. The natives were very
+friendly and good-humored, but seemed surprised at Mr. Harrison tasting
+the cherries, although I told them we were upon a journey. Our tent was
+pitched under a splendid walnut tree, outside of the town. The green
+mountain rose between us and the fading sunset, and the yellow moon was
+hanging in the east, as we took our dinner at the tent-door. Turks were
+riding homewards on donkeys, with loads of grass which they had been
+cutting in the meadows. The gun was fired, and the shouts of the children
+announced the close of the day's fast, while the sweet, melancholy voice
+of a boy muezzin called us to sunset prayer, from the minaret.
+
+Leaving Ak-Sheher this morning, we rode along the base of Sultan Dagh. The
+plain which we overlooked was magnificent. The wilderness of shrubbery
+which fringed the slopes of the mountain gave place to great orchards and
+gardens, interspersed with fields of grain, which extended far out on the
+plain, to the wild thickets and wastes of reeds surrounding the lake. The
+sides of Sultan Dagh were terraced and cultivated wherever it was
+practicable, and I saw some fields of wheat high up on the mountain. There
+were many, people in the road or laboring in the fields; and during the
+forenoon we passed several large villages. The country is more thickly
+inhabited, and has a more thrifty and prosperous air than any part of Asia
+Minor which I have seen. The people are better clad, have more open,
+honest, cheerful and intelligent faces, and exhibit a genuine courtesy and
+good-will in their demeanor towards us. I never felt more perfectly
+secure, or more certain of being among people whom I could trust.
+
+We passed under the summit of Sultan Dagh, which shone out so clear and
+distinct in the morning sun, that I could scarcely realize its actual
+height above the plain. From a tremendous gorge, cleft between the two
+higher peaks, issued a large stream, which, divided into a hundred
+channels, fertilizes a wide extent of plain. About two hours from
+Ak-Sheher we passed a splendid fountain of crystal water, gushing up
+beside the road. I believe it is the same called by some travellers the
+Fountain of Midas, but am ignorant wherefore the name is given it. We rode
+for several hours through a succession of grand, rich landscapes. A
+smaller lake succeeded to that of Ak-Sheher, Emir Dagh rose higher in the
+pale-blue sky, and Sultan Dagh showed other peaks, broken and striped with
+snow; but around us were the same glorious orchards and gardens, the same
+golden-green wheat and rustling phalanxes of poppies--armies of vegetable
+Round-heads, beside the bristling and bearded Cavaliers. The sun was
+intensely hot during the afternoon, as we crossed the plain, and I became
+so drowsed that it required an agony of exertion to keep from tumbling off
+my horse. We here left the great post-road to Constantinople, and took a
+less frequented track. The plain gradually became a meadow, covered with
+shrub cypress, flags, reeds, and wild water-plants. There were vast wastes
+of luxuriant grass, whereon thousands of black buffaloes were feeding. A
+stone causeway, containing many elegant fragments of ancient sculpture,
+extended across this part of the plain, but we took a summer path beside
+it, through beds of iris in bloom--a fragile snowy blossom, with a lip of
+the clearest golden hue. The causeway led to a bare salt plain, beyond
+which we came to the town of Bolawadün, and terminated our day's journey
+of forty miles.
+
+Bolawadün is a collection of mud houses, about a mile long, situated on an
+eminence at the western base of Emir Dagh. I went into the bazaar, which
+was a small place, and not very well supplied, though, as it was near
+sunset, there was quite a crowd of people, and the bakers were shovelling
+out their fresh bread at a brisk rate. Every one took me for a good
+Egyptian Mohammedan, and I was jostled right and left among the turbans,
+in a manner that certainly would not have happened me had I not also worn
+one. Mr. H., who had fallen behind the caravan, came up after we had
+encamped, and might have wandered a long time without finding us, but for
+the good-natured efforts of the inhabitants to set him aright. This
+evening he knocked over a hedgehog, mistaking it for a cat. The poor
+creature was severely hurt, and its sobs of distress, precisely like those
+of a little child, were to painful to hear, that we were obliged to have
+it removed from the vicinity of the tent.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+The Forests of Phrygia.
+
+
+  The Frontier of Phrygia--Ancient Quarries and Tombs--We Enter the Pine
+  Forests--A Guard-House--Encampments of the Turcomans--Pastoral
+  Scenery--A Summer Village--The Valley of the Tombs--Rock Sepulchres of
+  the Phrygian Kings--The Titan's Camp--The Valley of Kümbeh--A Land of
+  Flowers--Turcoman Hospitality--The Exiled Effendis--The Old Turcoman--A
+  Glimpse of Arcadia--A Landscape--Interested Friendship--The Valley of
+  the Pursek--Arrival at Kiutahya.
+
+
+  "And round us all the thicket rang
+  To many a flute of Arcady." Tennyson.
+
+
+Kiutahya, _July_ 5, 1852.
+
+We had now passed through the ancient provinces of Cilicia, Cappadocia,
+and Lycaonia, and reached the confines of Phrygia--a rude mountain region,
+which was never wholly penetrated by the light of Grecian civilization. It
+is still comparatively a wilderness, pierced but by a single high-road,
+and almost unvisited by travellers, yet inclosing in its depths many
+curious relics of antiquity. Leaving Bolawadün in the morning, we ascended
+a long, treeless mountain-slope, and in three or four hours reached the
+dividing ridge---the watershed of Asia Minor, dividing the affluents of
+the Mediterranean and the central lakes from the streams that flow to the
+Black Sea. Looking back, Sultan Dagh, along whose base we had travelled
+the previous day, lay high and blue in the background, streaked with
+shining snow, and far away behind it arose a still higher peak, hoary with
+the lingering winter. We descended into a grassy plain, shut in by a range
+of broken mountains, covered to their summits with dark-green shrubbery,
+through which the strata of marble rock gleamed like patches of snow. The
+hills in front were scarred with old quarries, once worked for the
+celebrated Phrygian marble. There was neither a habitation nor a human
+being to be seen, and the landscape had a singularly wild, lonely, and
+picturesque air.
+
+Turning westward, we crossed a high rolling tract, and entered a valley
+entirely covered with dwarf oaks and cedars. In spite of the dusty road,
+the heat, and the multitude of gad-flies, the journey presented an
+agreeable contrast to the great plains over which we had been travelling
+for many days. The opposite side of the glen was crowned with a tall crest
+of shattered rock, in which were many old Phrygian tombs. They were mostly
+simple chambers, with square apertures. There were traces of many more,
+the rock having been blown up or quarried down--the tombs, instead of
+protecting it, only furnishing one facility the more for destruction.
+After an hour's rest at a fountain, we threaded the windings of the glen
+to a lower plain, quite shut in by the hills, whose ribs of marble showed
+through the forests of oak, holly, cedar, and pine, which dotted them. We
+were now fully entered into the hill-country, and our road passed over
+heights and through hollows covered with picturesque clumps of foliage. It
+resembled some of the wild western downs of America, and, but for the
+Phrygian tombs, whose doorways stared at us from every rock, seemed as
+little familiar with the presence of Man.
+
+Hadji Youssuf, in stopping to arrange some of the baggage, lost his hold
+of his mule, and in spite of every effort to secure her, the provoking
+beast kept her liberty for the rest of the day. In vain did we head her
+off, chase her, coax her, set traps for her: she was too cunning to be
+taken in, and marched along at her ease, running into every field of
+grain, stopping to crop the choicest bunches of grass, or walking demurely
+in the caravan, allowing the hadji to come within arm's length before she
+kicked up her heels and dashed away again. We had a long chase through the
+clumps of oak and holly, but all to no purpose. The great green gad-flies
+swarmed around us, biting myself as well as my horse. Hecatombs, crushed
+by my whip, dropped dead in the dust, but the ranks were immediately
+filled from some invisible reserve. The soil was no longer bare, but
+entirely covered with grass and flowers. In one of the valleys I saw a
+large patch of the crimson larkspur, so thick as to resemble a pool of
+blood. While crossing a long, hot hill, we came upon a little arbor of
+stones, covered with pine branches. It inclosed an ancient sarcophagus of
+marble, nearly filled with water. Beside it stood a square cup, with a
+handle, rudely hewn out of a piece of pine wood. This was a charitable
+provision for travellers, and constantly supplied by the Turcomans who
+lived in the vicinity.
+
+The last two hours of our journey that day were through a glorious forest
+of pines. The road lay in a winding glen, green and grassy, and covered to
+the summits on both sides with beautiful pine trees, intermixed with
+cedar. The air had the true northern aroma, and was more grateful than
+wine. Every turn of the glen disclosed a charming woodland view. It was a
+wild valley of the northern hills, filled with the burning lustre of a
+summer sun, and canopied by the brilliant blue of a summer sky. There were
+signs of the woodman's axe, and the charred embers of forest camp-fires. I
+thought of the lovely _cañadas_ in the pine forests behind Monterey, and
+could really have imagined myself there. Towards evening we reached a
+solitary guard-house, on the edge of the forest. The glen here opened a
+little, and a stone fountain of delicious water furnished all that we
+wanted for a camping-place. The house was inhabited by three soldiers;
+sturdy, good-humored fellows, who immediately spread a mat in the shade
+for us and made us some excellent coffee. A Turcoman encampment in the
+neighborhood supplied us with milk and eggs.
+
+The guardsmen were good Mussulmans, and took us for the same. One of them
+asked me to let him know when the sun was down, and I prolonged his fast
+until it was quite dark, when I gave him permission to eat. They all had
+tolerable stallions for their service, and seemed to live pleasantly
+enough, in their wild way. The fat, stumpy corporal, with his enormously
+broad pantaloons and automaton legs, went down to the fountain with his
+musket, and after taking a rest and sighting full five minutes, fired at a
+dove without hitting it. He afterwards joined us in a social pipe, and we
+sat on a carpet at the door of the guard-house, watching the splendid
+moonrise through the pine boughs. When the pipes had burned out I went to
+bed, and slept a long, sweet sleep until dawn.
+
+We knew that the tombs of the Phrygian Kings could not be far off, and, on
+making inquiries of the corporal, found that he knew the place. It was not
+four hours distant, by a by-road and as it would be impossible to reach
+it without a guide, he would give us one of his men, in consideration of a
+fee of twenty piastres. The difficulty was evident, in a hilly, wooded
+country like this, traversed by a labyrinth of valleys and ravines, and so
+we accepted the soldier. As we were about leaving, an old Turcoman, whose
+beard was dyed a bright red, came up, saying that he knew Mr. H. was a
+physician, and could cure him of his deafness. The morning air was sweet
+with the breath of cedar and pine, and we rode on through the woods and
+over the open turfy glades, in high spirits. We were in the heart of a
+mountainous country, clothed with evergreen forests, except some open
+upland tracts, which showed a thick green turf, dotted all over with
+park-like clumps, and single great trees. The pines were noble trunks,
+often sixty to eighty feet high, and with boughs disposed in all possible
+picturesqueness of form. The cedar frequently showed a solid white bole,
+three feet in diameter.
+
+We took a winding footpath, often a mere track, striking across the hills
+in a northern direction. Everywhere we met the Turks of the plain, who are
+now encamped in the mountains, to tend their flocks through the summer
+months. Herds of sheep and goats were scattered over the green
+pasture-slopes, and the idle herd-boys basked in the morning sun, playing
+lively airs on a reed flute, resembling the Arabic _zumarra_. Here and
+there was a woodman, busy at a recently felled tree, and we met several of
+the creaking carts of the country, hauling logs. All that we saw had a
+pleasant rural air, a smack of primitive and unsophisticated life. From
+the higher ridges over which we passed, we could see, far to the east and
+west, other ranges of pine-covered mountains, and in the distance the
+cloudy lines of loftier chains. The trunks of the pines were nearly all
+charred, and many of the smaller trees dead, from the fires which, later
+in the year, rage in these forests.
+
+After four hours of varied and most inspiring travel, we reached a
+district covered for the most part with oak woods--a more open though
+still mountainous region. There was a summer village of Turks scattered
+over the nearest slope--probably fifty houses in all, almost perfect
+counterparts of Western log-cabins. They were built of pine logs, laid
+crosswise, and covered with rough boards. These, as we were told, were the
+dwellings of the people who inhabit the village of Khosref Pasha Khan
+during the winter. Great numbers of sheep and goats were browsing over the
+hills or lying around the doors of the houses. The latter were beautiful
+creatures, with heavy, curved horns, and long, white, silky hair, that
+entirely hid their eyes. We stopped at a house for water, which the man
+brought out in a little cask. He at first proposed giving us _yaourt_, and
+his wife suggested _kaïmak_ (sweet curds), which we agreed to take, but it
+proved to be only boiled milk.
+
+Leaving the village, we took a path leading westward, mounted a long hill,
+and again entered the pine forests. Before long, we came to a well-built
+country-house, somewhat resembling a Swiss cottage. It was two stories
+high, and there was an upper balcony, with cushioned divans, overlooking a
+thriving garden-patch and some fruit-trees. Three or four men were weeding
+in the garden, and the owner came up and welcomed us. A fountain of
+ice-cold water gushed into a stone trough at the door, making a tempting
+spot for our breakfast, but we were bent on reaching the tombs. There were
+convenient out-houses for fowls, sheep, and cattle. The herds were out,
+grazing along the edges of the forest, and we heard the shrill, joyous
+melodies of the flutes blown by the herd-boys.
+
+We now reached a ridge, whence we looked down through the forest upon a
+long valley, nearly half a mile wide, and bordered on the opposite side by
+ranges of broken sandstone crags. This was the place we sought--the Valley
+of the Phrygian Tombs. Already we could distinguish the hewn faces of the
+rocks, and the dark apertures to the chambers within. The bottom of the
+valley was a bed of glorious grass, blazoned with flowers, and redolent of
+all vernal smells. Several peasants, finding it too hot to mow, had thrown
+their scythes along the swarths, and were lying in the shade of an oak. We
+rode over the new-cut hay, up the opposite side, and dismounted at the
+face of the crags. As we approached them, the number of chambers hewn in
+the rock, the doors and niches now open to the day, surmounted by
+shattered spires and turrets, gave the whole mass the appearance of a
+grand fortress in ruins. The crags, which are of a very soft, reddish-gray
+sandstone, rise a hundred and fifty feet from their base, and their
+summits are worn by the weather into the most remarkable forms.
+
+The principal monument is a broad, projecting cliff, one side of which has
+been cut so as to resemble the façade of a temple. The sculptured part is
+about sixty feet high by sixty in breadth, and represents a solid wall
+with two pilasters at the ends, upholding an architrave and pediment,
+which is surmounted by two large volutes. The whole face of the wall is
+covered with ornaments resembling panel-work, not in regular squares, but
+a labyrinth of intricate designs. In the centre, at the bottom, is a
+shallow square recess, surrounded by an elegant, though plain moulding,
+but there is no appearance of an entrance to the sepulchral chamber, which
+may be hidden in the heart of the rock. There is an inscription in Greek
+running up one side, but it is of a later date than the work itself. On
+one of the tombs there is an inscription: "To King Midas." These relics
+are supposed to date from the period of the Gordian Dynasty, about seven
+centuries before Christ.
+
+A little in front of a headland, formed by the summit walls of two meeting
+valleys, rises a mass of rocks one hundred feet high, cut into sepulchral
+chambers, story above story, with the traces of steps between them,
+leading to others still higher. The whole rock, which may be a hundred and
+fifty feet long by fifty feet broad, has been scooped out, leaving but
+narrow partitions to separate the chambers of the dead. These chambers are
+all plain, but some are of very elegant proportions, with arched or
+pyramidal roofs, and arched recesses at the sides, containing sarcophagi
+hewn in the solid stone. There are also many niches for cinerary urns. The
+principal tomb had a portico, supported by columns, but the front is now
+entirely hurled down, and only the elegant panelling and stone joists of
+the ceiling remain. The entire hill was a succession of tombs. There is
+not a rock which does not bear traces of them. I might have counted
+several hundred within a stone's throw. The position of these curious
+remains in a lonely valley, shut in on all sides by dark, pine-covered
+mountains---two of which are crowned with a natural acropolis of rock,
+resembling a fortress--increases the interest with which they inspire the
+beholder. The valley on the western side, with its bed of ripe wheat in
+the bottom, its tall walls, towers, and pinnacles of rock, and its distant
+vista of mountain and forest, is the most picturesque in Phrygia.
+
+The Turcoman reapers, who came up to see us and talk with us, said that
+there were the remains of walls on the summit of the principal acropolis
+opposite us, and that, further up the valley, there was a chamber with two
+columns in front. Mr. Harrison and I saddled and rode off, passing along a
+wall of fantastic rock-turrets, at the base of which was a natural column,
+about ten feet high, and five in diameter, almost perfectly round, and
+upholding an immense rock, shaped like a cocked hat. In crossing the
+meadow we saw a Turk sitting in the sun beside a spring, and busily
+engaged in knitting a stocking. After a ride of two miles we found the
+chamber, hewn like the façade of a temple in an isolated rock, overlooking
+two valleys of wild meadow-land. The pediment and cornice were simple and
+beautiful, but the columns had been broken away. The chambers were
+perfectly plain, but the panel-work on the ceiling of the portico was
+entire.
+
+After passing three hours in examining these tombs, we took the track
+which our guide pointed out as the road to Kiutahya. We rode two hours
+through the forest, and came out upon a wooded height, overlooking a
+grand, open valley, rich in grain-fields and pasture land. While I was
+contemplating this lovely view, the road turned a corner of the ridge, and
+lo! before me there appeared (as I thought), above the tops of the pines,
+high up on the mountain side, a line of enormous tents. Those snow-white
+cones, uprearing their sharp spires, and spreading out their broad
+bases--what could they be but an encampment of monster tents? Yet no; they
+were pinnacles of white rock--perfect cones, from thirty to one hundred
+feet in height, twelve in all, and ranged side by side along the edge of
+the cliff, with the precision of a military camp. They were snow-white,
+perfectly smooth and full, and their bases touched. What made the
+spectacle more singular, there was no other appearance of the same rock on
+the mountain. All around them was the dark-green of the pines, out of
+which they rose like drifted horns of unbroken snow. I named this singular
+phenomenon--which seems to have escaped the notice of travellers--The
+Titan's Camp.
+
+In another hour we reached a fountain near the village of Kümbeh, and
+pitched our tents for the night. The village, which is half a mile in
+length, is built upon a singular crag, which shoots up abruptly from the
+centre of the valley, rising at one extremity to a height of more than a
+hundred feet. It was entirely deserted, the inhabitants having all gone
+off to the mountains with their herds. The solitary muezzin, who cried the
+_mughreb_ at the close of the fast, and lighted the lamps on his minaret,
+went through with his work in most unclerical haste, now that there was no
+one to notice him. We sent Achmet, the _katurgee_, to the mountain camp of
+the villagers, to procure a supply of fowls and barley.
+
+We rose very early yesterday morning, shivering in the cold air of the
+mountains, and just as the sun, bursting through the pines, looked down
+the little hollow where our tents were pitched, set the caravan in motion.
+The ride down the valley was charming. The land was naturally rich and
+highly cultivated, which made its desertion the more singular. Leagues of
+wheat, rye and poppies spread around us, left for the summer warmth to do
+its silent work. The dew sparkled on the fields as we rode through them,
+and the splendor of the flowers in blossom was equal to that of the plains
+of Palestine. There were purple, white and scarlet poppies; the rich
+crimson larkspur; the red anemone; the golden daisy; the pink convolvulus;
+and a host of smaller blooms, so intensely bright and dazzling in their
+hues, that the meadows were richer than a pavement of precious jewels. To
+look towards the sun, over a field of scarlet poppies, was like looking on
+a bed of live coals; the light, striking through the petals, made them
+burn as with an inward fire. Out of this wilderness of gorgeous color,
+rose the tall spires of a larger plant, covered with great yellow flowers,
+while here and there the snowy blossoms of a clump of hawthorn sweetened
+the morning air.
+
+A short distance beyond Kümbeh, we passed another group of ancient tombs,
+one of which was of curious design. An isolated rock, thirty feet in
+height by twenty in diameter, was cut so as to resemble a triangular
+tower, with the apex bevelled. A chamber, containing a sarcophagus, was
+hewn out of the interior. The entrance was ornamented with double columns
+in bas-relief, and a pediment. There was another arched chamber, cut
+directly through the base of the triangle, with a niche on each side,
+hollowed out at the bottom so as to form a sarcophagus.
+
+Leaving these, the last of the Phrygian tombs, we struck across the valley
+and ascended a high range of hills, covered with pine, to an upland,
+wooded region. Here we found a summer village of log cabins, scattered
+over a grassy slope. The people regarded us with some curiosity, and the
+women hastily concealed their faces. Mr. H. rode up to a large new house,
+and peeped in between the logs. There were several women inside, who
+started up in great confusion and threw over their heads whatever article
+was most convenient. An old man, with a long white beard, neatly dressed
+in a green jacket and shawl turban, came out and welcomed us. I asked for
+_kaïmak_, which he promised, and immediately brought out a carpet and
+spread it on the ground. Then followed a large basin of kaïmak, with
+wooden spoons, three loaves of bread, and a plate of cheese. We seated
+ourselves on the carpet, and delved in with the spoons, while the old man
+retired lest his appetite should be provoked. The milk was excellent, nor
+were the bread and cheese to be despised.
+
+While we were eating, the Khowagee, or schoolmaster of the community, a
+genteel little man in a round white turban, came op to inquire of François
+who we were. "That effendi in the blue dress," said he, "is the Bey, is he
+not?" "Yes," said F. "And the other, with the striped shirt and white
+turban, is a writer?" [Here he was not far wrong.] "But how is it that the
+effendis do not speak Turkish?" he persisted. "Because," said François,
+"their fathers were exiled by Sultan Mahmoud when they were small
+children. They have grown up in Aleppo like Arabs, and have not yet
+learned Turkish; but God grant that the Sultan may not turn his face away
+from them, and that they may regain the rank their fathers once had in
+Stamboul." "God grant it!" replied the Khowagee, greatly interested in the
+story. By this time we had eaten our full share of the kaïmak, which was
+finished by François and the katurgees. The old man now came up, mounted
+on a dun mare, stating that he was bound for Kiutahya, and was delighted
+with the prospect of travelling in such good company, I gave one of his
+young children some money, as the kaïmak was tendered out of pure
+hospitality, and so we rode off.
+
+Our new companion was armed to the teeth, having a long gun with a heavy
+wooden stock and nondescript lock, and a sword of excellent metal. It was,
+in fact, a weapon of the old Greek empire, and the cross was still
+enamelled in gold at the root of the blade, in spite of all his efforts to
+scratch it out. He was something of a _fakeer_, having made a pilgrimage
+to Mecca and Jerusalem. He was very inquisitive, plying François with
+questions about the government. The latter answered that we were not
+connected with the government, but the old fellow shrewdly hinted that he
+knew better--we were persons of rank, travelling incognito. He was very
+attentive to us, offering us water at every fountain, although he believed
+us to be good Mussulmans. We found him of some service as a guide,
+shortening our road by taking by-paths through the woods.
+
+For several hours we traversed a beautifully wooded region of hills.
+Graceful clumps of pine shaded the grassy knolls, where the sheep and
+silky-haired goats were basking at rest, and the air was filled with a
+warm, summer smell, blown from the banks of golden broom. Now and then,
+from the thickets of laurel and arbutus, a shrill shepherd's reed piped
+some joyous woodland melody. Was it a Faun, astray among the hills? Green
+dells, open to the sunshine, and beautiful as dreams of Arcady, divided
+the groves of pine. The sky overhead was pure and cloudless, clasping the
+landscape with its belt of peace and silence. Oh, that delightful region,
+haunted by all the bright spirits of the immortal Grecian Song! Chased
+away from the rest of the earth, here they have found a home--here
+secret altars remain to them from the times that are departed!
+
+Out of these woods, we passed into a lonely plain, inclosed by piny hills
+that brightened in the thin, pure ether. In the distance were some
+shepherds' tents, and musical goat-bells tinkled along the edges of the
+woods. From the crest of a lofty ridge beyond this plain, we looked back
+over the wild solitudes wherein we had been travelling for two days--long
+ranges of dark hills, fading away behind each other, with a perspective
+that hinted of the hidden gulfs between. From the western slope, a still
+more extensive prospect opened before us. Over ridges covered with forests
+of oak and pine, we saw the valley of the Pursek, the ancient Thymbrius,
+stretching far away to the misty line of Keshish Dagh, The mountains
+behind Kintahya loomed up high and grand, making a fine feature in the
+middle distance. We caught but fleeting glimpses of the view through the
+trees; and then, plunging into the forest again, descended to a cultivated
+slope, whereon there was a little village, now deserted. The graveyard
+beside it was shaded with large cedar-trees, and near it there was a
+fountain of excellent water. "Here," said the old man, "you can wash and
+pray, and then rest awhile under the trees." François excused us by saying
+that, while on a journey, we always bathed before praying; but, not to
+slight his faith entirely, I washed my hands and face before sitting down
+to our scanty breakfast of bread and water.
+
+Our path now led down through long, winding glens, over grown with oaks,
+from which the wild yellow honeysuckles fell in a shower of blossoms. As
+we drew near the valley, the old man began to hint that his presence had
+been of great service to us, and deserved recompense. "God knows," said
+he to François, "in what corner of the mountains you might now be, if I
+had not accompanied you." "Oh," replied François, "there are always plenty
+of people among the woods, who would have been equally as kind as yourself
+in showing us the way." He then spoke of the robbers in the neighborhood,
+and pointed out some graves by the road-side, as those of persons who had
+been murdered. "But," he added, "everybody in these parts knows me, and
+whoever is in company with me is always safe." The Greek assured him that
+we always depended on ourselves for our safety. Defeated on these tacks,
+he boldly affirmed that his services were worthy of payment. "But," said
+François "you told us at the village that you had business in Kiutahya,
+and would be glad to join us for the sake of having company on the road."
+"Well, then," rejoined the old fellow, making a last effort, "I leave the
+matter to your politeness." "Certainly," replied the imperturbable
+dragoman, "we could not be so impolite as to offer money to a man of your
+wealth and station; we could not insult you by giving you alms." The old
+Turcoman thereupon gave a shrug and a grunt, made a sullen good-by
+salutation, and left us.
+
+It was nearly six o'clock when we reached the Pursek. There was no sign of
+the city, but we could barely discern an old fortress on the lofty cliff
+which commands the town. A long stone bridge crossed the river, which here
+separates into half a dozen channels. The waters are swift and clear, and
+wind away in devious mazes through the broad green meadows. We hurried on,
+thinking we saw minarets in the distance, but they proved to be poplars.
+The sun sank lower and lower, and finally went down before there was any
+token of our being in the vicinity of the city. Soon, however, a line of
+tiled roofs appeared along the slope of a hill on our left, and turning
+its base, we saw the city before us, filling the mouth of a deep valley or
+gorge, which opened from the mountains.
+
+But the horses are saddled, and François tells me it is time to put up my
+pen. We are off, over the mountains, to the Greek city of OEzani, in
+the valley of the Rhyndacus.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII.
+
+Kiutahya and the Ruins of OEzani.
+
+
+  Entrance into Kiutahya--The New Khan--An Unpleasant
+  Discovery--Kiutahya--The Citadel--Panorama from the Walls--The Gorge of
+  the Mountains--Camp in a Meadow--The Valley of the
+  Rhyndacus--Chavdür--The Ruins of OEzani--The Acropolis and
+  Temple--The Theatre and Stadium--Ride down the Valley--Camp at Daghje
+  Köi
+
+
+  "There is a temple in ruin stands,
+  Fashioned by long-forgotten hands;
+  Two or three columns and many a stone,
+  Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown!
+  Out upon Time! it will leave no more
+  Of the things to come than the things before!"
+
+
+Daghje Köi, on the Rhyndacus, _July_ 6, 1852.
+
+On entering Kiutahya, we passed the barracks, which were the residence of
+Kossuth and his companions in exile. Beyond them, we came to a broad
+street, down which flowed the vilest stream of filth of which even a
+Turkish city could ever boast. The houses on either side were two stories
+high, the upper part of wood, with hanging balconies, over which shot the
+eaves of the tiled roofs. The welcome cannon had just sounded, announcing
+the close of the day's fast. The coffee-shops were already crowded with
+lean and hungry customers, the pipes were filled and lighted, and the
+coffee smoked in the finjans. In half a minute such whiffs arose on all
+sides as it would have cheered the heart of a genuine smoker to behold.
+Out of these cheerful places we passed into other streets which were
+entirely deserted, the inhabitants being at dinner. It had a weird,
+uncomfortable effect to ride through streets where the clatter of our
+horses' hoofs was the only sound of life. At last we reached the entrance
+to a bazaar, and near it a khan--a new khan, very neatly built, and with a
+spare room so much better than we expected, that we congratulated
+ourselves heartily. We unpacked in a hurry, and François ran off to the
+bazaar, from which he speedily returned with some roast kid, cucumbers,
+and cherries. We lighted two lamps, I borrowed the oda-bashi's narghileh,
+and François, learning that it was our national anniversary, procured us a
+flask of Greek wine, that we might do it honor. The beverage, however,
+resembled a mixture of vinegar and sealing-wax, and we contented ourselves
+with drinking patriotic toasts, in two finjans of excellent coffee. But in
+the midst of our enjoyment, happening to cast my eye on the walls, I saw a
+sight that turned all our honey into gall. Scores on scores--nay, hundreds
+on hundreds--of enormous bed-bugs swarmed on the plaster, and were already
+descending to our beds and baggage. To sleep there was impossible, but we
+succeeded in getting possession of one of the outside balconies, where we
+made our beds, after searching them thoroughly.
+
+In the evening a merchant, who spoke a little Arabic, came up to me and
+asked: "Is not your Excellency's friend the _hakim pasha_" (chief
+physician). I did not venture to assent, but replied: "No; he is a
+_sowakh_" This was beyond his comprehension, and he went away with the
+impression that Mr. H. was much greater than a _hakim pasha_. I slept
+soundly on my out-doors bed, but was awakened towards morning by two
+tremendous claps of thunder, echoing in the gorge, and the rattling of
+rain on the roof of the khan.
+
+I spent two or three hours next morning in taking a survey of Kiutahya.
+The town is much larger than I had supposed: I should judge it to contain
+from fifty to sixty thousand inhabitants. The situation is remarkable, and
+gives a picturesque effect to the place when seen from above, which makes
+one forget its internal filth. It is built in the mouth of a gorge, and
+around the bases of the hills on either side. The lofty mountains which
+rise behind it supply it with perpetual springs of pure water. At every
+dozen steps you come upon a fountain, and every large street has a brook
+in the centre. The houses are all two and many of them three stories high,
+with hanging balconies, which remind me much of Switzerland. The bazaars
+are very extensive, covering all the base of the hill on which stands the
+ancient citadel. The goods displayed were mostly European cotton fabrics,
+_quincaillerie_, boots and slippers, pipe-sticks and silks. In the parts
+devoted to the produce of the country, I saw very fine cherries, cucumbers
+and lettuce, and bundles of magnificent clover, three to four feet high.
+
+We climbed a steep path to the citadel, which covers the summit of an
+abrupt, isolated hill, connected by a shoulder with the great range. The
+walls are nearly a mile in circuit, consisting almost wholly of immense
+circular buttresses, placed so near each other that they almost touch. The
+connecting walls are broken down on the northern side, so that from below
+the buttresses have the appearance of enormous shattered columns. They are
+built of rough stones, with regular layers of flat, burnt bricks. On the
+highest part of the hill stands the fortress, or stronghold, a place which
+must have been almost impregnable before the invention of cannon. The
+structure probably dates from the ninth or tenth century, but is built on
+the foundations of more ancient edifices. The old Greek city of Cotyaeum
+(whence Kiutahya) probably stood upon this hill. Within the citadel is an
+upper town, containing about a hundred houses, the residence, apparently
+of poor families.
+
+From the circuit of the walls, on every side, there are grand views over
+the plain, the city, and the gorges of the mountains behind. The valley of
+the Pursek, freshened by the last night's shower, spread out a sheet of
+vivid green, to the pine-covered mountains which bounded it on all sides.
+Around the city it was adorned with groves and gardens, and, in the
+direction of Brousa, white roads went winding away to other gardens and
+villages in the distance. The mountains of Phrygia, through which we had
+passed, were the loftiest in the circle that inclosed the valley. The city
+at our feet presented a thick array of red-tiled roofs, out of which rose
+here and there the taper shaft of a minaret, or the dome of a mosque or
+bath. From the southern side of the citadel, we looked down into the gorge
+which supplies Kiutahya with water--a wild, desert landscape of white
+crags and shattered peaks of gray rock, hanging over a narrow winding bed
+of the greenest foliage.
+
+Instead of taking the direct road to Brousa, we decided to make a detour
+of two days, in order to visit the ruins of the old Greek city of
+OEzani, which are thirty-six miles south of Kiutahya. Leaving at
+noon, we ascended the gorge behind the city, by delightfully embowered
+paths, at first under the eaves of superb walnut-trees, and then through
+wild thickets of willow, hazel, privet, and other shrubs, tangled
+together with the odorous white honeysuckle. Near the city, the
+mountain-sides were bare white masses of gypsum and other rock, in many
+places with the purest chrome-yellow hue; but as we advanced they were
+clothed to the summit with copsewood. The streams that foamed down these
+perennial heights were led into buried channels, to come to light again in
+sparkling fountains, pouring into ever-full stone basins. The day was cool
+and cloudy, and the heavy shadows which hung on the great sides of the
+mountain gateway, heightened, by contrast, the glory of the sunlit plain
+seen through them.
+
+After passing the summit ridge, probably 5,000 feet above the sea, we came
+upon a wooded, hilly region, stretching away in long misty lines to Murad
+Dagh, whose head was spotted with snow. There were patches of wheat and
+rye in the hollows, and the bells of distant herds tinkled occasionally
+among the trees. There was no village on the road, and we were on the way
+to one which we saw in the distance, when we came upon a meadow of good
+grass, with a small stream running through it. Here we encamped, sending
+Achmet, the katurgee, to the village for milk and eggs. The ewes had just
+been milked for the suppers of their owners, but they went over the flock
+again, stripping their udders, which greatly improved the quality of the
+milk. The night was so cold that I could scarcely sleep during the morning
+hours. There was a chill, heavy dew on the meadow; but when François awoke
+me at sunrise, the sky was splendidly clear and pure, and the early beams
+had a little warmth in them. Our coffee, before starting, made with
+sheep's milk, was the richest I ever drank.
+
+After riding for two hours across broad, wild ridges, covered with cedar,
+we reached a height overlooking the valley of the Rhyndacus, or rather the
+plain whence he draws his sources--a circular level, ten or twelve miles
+in diameter, and contracting towards the west into a narrow dell, through
+which his waters find outlet; several villages, each embowered in gardens,
+were scattered along the bases of the hills that inclose it. We took the
+wrong road, but were set aright by a herdsman, and after threading a lane
+between thriving grain-fields, were cheered by the sight of the Temple of
+OEzani, lifted on its acropolis above the orchards of Chavdür, and
+standing out sharp and clear against the purple of the hills.
+
+Our approach to the city was marked by the blocks of sculptured marble
+that lined the way: elegant mouldings, cornices, and entablatures, thrown
+together with common stone to make walls between the fields. The village
+is built on both sides of the Rhyndacus; it is an ordinary Turkish hamlet,
+with tiled roofs and chimneys, and exhibits very few of the remains of the
+old city in its composition. This, I suspect, is owing to the great size
+of the hewn blocks, especially of the pillars, cornices, and entablatures,
+nearly all of which are from twelve to fifteen feet long. It is from the
+size and number of these scattered blocks, rather than from the buildings
+which still partially exist, that one obtains an idea of the size and
+splendor of the ancient OEzani. The place is filled with fragments,
+especially of columns, of which there are several hundred, nearly all
+finely fluted. The Rhyndacus is still spanned by an ancient bridge of
+three arches, and both banks are lined with piers of hewn stone. Tall
+poplars and massy walnuts of the richest green shade the clear waters, and
+there are many picturesque combinations of foliage and ruin--death and
+life--which would charm a painter's eye. Near the bridge we stopped to
+examine a pile of immense fragments which have been thrown together by the
+Turks--pillars, cornices, altars, pieces of a frieze, with bulls' heads
+bound together by hanging garlands, and a large square block, with a
+legible tablet. It resembled an altar in form, and, from the word
+"_Artemidoron_" appeared to have belonged to some temple to Diana.
+
+Passing through the village we came to a grand artificial platform on its
+western side, called the Acropolis. It is of solid masonry, five hundred
+feet square, and averaging ten feet in height. On the eastern side it is
+supported on rude though massive arches, resembling Etruscan workmanship.
+On the top and around the edges of this platform lie great numbers of
+fluted columns, and immense fragments of cornice and architrave. In the
+centre, on a foundation platform about eight feet high, stands a beautiful
+Ionic temple, one hundred feet in length. On approaching, it appeared
+nearly perfect, except the roof, and so many of the columns remain
+standing that its ruined condition scarcely injures the effect. There are
+seventeen columns on the side and eight at the end, Ionic in style,
+fluted, and fifty feet in height. About half the cella remains, with an
+elegant frieze and cornice along the top, and a series of tablets, set in
+panels of ornamental sculpture, running along the sides. The front of the
+cella includes a small open peristyle, with two composite Corinthian
+columns at the entrance, making, with those of the outer colonnade,
+eighteen columns standing. The tablets contain Greek inscriptions,
+perfectly legible, where the stone has not been shattered. Under the
+temple there are large vaults, which we found filled up with young kids,
+who had gone in there to escape the heat of the sun. The portico was
+occupied by sheep, which at first refused to make room for us, and gave
+strong olfactory evidence of their partiality for the temple as a
+resting-place.
+
+On the side of a hill, about three hundred yards to the north, are the
+remains of a theatre. Crossing some patches of barley and lentils, we
+entered a stadium, forming an extension of the theatre---that is, it took
+the same breadth and direction, so that the two might be considered as one
+grand work, more than one thousand feet long by nearly four hundred wide.
+The walls of the stadium are hurled down, except an entrance of five
+arches of massive masonry, on the western side. We rode up the artificial
+valley, between high, grassy hills, completely covered with what at a
+distance resembled loose boards, but which were actually the long marble
+seats of the stadium. Urging our horses over piles of loose blocks, we
+reached the base of the theatre, climbed the fragments that cumber the
+main entrance, and looked on the spacious arena and galleries within.
+Although greatly ruined, the materials of the whole structure remain, and
+might be put together again. It is a grand wreck; the colossal fragments
+which have tumbled from the arched proscenium fill the arena, and the rows
+of seats, though broken and disjointed, still retain their original order.
+It is somewhat more than a semicircle, the radius being about one hundred
+and eighty feet. The original height was upwards of fifty feet, and there
+were fifty rows of seats in all, each row capable of seating two hundred
+persons, so that the number of spectators who could be accommodated was
+eight thousand.
+
+The fragments cumbering the arena were enormous, and highly interesting
+from their character. There were rich blocks of cornice, ten feet long;
+fluted and reeded pillars; great arcs of heavily-carved sculpture, which
+appeared to have served as architraves from pillar to pillar, along the
+face of the proscenium, where there was every trace of having been a
+colonnade; and other blocks sculptured with figures of animals in
+alto-relievo. There were generally two figures on each block, and among
+those which could be recognized were the dog and the lion. Doors opened
+from the proscenium into the retiring-rooms of the actors, under which
+were the vaults where the beasts were kept. A young fox or jackal started
+from his siesta as we entered the theatre, and took refuge under the loose
+blocks. Looking backwards through the stadium from the seats of the
+theatre, we had a lovely view of the temple, standing out clear and bright
+in the midst of the summer plain, with the snow-streaked summits of Murad
+Dagh in the distance. It was a picture which I shall long remember. The
+desolation of the magnificent ruins was made all the more impressive by
+the silent, solitary air of the region around them.
+
+Leaving Chavdür in the afternoon, we struck northward, down the valley of
+the Rhyndacus, over tracts of rolling land, interspersed with groves of
+cedar and pine. There were so many branch roads and crossings that we
+could not fail to go wrong; and after two or three hours found ourselves
+in the midst of a forest, on the broad top of a mountain, without any road
+at all. There were some herdsmen tending their flocks near at hand, but
+they could give us no satisfactory direction. We thereupon, took our own
+course, and soon brought up on the brink of a precipice, overhanging a
+deep valley. Away to the eastward we caught a glimpse of the Rhyndacus,
+and the wooden minaret of a little village on his banks. Following the
+edge of the precipice, we came at last to a glen, down which ran a rough
+footpath that finally conducted us, by a long road through the forests, to
+the village of Daghje Köi, where we are now encamped.
+
+The place seems to be devoted to the making of flints, and the streets are
+filled with piles of the chipped fragments. Our tent is pitched on the
+bank of the river, in a barren meadow. The people tell us that the whole
+region round about has just been visited by a plague of grasshoppers,
+which have destroyed their crops. Our beasts have wandered off to the
+hills, in search for grass, and the disconsolate Hadji is hunting them.
+Achmet, the katurgee, lies near the fire, sick; Mr. Harrison complains of
+fever, and François moves about languidly, with a dismal countenance. So
+here we are in the solitudes of Bithynia, but there is no God but God, and
+that which is destined comes to pass.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV.
+
+The Mysian Olympus.
+
+
+  Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
+  of Taushanlü--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
+  Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
+  Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
+  of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghiöl--A Showery Ride--The
+  Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
+  Furled.
+
+
+  "I looked yet farther and higher, and saw in the heavens a silvery cloud
+  that stood fast, and still against the breeze; * * * * and so it was as
+  a sign and a testimony--almost as a call from the neglected gods, that I
+  now saw and acknowledged the snowy crown of the Mysian Olympus!"
+  Kinglake.
+
+
+Brousa, _July_ 9, 1852.
+
+From Daghje Küi, there were two roads to Taushanlü, but the people
+informed us that the one which led across the mountains was difficult to
+find, and almost impracticable. We therefore took the river road, which we
+found picturesque in the highest degree. The narrow dell of the Rhyndacus
+wound through a labyrinth of mountains, sometimes turning at sharp angles
+between craggy buttresses, covered with forests, and sometimes broadening
+out into a sweep of valley, where the villagers were working in companies
+among the grain and poppy fields. The banks of the stream were lined with
+oak, willow and sycamore, and forests of pine, descending from the
+mountains, frequently overhung the road. We met numbers of peasants,
+going to and from the fields, and once a company of some twenty women,
+who, on seeing us, clustered together like a flock of frightened sheep,
+and threw their mantles over their heads. They had curiosity enough,
+however, to peep at us as we went by, and I made them a salutation, which
+they returned, and then burst into a chorus of hearty laughter. All this
+region was ravaged by a plague of grasshoppers. The earth was black with
+them in many places, and our horses ploughed up a living spray, as they
+drove forward through the meadows. Every spear of grass was destroyed, and
+the wheat and rye fields were terribly cut up. We passed a large crag
+where myriads of starlings had built their nests, and every starling had a
+grasshopper in his mouth.
+
+We crossed the river, in order to pass a narrow defile, by which it forces
+its way through the rocky heights of Dumanidj Dagh. Soon after passing the
+ridge, a broad and beautiful valley expanded before us. It was about ten
+miles in breadth, nearly level, and surrounded by picturesque ranges of
+wooded mountains. It was well cultivated, principally in rye and poppies,
+and more thickly populated than almost any part of Europe. The tinned tops
+of the minarets of Taushanlü shone over the top of a hill in front, and
+there was a large town nearly opposite, on the other bank of the
+Rhyndacus, and seven small villages scattered about in various directions.
+Most of the latter, however, were merely the winter habitations of the
+herdsmen, who are now living in tents on the mountain tops. All over the
+valley, the peasants were at work in the harvest-fields, cutting and
+binding grain, gathering opium from the poppies, or weeding the young
+tobacco. In the south, over the rim of the hills that shut in this
+pastoral solitude, rose the long blue summits of Urus Dagh. We rode into
+Taushanlü, which is a long town, filling up a hollow between two stony
+hills. The houses are all of stone, two stories high, with tiled roofs and
+chimneys, so that, but for the clapboarded and shingled minarets, it would
+answer for a North-German village.
+
+The streets were nearly deserted, and even in the bazaars, which are of
+some extent, we found but few persons. Those few, however, showed a
+laudable curiosity with regard to us, clustering about us whenever we
+stopped, and staring at us with provoking pertinacity. We had some
+difficulty in procuring information concerning the road, the directions
+being so contradictory that we were as much in the dark as ever. We lost
+half an hour in wandering among the hills; and, after travelling four
+hours over piny uplands, without finding the village of Kara Köi, encamped
+on a dry plain, on the western bank of the river. There was not a spear of
+grass for the beasts, everything being eaten up by the grasshoppers, and
+there were no Turcomans near who could supply us with food. So we dined on
+hard bread and black coffee, and our forlorn beasts walked languidly
+about, cropping the dry stalks of weeds and the juiceless roots of the
+dead grass.
+
+We crossed the river next morning, and took a road following its course,
+and shaded with willows and sycamores. The lofty, wooded ranges of the
+Mysian Olympus lay before us, and our day's work was to pass them. After
+passing the village of Kara Köi, we left the valley of the Rhyndacus, and
+commenced ascending one of the long, projecting spurs thrust out from the
+main chain of Olympus. At first we rode through thickets of scrubby cedar,
+but soon came to magnificent pine forests, that grew taller and sturdier
+the higher we clomb. A superb mountain landscape opened behind us. The
+valleys sank deeper and deeper, and at last disappeared behind the great
+ridges that heaved themselves out of the wilderness of smaller hills. All
+these ridges were covered with forests; and as we looked backwards out of
+the tremendous gulf up the sides of which we were climbing, the scenery
+was wholly wild and uncultivated. Our path hung on the imminent side of a
+chasm so steep that one slip might have been destruction to both horse and
+rider. Far below us, at the bottom of the chasm, roared an invisible
+torrent. The opposite side, vapory from its depth, rose like an immense
+wall against Heaven. The pines were even grander than those in the woods
+of Phrygia. Here they grew taller and more dense, hanging their cloudy
+boughs over the giddy depths, and clutching with desperate roots to the
+almost perpendicular sides of the gorges. In many places they were the
+primeval forests of Olympus, and the Hamadryads were not yet frightened
+from their haunts.
+
+Thus, slowly toiling up through the sublime wilderness, breathing the
+cold, pure air of those lofty regions, we came at last to a little stream,
+slowly trickling down the bed of the gorge. It was shaded, not by the
+pine, but by the Northern beech, with its white trunk and close,
+confidential boughs, made for the talks of lovers and the meditations of
+poets. Here we stopped to breakfast, but there was nothing for the poor
+beasts to eat, and they waited for us droopingly, with their heads thrust
+together. While we sat there three camels descended to the stream, and
+after them a guard with a long gun. He was a well-made man, with a brown
+face, keen, black eye, and piratical air, and would have made a good hero
+of modern romance. Higher up we came to a guard house, on a little cleared
+space, surrounded by beech forests. It was a rough stone hut, with a white
+flag planted on a pole before it, and a miniature water-wheel, running a
+miniature saw at a most destructive rate, beside the door.
+
+Continuing our way, we entered on a region such as I had no idea could be
+found in Asia. The mountains, from the bottoms of the gorges to their
+topmost summits, were covered with the most superb forests of beech I ever
+saw--masses of impenetrable foliage, of the most brilliant green, touched
+here and there by the darker top of a pine. Our road was through a deep,
+dark shade, and on either side, up and down, we saw but a cool, shadowy
+solitude, sprinkled with dots of emerald light, and redolent with the odor
+of damp earth, moss, and dead leaves. It was a forest, the counterpart of
+which could only be found in America--such primeval magnitude of growth,
+such wild luxuriance, such complete solitude and silence! Through the
+shafts of the pines we had caught glorious glimpses of the blue mountain
+world below us; but now the beech folded us in its arms, and whispered in
+our ears the legends of our Northern home. There, on the ridges of the
+Mysian Olympus, sacred to the bright gods of Grecian song, I found the
+inspiration of our darker and colder clime and age. "_O gloriosi spiriti
+degli boschi!_"
+
+I could scarcely contain myself, from surprise and joy. François failed to
+find French adjectives sufficient for his admiration, and even our
+cheating katurgees were touched by the spirit of the scene. On either
+side, whenever a glimpse could be had through the boughs, we looked upon
+leaning walls of trees, whose tall, rounded tops basked in the sunshine,
+while their bases were wrapped in the shadows cast by themselves. Thus,
+folded over each other like scales, or feathers on a falcon's wing, they
+clad the mountain. The trees were taller, and had a darker and more glossy
+leaf than the American beech. By and by patches of blue shone between the
+boughs before us, a sign that the summit was near, and before one o'clock
+we stood upon the narrow ridge forming the crest of the mountain. Here,
+although we were between five and six thousand feet above the sea, the
+woods of beech were a hundred feet in height, and shut out all view. On
+the northern side the forest scenery is even grander than on the southern.
+The beeches are magnificent trees, straight as an arrow, and from a
+hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in height. Only now and then could we
+get any view beyond the shadowy depths sinking below us, and then it was
+only to see similar mountain ranges, buried in foliage, and rolling far
+behind each other into the distance. Twice, in the depth of the gorge, we
+saw a saw-mill, turned by the snow-cold torrents. Piles of pine and
+beechen boards were heaped around them, and the sawyers were busily plying
+their lonely business. The axe of the woodman echoed but rarely through
+the gulfs, though many large trees lay felled by the roadside. The rock,
+which occasionally cropped out of the soil, was white marble, and there
+was a shining precipice of it, three hundred feet high, on the opposite
+side of the gorge.
+
+After four hours of steady descent, during the last hour of which we
+passed into a forest entirely of oaks, we reached the first terrace at the
+base of the mountain. Here, as I was riding in advance of the caravan, I
+met a company of Turkish officers, who saluted me with an inclination of
+the most profound reverence. I replied with due Oriental gravity, which
+seemed to justify their respect, for when they met François, who is
+everywhere looked upon as a Turkish janissary, they asked: "Is not your
+master a _Shekh el-Islàm_?" "You are right: he is," answered the
+unscrupulous Greek. A Shekh el-Islàm is a sort of high-priest,
+corresponding in dignity to a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. It is
+rather singular that I am generally taken for a Secretary of some kind, or
+a Moslem priest, while my companion, who, by this time, has assumed the
+Oriental expression, is supposed to be either medical or military.
+
+We had no sooner left the forests and entered the copsewood which
+followed, than the blue bulk, of Olympus suddenly appeared in the west,
+towering far into the sky. It is a magnificent mountain, with a broad
+though broken summit, streaked with snow. Before us, stretching away
+almost to his base, lay a grand mountain slope, covered with orchards and
+golden harvest-fields. Through lanes of hawthorn and chestnut trees in
+blossom, which were overgrown with snowy clematis and made a shady roof
+above our heads, we reached the little village of Orta Köi, and encamped
+in a grove of pear-trees. There was grass for our beasts, who were on the
+brink of starvation, and fowls and cucumbers for ourselves, who had been
+limited to bread and coffee for two days. But as one necessity was
+restored, another disappeared. We had smoked the last of our delicious
+Aleppo tobacco, and that which the villagers gave us was of very inferior
+quality. Nevertheless, the pipe which we smoked with them in the twilight,
+beside the marble fountain, promoted that peace of mind which is the
+sweetest preparative of slumber.
+
+François was determined to finish our journey to-day. He had a
+presentiment that we should reach Brousa, although I expected nothing of
+the kind. He called us long before the lovely pastoral valley in which we
+lay had a suspicion of the sun, but just in time to see the first rays
+strike the high head of Olympus. The long lines of snow blushed with an
+opaline radiance against the dark-blue of the morning sky, and all the
+forests and fields below lay still, and cool, and dewy, lapped in dreams
+yet unrecalled by the fading moon. I bathed my face in the cold well that
+perpetually poured over its full brim, drank the coffee which François had
+already prepared, sprang into the saddle, and began the last day of our
+long pilgrimage. The tent was folded, alas! for the last time; and now
+farewell to the freedom of our wandering life! Shall I ever feel it again?
+
+The dew glistened on the chestnuts and the walnuts, on the wild
+grape-vines and wild roses, that shaded our road, as we followed the
+course of an Olympian stream through a charming dell, into the great plain
+below. Everywhere the same bountiful soil, the same superb orchards, the
+same ripe fields of wheat and barley, and silver rye. The peasants were at
+work, men and women, cutting the grain with rude scythes, binding it into
+sheaves, and stacking it in the fields. As we rode over the plain, the
+boys came running out to us with handfuls of grain, saluting us from afar,
+bidding us welcome as pilgrims, wishing us as many years of prosperity as
+there were kernels in their sheaves, and kissing the hands that gave them
+the harvest-toll. The whole landscape had an air of plenty, peace, and
+contentment. The people all greeted us cordially; and once a Mevlevi
+Dervish and a stately Turk, riding in company, saluted me so
+respectfully, stopping to speak with me, that I quite regretted being
+obliged to assume an air of dignified reserve, and ride away from them.
+
+Ere long, we saw the two white minarets of Aineghiöl, above the line of
+orchards in front of us, and, in three hours after starting, reached the
+place. It is a small town, not particularly clean, but with brisk-looking
+bazaars. In one of the houses, I saw half-a-dozen pairs of superb antlers,
+the spoils of Olympian stags. The bazaar is covered with a trellised roof,
+overgrown with grape-vines, which hang enormous bunches of young grapes
+over the shop-boards. We were cheered by the news that Brousa was only
+eight hours distant, and I now began to hope that we might reach it. We
+jogged on as fast as we could urge our weary horses, passed another belt
+of orchard land, paid more harvest-tolls to the reapers, and commenced
+ascending a chain of low hills which divides the plain of Aineghiöl from
+that of Brousa.
+
+At a fountain called the "mid-day _konnàk_" we met some travellers coming
+from Brousa, who informed us that we could get there by the time of
+_asser_ prayer. Rounding the north-eastern base of Olympus, we now saw
+before us the long headland which forms his south-western extremity. A
+storm was arising from the sea of Marmora, and heavy white clouds settled
+on the topmost summits of the mountain. The wind began to blow fresh and
+cool, and when we had reached a height overlooking the deep valley, in the
+bottom of which lies the picturesque village of Ak-su, there were long
+showery lines coming up from the sea, and a filmy sheet of gray rain
+descended between us and Olympus, throwing his vast bulk far into the
+background. At Ak-su, the first shower met us, pouring so fast and thick
+that we were obliged to put on our capotes, and halt under a walnut-tree
+for shelter. But it soon passed over, laying the dust, for the time, and
+making the air sweet and cool.
+
+We pushed forward over heights covered with young forests of oak, which
+are protected by the government, in order that they may furnish
+ship-timber. On the right, we looked down into magnificent valleys,
+opening towards the west into the the plain of Brousa; but when, in the
+middle of the afternoon, we reached the last height, and saw the great
+plain itself, the climax was attained. It was the crown of all that we had
+yet seen. This superb plain or valley, thirty miles long, by five in
+breadth, spread away to the westward, between the mighty mass of Olympus
+on the one side, and a range of lofty mountains on the other, the sides of
+which presented a charming mixture of forest and cultivated land. Olympus,
+covered with woods of beech and oak, towered to the clouds that concealed
+his snowy head; and far in advance, under the last cape he threw out
+towards the sea, the hundred minarets of Brousa stretched in a white and
+glittering line, like the masts of a navy, whose hulls were buried in the
+leafy sea. No words can describe the beauty of the valley, the blending of
+the richest cultivation with the wildest natural luxuriance. Here were
+gardens and orchards; there groves of superb chestnut-trees in blossom;
+here, fields of golden grain or green pasture-land; there, Arcadian
+thickets overgrown with clematis and wild rose; here, lofty poplars
+growing beside the streams; there, spiry cypresses looking down from the
+slopes: and all blended in one whole, so rich, so grand, so gorgeous, that
+I scarcely breathed when it first burst upon me.
+
+And now we descended to its level, and rode westward along the base of
+Olympus, grandest of Asian mountains. This after-storm view, although his
+head was shrouded, was sublime. His base is a vast sloping terrace,
+leagues in length, resembling the nights of steps by which the ancient
+temples were approached. From this foundation rise four mighty pyramids,
+two thousand feet in height, and completely mantled with forests. They are
+very nearly regular in their form and size, and are flanked to the east
+and west by headlands, or abutments, the slopes of which are longer and
+more gradual, as if to strengthen the great structure. Piled upon the four
+pyramids are others nearly as large, above whose green pinnacles appear
+still other and higher ones, bare and bleak, and clustering thickly
+together, to uphold the great central dome of snow. Between the bases of
+the lowest, the streams which drain the gorges of the mountain issue
+forth, cutting their way through the foundation terrace, and widening
+their beds downwards to the plain, like the throats of bugles, where, in
+winter rains, they pour forth the hoarse, grand monotone of their Olympian
+music. These broad beds are now dry and stony tracts, dotted all over with
+clumps of dwarfed sycamores and threaded by the summer streams, shrunken
+in bulk, but still swift, cold, and clear as ever.
+
+We reached the city before night, and François is glad to find his
+presentiment fulfilled. We have safely passed through the untravelled
+heart of Asia Minor, and are now almost in sight of Europe. The camp-fire
+is extinguished; the tent is furled. We are no longer happy nomads,
+masquerading in Moslem garb. We shall soon become prosaic Christians, and
+meekly hold out our wrists for the handcuffs of Civilization. Ah, prate
+as we will of the progress of the race, we are but forging additional
+fetters, unless we preserve that healthy physical development, those pure
+pleasures of mere animal existence, which are now only to be found among
+our semi-barbaric brethren. Our progress is nervous, when it should be
+muscular.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV.
+
+Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.
+
+
+  The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
+  Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
+  Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
+  the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
+  Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Caïque--Breakfast with
+  the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
+  View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn.
+
+
+  "And we glode fast o'er a pellucid plain
+  Of waters, azure with the noontide ray.
+  Ethereal mountains shone around--a fane
+  Stood in the midst, beyond green isles which lay
+  On the blue, sunny deep, resplendent far away."
+
+  Shelley.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Monday, July_ 12, 1852.
+
+Before entering Brousa, we passed the whole length of the town, which is
+built on the side of Olympus, and on three bluffs or spurs which project
+from it. The situation is more picturesque than that of Damascus, and from
+the remarkable number of its white domes and minarets, shooting upward
+from the groves of chestnut, walnut, and cypress-trees, the city is even
+more beautiful. There are large mosques on all the most prominent points,
+and, near the centre of the city, the ruins of an ancient castle, built
+upon a crag. The place, as we rode along, presented a shifting diorama of
+delightful views. The hotel is at the extreme western end of the city, not
+far from its celebrated hot baths. It is a new building, in European
+style, and being built high on the slope, commands one of the most
+glorious prospects I ever enjoyed from windows made with hands. What a
+comfort it was to go up stairs into a clean, bright, cheerful room; to
+drop at full length on a broad divan; to eat a Christian meal; to smoke a
+narghileh of the softest Persian tobacco; and finally, most exquisite of
+all luxuries, to creep between cool, clean sheets, on a curtained bed, and
+find it impossible to sleep on account of the delicious novelty of the
+sensation!
+
+At night, another storm came up from the Sea of Marmora. Tremendous peals
+of thunder echoed in the gorges of Olympus and sharp, broad flashes of
+lightning gave us blinding glimpses of the glorious plain below. The rain
+fell in heavy showers, but our tent-life was just closed, and we sat
+securely at our windows and enjoyed the sublime scene.
+
+The sun, rising over the distant mountains of Isnik, shone full in my
+face, awaking me to a morning view of the valley, which, freshened by the
+night's thunder-storm, shone wonderfully bright and clear. After coffee,
+we went to see the baths, which are on the side of the mountain, a mile
+from the hotel. The finest one, called the Kalputcha Hammam, is at the
+base of the hill. The entrance hall is very large, and covered by two
+lofty domes. In the centre is a large marble urn-shaped fountain, pouring
+out an abundant flood of cold water. Out of this, we passed into an
+immense rotunda, filled with steam and traversed by long pencils of light,
+falling from holes in the roof. A small but very beautiful marble fountain
+cast up a jet of cold water in the centre. Beyond this was still another
+hall, of the same size, but with a circular basin, twenty-five feet in
+diameter, in the centre. The floor was marble mosaic, and the basin was
+lined with brilliantly-colored tiles. It was kept constantly full by the
+natural hot streams of the mountain. There were a number of persons in the
+pool, but the atmosphere was so hot that we did not long disturb them by
+our curiosity.
+
+We then ascended to the Armenian bath, which is the neatest of all, but it
+was given up to the women, and we were therefore obliged to go to a
+Turkish one adjoining. The room into which we were taken was so hot that a
+violent perspiration immediately broke out all over my body, and by the
+time the _dellèks_ were ready to rasp me, I was as limp as a wet towel,
+and as plastic as a piece of putty. The man who took me was sweated away
+almost to nothing; his very bones appeared to have become soft and
+pliable. The water was slightly sulphureous, and the pailfuls which he
+dashed over my head were so hot that they produced the effect of a
+chill--a violent nervous shudder. The temperature of the springs is 180°
+Fahrenheit, and I suppose the tank into which he afterwards plunged me
+must have been nearly up to the mark. When, at last, I was laid on the
+couch, my body was so parboiled that I perspired at all pores for full an
+hour--a feeling too warm and unpleasant at first, but presently merging
+into a mood which was wholly rapturous and heavenly. I was like a soft
+white cloud, that rests all of a summer afternoon on the peak of a distant
+mountain. I felt the couch on which I lay no more than the cloud might
+feel the cliffs on which it lingers so airily. I saw nothing but peaceful,
+glorious sights; spaces of clear blue sky; stretches of quiet lawns;
+lovely valleys threaded by the gentlest of streams; azure lakes, unruffled
+by a breath; calms far out on mid-ocean, and Alpine peaks bathed in the
+flush of an autumnal sunset. My mind retraced all our journey from
+Aleppo, and there was a halo over every spot I had visited. I dwelt with
+rapture on the piny hills of Phrygia, on the gorges of Taurus, on the
+beechen solitudes of Olympus. Would to heaven that I might describe those
+scenes as I then felt them! All was revealed to me: the heart of Nature
+lay bare, and I read the meaning and knew the inspiration of her every
+mood. Then, as my frame grew cooler, and the fragrant clouds of the
+narghileh, which had helped my dreams, diminished, I was like that same
+summer cloud, when it feels a gentle breeze and is lifted above the hills,
+floating along independent of Earth, but for its shadow.
+
+Brousa is a very long, straggling place, extending for three or four miles
+along the side of the mountain, but presenting a very picturesque
+appearance from every point. The houses are nearly all three stories high,
+built of wood and unburnt bricks, and each story projects over the other,
+after the manner of German towns of the Middle Ages. They have not the
+hanging balconies which I have found so quaint and pleasing in Kiutahya.
+But, especially in the Greek quarter, many of them are plastered and
+painted of some bright color, which gives a gay, cheerful appearance to
+the streets. Besides, Brousa is the cleanest Turkish town I have seen. The
+mountain streams traverse most of the streets, and every heavy rain washes
+them out thoroughly. The whole city has a brisk, active air, and the
+workmen appear both more skilful and more industrious than in the other
+parts of Asia Minor. I noticed a great many workers in copper, iron, and
+wood, and an extensive manufactory of shoes and saddles. Brousa, however,
+is principally noted for its silks, which are produced in this valley,
+and others to the South and East. The manufactories are near the city. I
+looked over some of the fabrics in the bazaars, but found them nearly all
+imitations of European stuffs, woven in mixed silk and cotton, and even
+more costly than the silks of Damascus.
+
+We passed the whole length of the bazaars, and then, turning up one of the
+side streets on our right, crossed a deep ravine by a high stone bridge.
+Above and below us there were other bridges, under which a stream flowed
+down from the mountains. Thence we ascended the height, whereon stands the
+largest and one of the oldest mosques in Brousa. The position is
+remarkably fine, commanding a view of nearly the whole city and the plain
+below it. We entered the court-yard boldly, François taking the precaution
+to speak to me only in Arabic, as there was a Turk within. Mr. H. went to
+the fountain, washed his hands and face, but did not dare to swallow a
+drop, putting on a most dolorous expression of countenance, as if
+perishing with thirst. The mosque was a plain, square building, with a
+large dome and two minarets. The door was a rich and curious specimen of
+the _stalactitic_ style, so frequent in Saracenic buildings. We peeped
+into the windows, and, although the mosque, which does not appear to be in
+common use, was darkened, saw enough to show that the interior was quite
+plain.
+
+Just above this edifice stands a large octagonal tomb, surmounted by a
+dome, and richly adorned with arabesque cornices and coatings of green and
+blue tiles. It stood in a small garden inclosure, and there was a sort of
+porter's lodge at the entrance. As we approached, an old gray-bearded man
+in a green turban came out, and, on François requesting entrance for us,
+took a key and conducted us to the building. He had not the slightest idea
+of our being Christians. We took off our slippers before touching the
+lintel of the door, as the place was particularly holy. Then, throwing
+open the door, the old man lingered a few moments after we entered, so as
+not to disturb our prayers--a mark of great respect. We advanced to the
+edge of the parapet, turned our faces towards Mecca, and imitated the
+usual Mohammedan prayer on entering a mosque, by holding both arms
+outspread for a few moments, then bringing the hands together and bowing
+the face upon them. This done, we leisurely examined the building, and the
+old man was ready enough to satisfy our curiosity. It was a rich and
+elegant structure, lighted from the dome. The walls were lined with
+brilliant tiles, and had an elaborate cornice, with Arabic inscriptions in
+gold. The floor was covered with a carpet, whereon stood eight or ten
+ancient coffins, surrounding a larger one which occupied a raised platform
+in the centre. They were all of wood, heavily carved, and many of them
+entirely covered with gilded inscriptions. These, according to the old
+man, were the coffins of the Ottoman Sultans, who had reigned at Brousa
+previous to the taking of Constantinople, with some members of their
+families. There were four Sultans, among whom were Mahomet I., and a
+certain Achmet. Orchan, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty, is buried
+somewhere in Brousa, and the great central coffin may have been his.
+François and I talked entirely in Arabic, and the old man asked: "Who are
+these Hadjis?" whereupon F. immediately answered: "They are Effendis from
+Baghdad."
+
+We had intended making the ascent of Olympus, but the summit was too
+thickly covered with clouds. On the morning of the second day, therefore,
+we determined to take up the line of march for Constantinople. The last
+scene of our strange, eventful history with the katurgees had just
+transpired, by their deserting us, being two hundred piastres in our debt.
+They left their khan on the afternoon after our arrival, ostensibly for
+the purpose of taking their beasts out to pasture, and were never heard of
+more. We let them go, thankful that they had not played the trick sooner.
+We engaged fresh horses for Moudania, on the Sea of Marmora, and
+dispatched François in advance, to procure a caïque for Constantinople,
+while we waited to have our passports signed. But after waiting an hour,
+as there was no appearance of the precious documents, we started the
+baggage also, under the charge of a _surroudjee_, and remained alone.
+Another hour passed by, and yet another, and the Bey was still occupied in
+sleeping off his hunger. Mr. Harrison, in desperation, went to the office,
+and after some delay, received the passports with a visè, but not, as we
+afterwards discovered, the necessary one.
+
+It was four o'clock by the time we left Brousa. Our horses were stiff,
+clumsy pack-beasts; but, by dint of whips and the sharp shovel-stirrups,
+we forced them into a trot and made them keep it. The road was well
+travelled, and by asking everybody we met: "_Bou yôl Moudania yedermi_?"
+("Is this the way to Moudania?"), we had no difficulty in finding it. The
+plain in many places is marshy, and traversed by several streams. A low
+range of hills stretches across, and nearly closes it, the united waters
+finding their outlet by a narrow valley to the north. From the top of the
+hill we had a grand view, looking back over the plain, with the long line
+of Brousa's minarets glittering through the interminable groves at the
+foot of the mountain Olympus now showed a superb outline; the clouds hung
+about his shoulders, but his snowy head was bare. Before us lay a broad,
+rich valley, extending in front to the mountains of Moudania. The country
+was well cultivated, with large farming establishments here and there.
+
+The sun was setting as we reached the summit ridge, where stood a little
+guard-house. As we rode over the crest, Olympus disappeared, and the Sea
+of Marmora lay before us, spreading out from the Gulf of Moudania, which
+was deep and blue among the hills, to an open line against the sunset.
+Beyond that misty line lay Europe, which I had not seen for nearly nine
+months, and the gulf below me was the bound of my tent and saddle life.
+But one hour more, old horse! Have patience with my Ethiopian thong, and
+the sharp corners of my Turkish stirrups: but one hour more, and I promise
+never to molest you again! Our path was downward, and I marvel that the
+poor brute did not sometimes tumble headlong with me. He had been too long
+used to the pack, however, and his habits were as settled as a Turk's. We
+passed a beautiful village in a valley on the right, and came into olive
+groves and vineyards, as the dusk was creeping on. It was a lovely country
+of orchards and gardens, with fountains spouting by the wayside, and
+country houses perched on the steeps. In another hour, we reached the
+sea-shore. It was now nearly dark, but we could see the tower of Moudania
+some distance to the west.
+
+Still in a continual trot, we rode on; and as we drew near, Mr. H. fired
+his gun to announce our approach. At the entrance of the town, we found
+the sourrudjee waiting to conduct us. We clattered through the rough
+streets for what seemed an endless length of time. The Ramazan gun had
+just fired, the minarets were illuminated, and the coffee-houses were
+filled with people. Finally, François, who had been almost in despair at
+our non-appearance, hailed us with the welcome news that he had engaged a
+caïque, and that our baggage was already embarked. We only needed the
+visès of the authorities, in order to leave. He took our teskerés to get
+them, and we went upon the balcony of a coffee-house overhanging the sea,
+and smoked a narghileh.
+
+But here there was another history. The teskerés had not been properly
+visèd at Brousa, and the Governor at first decided to send us back. Taking
+François, however, for a Turk, and finding that we had regularly passed
+quarantine, he signed them after a delay of an hour and a half, and we
+left the shore, weary, impatient, and wolfish with twelve hours' fasting.
+A cup of Brousan beer and a piece of bread brought us into a better mood,
+and I, who began to feel sick from the rolling of the caïque, lay down on
+my bed, which was spread at the bottom, and found a kind of uneasy sleep.
+The sail was hoisted at first, to get us across the mouth of the Gulf, but
+soon the Greeks took to their oars. They were silent, however, and though
+I only slept by fits, the night wore away rapidly. As the dawn was
+deepening, we ran into a little bight in the northern side of a
+promontory, where a picturesque Greek village stood at the foot of the
+mountains. The houses were of wood, with balconies overgrown with
+grape-vines, and there was a fountain of cold, excellent water on the very
+beach. Some Greek boatmen were smoking in the portico of a café on shore,
+and two fishermen, who had been out before dawn to catch sardines, were
+emptying their nets of the spoil. Our men kindled a fire on the sand, and
+roasted us a dish of the fish. Some of the last night's hunger remained,
+and the meal had enough of that seasoning to be delicious.
+
+After giving our men an hour's rest, we set off for the Princes' Islands,
+which now appeared to the north, over the glassy plain of the sea. The
+Gulf of Iskmid, or Nicomedia, opened away to the east, between two
+mountain headlands. The morning was intensely hot and sultry, and but for
+the protection of an umbrella, we should have suffered greatly. There was
+a fiery blue vapor on the sea, and a thunder-cloud hid the shores of
+Thrace. Now and then came a light puff of wind, whereupon the men would
+ship the little mast, and crowd on an enormous quantity of sail. So,
+sailing and rowing, we neared the islands with the storm, but it advanced
+slowly enough to allow a sight of the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed, gleaming far and white, like icebergs astray on a torrid sea.
+Another cloud was pouring its rain over the Asian shore, and we made haste
+to get to the landing at Prinkipo before it could reach us. From the
+south, the group of islands is not remarkable for beauty. Only four of
+them--Prinkipo, Chalki, Prote, and Antigone--are inhabited, the other five
+being merely barren rocks.
+
+There is an ancient convent on the summit of Prinkipo, where the Empress
+Irene--the contemporary of Charlemagne--is buried. The town is on the
+northern side of the island, and consists mostly of the summer residences
+of Greek and Armenian merchants. Many of these are large and stately
+houses, surrounded with handsome gardens. The streets are shaded with
+sycamores, and the number of coffee-houses shows that the place is much
+frequented on festal days. A company of drunken Greeks were singing in
+violation of all metre and harmony--a discord the more remarkable, since
+nothing could be more affectionate than their conduct towards each other.
+Nearly everybody was in Frank costume, and our Oriental habits, especially
+the red Tartar boots, attracted much observation. I began to feel awkward
+and absurd, and longed to show myself a Christian once more.
+
+Leaving Prinkipo, we made for Constantinople, whose long array of marble
+domes and gilded spires gleamed like a far mirage over the waveless sea.
+It was too faint and distant and dazzling to be substantial. It was like
+one of those imaginary cities which we build in a cloud fused in the light
+of the setting sun. But as we neared the point of Chalcedon, running along
+the Asian shore, those airy piles gathered form and substance. The
+pinnacles of the Seraglio shot up from the midst of cypress groves;
+fantastic kiosks lined the shore; the minarets of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed rose more clearly against the sky; and a fleet of steamers and
+men-of-war, gay with flags, marked the entrance of the Golden Horn. We
+passed the little bay where St. Chrysostom was buried, the point of
+Chalcedon, and now, looking up the renowned Bosphorus, saw the Maiden's
+Tower, opposite Scutari. An enormous pile, the barracks of the Anatolian
+soldiery, hangs over the high bank, and, as we row abreast of it, a fresh
+breeze comes up from the Sea of Marmora. The prow of the caïque is turned
+across the stream, the sail is set, and we glide rapidly and noiselessly
+over the Bosphorus and into the Golden Horn, between the banks of the
+Frank and Moslem--Pera and Stamboul. Where on the earth shall we find a
+panorama more magnificent?
+
+The air was filled with the shouts and noises of the great Oriental
+metropolis; the water was alive with caïques and little steamers; and all
+the world of work and trade, which had grown almost to be a fable,
+welcomed us back to its restless heart. We threaded our rather perilous
+way over the populous waves, and landed in a throng of Custom-House
+officers and porters, on the wharf at Galata.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI.
+
+The Night of Predestination.
+
+
+  Constantinople in Ramazan--The Origin of the Fast--Nightly
+  Illuminations--The Night of Predestination--The Golden Horn at
+  Night--Illumination of the Shores--The Cannon of Constantinople--A Fiery
+  Panorama--The Sultan's Caïque--Close of the Celebration--A Turkish
+  Mob--The Dancing Dervishes.
+
+
+  "Skies full of splendid moons and shooting stars,
+  And spouting exhalations, diamond fires." Keats.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Wednesday, July_ 14, 1862.
+
+Constantinople, during the month of Ramazan, presents a very different
+aspect from Constantinople at other times. The city, it is true, is much
+more stern and serious during the day; there is none of that gay, careless
+life of the Orient which you see in Smyrna, Cairo, and Damascus; but when
+once the sunset gun has fired, and the painful fast is at an end, the
+picture changes as if by magic. In all the outward symbols of their
+religion, the Mussulmans show their joy at being relieved from what they
+consider a sacred duty. During the day, it is quite a science to keep the
+appetite dormant, and the people not only abstain from eating and
+drinking, but as much as possible from the sight of food. In the bazaars,
+you see the famished merchants either sitting, propped back against their
+cushions, with the shawl about their stomachs, tightened so as to prevent
+the void under it from being so sensibly felt, or lying at full length in
+the vain attempt to sleep. It is whispered here that many of the Turks
+will both eat and smoke, when there is no chance of detection, but no one
+would dare infringe the fast in public. Most of the mechanics and porters
+are Armenians, and the boatmen are Greeks.
+
+I have endeavored to ascertain the origin of this fast month. The Syrian
+Christians say that it is a mere imitation of an incident which happened
+to Mahomet. The Prophet, having lost his camels, went day after day
+seeking them in the Desert, taking no nourishment from the time of his
+departure in the morning until his return at sunset. After having sought
+them thus daily, for the period of one entire moon, he found them, and in
+token of joy, gave a three days' feast to the tribe, now imitated in the
+festival of Bairam, which lasts for three days after the close of Ramazan.
+This reason, however, seems too trifling for such a rigid fast, and the
+Turkish tradition, that the Koran was sent down from heaven during this
+month, offers a more probable explanation. During the fast, the
+Mussulmans, as is quite natural, are much more fanatical than at other
+times. They are obliged to attend prayers at the mosque every night, or to
+have a _mollah_ read the Koran to them at their own houses. All the
+prominent features of their religion are kept constantly before their
+eyes, and their natural aversion to the Giaour, or Infidel, is increased
+tenfold. I have heard of several recent instances in which strangers have
+been exposed to insults and indignities.
+
+At dusk the minarets are illuminated; a peal of cannon from the Arsenal,
+echoed by others from the forts along the Bosphorus, relieves the
+suffering followers of the Prophet, and after an hour of silence, during
+which they are all at home, feasting, the streets are filled with noisy
+crowds, and every coffee-shop is thronged. Every night there are
+illuminations along the water, which, added to the crowns of light
+sparkling on the hundred minarets and domes, give a magical effect to the
+night view of the city. Towards midnight there is again a season of
+comparative quiet, most of the inhabitants having retired to rest; but,
+about two hours afterwards a watchman comes along with a big drum, which
+he beats lustily before the doors of the Faithful, in order to arouse them
+in time to eat again before the daylight-gun, which announces the
+commencement of another day's fast.
+
+Last night was the holiest night of Islam, being the twenty-fifth of the
+fast. It is called the _Leilet-el-Kadr,_ or Night of the Predestination,
+the anniversary of that on which the Koran was miraculously communicated
+to the Prophet. On this night the Sultan, accompanied by his whole suite,
+attends service at the mosque, and on his return to the Seraglio, the
+Sultana Valide, or Sultana-Mother, presents him with a virgin from one of
+the noble families of Constantinople. Formerly, St. Sophia was the theatre
+of this celebration, but this year the Sultan chose the Mosque of
+Tophaneh, which stands on the shore--probably as being nearer to his
+imperial palace at Beshiktashe, on the Bosphorus. I consider myself
+fortunate in having reached Constantinople in season to witness this
+ceremony, and the illumination of the Golden Horn, which accompanies it.
+
+After sunset the mosques crowning the hills of Stamboul, the mosque of
+Tophaneh, on this side of the water, and the Turkish men-of-war and
+steamers afloat at the mouth of the Golden Horn, began to blaze with more
+than their usual brilliance. The outlines of the minarets and domes were
+drawn in light on the deepening gloom, and the masts and yards of the
+vessel were hung with colored lanterns. From the battery in front of the
+mosque and arsenal of Tophaneh a blaze of intense light streamed out over
+the water, illuminating the gliding forms of a thousand caïques, and the
+dark hulls of the vessels lying at anchor. The water is the best place
+from which to view the illumination, and a party of us descended to the
+landing-place. The streets of Tophaneh were crowded with swarms of Turks,
+Greeks and Armenians. The square around the fountain was brilliantly
+lighted, and venders of sherbet and kaïmak were ranged along the
+sidewalks. In the neighborhood of the mosque the crowd was so dense that
+we could with difficulty make our way through. All the open space next the
+water was filled up with the clumsy _arabas_, or carriages of the Turks,
+in which sat the wives of the Pashas and other dignitaries.
+
+We took a caïque, and were soon pulled out into the midst of a multitude
+of other caïques, swarming all over the surface of the Golden Horn. The
+view from this point was strange, fantastic, yet inconceivably gorgeous.
+In front, three or four large Turkish frigates lay in the Bosphorus, their
+hulls and spars outlined in fire against the dark hills and distant
+twinkling lights of Asia. Looking to the west, the shores of the Golden
+Horn were equally traced by the multitude of lamps that covered them, and
+on either side, the hills on which the city is built rose from the
+water--masses of dark buildings, dotted all over with shafts and domes of
+the most brilliant light. The gateway on Seraglio Point was illuminated,
+as well as the quay in front of the mosque of Tophaneh, all the cannons of
+the battery being covered with lamps. The commonest objects shared in the
+splendor, even a large lever used for hoisting goods being hung with
+lanterns from top to bottom. The mosque was a mass of light, and between
+the tall minarets flanking it, burned the inscription, in Arabic
+characters, "Long life to you, O our Sovereign!"
+
+The discharge of a cannon announced the Sultan's departure from his
+palace, and immediately the guns on the frigates and the batteries on both
+shores took up the salute, till the grand echoes, filling the hollow
+throat of the Golden Horn, crashed from side to side, striking the hills
+of Scutari and the point of Chalcedon, and finally dying away among the
+summits of the Princes' Islands, out on the Sea of Marmora. The hulls of
+the frigates were now lighted up with intense chemical fires, and an
+abundance of rockets were spouted from their decks. A large Drummond light
+on Seraglio Point, and another at the Battery of Tophaneh, poured their
+rival streams across the Golden Horn, revealing the thousands of caïques
+jostling each other from shore to shore, and the endless variety of gay
+costumes with which they were filled. The smoke of the cannon hanging in
+the air, increased the effect of this illumination, and became a screen of
+auroral brightness, through which the superb spectacle loomed with large
+and unreal features. It was a picture of air--a phantasmagoric spectacle,
+built of luminous vapor and meteoric fires, and hanging in the dark round
+of space. In spite of ourselves, we became eager and excited, half fearing
+that the whole pageant would dissolve the next moment, and leave no trace
+behind.
+
+Meanwhile, the cannon thundered from a dozen batteries, and the rockets
+burst into glittering rain over our heads. Grander discharges I never
+heard; the earth shook and trembled under the mighty bursts of sound, and
+the reverberation which rattled along the hill of Galata, broken by the
+scattered buildings into innumerable fragments of sound, resembled the
+crash of a thousand falling houses. The distant echoes from Asia and the
+islands in the sea filled up the pauses between the nearer peals, and we
+seemed to be in the midst of some great naval engagement. But now the
+caïque of the Sultan is discerned, approaching from the Bosphorus. A
+signal is given, and a sunrise of intense rosy and golden radiance
+suddenly lights up the long arsenal and stately mosque of Tophaneh, plays
+over the tall buildings on the hill of Pera, and falls with a fainter
+lustre on the Genoese watch-tower that overlooks Galata. It is impossible
+to describe the effect of this magical illumination. The mosque, with its
+taper minarets, its airy galleries, and its great central dome, is built
+of compact, transparent flame, and in the shifting of the red and yellow
+fires, seems to flicker and waver in the air. It is as lofty, and
+gorgeous, and unsubstantial as the cloudy palace in Cole's picture of
+"Youth." The long white front of the arsenal is fused in crimson heat, and
+burns against the dark as if it were one mass of living coal. And over all
+hangs the luminous canopy of smoke, redoubling its lustre on the waters of
+the Golden Horn, and mingling with the phosphorescent gleams that play
+around the oars of the caïques.
+
+A long barge, propelled by sixteen oars, glides around the dark corner of
+Tophaneh, and shoots into the clear, brilliant space in front of the
+mosque. It is not lighted, and passes with great swiftness towards the
+brilliant landing-place. There are several persons seated under a canopy
+in the stern, and we are trying to decide which is the Sultan, when a
+second boat, driven by twenty-four oarsmen, comes in sight. The men rise
+up at each stroke, and the long, sharp craft flies over the surface of
+the water, rather than forces its way through it. A gilded crown surmounts
+the long, curved prow, and a light though superb canopy covers the stern.
+Under this, we catch a glimpse of the Sultan and Grand Vizier, as they
+appear for an instant like black silhouettes against the burst of light on
+shore.
+
+After the Sultan had entered the mosque, the fires diminished and the
+cannon ceased, though the illuminated masts, minarets and gateways still
+threw a brilliant gleam over the scene. After more than an hour spent in
+devotion, he again entered his caïque and sped away to greet his new wife,
+amid a fresh discharge from the frigates and the batteries on both shores,
+and a new dawn of auroral splendor. We made haste to reach the
+landing-place, in order to avoid the crowd of caïques; but, although we
+were among the first, we came near being precipitated into the water, in
+the struggle to get ashore. The market-place at Tophaneh was so crowded
+that nothing but main force brought us through, and some of our party had
+their pockets picked. A number of Turkish soldiers and police-men were
+mixed up in the melee, and they were not sparing of blows when they came
+in contact with a Giaour. In making my way through, I found that a
+collision with one of the soldiers was inevitable, but I managed to plump
+against him with such force as to take the breath out of his body, and was
+out of his reach before he had recovered himself. I saw several Turkish
+women striking right and left in their endeavors to escape, and place
+their hands against the faces of those who opposed them, pushing them
+aside. This crowd was contrived by thieves, for the purpose of plunder,
+and, from what I have since learned, must have been very successful.
+
+I visited to-day the College of the Mevlevi Dervishes at Pera, and
+witnessed their peculiar ceremonies. They assemble in a large hall, where
+they take their seats in a semi-circle, facing the shekh. After going
+through several times with the usual Moslem prayer, they move in slow
+march around the room, while a choir in the gallery chants Arabic phrases
+in a manner very similar to the mass in Catholic churches. I could
+distinguish the sentences "God is great," "Praise be to God," and other
+similar ejaculations. The chant was accompanied with a drum and flute, and
+had not lasted long before the Dervishes set themselves in a rotary
+motion, spinning slowly around the shekh, who stood in the centre. They
+stretched both arms out, dropped their heads on one side, and glided
+around with a steady, regular motion, their long white gowns spread out
+and floating on the air. Their steps were very similar to those of the
+modern waltz, which, it is possible, may have been derived from the dance
+of the Mevlevis. Baron Von Hammer finds in this ceremony an imitation of
+the dance of the spheres, in the ancient Samothracian Mysteries; but I see
+no reason to go so far back for its origin. The dance lasted for about
+twenty minutes, and the Dervishes appeared very much exhausted at the
+close, as they are obliged to observe the fast very strictly.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII.
+
+The Solemnities of Bairam.
+
+
+  The Appearance of the New Moon--The Festival of Bairam--The Interior of
+  the Seraglio--The Pomp of the Sultan's Court--Rescind Pasha--The
+  Sultan's Dwarf--Arabian Stallions--The Imperial Guard--Appearance of the
+  Sultan--The Inner Court--Return of the Procession--The Sultan on his
+  Throne--The Homage of the Pashas--An Oriental Picture--Kissing the
+  Scarf--The Shekh el-Islàm--The Descendant of the Caliphs--Bairam
+  Commences.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Monday_, _July_ 19, 1852.
+
+Saturday was the last day of the fast-month of Ramazan, and yesterday the
+celebration of the solemn festival of Bairam took place. The moon changed
+on Friday morning at 11 o'clock, but as the Turks have no faith in
+astronomy, and do not believe the moon has actually changed until they see
+it, all good Mussulmen were obliged to fast an additional day. Had
+Saturday been cloudy, and the new moon invisible, I am not sure but the
+fast would have been still further prolonged. A good look-out was kept,
+however, and about four o'clock on Saturday afternoon some sharp eyes saw
+the young crescent above the sun. There is a hill near Gemlik, on the Gulf
+of Moudania, about fifty miles from here, whence the Turks believe the new
+moon can be first seen. The families who live on this hill are exempted
+from taxation, in consideration of their keeping a watch for the moon, at
+the close of Ramazan. A series of signals, from hill to hill, is in
+readiness, and the news is transmitted to Constantinople in a very short
+time Then, when the muezzin proclaims the _asser_, or prayer two hours
+before sunset, he proclaims also the close of Ramazan. All the batteries
+fire a salute, and the big guns along the water announce the joyful news
+to all parts of the city. The forts on the Bosphorus take up the tale, and
+both shores, from the Black Sea to the Propontis, shake with the burden of
+their rejoicing. At night the mosques are illuminated for the last time,
+for it is only during Ramazan that they are lighted, or open for night
+service.
+
+After Ramazan, comes the festival of Bairam, which lasts three days, and
+is a season of unbounded rejoicing. The bazaars are closed, no Turk does
+any work, but all, clothed in their best dresses, or in an entire new suit
+if they can afford it, pass the time in feasting, in paying visits, or in
+making excursions to the shores of the Bosphorus, or other favorite spots
+around Constantinople. The festival is inaugurated by a solemn state
+ceremony, at the Seraglio and the mosque of Sultan Achmed, whither the
+Sultan goes in procession, accompanied by all the officers of the
+Government. This is the last remaining pageant which has been spared to
+the Ottoman monarchs by the rigorous reforming measures of Sultan Mahmoud,
+and shorn as it is of much of its former splendor, it probably surpasses
+in brilliant effect any spectacle which any other European Court can
+present. The ceremonies which take place inside of the Seraglio were,
+until within three or four years, prohibited to Frank eyes, and travellers
+were obliged to content themselves with a view of the procession, as it
+passed to the mosque. Through the kindness of Mr. Brown, of the American
+Embassy, I was enabled to witness the entire solemnity, in all its
+details.
+
+As the procession leaves the Seraglio at sunrise, we rose with the first
+streak of dawn, descended to Tophaneh, and crossed to Seraglio Point,
+where the cavass of the Embassy was in waiting for us. He conducted us
+through the guards, into the garden of the Seraglio, and up the hill to
+the Palace. The Capudan Pasha, or Lord High Admiral, had just arrived in a
+splendid caïque, and pranced up the hill before us on a magnificent
+stallion, whose trappings blazed with jewels and gold lace. The rich
+uniforms of the different officers of the army and marine glittered far
+and near under the dense shadows of the cypress trees, and down the dark
+alleys where the morning twilight had not penetrated. We were ushered into
+the great outer court-yard of the Seraglio, leading to the Sublime Porte.
+A double row of marines, in scarlet jackets and white trowsers, extended
+from one gate to the other, and a very excellent brass band played "_Suoni
+la tromba_" with much spirit. The groups of Pashas and other officers of
+high rank, with their attendants, gave the scene a brilliant character of
+festivity. The costumes, except those of the secretaries and servants,
+were after the European model, but covered with a lavish profusion of gold
+lace. The horses were all of the choicest Eastern breeds, and the broad
+housings of their saddles of blue, green, purple, and crimson cloth, were
+enriched with gold lace, rubies, emeralds and turquoises.
+
+The cavass took us into a chamber near the gate, and commanding a view of
+the whole court. There we found Mr. Brown and his lady, with several
+officers from the U.S. steamer San Jacinto. At this moment the sun,
+appearing above the hill of Bulgaria, behind Scutari, threw his earliest
+rays upon the gilded pinnacles of the Seraglio. The commotion in the long
+court-yard below increased. The marines were formed into exact line, the
+horses of the officers clattered on the rough pavement as they dashed
+about to expedite the arrangements, the crowd pressed closer to the line
+of the procession, and in five minutes the grand pageant was set in
+motion. As the first Pasha made his appearance under the dark archway of
+the interior gate, the band struck up the _Marseillaise_ (which is a
+favorite air among the Turks), and the soldiers presented arms. The
+court-yard was near two hundred yards long, and the line of Pashas, each
+surrounded with the officers of his staff, made a most dazzling show. The
+lowest in rank came first. I cannot recollect the precise order, nor the
+names of all of them, which, in fact, are of little consequence, while
+power and place are such uncertain matters in Turkey.
+
+Each Pasha wore the red fez on his head, a frock-coat of blue cloth, the
+breast of which was entirely covered with gold lace, while a broad band of
+the same decorated the skirts, and white pantaloons. One of the Ministers,
+Mehemet Ali Pasha, the brother-in-law of the Sultan, was formerly a
+cooper's apprentice, but taken, when a boy, by the late Sultan Mahmoud, to
+be a playmate for his son, on account of his extraordinary beauty. Rescind
+Pasha, the Grand Vizier, is a man of about sixty years of age. He is
+frequently called Giaour, or Infidel, by the Turks, on account of his
+liberal policy, which has made him many enemies. The expression of his
+face denotes intelligence, but lacks the energy necessary to accomplish
+great reforms. His son, a boy of about seventeen, already possesses the
+rank of Pasha, and is affianced to the Sultan's daughter, a child of ten,
+or twelve years old. He is a fat, handsome youth, with a sprightly face,
+and acted his part in the ceremonies with a nonchalance which made him
+appear graceful beside his stiff, dignified elders.
+
+After the Pashas came the entire household of the Sultan, including even
+his eunuchs, cooks, and constables. The Kislar Aga, or Chief Eunuch, a
+tall African in resplendent costume, is one of the most important
+personages connected with the Court. The Sultan's favorite dwarf, a little
+man about forty years old and three feet high, bestrode his horse with as
+consequential an air as any of them. A few years ago, this man took a
+notion to marry, and applied to the Sultan for a wife. The latter gave him
+permission to go into his harem and take the one whom he could kiss. The
+dwarf, like all short men, was ambitious to have a long wife. While the
+Sultan's five hundred women, who knew the terms according to which the
+dwarf was permitted to choose, were laughing at the amorous mannikin, he
+went up to one of the tallest and handsomest of them, and struck her a
+sudden blow on the stomach. She collapsed with the pain, and before she
+could recover he caught her by the neck and gave her the dreaded kiss. The
+Sultan kept his word, and the tall beauty is now the mother of the dwarfs
+children.
+
+The procession grows more brilliant as it advances, and the profound
+inclination made by the soldiers at the further end of the court,
+announces the approach of the Sultan himself. First come three led horses,
+of the noblest Arabian blood--glorious creatures, worthy to represent
+
+  "The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven,
+   And snort the morning from their nostrils,
+   Making their fiery gait above the glades."
+
+Their eyes were more keen and lustrous than the diamonds which studded
+their head-stalls, and the wealth of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires that
+gleamed on their trappings would have bought the possessions of a German
+Prince. After them came the Sultan's body-guard, a company of tall, strong
+men, in crimson tunics and white trousers, with lofty plumes of peacock
+feathers in their hats. Some of them carried crests of green feathers,
+fastened upon long staves. These superb horses and showy guards are the
+only relics of that barbaric pomp which characterized all State
+processions during the time of the Janissaries. In the centre of a hollow
+square of plume-bearing guards rode Abdul-Medjid himself, on a snow-white
+steed. Every one bowed profoundly as he passed along, but he neither
+looked to the right or left, nor made the slightest acknowledgment of the
+salutations. Turkish etiquette exacts the most rigid indifference on the
+part of the Sovereign, who, on all public occasions, never makes a
+greeting. Formerly, before the change of costume, the Sultan's turbans
+were carried before him in the processions, and the servants who bore them
+inclined them to one side and the other, in answer to the salutations of
+the crowd.
+
+Sultan Abdul-Medjid is a man of about thirty, though he looks older. He
+has a mild, amiable, weak face, dark eyes, a prominent nose, and short,
+dark brown mustaches and beard. His face is thin, and wrinkles are already
+making their appearance about the corners of his mouth and eyes. But for a
+certain vacancy of expression, he would be called a handsome man. He sits
+on his horse with much ease and grace, though there is a slight stoop in
+his shoulders. His legs are crooked, owing to which cause he appears
+awkward when on his feet, though he wears a long cloak to conceal the
+deformity. Sensual indulgence has weakened a constitution not naturally
+strong, and increased that mildness which has now become a defect in his
+character. He is not stern enough to be just, and his subjects are less
+fortunate under his easy rule than under the rod of his savage father,
+Mahmoud. He was dressed in a style of the utmost richness and elegance. He
+wore a red Turkish fez, with an immense rosette of brilliants, and a long,
+floating plume of bird-of-paradise feathers. The diamond in the centre of
+the rosette is of unusual size; it was picked up some years ago in the
+Hippodrome, and probably belonged to the treasury of the Greek Emperors.
+The breast and collar of his coat were one mass of diamonds, and sparkled
+in the early sun with a thousand rainbow gleams. His mantle of dark-blue
+cloth hung to his knees, concealing the deformity of his legs. He wore
+white pantaloons, white kid gloves, and patent leather boots, thrust into
+his golden stirrups.
+
+A few officers of the Imperial household followed behind the Sultan, and
+the procession then terminated. Including the soldiers, it contained from
+two to three thousand persons. The marines lined the way to the mosque of
+Sultan Achmed, and a great crowd of spectators filled up the streets and
+the square of the Hippodrome. Coffee was served to us, after which we were
+all conducted into the inner court of the Seraglio, to await the return of
+the cortège. This court is not more than half the size of the outer one,
+but is shaded with large sycamores, embellished with fountains, and
+surrounded with light and elegant galleries, in pure Saracenic style. The
+picture which it presented was therefore far richer and more
+characteristic of the Orient than the outer court, where the architecture
+is almost wholly after Italian models. The portals at either end rested
+on slender pillars, over which projected broad eaves, decorated with
+elaborate carved and gilded work, and above all rose a dome, surmounted by
+the Crescent. On the right, the tall chimneys of the Imperial kitchens
+towered above the walls. The sycamores threw their broad, cool shadows
+over the court, and groups of servants, in gala dresses, loitered about
+the corridors.
+
+After waiting nearly half an hour, the sound of music and the appearance
+of the Sultan's body-guard proclaimed the return of the procession. It
+came in reversed order, headed by the Sultan, after whom followed the
+Grand Vizier and other Ministers of the Imperial Council, and the Pashas,
+each surrounded by his staff of officers. The Sultan dismounted at the
+entrance to the Seraglio, and disappeared through the door. He was absent
+for more than half an hour, during which time he received the
+congratulations of his family, his wives, and the principal personages of
+his household, all of whom came to kiss his feet. Meanwhile, the Pashas
+ranged themselves in a semicircle around the arched and gilded portico.
+The servants of the Seraglio brought out a large Persian carpet, which
+they spread on the marble pavement. The throne, a large square seat,
+richly carved and covered with gilding, was placed in the centre, and a
+dazzling piece of cloth-of-gold thrown over the back of it. When the
+Sultan re-appeared, he took his seat thereon, placing his feet on a small
+footstool. The ceremony of kissing his feet now commenced. The first who
+had this honor was the Chief of the Emirs, an old man in a green robe,
+embroidered with pearls. He advanced to the throne, knelt, kissed the
+Sultan's patent-leather boot, and retired backward from the presence.
+
+The Ministers and Pashas followed in single file, and, after they had
+made the salutation, took their stations on the right hand of the throne.
+Most of them were fat, and their glittering frock-coats were buttoned so
+tightly that they seemed ready to burst. It required a great effort for
+them to rise from their knees. During all this time, the band was playing
+operatic airs, and as each Pasha knelt, a marshal, or master of
+ceremonies, with a silver wand, gave the signal to the Imperial Guard, who
+shouted at the top of their voices: "Prosperity to our Sovereign! May he
+live a thousand years!" This part of the ceremony was really grand and
+imposing. All the adjuncts were in keeping: the portico, wrought in rich
+arabesque designs; the swelling domes and sunlit crescents above; the
+sycamores and cypresses shading the court; the red tunics and peacock
+plumes of the guard; the monarch himself, radiant with jewels, as he sat
+in his chair of gold--all these features combined to form a stately
+picture of the lost Orient, and for the time Abdul-Medjid seemed the true
+representative of Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid.
+
+After the Pashas had finished, the inferior officers of the Army, Navy,
+and Civil Service followed, to the number of at least a thousand. They
+were not considered worthy to touch the Sultan's person, but kissed his
+golden scarf, which was held out to them by a Pasha, who stood on the left
+of the throne. The Grand Vizier had his place on the right, and the Chief
+of the Eunuchs stood behind him. The kissing of the scarf occupied an
+hour. The Sultan sat quietly during all this time, his face expressing a
+total indifference to all that was going on. The most skilful
+physiognomist could not have found in it the shadow of an expression. If
+this was the etiquette prescribed for him, he certainly acted it with
+marvellous skill and success.
+
+The long line of officers at length came to an end, and I fancied that the
+solemnities were now over; but after a pause appeared the _Shekh
+el-Islàm,_ or High Priest of the Mahometan religion. His authority in
+religious matters transcends that of the Sultan, and is final and
+irrevocable. He was a very venerable man, of perhaps seventy-five years of
+age, and his tottering steps were supported by two mollahs. He was dressed
+in a long green robe, embroidered with gold and pearls, over which his
+white beard flowed below his waist. In his turban of white cambric was
+twisted a scarf of cloth-of-gold. He kissed the border of the Sultan's
+mantle, which salutation was also made by a long line of the chief priests
+of the mosques of Constantinople, who followed him. These priests were
+dressed in long robes of white, green, blue, and violet, many of them with
+collars of pearls and golden scarfs wound about their turbans, the rich
+fringes falling on their shoulders. They were grave, stately men, with
+long gray beards, and the wisdom of age and study in their deep-set eyes.
+
+Among the last who came was the most important personage of all. This was
+the Governor of Mecca (as I believe he is called), the nearest descendant
+of the Prophet, and the successor to the Caliphate, in case the family of
+Othman becomes extinct. Sultan Mahmoud, on his accession to the throne,
+was the last descendant of Orchan, the founder of the Ottoman Dynasty, the
+throne being inherited only by the male heirs. He left two sons, who are
+both living, Abdul-Medjid having departed from the practice of his
+predecessors, each of whom slew his brothers, in order to make his own
+sovereignty secure. He has one son, Muzad, who is about ten years old, so
+that there are now three males of the family of Orchan. In case of their
+death, the Governor of Mecca would become Caliph, and the sovereignty
+would be established in his family. He is a swarthy Arab, of about fifty,
+with a bold, fierce face. He wore a superb dress of green, the sacred
+color, and was followed by his two sons, young men of twenty and
+twenty-two. As he advanced to the throne, and was about to kneel and kiss
+the Sultan's robe, the latter prevented him, and asked politely after his
+health--the highest mark of respect in his power to show. The old Arab's
+face gleamed with such a sudden gush of pride and satisfaction, that no
+flash of lightning could have illumined it more vividly.
+
+The sacred writers, or transcribers of the Koran, closed the procession,
+after which the Sultan rose and entered the Seraglio. The crowd slowly
+dispersed, and in a few minutes the grand reports of the cannon on
+Seraglio Point announced the departure of the Sultan for his palace on the
+Bosphorus. The festival of Bairam was now fairly inaugurated, and all
+Stamboul was given up to festivity. There was no Turk so poor that he did
+not in some sort share in the rejoicing. Our Fourth could scarcely show
+more flags, let off more big guns or send forth greater crowds of
+excursionists than this Moslem holiday.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII.
+
+The Mosques of Constantinople.
+
+
+  Sojourn at Constantinople--Semi-European Character of the City--The
+  Mosque--Procuring a Firman--The Seraglio--The Library--The Ancient
+  Throne-Room--Admittance to St. Sophia--Magnificence of the Interior--The
+  Marvellous Dome--The Mosque of Sultan Achmed--The Sulemanye--Great
+  Conflagrations--Political Meaning of the Fires--Turkish Progress--Decay
+  of the Ottoman Power.
+
+
+  "Is that indeed Sophia's far-famed dome,
+  Where first the Faith was led in triumph home,
+  Like some high bride, with banner and bright sign,
+  And melody, and flowers?" Audrey de Vere.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Tuesday, August_ 8, 1852.
+
+The length of my stay in Constantinople has enabled me to visit many
+interesting spots in its vicinity, as well as to familiarize myself with
+the peculiar features of the great capital. I have seen the beautiful
+Bosphorus from steamers and caïques; ridden up the valley of Buyukdere,
+and through the chestnut woods of Belgrade; bathed in the Black Sea, under
+the lee of the Symplegades, where the marble altar to Apollo still invites
+an oblation from passing mariners; walked over the flowery meadows beside
+the "Heavenly Waters of Asia;" galloped around the ivy-grown walls where
+Dandolo and Mahomet II. conquered, and the last of the Palæologi fell; and
+dreamed away many an afternoon-hour under the funereal cypresses of Pera,
+and beside the Delphian tripod in the Hippodrome. The historic interest
+of these spots is familiar to all, nor; with one exception, have their
+natural beauties been exaggerated by travellers. This exception is the
+village of Belgrade, over which Mary Montague went into raptures, and set
+the fashion for tourists ever since. I must confess to having been wofully
+disappointed. The village is a miserable cluster of rickety houses, on an
+open piece of barren land, surrounded by the forests, or rather thickets,
+which keep alive the springs that supply Constantinople with water. We
+reached there with appetites sharpened by our morning's ride, expecting to
+find at least a vender of _kibabs_ (bits of fried meat) in so renowned a
+place; but the only things to be had were raw salt mackerel, and bread
+which belonged to the primitive geological formation.
+
+The general features of Constantinople and the Bosphorus are so well
+known, that I am spared the dangerous task of painting scenes which have
+been colored by abler pencils. Von Hammer, Lamartine, Willis, Miss Pardoe,
+Albert Smith, and thou, most inimitable Thackeray! have made Pera and
+Scutari, the Bazaars and Baths, the Seraglio and the Golden Horn, as
+familiar to our ears as Cornhill and Wall street. Besides, Constantinople
+is not the true Orient, which is to be found rather in Cairo, in Aleppo,
+and brightest and most vital, in Damascus. Here, we tread European soil;
+the Franks are fast crowding out the followers of the Prophet, and
+Stamboul itself, were its mosques and Seraglio removed, would differ
+little in outward appearance from a third-rate Italian town. The Sultan
+lives in a palace with a Grecian portico; the pointed Saracenic arch, the
+arabesque sculptures, the latticed balconies, give place to clumsy
+imitations of Palladio, and every fire that sweeps away a recollection of
+the palmy times of Ottoman rule, sweeps it away forever.
+
+But the Mosque--that blossom of Oriental architecture, with its crowning
+domes, like the inverted bells of the lotus, and its reed-like minarets,
+its fountains and marble courts--can only perish with the faith it
+typifies. I, for one, rejoice that, so long as the religion of Islam
+exists (and yet, may its time be short!), no Christian model can shape its
+houses of worship. The minaret must still lift its airy tower for the
+muezzin; the dome must rise like a gilded heaven above the prayers of the
+Faithful, with its starry lamps and emblazoned phrases; the fountain must
+continue to pour its waters of purification. A reformation of the Moslem
+faith is impossible. When it begins to give way, the whole fabric must
+fall. Its ceremonies, as well as its creed, rest entirely on the
+recognition of Mahomet as the Prophet of God. However the Turks may change
+in other respects, in all that concerns their religion they must continue
+the same.
+
+Until within a few years, a visit to the mosques, especially the more
+sacred ones of St. Sophia and Sultan Achmed, was attended with much
+difficulty. Miss Pardoe, according to her own account, risked her life in
+order to see the interior of St. Sophia, which she effected in the
+disguise of a Turkish Effendi. I accomplished the same thing, a few days
+since, but without recourse to any such romantic expedient. Mr. Brown, the
+interpreter of the Legation, procured a firman from the Grand Vizier, on
+behalf of the officers of the San Jacinto, and kindly invited me, with
+several other American and English travellers, to join the party. During
+the month of Ramazan, no firmans are given, and as at this time there are
+few travellers in Constantinople, we should otherwise have been subjected
+to a heavy expense. The cost of a firman, including backsheesh to the
+priests and doorkeepers, is 700 piastres (about $33).
+
+We crossed the Golden Horn in caïques, and first visited the gardens and
+palaces on Seraglio Point. The Sultan at present resides in his summer
+palace of Beshiktashe, on the Bosphorus, and only occupies the Serai
+Bornou, as it is called, during the winter months. The Seraglio covers the
+extremity of the promontory on which Constantinople is built, and is
+nearly three miles in circuit. The scattered buildings erected by
+different Sultans form in themselves a small city, whose domes and pointed
+turrets rise from amid groves of cypress and pine. The sea-wall is lined
+with kiosks, from whose cushioned windows there are the loveliest views of
+the European and Asian shores. The newer portion of the palace, where the
+Sultan now receives the ambassadors of foreign nations, shows the
+influence of European taste in its plan and decorations. It is by no means
+remarkable for splendor, and suffers by contrast with many of the private
+houses in Damascus and Aleppo. The building is of wood, the walls
+ornamented with detestable frescoes by modern Greek artists, and except a
+small but splendid collection of arms, and some wonderful specimens of
+Arabic chirography, there is nothing to interest the visitor.
+
+In ascending to the ancient Seraglio, which was founded by Mahomet II., on
+the site of the palace of the Palæologi, we passed the Column of
+Theodosius, a plain Corinthian shaft, about fifty feet high. The Seraglio
+is now occupied entirely by the servants and guards, and the greater part
+of it shows a neglect amounting almost to dilapidation. The Saracenic
+corridors surrounding its courts are supported by pillars of marble,
+granite, and porphyry, the spoils of the Christian capital. We were
+allowed to walk about at leisure, and inspect the different compartments,
+except the library, which unfortunately was locked. This library was for a
+long time supposed to contain many lost treasures of ancient
+literature--among other things, the missing books of Livy--but the recent
+researches of Logothetos, the Prince of Samos, prove that there is little
+of value, among its manuscripts. Before the door hangs a wooden globe,
+which is supposed to be efficacious in neutralizing the influence of the
+Evil Eye. There are many ancient altars and fragments of pillars scattered
+about the courts, and the Turks have even commenced making a collection of
+antiquities, which, with the exception of two immense sarcophagi of red
+porphyry, contains nothing of value. They show, however, one of the brazen
+heads of the Delphian tripod in the Hippodrome, which, they say, Mahomet
+the Conqueror struck off with a single blow of his sword, on entering
+Constantinople.
+
+The most interesting portion of the Seraglio is the ancient throne-room,
+now no longer used, but still guarded by a company of white eunuchs. The
+throne is an immense, heavy bedstead, the posts of which are thickly
+incrusted with rubies, turquoises, emeralds, and sapphires. There is a
+funnel-shaped chimney-piece in the room, a master-work of Benevenuto
+Cellini. There, half a century ago, the foreign ambassadors were
+presented, after having been bathed, fed, and clothed with a rich mantle
+in the outer apartments. They were ushered into the imperial presence,
+supported by a Turkish official on either side, in order that they might
+show no signs of breaking down under the load of awe and reverence they
+were supposed to feel. In the outer Court, adjoining the Sublime Porte, is
+the Chapel of the Empress Irene, now converted into an armory, which, for
+its size, is the most tasteful and picturesque collection of weapons I
+have ever seen. It is especially rich in Saracenic armor, and contains
+many superb casques of inlaid gold. In a large glass case in the chancel,
+one sees the keys of some thirty or forty cities, with the date of their
+capture. It is not likely that another will ever be added to the list.
+
+We now passed out through the Sublime Porte, and directed our steps to the
+famous _Aya Sophia_--the temple dedicated by Justinian to the Divine
+Wisdom. The repairs made to the outer walls by the Turks, and the addition
+of the four minarets, have entirely changed the character of the building,
+without injuring its effect. As a Christian Church, it must have been less
+imposing than in its present form. A priest met us at the entrance, and
+after reading the firman with a very discontented face, informed us that
+we could not enter until the mid-day prayers were concluded. After taking
+off our shoes, however, we were allowed to ascend to the galleries, whence
+we looked down on the bowing worshippers. Here the majesty of the renowned
+edifice, despoiled as it now is, bursts at once upon the eye. The
+wonderful flat dome, glittering with its golden mosaics, and the sacred
+phrase from the Koran: "_God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth_,"
+swims in the air, one hundred and eighty feet above the marble pavement.
+On the eastern and western sides, it rests on two half domes; which again
+rise from or rest upon a group of three small half-domes, so that the
+entire roof of the mosque, unsupported by a pillar, seems to have been
+dropped from above on the walls, rather than to have been built up from
+them. Around the edifice run an upper and a lower gallery, which alone
+preserve the peculiarities of the Byzantine style. These galleries are
+supported by the most precious columns which ancient art could afford:
+among them eight shafts of green marble, from the Temple of Diana, at
+Ephesus; eight of porphyry, from the Temple of the Sun, at Baalbek;
+besides Egyptian granite from the shrines of Isis and Osiris, and
+Pentelican marble from the sanctuary of Pallas Athena. Almost the whole of
+the interior has been covered with gilding, but time has softened its
+brilliancy, and the rich, subdued gleam of the walls is in perfect harmony
+with the varied coloring of the ancient marbles.
+
+Under the dome, four Christian seraphim, executed in mosaic, have been
+allowed to remain, but the names of the four archangels of the Moslem
+faith are inscribed underneath. The bronze doors are still the same, the
+Turks having taken great pains to obliterate the crosses with which they
+were adorned. Around the centre of the dome, as on that of Sultan Achmed,
+may be read, in golden letters, and in all the intricacy of Arabic
+penmanship, the beautiful verse:--"God is the Light of the Heavens and the
+Earth. His wisdom is a light on the wall, in which burns a lamp covered
+with glass. The glass shines like a star, the lamp is lit with the oil of
+a blessed tree. No Eastern, no Western oil, it shines for whoever wills."
+After the prayers were over, and we had descended to the floor of the
+mosque, I spent the rest of my time under the dome, fascinated by its
+marvellous lightness and beauty. The worshippers present looked at us with
+curiosity, but without ill-will; and before we left, one of the priests
+came slyly with some fragments of the ancient gilded mosaic, which, he was
+heathen enough to sell, and we to buy.
+
+From St. Sophia we went to Sultan Achmed, which faces the Hippodrome, and
+is one of the stateliest piles of Constantinople. It is avowedly an
+imitation of St. Sophia, and the Turks consider it a more wonderful work,
+because the dome is seven feet higher. It has six minarets, exceeding in
+this respect all the mosques of Asia. The dome rests on four immense
+pillars, the bulk of which quite oppresses the light galleries running
+around the walls. This, and the uniform white color of the interior,
+impairs the effect which its bold style and imposing dimensions would
+otherwise produce. The outside view, with the group of domes swelling
+grandly above the rows of broad-armed sycamores, is much more
+satisfactory. In the tomb of Sultan Achmed, in one corner of the court, we
+saw his coffin, turban, sword, and jewelled harness. I had just been
+reading old Sandys' account of his visit to Constantinople, in 1610,
+during this Sultan's reign, and could only think of him as Sandys
+represents him, in the title-page to his book, as a fat man, with bloated
+cheeks, in a long gown and big turban, and the words underneath:--
+"_Achmed, sive Tyrannus._"
+
+The other noted mosques of Constantinople are the _Yeni Djami,_ or Mosque
+of the Sultana Valide, on the shore of the Golden Horn, at the end of the
+bridge to Galata; that of Sultan Bajazet; of Mahomet II., the Conqueror,
+and of his son, Suleyman the Magnificent, whose superb mosque well
+deserves this title. I regret exceedingly that our time did not allow us
+to view the interior, for outwardly it not only surpasses St. Sophia, and
+all other mosques in the city, but is undoubtedly one of the purest
+specimens of Oriental architecture extant. It stands on a broad terrace,
+on one of the seven hills of Stamboul, and its exquisitely proportioned
+domes and minarets shine as if crystalized in the blue of the air. It is a
+type of Oriental, as the Parthenon is of Grecian, and the Cologne
+Cathedral of Gothic art. As I saw it the other night, lit by the flames of
+a conflagration, standing out red and clear against the darkness, I felt
+inclined to place it on a level with either of those renowned structures.
+It is a product of the rich fancy of the East, splendidly ornate, and not
+without a high degree of symmetry--yet here the symmetry is that of
+ornament alone, and not the pure, absolute proportion of forms, which we
+find in Grecian Art. It requires a certain degree of enthusiasm--nay, a
+slight inebriation of the imaginative faculties--in order to feel the
+sentiment of this Oriental Architecture. If I rightly express all that it
+says to me, I touch the verge of rapsody. The East, in almost all its
+aspects, is so essentially poetic, that a true picture of it must be
+poetic in spirit, if not in form.
+
+Constantinople has been terribly ravaged by fires, no less than fifteen
+having occurred during the past two weeks. Almost every night the sky has
+been reddened by burning houses, and the minarets of the seven hills
+lighted with an illumination brighter than that of the Bairam. All the
+space from the Hippodrome to the Sea of Marmora has been swept away; the
+lard, honey, and oil magazines on the Golden Horn, with the bazaars
+adjoining; several large blocks on the hill of Galata, with the College of
+the Dancing Dervishes; a part of Scutari, and the College of the Howling
+Dervishes, all have disappeared; and to-day, the ruins of 3,700 houses,
+which were destroyed last night, stand smoking in the Greek quarter,
+behind the aqueduct of Valens. The entire amount of buildings consumed in
+these two weeks is estimated at between _five and six thousand_! The fire
+on the hill of Galata threatened to destroy a great part of the suburb of
+Pera. It came, sweeping over the brow of the hill, towards my hotel,
+turning the tall cypresses in the burial ground into shafts of angry
+flame, and eating away the crackling dwellings of hordes of hapless Turks.
+I was in bed; from a sudden attack of fever, but seeing the other guests
+packing up their effects and preparing to leave, I was obliged to do the
+same; and this, in my weak state, brought on such a perspiration that the
+ailment left me, The officers of the United States steamer _San Jacinto_,
+and the French frigate _Charlemagne_, came to the rescue with their men
+and fire-engines, and the flames were finally quelled. The proceedings of
+the Americans, who cut holes in the roofs and played through them upon the
+fires within, were watched by the Turks with stupid amazement.
+"Máshallah!" said a fat Bimbashi, as he stood sweltering in the heat; "The
+Franks are a wonderful people."
+
+To those initiated into the mysteries of Turkish politics, these fires are
+more than accidental; they have a most weighty significance. They indicate
+either a general discontent with the existing state of affairs, or else a
+powerful plot against the Sultan and his Ministry. Setting fire to houses
+is, in fact, the Turkish method of holding an "indignation meeting," and
+from the rate with which they are increasing, the political crisis must be
+near at hand. The Sultan, with his usual kindness of heart, has sent large
+quantities of tents and other supplies to the guiltless sufferers; but no
+amount of kindness can soften the rancor of these Turkish intrigues.
+Reschid Pasha, the present Grand Vizier, and the leader of the party of
+Progress, is the person against whom this storm of opposition is now
+gathering.
+
+In spite of all efforts, the Ottoman Power is rapidly wasting away. The
+life of the Orient is nerveless and effete; the native strength of the
+race has died out, and all attempts to resuscitate it by the adoption of
+European institutions produce mere galvanic spasms, which leave it more
+exhausted than before. The rosy-colored accounts we have had of Turkish
+Progress are for the most part mere delusions. The Sultan is a
+well-meaning but weak man, and tyrannical through his very weakness. Had
+he strength enough to break through the meshes of falsehood and venality
+which are woven so close about him, he might accomplish some solid good.
+But Turkish rule, from his ministers down to the lowest _cadi_, is a
+monstrous system of deceit and corruption. These people have not the most
+remote conception of the true aims of government; they only seek to enrich
+themselves and their parasites, at the expense of the people and the
+national treasury. When we add to this the conscript system, which is
+draining the provinces of their best Moslem subjects, to the advantage of
+the Christians and Jews, and the blindness of the Revenue Laws, which
+impose on domestic manufactures double the duty levied on foreign
+products, it will easily be foreseen that the next half-century, or less,
+will completely drain the Turkish Empire of its last lingering energies.
+
+Already, in effect, Turkey exists only through the jealousy of the
+European nations. The treaty of Unkiar-iskelessi, in 1833, threw her into
+the hands of Russia, although the influence of England has of late years
+reigned almost exclusively in her councils. These are the two powers who
+are lowering at each other with sleepless eyes, in the Dardanelles and the
+Bosphorus. The people, and most probably the government, is strongly
+preposessed in favor of the English; but the Russian Bear has a heavy paw,
+and when he puts it into the scale, all other weights kick the beam. It
+will be a long and wary struggle, and no man can prophecy the result. The
+Turks are a people easy to govern, were even the imperfect laws, now in
+existence, fairly administered. They would thrive and improve under a
+better state of things; but I cannot avoid the conviction that the
+regeneration of the East will never be effected at their hands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIX.
+
+Farewell to the Orient--Malta.
+
+
+  Embarcation--Farewell to the Orient--Leaving Constantinople--A
+  Wreck--The Dardanelles--Homeric Scenery--Smyrna Revisited--The Grecian
+  Isles--Voyage to Malta--Detention--La Valetta--The Maltese--The
+  Climate--A Boat for Sicily.
+
+  "Farewell, ye mountains,
+    By glory crowned
+  Ye sacred fountains
+    Of Gods renowned;
+  Ye woods and highlands,
+    Where heroes dwell;
+  Ye seas and islands,
+    Farewell! Farewell!"
+
+  Frithiof's Saga.
+
+
+In The Dardanelles, _Saturday, August_ 7, 1852.
+
+At last, behold me fairly embarked for Christian Europe, to which I bade
+adieu in October last, eager for the unknown wonders of the Orient. Since
+then, nearly ten months have passed away, and those wonders are now
+familiar as every-day experiences. I set out, determined to be satisfied
+with no slight taste of Eastern life, but to drain to the bottom its
+beaker of mingled sunshine and sleep. All this has been accomplished; and
+if I have not wandered so far, nor enriched myself with such varied
+knowledge of the relics of ancient history, as I might have purposed or
+wished, I have at least learned to know the Turk and the Arab, been
+soothed by the patience inspired by their fatalism, and warmed by the
+gorgeous gleams of fancy that animate their poetry and religion. These
+ten months of my life form an episode which seems to belong to a separate
+existence. Just refined enough to be poetic, and just barbaric enough to
+be freed from all conventional fetters, it is as grateful to brain and
+soul, as an Eastern bath to the body. While I look forward, not without
+pleasure, to the luxuries and conveniences of Europe, I relinquish with a
+sigh the refreshing indolence of Asia.
+
+We have passed between the Castles of the two Continents, guarding the
+mouth of the Dardanelles, and are now entering the Grecian Sea. To-morrow,
+we shall touch, for a few hours, at Smyrna, and then turn westward, on the
+track of Ulysses and St. Paul. Farewell, then, perhaps forever, to the
+bright Orient! Farewell to the gay gardens, the spicy bazaars, to the
+plash of fountains and the gleam of golden-tipped minarets! Farewell to
+the perfect morn's, the balmy twilights, the still heat of the blue noons,
+the splendor of moon and stars! Farewell to the glare of the white crags,
+the tawny wastes of dead sand, the valleys of oleander, the hills of
+myrtle and spices! Farewell to the bath, agent of purity and peace, and
+parent of delicious dreams--to the shebook, whose fragrant fumes are
+breathed from the lips of patience and contentment--to the narghileh,
+crowned with that blessed plant which grows in the gardens of Shiraz,
+while a fountain more delightful than those of Samarcand bubbles in its
+crystal bosom I Farewell to the red cap and slippers, to the big turban,
+the flowing trousers, and the gaudy shawl--to squatting on broad divans,
+to sipping black coffee in acorn cups, to grave faces and _salaam
+aleikooms_, and to aching of the lips and forehead! Farewell to the
+evening meal in the tent door, to the couch on the friendly earth, to the
+yells of the muleteers, to the deliberate marches of the plodding horse,
+and the endless rocking of the dromedary that knoweth his master!
+Farewell, finally, to annoyance without anger, delay without vexation,
+indolence without ennui, endurance without fatigue, appetite without
+intemperance, enjoyment without pall!
+
+
+La Valetta, Malta, _Saturday, August_ 14, 1852.
+
+My last view of Stamboul was that of the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed, shining faintly in the moonlight, as we steamed down the Sea of
+Marmora. The _Caire_ left at nine o'clock, freighted with the news of
+Reschid Pasha's deposition, and there were no signs of conflagration in
+all the long miles of the city that lay behind us. So we speculated no
+more on the exciting topics of the day, but went below and took a vapor
+bath in our berths; for I need not assure you that the nights on the
+Mediterranean at this season are anything but chilly. And here I must note
+the fact, that the French steamers, while dearer than the Austrian, are
+more cramped in their accommodations, and filled with a set of most
+uncivil servants. The table is good, and this is the only thing to be
+commended. In all other respects, I prefer the Lloyd vessels.
+
+Early next morning, we passed the promontory of Cyzicus, and the Island of
+Marmora, the marble quarries of which give name to the sea. As we were
+approaching the entrance to the Dardanelles, we noticed an Austrian brig
+drifting in the current, the whiff of her flag indicating distress. Her
+rudder was entirely gone, and she was floating helplessly towards the
+Thracian coast. A boat was immediately lowered and a hawser carried to her
+bows, by which we towed her a short distance; but our steam engine did
+not like this drudgery, and snapped the rope repeatedly, so that at last
+we were obliged to leave her to her fate. The lift we gave, however, had
+its effect, and by dexterous maneuvering with the sails, the captain
+brought her safely into the harbor of Gallipoli, where she dropped anchor
+beside us.
+
+Beyond Gallipoli, the Dardanelles contract, and the opposing continents
+rise into lofty and barren hills. In point of natural beauty, this strait
+is greatly inferior to the Bosphorus. It lacks the streams and wooded
+valleys which open upon the latter. The country is but partially
+cultivated, except around the town of Dardanelles, near the mouth of the
+strait. The site of the bridge of Xerxes is easily recognized, the
+conformation of the different shores seconding the decision of
+antiquarians. Here, too, are Sestos and Abydos, of passionate and poetic
+memory. But as the sun dipped towards the sea, we passed out of the narrow
+gateway. On our left lay the plain of Troy, backed by the blue range of
+Mount Ida. The tamulus of Patroclus crowned a low bluff looking on the
+sea. On the right appeared the long, irregular island of Imbros, and the
+peaks of misty Samothrace over and beyond it. Tenedos was before us. The
+red flush of sunset tinged the grand Homeric landscape, and lingered and
+lingered on the summit of Ida, as if loth to depart. I paced the deck
+until long after it was too dark to distinguish it any more.
+
+The next morning we dropped anchor in the harbor of Smyrna, where we
+remained five hours. I engaged a donkey, and rode out to the Caravan
+Bridge, where the Greek driver and I smoked narghilehs and drank coffee in
+the shade of the acacias. I contrasted my impressions with those of my
+first visit to Smyrna last October--my first glimpse of Oriental ground.
+Then, every dog barked at me, and all the horde of human creatures who
+prey upon innocent travellers ran at my heels, but now, with my brown face
+and Turkish aspect of grave indifference, I was suffered to pass as
+quietly as my donkey-driver himself. Nor did the latter, nor the ready
+_cafidji_, who filled our pipes on the banks of the Meles, attempt to
+overcharge me--a sure sign that the Orient had left its seal on my face.
+Returning through the city, the same mishap befel me which travellers
+usually experience on their first arrival. My donkey, while dashing at
+full speed through a crowd of Smyrniotes in their Sunday dresses, slipped
+up in a little pool of black mud, and came down with a crash. I flew over
+his head and alighted firmly on my feet, but the spruce young Greeks,
+whose snowy fustanelles were terribly bespattered, came off much worse.
+The donkey shied back, levelled his ears and twisted his head on one side,
+awaiting a beating, but his bleeding legs saved him.
+
+We left at two o'clock, touched at Scio in the evening, and the next
+morning at sunrise lay-to in the harbor of Syra. The Piræus was only
+twelve hours distant; but after my visitation of fever in Constantinople,
+I feared to encounter the pestilential summer heats of Athens. Besides, I
+had reasons for hastening with all speed to Italy and Germany. At ten
+o'clock we weighed anchor again and steered southwards, between the groups
+of the Cyclades, under a cloudless sky and over a sea of the brightest
+blue. The days were endurable under the canvas awning of our quarter-deck,
+but the nights in our berths were sweat-baths, which left us so limp and
+exhausted that we were almost fit to vanish, like ghosts, at daybreak.
+
+Our last glimpse of the Morea--Cape Matapan--faded away in the moonlight,
+and for _two_ days we travelled westward over the burning sea. On the
+evening of the 11th, the long, low outline of Malta rose gradually against
+the last flush of sunset, and in two hours thereafter, we came to anchor
+in Quarantine Harbor. The quarantine for travellers returning from the
+East, which formerly varied from fourteen to twenty-one days, is now
+reduced to one day for those arriving from Greece or Turkey, and three
+days for those from Egypt and Syria. In our case, it was reduced to
+sixteen hours, by an official courtesy. I had intended proceeding directly
+to Naples; but by the contemptible trickery of the agents of the French
+steamers--a long history, which it is unnecessary to recapitulate--am left
+here to wait ten days for another steamer. It is enough to say that there
+are six other travellers at the same hotel, some coming from
+Constantinople, and some from Alexandria, in the same predicament. Because
+a single ticket to Naples costs some thirty or forty francs less than by
+dividing the trip into two parts, the agents in those cities refuse to
+give tickets further than Malta to those who are not keen enough to see
+through the deception. I made every effort to obtain a second ticket in
+time to leave by the branch steamer for Italy, but in vain.
+
+La Valetta is, to my eyes, the most beautiful small city in the world. It
+is a jewel of a place; not a street but is full of picturesque effects,
+and all the look-outs, which you catch at every turn, let your eyes rest
+either upon one of the beautiful harbors on each side, or the distant
+horizon of the sea. The streets are so clean that you might eat your
+dinner off the pavement; the white balconies and cornices of the houses,
+all cleanly cut in the soft Maltese stone, stand out in intense relief
+against the sky, and from the manifold reflections and counter
+reflections, the shadows (where there are any) become a sort of milder
+light. The steep sides of the promontory, on which the city is built, are
+turned into staircases, and it is an inexhaustible pastime to watch the
+groups, composed of all nations who inhabit the shores of the
+Mediterranean, ascending and descending. The Auberges of the old Knights,
+the Palace of the Grand Master, the Church of St. John, and other relics
+of past time, but more especially the fortifications, invest the place
+with a romantic interest, and I suspect that, after Venice and Granada,
+there are few cities where the Middle Ages have left more impressive
+traces of their history.
+
+The Maltese are contented, and appear to thrive under the English
+administration. They are a peculiar people, reminding me of the Arab even
+more than the Italian, while a certain rudeness in their build and motions
+suggests their Punic ancestry. Their language is a curious compound of
+Arabic and Italian, the former being the basis. I find that I can
+understand more than half that is said, the Arabic terminations being
+applied to Italian words. I believe it has never been successfully reduced
+to writing, and the restoration of pure Arabic has been proposed, with
+much reason, as preferable to an attempt to improve or refine it. Italian
+is the language used in the courts of justice and polite society, and is
+spoken here with much more purity than either in Naples or Sicily.
+
+The heat has been so great since I landed that I have not ventured outside
+of the city, except last evening to an amateur theatre, got up by the
+non-commissioned officers and privates in the garrison. The performances
+were quite tolerable, except a love-sick young damsel who spoke with a
+rough masculine voice, and made long strides across the stage when she
+rushed into her lover's arms. I am at a loss to account for the exhausting
+character of the heat. The thermometer shows 90° by day, and 80° to 85° by
+night--a much lower temperature than I have found quite comfortable in
+Africa and Syria. In the Desert 100° in the shade is rather bracing than
+otherwise; here, 90° renders all exercise, more severe than smoking a
+pipe, impossible. Even in a state of complete inertia, a shirt-collar will
+fall starchless in five minutes.
+
+Rather than waste eight more days in this glimmering half-existence, I
+have taken passage in a Maltese _speronara_, which sails this evening for
+Catania, in Sicily, where the grand festival of St. Agatha, which takes
+place once in a hundred years, will be celebrated next week. The trip
+promises a new experience, and I shall get a taste, slight though it be,
+of the golden Trinacria of the ancients. Perhaps, after all, this delay
+which so vexes me (bear in mind, I am no longer in the Orient!) may be
+meant solely for my good. At least, Mr. Winthrop, our Consul here, who has
+been exceedingly kind and courteous to me, thinks it a rare good fortune
+that I shall see the Catanian festa.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXX.
+
+The Festival of St. Agatha.
+
+
+  Departure from Malta--The Speronara--Our Fellow-Passengers--The First
+  Night on Board--Sicily--Scarcity of Provisions--Beating in the Calabrian
+  Channel--The Fourth Morning--The Gulf of Catania--A Sicilian
+  Landscape--The Anchorage--The Suspected List--The Streets of
+  Catania--Biography of St. Agatha--The Illuminations--The Procession of
+  the Veil--The Biscari Palace--The Antiquities of Catania--The Convent of
+  St. Nicola.
+
+
+  "The morn is full of holiday, loud bells
+  With rival clamors ring from every spire;
+  Cunningly-stationed music dies and swells
+  In echoing places; when the winds respire,
+  Light flags stream out like gauzy tongues of fire."--Keats.
+
+
+Catania, Sicily, _Friday_, _August_ 20, 1852.
+
+I went on board the _speronara_ in the harbor of La Valetta at the
+appointed hour (5 P.M.), and found the remaining sixteen passengers
+already embarked. The captain made his appearance an hour later, with our
+bill of health and passports, and as the sun went down behind the brown
+hills of the island, we passed the wave-worn rocks of the promontory,
+dividing the two harbors, and slowly moved off towards Sicily.
+
+The Maltese _speronara_ resembles the ancient Roman galley more than any
+modern craft. It has the same high, curved poop and stern, the same short
+masts and broad, square sails. The hull is too broad for speed, but this
+adds to the security of the vessel in a gale. With a fair wind, it rarely
+makes more than eight knots an hour, and in a calm, the sailors (if not
+too lazy) propel it forward with six long oars. The hull is painted in a
+fanciful style, generally blue, red, green and white, with bright red
+masts. The bulwarks are low, and the deck of such a convexity that it is
+quite impossible to walk it in a heavy sea. Such was the vessel to which I
+found myself consigned. It was not more than fifty feet long, and of less
+capacity than a Nile _dahabiyeh_. There was a sort of deck cabin, or crib,
+with two berths, but most of the passengers slept in the hold. For a
+passage to Catania I was obliged to pay forty francs, the owner swearing
+that this was the regular price; but, as I afterwards discovered, the
+Maltese only paid thirty-six francs for the whole trip. However, the
+Captain tried to make up the money's worth in civilities, and was
+incessant in his attentions to "your Lordships," as he styled myself and
+my companion, Cæsar di Cagnola, a young Milanese.
+
+The Maltese were tailors and clerks, who were taking a holiday trip to
+witness the great festival of St. Agatha. With two exceptions, they were a
+wild and senseless, though good-natured set, and in spite of sea-sickness,
+which exercised them terribly for the first two days, kept up a constant
+jabber in their bastard Arabic from morning till night. As is usual in
+such a company, one of them was obliged to serve as a butt for the rest,
+and "Maestro Paolo," as they termed him, wore such a profoundly serious
+face all the while, from his sea-sickness, that the fun never came to an
+end. As they were going to a religious festival, some of them had brought
+their breviaries along with them; but I am obliged to testify that, after
+the first day, prayers were totally forgotten. The sailors, however, wore
+linen bags, printed with a figure of the Madonna, around their necks.
+
+The sea was rather rough, but Cæsar and I fortified our stomachs with a
+bottle of English ale, and as it was dark by this time, sought our
+resting-places for the night. As we had paid double, _places_ were assured
+us in the coop on deck, but beds were not included in the bargain. The
+Maltese, who had brought mattresses and spread a large Phalansteriau bed
+in the hold, fared much better. I took one of my carpet bags for a pillow
+and lay down on the planks, where I succeeded in getting a little sleep
+between the groans of the helpless land-lubbers. We had the _ponente_, or
+west-wind, all night, but the speronara moved sluggishly, and in the
+morning it changed to the _greco-levante,_ or north-east. No land was in
+sight; but towards noon, the sky became clearer, and we saw the southern
+coast of Sicily--a bold mountain-shore, looming phantom-like in the
+distance. Cape Passaro was to the east, and the rest of the day was spent
+in beating up to it. At sunset, we were near enough to see the villages
+and olive-groves of the beautiful shore, and, far behind the nearer
+mountains, ninety miles distant, the solitary cone of Etna.
+
+The second night passed like the first, except that our bruised limbs were
+rather more sensitive to the texture of the planks. We crawled out of our
+coop at dawn, expecting to behold Catania in the distance; but there was
+Cape Passaro still staring us in the face. The Maltese were patient, and
+we did not complain, though Cæsar and I began to make nice calculations as
+to the probable duration of our two cold fowls and three loaves of bread.
+The promontory of Syracuse was barely visible forty miles ahead; but the
+wind was against us, and so another day passed in beating up the eastern
+coast. At dusk, we overtook another speronara which had left Malta two
+hours before us, and this was quite a triumph to our captain, All the oars
+were shipped, the sailors and some of the more courageous passengers took
+hold, and we shot ahead, scudding rapidly along the dark shores, to the
+sound of the wild Maltese songs. At length, the promontory was gained, and
+the restless current, rolling down from Scylla and Charybdis, tossed our
+little bark from wave to wave with a recklessness that would have made any
+one nervous but an old sailor like myself.
+
+"To-morrow morning," said the Captain, "we shall sail into Catania;" but
+after a third night on the planks, which were now a little softer, we rose
+to find ourselves abreast of Syracuse, with Etna as distant as ever. The
+wind was light, and what little we made by tacking was swept away by the
+current, so that, after wasting the whole forenoon, we kept a straight
+course across the mouth of the channel, and at sunset saw the Calabrian
+Mountains. This move only lost us more ground, as it happened. Cæsar and I
+mournfully and silently consumed our last fragment of beef, with the
+remaining dry crusts of bread, and then sat down doggedly to smoke and see
+whether the captain would discover our situation. But no; while we were
+supplied, the whole vessel was at our Lordships' command, and now that we
+were destitute, he took care to make no rash offers. Cæsar, at last, with
+an imperial dignity becoming his name, commanded dinner. It came, and the
+pork and maccaroni, moistened with red Sicilian wine, gave us patience for
+another day.
+
+The fourth morning dawned, and--Great Neptune be praised!--we were
+actually within the Gulf of Catania. Etna loomed up in all his sublime
+bulk, unobscured by cloud or mist, while a slender jet of smoke, rising
+from his crater, was slowly curling its wreaths in the clear air, as if
+happy to receive the first beam of the sun. The towers of Syracuse, which
+had mocked us all the preceding day, were no longer visible; the
+land-locked little port of Augusta lay behind us; and, as the wind
+continued favorable, ere long we saw a faint white mark at the foot of the
+mountain. This was Catania. The shores of the bay were enlivened with
+olive-groves and the gleam of the villages, while here and there a single
+palm dreamed of its brothers across the sea. Etna, of course, had the
+monarch's place in the landscape, but even his large, magnificent outlines
+could not usurp all my feeling. The purple peaks to the westward and
+farther inland, had a beauty of their own, and in the gentle curves with
+which they leaned towards each other, there was a promise of the flowery
+meadows of Enna. The smooth blue water was speckled with fishing-boats. We
+hailed one, inquiring when the _festa_ was to commence; but, mistaking our
+question, they answered: "Anchovies." Thereupon, a waggish Maltese
+informed them that Maestro Paolo thanked them heartily. All the other
+boats were hailed in the name of Maestro Paolo, who, having recovered from
+his sea-sickness, took his bantering good-humoredly.
+
+Catania presented a lovely picture, as we drew near the harbor. Planted at
+the very foot of Etna, it has a background such as neither Naples nor
+Genoa can boast. The hills next the sea are covered with gardens and
+orchards, sprinkled with little villages and the country palaces of the
+nobles--a rich, cultured landscape, which gradually merges into the
+forests of oak and chestnut that girdle the waist of the great volcano.
+But all the wealth of southern vegetation cannot hide the footsteps of
+that Ruin, which from time to time visits the soil. Half-way up, the
+mountain-side is dotted with cones of ashes and cinders, some covered with
+the scanty shrubbery which centuries have called forth, some barren and
+recent; while two dark, winding streams of sterile lava descend to the
+very shore, where they stand congealed in ragged needles and pyramids.
+Part of one of these black floods has swept the town, and, tumbling into
+the sea, walls one side of the port.
+
+We glided slowly past the mole, and dropped anchor a few yards from the
+shore. There was a sort of open promenade planted with trees, in front of
+us, surrounded with high white houses, above which rose the dome of the
+Cathedral and the spires of other churches. The magnificent palace of
+Prince Biscari was on our right, and at its foot the Customs and Revenue
+offices. Every roof, portico, and window was lined with lamps, a triumphal
+arch spanned the street before the palace, and the landing-place at the
+offices was festooned with crimson and white drapery, spangled with gold.
+While we were waiting permission to land, a scene presented itself which
+recalled the pagan days of Sicily to my mind. A procession came in sight
+from under the trees, and passed along the shore. In the centre was borne
+a stately shrine, hung with garlands, and containing an image of St.
+Agatha. The sound of flutes and cymbals accompanied it, and a band of
+children, bearing orange and palm branches, danced riotously before. Had
+the image been Pan instead of St. Agatha, the ceremonies would have been
+quite as appropriate.
+
+The speronara's boat at last took us to the gorgeous landing place, where
+we were carefully counted by a fat Sicilian official, and declared free
+from quarantine. We were then called into the Passport Office where the
+Maltese underwent a searching examination. One of the officers sat with
+the Black Book, or list of suspected persons of all nations, open before
+him, and looked for each name as it was called out. Another scanned the
+faces of the frightened tailors, as if comparing them with certain
+revolutionary visages in his mind. Terrible was the keen, detective glance
+of his eye, and it went straight through the poor Maltese, who vanished
+with great rapidity when they were declared free to enter the city. At
+last, they all passed the ordeal, but Cæsar and I remained, looking in at
+the door. "There are still these two Frenchmen," said the captain. "I am
+no Frenchman," I protested; "I am an American." "And I," said Cæsar, "am
+an Austrian subject." Thereupon we received a polite invitation to enter;
+the terrible glance softened into a benign, respectful smile; he of the
+Black Book ran lightly over the C's and T's, and said, with a courteous
+inclination: "There is nothing against the signori." I felt quite relieved
+by this; for, in the Mediterranean, one is never safe from spies, and no
+person is too insignificant to escape the ban, if once suspected.
+
+Calabria was filled to overflowing with strangers from all parts of the
+Two Sicilies, and we had some difficulty in finding very bad and dear
+lodgings. It was the first day of the _festa,_ and the streets were
+filled with peasants, the men in black velvet jackets and breeches, with
+stockings, and long white cotton caps hanging on the shoulders, and the
+women with gay silk shawls on their heads, after the manner of the Mexican
+_reboza_. In all the public squares, the market scene in Masaniello was
+acted to the life. The Sicilian dialect is harsh and barbarous, and the
+original Italian is so disguised by the admixture of Arabic, Spanish,
+French, and Greek words, that even my imperial friend, who was a born
+Italian, had great difficulty in understanding the people.
+
+I purchased a guide to the festa, which, among other things, contained a
+biography of St. Agatha. It is a beautiful specimen of pious writing, and
+I regret that I have not space to translate the whole of it. Agatha was a
+beautiful Catanian virgin, who secretly embraced Christianity during the
+reign of Nero. Catania was then governed by a prætor named Quintianus,
+who, becoming enamored of Agatha, used the most brutal means to compel her
+to submit to his desires, but without effect. At last, driven to the
+cruelest extremes, he cut off her breasts, and threw her into prison. But
+at midnight, St. Peter, accompanied by an angel, appeared to her, restored
+the maimed parts, and left her more beautiful than ever. Quintianus then
+ordered a furnace to be heated, and cast her therein. A terrible
+earthquake shook the city; the sun was eclipsed; the sea rolled backwards,
+and left its bottom dry; the prætor's palace fell in ruins, and he,
+pursued by the vengeance of the populace, fled till he reached the river
+Simeto, where he was drowned in attempting to cross. "The thunders of the
+vengeance of God," says the biography, "struck him down into the
+profoundest Hell." This was in the year 252.
+
+The body was carried to Constantinople in 1040, "although the Catanians
+wept incessantly at their loss;" but in 1126, two French knights, named
+Gilisbert and Goselin, were moved by angelic influences to restore it to
+its native town, which they accomplished, "and the eyes of the Catanians
+again burned with joy." The miracles effected by the saint are numberless,
+and her power is especially efficacious in preventing earthquakes and
+eruptions of Mount Etna. Nevertheless, Catania has suffered more from
+these causes than any other town in Sicily. But I would that all saints
+had as good a claim to canonization as St. Agatha. The honors of such a
+festival as this are not out of place, when paid to such youth, beauty,
+and "heavenly chastity," as she typifies.
+
+The guide, which I have already consulted, gives a full account of the
+festa, in advance, with a description of Catania. The author says: "If thy
+heart is not inspired by gazing on this lovely city, it is a fatal
+sign--thou wert not born to feel the sweet impulses of the Beautiful!"
+Then, in announcing the illuminations and pyrotechnic displays, he
+exclaims: "Oh, the amazing spectacle! Oh, how happy art thou, that thou
+beholdest it! I What pyramids of lamps! What myriads of rockets! What
+wonderful temples of flame! The Mountain himself is astonished at such a
+display." And truly, except the illumination of the Golden Horn on the
+Night of Predestination, I have seen nothing equal to the spectacle
+presented by Catania, during the past three nights. The city, which has
+been built up from her ruins more stately than ever, was in a blaze of
+light--all her domes, towers, and the long lines of her beautiful palaces
+revealed in the varying red and golden flames of a hundred thousand lamps
+and torches. Pyramids of fire, transparencies, and illuminated triumphal
+arches filled the four principal streets, and the fountain in the
+Cathedral square gleamed like a jet of molten silver, spinning up from one
+of the pores of Etna. At ten o'clock, a gorgeous display of fireworks
+closed the day's festivities, but the lamps remained burning nearly all
+night.
+
+On the second night, the grand Procession of the Veil took place. I
+witnessed this imposing spectacle from the balcony of Prince Gessina's
+palace. Long lines of waxen torches led the way, followed by a military
+band, and then a company of the highest prelates, in their most brilliant
+costumes, surrounding the Bishop, who walked under a canopy of silk and
+gold, bearing the miraculous veil of St. Agatha. I was blessed with a
+distant view of it, but could see no traces of the rosy hue left upon it
+by the flames of the Saint's martyrdom. Behind the priests came the
+_Intendente_ of Sicily, Gen. Filangieri, the same who, three years ago,
+gave up Catania to sack and slaughter. He was followed by the Senate of
+the City, who have just had the cringing cowardice to offer him a ball on
+next Sunday night. If ever a man deserved the vengeance of an outraged
+people, it is this Filangieri, who was first a Liberal, when the cause
+promised success, and then made himself the scourge of the vilest of
+kings. As he passed me last night in his carriage of State, while the
+music pealed in rich rejoicing strains, that solemn chant with which the
+monks break upon the revellers, in "Lucrezia Borgia," came into my mind:
+
+  "La gioja del profani
+  'E un fumo passagier'--"
+
+[the rejoicing of the profane is a transitory mist.] I heard, under the
+din of all these festivities, the voice of that Retribution which even now
+lies in wait, and will not long be delayed.
+
+To-night Signor Scavo, the American Vice-Consul, took me to the palace of
+Prince Biscari, overlooking the harbor, in order to behold the grand
+display of fireworks from the end of the mole. The showers of rockets and
+colored stars, and the temples of blue and silver fire, were repeated in
+the dark, quiet bosom of the sea, producing the most dazzling and
+startling effects. There was a large number of the Catanese nobility
+present, and among them a Marchesa Gioveni, the descendant of the bloody
+house of Anjou. Prince Biscari is a benign, courtly old man, and greatly
+esteemed here. His son is at present in exile, on account of the part he
+took in the late revolution. During the sack of the city under Filangieri,
+the palace was plundered of property to the amount of ten thousand
+dollars. The museum of Greek and Roman antiquities attached to it, and
+which the house of Biscari has been collecting for many years, is probably
+the finest in Sicily. The state apartments were thrown open this evening,
+and when I left, an hour ago, the greater portion of the guests were going
+through mazy quadrilles on the mosaic pavements.
+
+Among the antiquities of Catania which I have visited, are the
+Amphitheatre, capable of holding 15,000 persons, the old Greek Theatre,
+the same in which Alcibiades made his noted harangue to the Catanians, the
+Odeon, and the ancient Baths. The theatre, which is in tolerable
+preservation, is built of lava, like many of the modern edifices in the
+city. The Baths proved to me, what I had supposed, that the Oriental Bath
+of the present day is identical with that of the Ancients. Why so
+admirable an institution has never been introduced into Europe (except in
+the _Bains Chinois_ of Paris) is more than I can tell. From the pavement
+of these baths, which is nearly twenty feet below the surface of the
+earth, the lava of later eruptions has burst up, in places, in hard black
+jets. The most wonderful token of that flood which whelmed Catania two
+hundred years ago, is to be seen at the Grand Benedictine Convent of San
+Nicola, in the upper part of the city. Here the stream of lava divides
+itself just before the Convent, and flows past on both sides, leaving the
+building and gardens untouched. The marble courts, the fountains, the
+splendid galleries, and the gardens of richest southern bloom and
+fragrance, stand like an epicurean island in the midst of the terrible
+stony waves, whose edges bristle with the thorny aloe and cactus. The
+monks of San Nicola are all chosen from the Sicilian nobility, and live a
+comfortable life of luxury and vice. Each one has his own carriage,
+horses, and servants, and each his private chambers outside of the convent
+walls and his kept concubines. These facts are known and acknowledged by
+the Catanians, to whom they are a lasting scandal.
+
+It is past midnight, and I must close. Cæsar started this afternoon,
+alone, for the ascent of Etna. I would have accompanied him, but my only
+chance of reaching Messina in time for the next steamer to Naples is the
+diligence which leaves here to-morrow. The mountain has been covered with
+clouds for the last two days, and I have had no view at all comparable to
+that of the morning of my arrival. To-morrow the grand procession of the
+Body of St. Agatha takes place, but I am quite satisfied with three days
+of processions and horse races, and three nights of illuminations.
+
+I leave in the morning, with a Sicilian passport, my own availing me
+nothing, after landing.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXI.
+
+The Eruption of Mount Etna.
+
+
+  The Mountain Threatens--The Signs Increase--We Leave Catania--Gardens
+  Among the Lava--Etna Labors--Aci Reale--The Groans of Etna--The
+  Eruption--Gigantic Tree of Smoke--Formation of the New Crater--We Lose
+  Sight of the Mountain--Arrival at Messina--Etna is Obscured--Departure.
+
+
+  -------"the shattered side
+  Of thundering Ætna, whose combustible
+  And fuel'd entrails thence conceiving fire,
+  Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
+  And leave a singed bottom." Milton.
+
+
+Messina, Sicily, _Monday, August_ 23, 1852.
+
+The noises of the festival had not ceased when I closed my letter at
+midnight, on Friday last. I slept soundly through the night, but was
+awakened before sunrise by my Sicilian landlord. "O, Excellenza! have you
+heard the Mountain? He is going to break out again; may the holy Santa
+Agatha protect us!" It is rather ill-timed on the part of the Mountain,
+was my involuntary first thought, that he should choose for a new eruption
+precisely the centennial festival of the only Saint who is supposed to
+have any power over him. It shows a disregard of female influence not at
+all suited to the present day, and I scarcely believe that he seriously
+means it. Next came along the jabbering landlady: "I don't like his looks.
+It was just so the last time. Come, Excellenza, you can see him from the
+back terrace." The sun was not yet risen, but the east was bright with
+his coming, and there was not a cloud in the sky. All the features of Etna
+were sharply sculptured in the clear air. From the topmost cone, a thick
+stream of white smoke was slowly puffed out at short intervals, and rolled
+lazily down the eastern side. It had a heavy, languid character, and I
+should have thought nothing of the appearance but for the alarm of my
+hosts. It was like the slow fire of Earth's incense, burning on that grand
+mountain altar.
+
+I hurried off to the Post Office, to await the arrival of the diligence
+from Palermo. The office is in the Strada Etnea, the main street of
+Catania, which runs straight through the city, from the sea to the base of
+the mountain, whose peak closes the long vista. The diligence was an hour
+later than usual, and I passed the time in watching the smoke which
+continued to increase in volume, and was mingled, from time to time, with
+jets of inky blackness. The postilion said he had seen fires and heard
+loud noises during the night. According to his account, the disturbances
+commenced about midnight. I could not but envy my friend Cæsar, who was
+probably at that moment on the summit, looking down into the seething
+fires of the crater.
+
+At last, we rolled out of Catania. There were in the diligence, besides
+myself, two men and a woman, Sicilians of the secondary class. The road
+followed the shore, over rugged tracts of lava, the different epochs of
+which could be distinctly traced in the character of the vegetation. The
+last great flow (of 1679) stood piled in long ridges of terrible
+sterility, barely allowing the aloe and cactus to take root in the hollows
+between. The older deposits were sufficiently decomposed to nourish the
+olive and vine; but even here, the orchards were studded with pyramids of
+the harder fragments, which are laboriously collected by the husbandmen.
+In the few favored spots which have been untouched for so many ages that a
+tolerable depth of soil has accumulated, the vegetation has all the
+richness and brilliancy of tropical lands. The palm, orange, and
+pomegranate thrive luxuriantly, and the vines almost break under their
+heavy clusters. The villages are frequent and well built, and the hills
+are studded, far and near, with the villas of rich proprietors, mostly
+buildings of one story, with verandahs extending their whole length.
+Looking up towards Etna, whose base the road encircles, the views are
+gloriously rich and beautiful. On the other hand is the blue Mediterranean
+and the irregular outline of the shore, here and there sending forth
+promontories of lava, cooled by the waves into the most fantastic forms.
+
+We had sot proceeded far before a new sign called my attention to the
+mountain. Not only was there a perceptible jar or vibration in the earth,
+but a dull, groaning sound, like the muttering of distant thunder, began
+to be heard. The smoke increased in volume, and, as we advanced further to
+the eastward, and much nearer to the great cone, I perceived that it
+consisted of two jets, issuing from different mouths. A broad stream of
+very dense white smoke still flowed over the lip of the topmost crater and
+down the eastern side. As its breadth did not vary, and the edges were
+distinctly defined, it was no doubt the sulphureous vapor rising from a
+river of molten lava. Perhaps a thousand yards below, a much stronger
+column of mingled black and white smoke gushed up, in regular beats or
+pants, from a depression in the mountain side, between two small, extinct
+cones. All this part of Etna was scarred with deep chasms, and in the
+bottoms of those nearest the opening, I could see the red gleam of fire.
+The air was perfectly still, and as yet there was no cloud in the sky.
+
+When we stopped to change horses at the town of Aci Reale, I first felt
+the violence of the tremor and the awful sternness of the sound. The smoke
+by this time seemed to be gathering on the side towards Catania, and hung
+in a dark mass about half-way down the mountain. Groups of the villagers
+were gathered in the streets which looked upwards to Etna, and discussing
+the chances of an eruption. "Ah," said an old peasant, "the Mountain knows
+how to make himself respected. When he talks, everybody listens." The
+sound was the most awful that ever met my ears. It was a hard, painful
+moan, now and then fluttering like a suppressed sob, and had, at the same
+time, an expression of threatening and of agony. It did not come from Etna
+alone. It had no fixed location; it pervaded all space. It was in the air,
+in the depths of the sea, in the earth under my feet--everywhere, in fact;
+and as it continued to increase in violence, I experienced a sensation of
+positive pain. The people looked anxious and alarmed, although they said
+it was a good thing for all Sicily; that last year they had been in
+constant fear from earthquakes, and that an eruption invariably left the
+island quiet for several years. It is true that, during the past year,
+parts of Sicily and Calabria have been visited with severe shocks,
+occasioning much damage to property. A merchant of this city informed me
+yesterday that his whole family had slept for two months in the vaults of
+his warehouse, fearing that their residence might be shaken down in the
+night.
+
+As we rode along from Aci Reale to Taormina, all the rattling of the
+diligence over the rough road could not drown the awful noise. There was a
+strong smell of sulphur in the air, and the thick pants of smoke from the
+lower crater continued to increase in strength. The sun was fierce and
+hot, and the edges of the sulphureous clouds shone with a dazzling
+whiteness. A mounted soldier overtook us, and rode beside the diligence,
+talking with the postillion. He had been up to the mountain, and was
+taking his report to the Governor of the district. The heat of the day and
+the continued tremor of the air lulled me into a sort of doze, when I was
+suddenly aroused by a cry from the soldier and the stopping of the
+diligence. At the same time, there was a terrific peal of sound, followed
+by a jar which must have shaken the whole island. We looked up to Etna,
+which was fortunately in full view before us. An immense mass of
+snow-white smoke had burst up from the crater and was rising
+perpendicularly into the air, its rounded volumes rapidly whirling one
+over the other, yet urged with such impetus that they only rolled outwards
+after they had ascended to an immense height. It might have been one
+minute or five--for I was so entranced by this wonderful spectacle that I
+lost the sense of time--but it seemed instantaneous (so rapid and violent
+were the effects of the explosion), when there stood in the air, based on
+the summit of the mountain, a mass of smoke four or five miles high, and
+shaped precisely like the Italian pine tree.
+
+Words cannot paint the grandeur of this mighty tree. Its trunk of columned
+smoke, one side of which was silvered by the sun, while the other, in
+shadow, was lurid with red flame, rose for more than a mile before it sent
+out its cloudy boughs. Then parting into a thousand streams, each of
+which again threw out its branching tufts of smoke, rolling and waving in
+the air, it stood in intense relief against the dark blue of the sky. Its
+rounded masses of foliage were dazzlingly white on one side, while, in the
+shadowy depths of the branches, there was a constant play of brown,
+yellow, and crimson tints, revealing the central shaft of fire. It was
+like the tree celebrated in the Scandinavian sagas, as seen by the mother
+of Harold Hardrada--that tree, whose roots pierced through the earth,
+whose trunk was of the color of blood, and whose branches filled the
+uttermost corners of the heavens.
+
+This outburst seemed to have relieved the mountain, for the tremors were
+now less violent, though the terrible noise still droned in the air, and
+earth, and sea. And now, from the base of the tree, three white streams
+slowly crept into as many separate chasms, against the walls of which
+played the flickering glow of the burning lava. The column of smoke and
+flame was still hurled upwards, and the tree, after standing about ten
+minutes--a new and awful revelation of the active forces of
+Nature--gradually rose and spread, lost its form, and, slowly moved by a
+light wind (the first that disturbed the dead calm of the day), bent over
+to the eastward. We resumed our course. The vast belt of smoke at last
+arched over the strait, here about twenty miles wide, and sank towards the
+distant Calabrian shore. As we drove under it, for some miles of our way,
+the sun was totally obscured, and the sky presented the singular spectacle
+of two hemispheres of clear blue, with a broad belt of darkness drawn
+between them. There was a hot, sulphureous vapor in the air, and showers
+of white ashes fell, from time to time. We were distant about twelve
+miles, in a straight line, from the crater; but the air was so clear,
+even under the shadow of the smoke, that I could distinctly trace the
+downward movement of the rivers of lava.
+
+This was the eruption, at last, to which all the phenomena of the morning
+had been only preparatory. For the first time in ten years the depths of
+Etna had been stirred, and I thanked God for my detention at Malta, and
+the singular hazard of travel which had brought me here, to his very base,
+to witness a scene, the impression of which I shall never lose, to my
+dying day. Although the eruption may continue and the mountain pour forth
+fiercer fires and broader tides of lava, I cannot but think that the first
+upheaval, which lets out the long-imprisoned forces, will not be equalled
+in grandeur by any later spectacle.
+
+After passing Taormina, our road led us under the hills of the coast, and
+although I occasionally caught glimpses of Etna, and saw the reflection of
+fires from the lava which was filling up his savage ravines, the smoke at
+last encircled his waist, and he was then shut out of sight by the
+intervening mountains. We lost a bolt in a deep valley opening on the sea,
+and during our stoppage I could still hear the groans of the Mountain,
+though farther off and less painful to the ear. As evening came on, the
+beautiful hills of Calabria, with white towns and villages on their sides,
+gleamed in the purple light of the setting sun. We drove around headland
+after headland, till the strait opened, and we looked over the harbor of
+Messina to Capo Faro, and the distant islands of the Tyrrhene Sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I leave this afternoon for Naples and Leghorn. I have lost already so much
+time between Constantinople and this place, that I cannot give up ten
+days more to Etna. Besides, I am so thoroughly satisfied with what I have
+seen, that I fear no second view of the eruption could equal it. Etna
+cannot be seen from here, nor from a nearer point than a mountain six or
+eight miles distant. I tried last evening to get a horse and ride out to
+it, in order to see the appearance of the eruption by night; but every
+horse, mule and donkey in the place was engaged, except a miserable lame
+mule, for which five dollars was demanded. However, the night happened to
+be cloudy so that I could have seen nothing.
+
+My passport is finally _en règle_. It has cost the labors of myself and an
+able-bodied valet-de-place since yesterday morning, and the expenditure of
+five dollars and a half, to accomplish this great work. I have just been
+righteously abusing the Neapolitan Government to a native merchant whom,
+from his name, I took to be a Frenchman, but as I am off in an hour or
+two, hope to escape arrest. Perdition to all Tyranny!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXII.
+
+Gibraltar.
+
+
+  Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
+  Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
+  Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
+  Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock.
+
+
+  ------"to the north-west, Cape St. Vincent died away,
+  Sunset ran, a burning blood-red, blushing into Cadiz Bay.
+  In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray."
+
+  Browning.
+
+
+Gibraltar, _Saturday, November_ 6, 1852.
+
+I leave unrecorded the links of travel which connected Messina and
+Gibraltar. They were over the well-trodden fields of Europe, where little
+ground is left that is not familiar. In leaving Sicily I lost the
+Saracenic trail, which I had been following through the East, and first
+find it again here, on the rock of Calpe, whose name, _Djebel el-Tarik_
+(the Mountain of Tarik), still speaks of the fiery race whose rule
+extended from the unknown ocean of the West to "Ganges and Hydaspes,
+Indian streams." In Malta and Sicily, I saw their decaying watch-towers,
+and recognized their sign-manual in the deep, guttural, masculine words
+and expressions which they have left behind them. I now design following
+their footsteps through the beautiful _Belàd-el-Andaluz_, which, to the
+eye of the Melek Abd-er-rahmàn, was only less lovely than the plains of
+Damascus.
+
+While in Constantinople, I received letters which opened to me wider and
+richer fields of travel than I had already traversed. I saw a possibility
+of exploring the far Indian realms, the shores of farthest Cathay and the
+famed Zipango of Marco Polo. Before entering on this new sphere of
+experiences, however, it was necessary for me to visit Italy, Germany, and
+England. I sailed from Messina to Leghorn, and travelled thence, by way of
+Florence, Venice, and the Tyrol, to Munich. After three happy weeks at
+Gotha, and among the valleys of she Thüringian Forest, I went to London,
+where business and the preparation for my new journeys detained me two or
+three weeks longer. Although the comforts of European civilization were
+pleasant, as a change, after the wild life of the Orient, the autumnal
+rains of England soon made me homesick for the sunshine I had left. The
+weather was cold, dark, and dreary, and the oppressive, sticky atmosphere
+of the bituminous metropolis weighed upon me like a nightmare. Heartily
+tired of looking at a sun that could show nothing brighter than a red
+copper disk, and of breathing an air that peppered my face with particles
+of soot, I left on the 28th of October. It was one of the dismalest days
+of autumn; the meadows of Berkshire were flooded with broad, muddy
+streams, and the woods on the hills of Hampshire looked brown and sodden,
+as if slowly rotting away. I reached Southampton at dusk, but there the
+sky was neither warmer nor clearer, so I spent the evening over a coal
+fire, all impatience for the bright beloved South, towards which my face
+was turned once more.
+
+The _Madras_ left on the next day, at 2 P.M., in the midst of a cheerless
+rain, which half blotted out the pleasant shores of Southampton Water, and
+the Isle of Wight. The _Madras_ was a singularly appropriate vessel for
+one bound on such a journey as mine. The surgeon was Dr. Mungo Park, and
+one of my room-mates was Mr. R. Crusoe. It was a Friday, which boded no
+good for the voyage; but then my journey commenced with my leaving London
+the day previous, and Thursday is a lucky day among the Arabs. I caught a
+watery view of the gray cliffs of the Needles, when dinner was announced,
+but many were those (and I among them) who commenced that meal, and did
+not stay to finish it.
+
+Is there any piece of water more unreasonably, distressingly, disgustingly
+rough and perverse than the British Channel? Yes: there is one, and but
+one--the Bay of Biscay. And as the latter succeeds the former, without a
+pause between, and the head-winds never ceased, and the rain continually
+poured, I leave you to draw the climax of my misery. Four days and four
+nights in a berth, lying on your back, now dozing dull hour after hour,
+now making faint endeavors to eat, or reading the feeblest novel ever
+written, because the mind cannot digest stronger aliment--can there be a
+greater contrast to the wide-awake life, the fiery inspiration, of the
+Orient? My blood became so sluggish and my mind so cloudy and befogged,
+that I despaired of ever thinking clearly or feeling vividly again. "The
+winds are rude" in Biscay, Byron says. They are, indeed: very rude. They
+must have been raised in some most disorderly quarter of the globe. They
+pitched the waves right over our bulwarks, and now and then dashed a
+bucketful of water down the cabin skylight, swamping the ladies' cabin,
+and setting scores of bandboxes afloat. Not that there was the least
+actual danger; but Mrs. ---- would not be persuaded that we were not on
+the brink of destruction, and wrote to friends at home a voluminous
+account of her feelings. There was an Irishman on board, bound to Italy,
+with his sister. It was his first tour, and when asked why he did not go
+direct, through France, he replied, with brotherly concern, that he was
+anxious his sister should see the Bay of Biscay.
+
+This youth's perceptions were of such an emerald hue, that a lot of wicked
+Englishmen had their own fun out of him. The other day, he was trying to
+shave, to the great danger of slicing off his nose, as the vessel was
+rolling fearfully. "Why don't you have the ship headed to the wind?" said
+one of the Englishmen, who heard his complaints; "she will then lie
+steady, and you can shave beautifully." Thereupon the Irishman sent one of
+the stewards upon deck with a polite message to the captain, begging him
+to put the vessel about for five minutes.
+
+Towards noon of the fifth day, we saw the dark, rugged mountains that
+guard the north-western corner of the Spanish Peninsula. We passed the Bay
+of Corunna, and rounding the bold headland of Finisterre, left the
+Biscayan billows behind us. But the sea was still rough and the sky
+clouded, although the next morning the mildness of the air showed the
+change in our latitude. About noon that day, we made the Burlings, a
+cluster of rocks forty miles north of Lisbon, and just before sunset, a
+transient lifting of the clouds revealed the Rock of Cintra, at the mouth
+of the Tagus. The tall, perpendicular cliffs, and the mountain slopes
+behind, covered with gardens, orchards, and scattered villas and hamlets,
+made a grand though dim picture, which was soon hidden from our view.
+
+On the 4th, we were nearly all day crossing the mouth of the Bay of
+Cadiz, and only at sunset saw Cape Trafalgar afar off, glimmering through
+the reddish haze. I remained on deck, as there were patches of starlight
+in the sky. After passing the light-house at Tarifa, the Spanish shore
+continued to be visible. In another hour, there was a dim, cloudy outline
+high above the horizon, on our right. This was the Lesser Atlas, in
+Morocco. And now, right ahead, distinctly visible, though fifteen miles
+distant, lay a colossal lion, with his head on his outstretched paws,
+looking towards Africa. If I had been brought to the spot blindfolded, I
+should have known what it was. The resemblance is certainly very striking,
+and the light-house on Europa Point seemed to be a lamp held in his paws.
+The lights of the city and fortifications rose one by one, glittering
+along the base, and at midnight we dropped anchor before them on the
+western side.
+
+I landed yesterday morning. The mists, which had followed me from England,
+had collected behind the Rock, and the sun, still hidden by its huge bulk,
+shone upwards through them, making a luminous background, against which
+the lofty walls and jagged ramparts of this tremendous natural
+fortification were clearly defined. I announced my name, and the length of
+time I designed remaining, at a little office on the quay, and was then
+allowed to pass into the city. A number of familiar white turbans met me
+on entering, and I could not resist the temptation of cordially saluting
+the owners in their own language. The town is long and narrow, lying
+steeply against the Rock. The houses are white, yellow and pink, as in
+Spanish towns, but the streets are clean and well paved. There is a
+square, about the size of an ordinary building-lot, where a sort of
+market of dry goods and small articles is held The "Club-House Hotel"
+occupies one side of it; and, as I look out of my window upon it, I see
+the topmost cliffs of the Rock above me, threatening to topple down from a
+height of 1,500 feet.
+
+My first walk in Gibraltar was in search of a palm-tree. After threading
+the whole length of the town, I found two small ones in a garden, in the
+bottom of the old moat. The sun was shining, and his rays seemed to fall
+with double warmth on their feathery crests. Three brown Spaniards,
+bare-armed, were drawing water with a pole and bucket, and filling the
+little channels which conveyed it to the distant vegetables. The sea
+glittered blue below; an Indian fig-tree shaded me; but, on the rock
+behind, an aloe lifted its blossoming stem, some twenty feet high, into
+the sunshine. To describe what a weight was lifted from my heart would
+seem foolish to those who do not know on what little things the whole tone
+of our spirits sometimes depends.
+
+But if an even balance was restored yesterday, the opposite scale kicked
+the beam this morning. Not a speck of vapor blurred the spotless crystal
+of the sky, as I walked along the hanging paths of the Alameda. The sea
+was dazzling ultra-marine, with a purple lustre; every crag and notch of
+the mountains across the bay, every shade of brown or gray, or the green
+of grassy patches, was drawn and tinted with a pencil so exquisitely
+delicate as almost to destroy the perspective. The white houses of
+Algeciras, five miles off, appeared close at hand: a little toy-town,
+backed by miniature hills. Apes' Hill, the ancient Abyla, in Africa,
+advanced to meet Calpe, its opposing pillar, and Atlas swept away to the
+east ward, its blue becoming paler and paler, till the powers of vision
+finally failed. From the top of the southern point of the Rock, I saw the
+mountain-shore of Spain, as far as Malaga, and the snowy top of one of the
+Sierra Nevada. Looking eastward to the horizon line of the Mediterranean,
+my sight extended so far, in the wonderful clearness of the air, that the
+convexity of the earth's surface was plainly to be seen. The sea, instead
+of being a plane, was slightly convex, and the sky, instead of resting
+upon it at the horizon, curved down beyond it, as the upper side of a horn
+curves over the lower, when one looks into the mouth. There is none of the
+many aspects of Nature more grand than this, which is so rarely seen, that
+I believe the only person who has ever described it is Humboldt, who saw
+it, looking from the Silla de Caraccas over the Caribbean Sea. It gives
+you the impression of standing on the edge of the earth, and looking off
+into space. From the mast-head, the ocean appears either flat or slightly
+concave, and æronauts declare that this apparent concavity becomes more
+marked, the higher they ascend. It is only at those rare periods when the
+air is so miraculously clear as to produce the effect of _no
+air_--rendering impossible the slightest optical illusion--that our eyes
+can see things as they really are. So pure was the atmosphere to-day,
+that, at meridian, the moon, although a thin sickle, three days distant
+from the sun, shone perfectly white and clear.
+
+As I loitered in the Alameda, between thick hedges of ever-blooming
+geraniums, clumps of heliotrope three feet high, and luxuriant masses of
+ivy, around whose warm flowers the bees clustered and hummed, I could only
+think of the voyage as a hideous dream. The fog and gloom had been in my
+own eyes and in my own brain, and now the blessed sun, shining full in my
+face, awoke me. I am a worshipper of the Sun. I took off my hat to him, as
+I stood there, in a wilderness of white, crimson, and purple flowers, and
+let him blaze away in my face for a quarter of an hour. And as I walked
+home with my back to him, I often turned my face from side to side that I
+might feel his touch on my cheek. How a man can live, who is sentenced to
+a year's imprisonment, is more than I can understand.
+
+But all this (you will say) gives you no picture of Gibraltar. The Rock is
+so familiar to all the world, in prints and descriptions, that I find
+nothing new to say of it, except that it is by no means so barren a rock
+as the island of Malta, being clothed, in many places, with beautiful
+groves and the greenest turf; besides, I have not yet seen the
+rock-galleries, having taken passage for Cadiz this afternoon. When I
+return--as I hope to do in twenty days, after visiting Seville and
+Granada--I shall procure permission to view all the fortifications, and
+likewise to ascend to the summit.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII.
+
+Cadiz And Seville.
+
+
+  Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
+  Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
+  House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
+  Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar-Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
+  House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
+  Evening in Seville.
+
+
+  "The walls of Cadiz front the shore,
+      And shimmer o'er the sea."
+
+  R. H. Stoddard.
+
+
+               "Beautiful Seville!
+  Of which I've dreamed, until I saw its towers
+  In every cloud that hid the setting sun."
+
+  George H. Boker.
+
+
+Seville, _November_ 10, 1852.
+
+I left Gibraltar on the evening of the 6th, in the steamer Iberia. The
+passage to Cadiz was made in nine hours, and we came to anchor in the
+harbor before day-break. It was a cheerful picture that the rising sun
+presented to us. The long white front of the city, facing the East, glowed
+with a bright rosy lustre, on a ground of the clearest blue. The tongue of
+land on which Cadiz stands is low, but the houses are lifted by the heavy
+sea-wall which encompasses them. The main-land consists of a range of low
+but graceful hills, while in the south-east the mountains of Ronda rise at
+some distance. I went immediately on shore, where my carpet-bag was seized
+upon by a boy, with the rich brown complexion of one Murillo's beggars,
+who trudged off with it to the gate. After some little detention there, I
+was conducted to a long, deserted, barn-like building, where I waited half
+an hour before the proper officer came. When the latter had taken his
+private toll of my contraband cigars, the brown imp conducted me to
+Blanco's English Hotel, a neat and comfortable house on the Alameda.
+
+Cadiz is soon seen. Notwithstanding its venerable age of three thousand
+years--having been founded by Hercules, who figures on its
+coat-of-arms--it is purely a commercial city, and has neither antiquities,
+nor historic associations that interest any but Englishmen. It is
+compactly built, and covers a smaller space than accords with my ideas of
+its former splendor. I first walked around the sea-ramparts, enjoying the
+glorious look-off over the blue waters. The city is almost insulated, the
+triple line of fortifications on the land side being of but trifling
+length. A rocky ledge stretches out into the sea from the northern point,
+and at its extremity rises the massive light-house tower, 170 feet high.
+The walls toward the sea were covered with companies of idle anglers,
+fishing with cane rods of enormous length. On the open, waste spaces
+between the bastions, boys had spread their limed cords to catch singing
+birds, with chirping decoys placed here and there in wicker cages. Numbers
+of boatmen and peasants, in their brown jackets, studded with tags and
+bugles, and those round black caps which resemble smashed bandboxes,
+loitered about the walls or lounged on the grass in the sun.
+
+Except along the Alameda, which fronts the bay, the exterior of the city
+has an aspect of neglect and desertion. The interior, however, atones for
+this in the gay and lively air of its streets, which, though narrow, are
+regular and charmingly clean. The small plazas are neatness itself, and
+one is too content with this to ask for striking architectural effects.
+The houses are tall and stately, of the most dazzling whiteness, and
+though you could point out no one as a pattern of style, the general
+effect is chaste and harmonious. In fact, there are two or three streets
+which you would almost pronounce faultless. The numbers of hanging
+balconies and of court-yards paved with marble and surrounded with elegant
+corridors, show the influence of Moorish taste. There is not a
+mean-looking house to be seen, and I have no doubt that Cadiz is the best
+built city of its size in the world. It lies, white as new-fallen snow,
+like a cluster of ivory palaces, between sea and sky. Blue and silver are
+its colors, and, as everybody knows, there can be no more charming
+contrast.
+
+I visited both the old and new cathedrals, neither of which is
+particularly interesting. The latter is unfinished, and might have been a
+fine edifice had the labor and money expended on its construction been
+directed by taste. The interior, rich as it is in marbles and sculpture,
+has a heavy, confused effect. The pillars dividing the nave from the
+side-aisles are enormous composite masses, each one consisting of six
+Corinthian columns, stuck around and against a central shaft. More
+satisfactory to me was the Opera-House, which I visited in the evening,
+and where the dazzling array of dark-eyed Gaditanas put a stop to
+architectural criticism. The women of Cadiz are noted for their beauty and
+their graceful gait. Some of them are very beautiful, it is true; but
+beauty is not the rule among them. Their gait, however, is the most
+graceful possible, because it is perfectly free and natural. The
+commonest serving-maid who walks the streets of Cadiz would put to shame a
+whole score of our mincing and wriggling belles.
+
+Honest old Blanco prepared me a cup of chocolate by sunrise next morning,
+and accompanied me down to the quay, to embark for Seville. A furious wind
+was blowing from the south-east, and the large green waves raced and
+chased one another incessantly over the surface of the bay. I took a heavy
+craft, which the boatmen pushed along under cover of the pier, until they
+reached the end, when the sail was dropped in the face of the wind, and
+away we shot into the watery tumult. The boat rocked and bounced over the
+agitated surface, running with one gunwale on the waves, and sheets of
+briny spray broke over me. I felt considerably relieved when I reached the
+deck of the steamer, but it was then diversion enough to watch those who
+followed. The crowd of boats pitching tumultuously around the steamer,
+jostling against each other, their hulls gleaming with wet, as they rose
+on the beryl-colored waves, striped with long, curded lines of wind-blown
+foam, would have made a fine subject for the pencil of Achenbach.
+
+At last we pushed off, with a crowd of passengers fore and aft, and a
+pyramid of luggage piled around the smoke-pipe. There was a party of four
+Englishmen on board, and, on making their acquaintance, I found one of
+them to be a friend to some of my friends--Sir John Potter, the
+progressive ex-Mayor of Manchester. The wind being astern, we ran rapidly
+along the coast, and in two hours entered the mouth of the Guadalquivir.
+[This name comes from the Arabic _wadi el-kebeer_--literally, the Great
+Valley.] The shores are a dead flat. The right bank is a dreary forest of
+stunted pines, abounding with deer and other game; on the left is the
+dilapidated town of San Lucar, whence Magellan set sail on his first
+voyage around the world. A mile further is Bonanza, the port of Xeres,
+where we touched and took on board a fresh lot of passengers. Thenceforth,
+for four hours, the scenery of the Guadalquivir had a most distressing
+sameness. The banks were as flat as a board, with here and there a
+straggling growth of marshy thickets. Now and then we passed a herdsman's
+hut, but there were no human beings to be seen, except the peasants who
+tended the large flocks of sheep and cattle. A sort of breakfast was
+served in the cabin, but so great was the number of guests that I had much
+difficulty in getting anything to eat. The waiters were models of calmness
+and deliberation.
+
+As we approached Seville, some low hills appeared on the left, near the
+river. Dazzling white villages were planted at their foot, and all the
+slopes were covered with olive orchards, while the banks of the stream
+were bordered with silvery birch trees. This gave the landscape, in spite
+of the African warmth and brightness of the day, a gray and almost wintry
+aspect. Soon the graceful Giralda, or famous Tower of Seville, arose in
+the distance; but, from the windings of the river, we were half an hour in
+reaching the landing-place. One sees nothing of the far-famed beauty of
+Seville, on approaching it. The boat stops below the Alameda, where the
+passengers are received by Custom-House officers, who, in my case, did not
+verify the stories told of them in Cadiz. I gave my carpet-bag to a boy,
+who conducted me along the hot and dusty banks to the bridge over the
+Guadalquivir, where he turned into the city. On passing the gate, two
+loafer-like guards stopped my baggage, notwithstanding it had already been
+examined. "What!" said I, "do you examine twice on entering Seville?"
+"Yes," answered one; "twice, and even three times;" but added in a lower
+tone, "it depends entirely on yourself." With that he slipped behind me,
+and let one hand fall beside my pocket. The transfer of a small coin was
+dexterously made, and I passed on without further stoppage to the Fonda de
+Madrid.
+
+Sir John Potter engaged Antonio Bailli, the noted guide of Seville, who
+professes to have been the cicerone of all distinguished travellers, from
+Lord Byron and Washington Irving down to Owen Jones, and I readily
+accepted his invitation to join the party. Bailli is recommended by Ford
+as "fat and good-humored" Fat he certainly is, and very good-humored when
+speaking of himself, but he has been rather spoiled by popularity, and is
+much too profuse in his critical remarks on art and architecture.
+Nevertheless, as my stay in Seville is limited, I have derived no slight
+advantage from his services.
+
+On the first morning I took an early stroll through the streets. The
+houses are glaringly white, like those of Cadiz, but are smaller and have
+not the same stately exteriors. The windows are protected by iron
+gratings, of florid patterns, and, as many of these are painted green, the
+general effect is pleasing. Almost every door opens upon a _patio_, or
+courtyard, paved with black and white marble and adorned with flowers and
+fountains. Many of these remain from the time of the Moors, and are still
+surrounded by the delicate arches and brilliant tile-work of that period.
+The populace in the streets are entirely Spanish--the jaunty _majo_ in
+his queer black cap, sash, and embroidered jacket, and the nut-brown,
+dark-eyed damsel, swimming along in her mantilla, and armed with the
+irresistible fan.
+
+We went first to the Cathedral, built on the site of the great mosque of
+Abou Youssuf Yakoub. The tall Giralda beckoned to us over the tops of the
+intervening buildings, and finally a turn in the street brought us to the
+ancient Moorish gateway on the northern side. This is an admirable
+specimen of the horse-shoe arch, and is covered with elaborate tracery. It
+originally opened into the court, or _hàram_, of the mosque, which still
+remains, and is shaded by a grove of orange trees. The Giralda, to my eye,
+is a more perfect tower than the Campanile of Florence, or that of San
+Marco, at Venice, which is evidently an idea borrowed from it. The Moorish
+structure, with a base of fifty feet square, rises to the height of two
+hundred and fifty feet. It is of a light pink color, and the sides, which
+are broken here and there by exquisitely proportioned double Saracenic
+arches, are covered from top to bottom with arabesque tracery, cut in
+strong relief. Upon this tower, a Spanish architect has placed a tapering
+spire, one hundred feet high, which fortunately harmonizes with the
+general design, and gives the crowning grace to the work.
+
+The Cathedral of Seville may rank as one of the grandest Gothic piles in
+Europe. The nave lacks but five feet of being as high as that of St.
+Peter's, while the length and breadth of the edifice are on a commensurate
+scale. The ninety-three windows of stained glass fill the interior with a
+soft and richly-tinted light, mellower and more gentle than the sombre
+twilight of the Gothic Cathedrals of Europe. The wealth lavished on the
+smaller chapels and shrines is prodigious, and the high altar, inclosed
+within a gilded railing fifty feet high, is probably the most enormous
+mass of wood-carving in existence. The Cathedral, in fact, is encumbered
+with its riches. While they bewilder you as monuments of human labor and
+patience, they detract from the grand simplicity of the building. The
+great nave, on each side of the transept, is quite blocked up, so that the
+choir and magnificent royal chapel behind it have almost the effect of
+detached edifices.
+
+We returned again this morning, remaining two hours, and succeeded in
+making a thorough survey, including a number of trashy pictures and
+barbarously rich shrines. Murillo's "Guardian Angel" and the "Vision of
+St. Antonio" are the only gems. The treasury contains a number of sacred
+vessels of silver, gold and jewels--among other things, the keys of
+Moorish Seville, a cross made of the first gold brought from the New-World
+by Columbus, and another from that robbed in Mexico by Cortez. The
+Cathedral won my admiration more and more. The placing of the numerous
+windows, and their rich coloring, produce the most glorious effects of
+light in the lofty aisles, and one is constantly finding new vistas, new
+combinations of pillar, arch and shrine. The building is in itself a
+treasury of the grandest Gothic pictures.
+
+From the Cathedral we went to the Alcazar _(El-Kasr),_ or Palace of the
+Moorish Kings. We entered by a long passage, with round arches on either
+side, resting on twin pillars, placed at right angles to the line of the
+arch, as one sees both in Saracenic and Byzantine structures. Finally, old
+Bailli brought us into a dull, deserted court-yard, where we were
+surprised by the sight of an entire Moorish façade, with its pointed
+arches, its projecting roof, its rich sculptured ornaments and its
+illuminations of red, blue, green and gold. It has been lately restored,
+and now rivals in freshness and brilliancy any of the rich houses of
+Damascus. A doorway, entirely too low and mean for the splendor of the
+walls above it, admitted us into the first court. On each side of the
+passage are the rooms of the guard and the Moorish nobles. Within, all is
+pure Saracenic, and absolutely perfect in its grace and richness. It is
+the realization of an Oriental dream; it is the poetry and luxury of the
+East in tangible forms. Where so much depends on the proportion and
+harmony of the different parts--on those correspondences, the union of
+which creates that nameless soul of the work, which cannot be expressed in
+words--it is useless to describe details. From first to last--the chambers
+of state; the fringed arches; the open tracery, light and frail as the
+frost-stars crystallized on a window-pane; the courts, fit to be
+vestibules to Paradise; the audience-hall, with its wondrous sculptures,
+its columns and pavement of marble, and its gilded dome; the garden,
+gorgeous with its palm, banana, and orange-trees--all were in perfect
+keeping, all jewels of equal lustre, forming a diadem which still lends a
+royal dignity to the phantom of Moorish power.
+
+We then passed into the gardens laid out by the Spanish monarchs--trim,
+mathematical designs, in box and myrtle, with concealed fountains
+springing up everywhere unawares in the midst of the paven walks; yet
+still made beautiful by the roses and jessamines that hung in rank
+clusters over the marble balustrades, and by the clumps of tall orange
+trees, bending to earth under the weight of their fruitage. We afterward
+visited Pilate's House, as it is called--a fine Spanish-Moresco palace,
+now belonging to the Duke of Medina Coeli. It is very rich and elegant,
+but stands in the same relation to the Alcazar as a good copy does to the
+original picture. The grand staircase, nevertheless, is a marvel of tile
+work, unlike anything else in Seville, and exhibits a genius in the
+invention of elaborate ornamental patterns, which is truly wonderful. A
+number of workmen were busy in restoring the palace, to fit it for the
+residence of the young Duke. The Moorish sculptures are reproduced in
+plaster, which, at least, has a better effect than the fatal whitewash
+under which the original tints of the Alcazar are hidden. In the courts
+stand a number of Roman busts--Spanish antiquities, and therefore not of
+great merit--singularly out of place in niches surrounded by Arabic
+devices and sentences from the Koran.
+
+This morning, I climbed the Giralda. The sun had just risen, and the clay
+was fresh and crystal-clear. A little door in the Cathedral, near the foot
+of the tower, stood open, and I entered. A rather slovenly Sevillaña had
+just completed her toilet, but two children were still in undress.
+However, she opened a door in the tower, and I went up without hindrance.
+The ascent is by easy ramps, and I walked four hundred yards, or nearly a
+quarter of a mile, before reaching the top of the Moorish part. The
+panoramic view was superb. To the east and west, the Great Valley made a
+level line on a far-distant horizon. There were ranges of hills in the
+north and south, and those rising near the city, clothed in a gray mantle
+of olive-trees, were picturesquely crowned with villages. The
+Guadalquivir, winding in the most sinuous mazes, had no longer a turbid
+hue; he reflected the blue morning sky, and gleamed brightly between his
+borders of birch and willow. Seville sparkled white and fair under my
+feet, her painted towers and tiled domes rising thickly out of the mass of
+buildings. The level sun threw shadows into the numberless courts,
+permitting the mixture of Spanish and Moorish architecture to be plainly
+discerned, even at that height. A thin golden vapor softened the features
+of the landscape, towards the sun, while, on the opposite side, every
+object stood out in the sharpest and clearest outlines.
+
+On our way to the Muséo, Bailli took us to the house of a friend of his,
+in order that we might taste real Manzanilla wine. This is a pale,
+straw-colored vintage, produced in the valley of the Guadalquivir. It is
+flavored with camomile blossoms, and is said to be a fine tonic for weak
+stomachs. The master then produced a dark-red wine, which he declared to
+be thirty years old. It was almost a syrup in consistence, and tasted more
+of sarsaparilla than grapes. None of us relished it, except Bailli, who
+was so inspired by the draught, that he sang us two Moorish songs and an
+Andalusian catch, full of fun and drollery.
+
+The Muséo contains a great amount of bad pictures, but it also contains
+twenty-three of Murillo's works, many of them of his best period. To those
+who have only seen his tender, spiritual "Conceptions" and "Assumptions,"
+his "Vision of St. Francis" in this gallery reveals a mastery of the
+higher walks of his art, which they would not have anticipated. But it is
+in his "Cherubs" and his "Infant Christs" that he excels. No one ever
+painted infantile grace and beauty with so true a pencil. There is but one
+Velasquez in the collection, and the only thing that interested me, in two
+halls filled with rubbish, was a "Conception" by Murillo's mulatto pupil,
+said by some to have been his slave. Although an imitation of the great
+master, it is a picture of much sweetness and beauty. There is no other
+work of the artist in existence, and this, as the only production of the
+kind by a painter of mixed African blood, ought to belong to the Republic
+of Liberia.
+
+Among the other guests at the Fonda de Madrid is Mr. Thomas Hobhouse,
+brother of Byron's friend. We had a pleasant party in the Court this
+evening, listening to blind Pépé, who sang to his guitar a medley of merry
+Andalusian refrains. Singing made the old man courageous, and, at the
+close, he gave us the radical song of Spain, which is now strictly
+prohibited. The air is charming, but too gay; one would sooner dance than
+fight to its measures. It does not bring the hand to the sword, like the
+glorious Marseillaise.
+
+_Adios_, beautiful Seville!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIV.
+
+Journey in a Spanish Diligence.
+
+
+  Spanish Diligence Lines--Leaving Seville--An Unlucky Start--Alcalà of
+  the Bakers--Dinner at Carmona--A Dehesa--The Mayoral and his
+  Team--Ecija--Night Journey--Cordova--The Cathedral-Mosque--Moorish
+  Architecture--The Sierra Morena--A Rainy Journey--A Chapter of
+  Accidents--Baylen--The Fascination of Spain--Jaen--The Vega of Granada.
+
+
+Granada, _November_ 14, 1852.
+
+It is an enviable sensation to feel for the first time that you are in
+Granada. No amount of travelling can weaken the romantic interest which
+clings about this storied place, or take away aught from the freshness of
+that emotion with which you first behold it, I sit almost at the foot of
+the Alhambra, whose walls I can see from my window, quite satisfied for
+to-day with being here. It has been raining since I arrived, the thunder
+is crashing overhead, and the mountains are covered with clouds, so I am
+kept in-doors, with the luxury of knowing that all the wonders of the
+place are within my reach. And now let me beguile the dull weather by
+giving you a sketch of my journey from Seville hither.
+
+There are three lines of stages from Seville to Madrid, and their
+competition has reduced the fare to $12, which, for a ride of 350 miles,
+is remarkably cheap. The trip is usually made in three days and a half. A
+branch line from Baylen--nearly half-way--strikes southward to Granada,
+and as there is no competition on this part of the road, I was charged $15
+for a through seat in the _coupé_. On account of the lateness of the
+season, and the limited time at my command, this was preferable to taking
+horses and riding across the country from Seville to Cordova. Accordingly,
+at an early hour on Thursday morning last, furnished with a travelling
+ticket inscribed: "Don Valtar de Talor" (myself!), I took leave of my
+English friends at the Fonda de Madrid, got into an immense, lumbering
+yellow vehicle, drawn by ten mules, and started, trusting to my good luck
+and bad Spanish to get safely through. The commencement, however, was
+unpropitious, and very often a stumble at starting makes the whole journey
+limp. The near mule in the foremost span was a horse, ridden by our
+postillion, and nothing could prevent that horse from darting into all
+sorts of streets and alleys where we had no desire to go. As all mules
+have implicit faith in horses, of course the rest of the animals followed.
+We were half an hour in getting out of Seville, and when at last we
+reached the open road and dashed off at full gallop, one of the mules in
+the traces fell and was dragged in the dust some twenty or thirty yards
+before we could stop. My companions in the coupé were a young Spanish
+officer and his pretty Andalusian bride, who was making her first journey
+from home, and after these mishaps was in a state of constant fear and
+anxiety.
+
+The first stage across the valley of the Guadalquivir took us to the town
+of Alcalà, which lies in the lap of the hills above the beautiful little
+river Guadaira. It is a picturesque spot; the naked cliffs overhanging the
+stream have the rich, red hue of cinnabar, and the trees and shrubbery in
+the meadows, and on the hill-sides are ready grouped to the artist's
+hand. The town is called Alcalà de los Panadores (of the Bakers) from its
+hundreds of flour mills and bake-ovens, which supply Seville with those
+white, fine, delicious twists, of which Spain may be justly proud. They
+should have been sent to the Exhibition last year, with the Toledo blades
+and the wooden mosaics. We left the place and its mealy-headed population,
+and turned eastward into wide, rolling tracts, scattered here and there
+with gnarled olive trees. The soil was loose and sandy, and hedges of
+aloes lined the road. The country is thinly populated, and very little of
+it under cultivation.
+
+About noon we reached Carmona, which was founded by the Romans, as,
+indeed, were nearly all the towns of Southern Spain. It occupies the crest
+and northern slope of a high hill, whereon the ancient Moorish castle
+still stands. The Alcazar, or palace, and the Moorish walls also remain,
+though in a very ruinous condition. Here we stopped to dinner, for the
+"Nueva Peninsular," in which I was embarked, has its hotels all along the
+route, like that of Zurutuza, in Mexico. We were conducted into a small
+room adjoining the stables, and adorned with colored prints illustrating
+the history of Don John of Austria. The table-cloths, plates and other
+appendages were of very ordinary quality, but indisputably clean; we
+seated ourselves, and presently the dinner appeared. First, a vermicelli
+_pilaff_, which I found palatable, then the national _olla_, a dish of
+enormous yellow peas, sprinkled with bits of bacon and flavored with oil;
+then three successive courses of chicken, boiled, stewed and roasted, but
+in every case done to rags, and without a particle of the original
+flavor. This was the usual style of our meals on the road, whether
+breakfast, dinner or supper, except that kid was sometimes substituted for
+fowl, and that the oil employed, being more or less rancid, gave different
+flavors to the dishes, A course of melons, grapes or pomegranates wound up
+the repast, the price of which varied from ten to twelve reals--a real
+being about a half-dime. In Seville, at the Fonda de Madrid, the cooking
+is really excellent; but further in the interior, judging from what I have
+heard, it is even worse than I have described.
+
+Continuing our journey, we passed around the southern brow of the hill,
+under the Moorish battlements. Here a superb view opened to the south and
+east over the wide Vega of Carmona, as far as the mountain chain which
+separates it from the plain of Granada. The city has for a coat of arms a
+silver star in an azure field, with the pompous motto: "As Lucifer shines
+in the morning, so shines Carmona in Andalusia." If it shines at all, it
+is because it is a city set upon a hill; for that is the only splendor I
+could find about the place. The Vega of Carmona is partially cultivated,
+and now wears a sombre brown hue, from its tracts of ploughed land.
+
+Cultivation soon ceased, however, and we entered on a _dehesa_, a
+boundless plain of waste land, covered with thickets of palmettos. Flocks
+of goats and sheep, guarded by shepherds in brown cloaks, wandered here
+and there, and except their huts and an isolated house, with its group of
+palm-trees, there was no sign of habitation. The road was a deep, red
+sand, and our mules toiled along slowly and painfully, urged by the
+incessant cries of the _mayoral_, or conductor, and his _mozo_. As the
+mayoral's whip could only reach the second span, the business of the
+latter was to jump down every ten minutes, run ahead and belabor the
+flanks of the foremost mules, uttering at the same time a series of sharp
+howls, which seemed to strike the poor beasts with quite as much severity
+as his whip. I defy even a Spanish ear to distinguish the import of these
+cries, and the great wonder was how they could all come out of one small
+throat. When it came to a hard pull, they cracked and exploded like
+volleys of musketry, and flew like hail-stones about the ears of the
+_machos_ (he-mules). The postillion, having only the care of the foremost
+span, is a silent man, but he has contracted a habit of sleeping in the
+saddle, which I mention for the benefit of timid travellers, as it adds to
+the interest of a journey by night.
+
+The clouds which had been gathering all day, now settled down upon the
+plain, and night came on with a dull rain. At eight o'clock we reached the
+City of Ecija, where we had two hours' halt and supper. It was so dark and
+rainy that I saw nothing, not even the classic Xenil, the river of
+Granada, which flows through the city on its way to the Guadalquivir, The
+night wore slowly away, and while the _mozo_ drowsed on his post, I caught
+snatches of sleep between his cries. As the landscape began to grow
+distinct in the gray, cloudy dawn, we saw before us Cordova, with the dark
+range of the Sierra Morena rising behind it. This city, once the glory of
+Moorish Spain, the capital of the great Abd-er-Rahman, containing, when in
+its prime, a million of inhabitants, is now a melancholy wreck. It has not
+a shadow of the art, science, and taste which then distinguished it, and
+the only interest it now possesses is from these associations, and the
+despoiled remnant of its renowned Mosque.
+
+We crossed the Guadalquivir on a fine bridge built on Roman foundations,
+and drove slowly down the one long, rough, crooked street. The diligence
+stops for an hour, to allow passengers to breakfast, but my first thought
+was for the Cathedral-mosque, _la Mezquita_, as it is still called. "It is
+closed," said the ragged crowd that congregated about us; "you cannot get
+in until eight o'clock." But I remembered that a silver key will open
+anything in Spain, and taking a mozo as a guide we hurried off as fast as
+the rough pavements would permit. We had to retrace the whole length of
+the city, but on reaching the Cathedral, found it open. The exterior is
+low, and quite plain, though of great extent. A Moorish gateway admitted
+me into the original court-yard, or _hàram_, of the mosque, which is
+planted with orange trees and contains the fountain, for the ablutions of
+Moslem worshippers, in the centre. The area of the Mosque proper,
+exclusive of the court-yard, is about 400 by 350 feet. It was built on the
+plan of the great Mosque of Damascus, about the end of the eighth century.
+The materials--including twelve hundred columns of marble, jasper and
+porphyry, from the ruins of Carthage, and the temples of Asia
+Minor---belonged to a Christian basilica, of the Gothic domination, which
+was built upon the foundations of a Roman temple of Janus; so that the
+three great creeds of the world have here at different times had their
+seat. The Moors considered this mosque as second in holiness to the Kaaba
+of Mecca, and made pilgrimages to it from all parts of Moslem Spain and
+Barbary. Even now, although shorn of much of its glory, it surpasses any
+Oriental mosque into which I have penetrated, except St. Sophia, which is
+a Christian edifice.
+
+All the nineteen original entrances--beautiful horse-shoe arches--are
+closed, except the central one. I entered by a low door, in one corner of
+the corridor. A wilderness of columns connected by double arches (one
+springing above the other, with an opening between), spread their dusky
+aisles before me in the morning twilight. The eight hundred and fifty
+shafts of this marble forest formed labyrinths and mazes, which at that
+early hour appeared boundless, for their long vistas disappeared in the
+shadows. Lamps were burning before distant shrines, and a few worshippers
+were kneeling silently here and there. The sound of my own footsteps, as I
+wandered through the ranks of pillars, was all that I heard. In the centre
+of the wood (for such it seemed) rises the choir, a gaudy and tasteless
+excrescence added by the Christians. Even Charles V., who laid a merciless
+hand on the Alhambra, reproved the Bishop of Cordova for this barbarous
+and unnecessary disfigurement.
+
+The sacristan lighted lamps in order to show me the Moorish chapels.
+Nothing but the precious materials of which these exquisite structures are
+composed could have saved them from the holy hands of the Inquisition,
+which intentionally destroyed all the Roman antiquities of Cordova. Here
+the fringed arches, the lace-like filigrees, the wreathed inscriptions,
+and the domes of pendent stalactites which enchant you in the Alcazar of
+Seville, are repeated, not in stucco, but in purest marble, while the
+entrance to the "holy of holies" is probably the most glorious piece of
+mosaic in the world. The pavement of the interior is deeply worn by the
+knees of the Moslem pilgrims, who compassed it seven times, kneeling, as
+they now do in the Kaaba, at Mecca. The sides are embroidered with
+sentences from the Koran, in Cufic characters, and the roof is in the
+form of a fluted shell, of a single piece of pure white marble, fifteen
+feet in diameter. The roof of the vestibule is a wonderful piece of
+workmanship, formed of pointed arches, wreathed and twined through each
+other, like basket-work. No people ever wrought poetry into stone so
+perfectly as the Saracens. In looking on these precious relics of an
+elegant and refined race, I cannot help feeling a strong regret that their
+kingdom ever passed into other hands.
+
+Leaving Cordova, our road followed the Guadalquivir, along the foot of the
+Sierra Morena, which rose dark and stern, a barrier to the central
+table-lands of La Mancha. At Alcolea, we crossed the river on a noble
+bridge of black marble, out of all keeping with the miserable road. It
+rained incessantly, and the scenery through which we passed had a wild and
+gloomy character. The only tree to be seen was the olive, which covered
+the hills far and near, the profusion of its fruit showing the natural
+richness of the soil. This part of the road is sometimes infested with
+robbers, and once, when I saw two individuals waiting for us in a lonely
+defile, with gun-barrels thrust out from under their black cloaks, I
+anticipated a recurrence of a former unpleasant experience. But they
+proved to be members of the _guardia civil_, and therefore our protectors.
+
+The ruts and quagmires, made by the rain, retarded our progress, and it
+was dark when we reached Andujar, fourteen leagues from Cordova. To
+Baylen, where I was to quit the diligence, and take another coming down
+from Madrid to Granada, was four leagues further. We journeyed on in the
+dark, in a pouring rain, up and down hill for some hours, when all at
+once the cries of the mozo ceased, and the diligence came to a dead stop.
+There was some talk between our conductors, and then the mayoral opened
+the door and invited us to get out. The postillion had fallen asleep, and
+the mules had taken us into a wrong road. An attempt was made to turn the
+diligence, but failed, leaving it standing plump against a high bank of
+mud. We stood, meanwhile, shivering in the cold and wet, and the fair
+Andalusian shed abundance of tears. Fortunately, Baylen was close at hand,
+and, after some delay, two men came with lanterns and escorted us to the
+_posada_, or inn, where we arrived at midnight. The diligence from Madrid,
+which was due six hours before, had not made its appearance, and we passed
+the rest of the night in a cold room, fasting, for the meal was only to be
+served when the other passengers came. At day-break, finally, a single
+dish of oily meat was vouchsafed to us, and, as it was now certain that
+some accident had happened, the passengers to Madrid requested the
+_Administrador_ to send them on in an extra conveyance. This he refused,
+and they began to talk about getting up a pronunciamento, when a messenger
+arrived with the news that the diligence had broken down at midnight,
+about two leagues off. Tools were thereupon dispatched, nine hours after
+the accident happened, and we might hope to be released from our
+imprisonment in four or five more.
+
+Baylen is a wretched place, celebrated for having the first palm-tree
+which those see who come from Madrid, and for the victory gained by
+Castaños over the French forces under Dupont, which occasioned the flight
+of Joseph Buonaparte from Madrid, and the temporary liberation of Spain
+from the French yoke. Castaños, who received the title of Duke de Baylen,
+and is compared by the Spaniards to Wellington, died about three months
+ago. The battle-field I passed in the night; the palm-tree I found, but it
+is now a mere stump, the leaves having been stripped off to protect the
+houses of the inhabitants from lightning. Our posada had one of them hung
+at the window. At last, the diligence came, and at three P.M., when I
+ought to have been in sight of Granada, I left the forlorn walls of
+Baylen. My fellow-passengers were a young sprig of the Spanish nobility
+and three chubby-faced nuns.
+
+The rest of the journey that afternoon was through a wide, hilly region,
+entirely bare of trees and habitations, and but partially cultivated.
+There was something sublime in its very nakedness and loneliness, and I
+felt attracted to it as I do towards the Desert. In fact, although I have
+seen little fine scenery since leaving Seville, have had the worst of
+weather, and no very pleasant travelling experiences, the country has
+exercised a fascination over me, which I do not quite understand. I find
+myself constantly on the point of making a vow to return again. Much to my
+regret, night set in before we reached Jaen, the capital of the Moorish
+kingdom of that name. We halted for a short time in the large plaza of the
+town, where the dash of fountains mingled with the sound of the rain, and
+the black, jagged outline of a mountain overhanging the place was visible
+through the storm.
+
+All night we journeyed on through the mountains, sometimes splashing
+through swollen streams, sometimes coming almost to a halt in beds of deep
+mud. When this morning dawned, we were ascending through wild, stony
+hills, overgrown with shrubbery, and the driver said we were six leagues
+from Granada. Still on, through a lonely country, with now and then a
+large _venta_, or country inn, by the road-side, and about nine o'clock,
+as the sky became more clear, I saw in front of us, high up under the
+clouds, the snow-fields of the Sierra Nevada. An hour afterwards we were
+riding between gardens, vineyards, and olive orchards, with the
+magnificent Vega of Granada stretching far away on the right, and the
+Vermilion Towers of the Alhambra crowning the heights before us.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXV.
+
+Granada And The Alhambra.
+
+
+  Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish
+  Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs
+  of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The
+  Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la
+  Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the
+  Fish-pond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the
+  Architecture--Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The
+  Moorish Dynasty in Spain.
+
+
+  "Who has not in Granada been,
+  Verily, he has nothing seen."
+
+  _Andalusian Proverb_.
+
+
+Granada, _Wednesday, Nov._ 17, 1852.
+
+Immediately on reaching here, I was set upon by an old gentleman who
+wanted to act as guide, but the mozo of the hotel put into my hand a card
+inscribed "Don Mateo Ximenez, Guide to the celebrated Washington Irving,"
+and I dismissed the other applicant. The next morning, as the mozo brought
+me my chocolate, he said; "Señor, _el chico_ is waiting for you." The
+"little one" turned out to be the son of old Mateo, "honest Mateo," who
+still lives up in the Alhambra, but is now rather too old to continue his
+business, except on great occasions. I accepted the young Mateo, who spoke
+with the greatest enthusiasm of Mr. Irving, avowing that the whole family
+was devoted to him, in life and death. It was still raining furiously,
+and the golden Darro, which roars in front of the hotel, was a swollen
+brown flood. I don't wonder that he sometimes threatens, as the old
+couplet says, to burst up the Zacatin, and bear it down to his bride, the
+Xenil.
+
+Towards noon, the clouds broke away a little, and we sallied out. Passing
+through the gate and square of Vivarrambla (may not this name come from
+the Arabic _bob er-raml,_ the "gate of the sand?"), we soon reached the
+Cathedral. This massive structure, which makes a good feature in the
+distant view of Granada, is not at all imposing, near at hand. The
+interior is a mixture of Gothic and Roman, glaring with whitewash, and
+broken, like that of Seville, by a wooden choir and two grand organs,
+blocking up the nave. Some of the side chapels, nevertheless, are splendid
+masses of carving and gilding. In one of them, there are two full-length
+portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, supposed to be by Alonzo Cano. The
+Cathedral contains some other good pictures by the same master, but all
+its former treasures were carried off by the French.
+
+We next went to the Picture Gallery, which is in the Franciscan Convent.
+There are two small Murillos, much damaged, some tolerable Alonzo Canos, a
+few common-place pictures by Juan de Sevilla, and a hundred or more by
+authors whose names I did not inquire, for a more hideous collection of
+trash never met my eye. One of them represents a miracle performed by two
+saints, who cut off the diseased leg of a sick white man, and replace it
+by the sound leg of a dead negro, whose body is seen lying beside the bed.
+Judging from the ghastly face of the patient, the operation is rather
+painful, though the story goes that the black leg grew fast, and the man
+recovered. The picture at least illustrates the absence of "prejudice of
+color" among the Saints.
+
+We went into the adjoining Church of Santo Domingo, which has several very
+rich shrines of marble and gold. A sort of priestly sacristan opened the
+Church of the Madonna del Rosario---a glittering mixture of marble, gold,
+and looking-glasses, which has rather a rich effect. The beautiful yellow
+and red veined marbles are from the Sierra Nevada. The sacred Madonna--a
+big doll with staring eyes and pink cheeks--has a dress of silver, shaped
+like an extinguisher, and encrusted with rubies and other precious stones.
+The utter absence of taste in most Catholic shrines is an extraordinary
+thing. It seems remarkable that a Church which has produced so many
+glorious artists should so constantly and grossly violate the simplest
+rules of art. The only shrine which I have seen, which was in keeping with
+the object adored, is that of the Virgin, at Nazareth, where there is
+neither picture nor image, but only vases of fragrant flowers, and
+perfumed oil in golden lamps, burning before a tablet of spotless marble.
+
+Among the decorations of the chapel, there are a host of cherubs frescoed
+on the ceiling, and one of them is represented in the act of firing off a
+blunderbuss. "Is it true that the angels carry blunderbusses?" I asked the
+priest. He shrugged his shoulders with a sort of half-smile, and said
+nothing. In the Cathedral, on the plinths of the columns in the outer
+aisles, are several notices to the effect that "whoever speaks to women,
+either in the nave or the aisles, thereby puts himself in danger of
+excommunication." I could not help laughing, as I read this monkish and
+yet most _un_monk-like statute. "Oh," said Mateo, "all that was in the
+despotic times; it is not so now."
+
+A deluge of rain put a stop to my sight-seeing until the next morning,
+when I set out with Mateo to visit the Royal Chapel. A murder had been
+committed in the night, near the entrance of the Zacatin, and the
+paving-stones were still red with the blood of the victim. A _funcion_ of
+some sort was going on in the Chapel, and we went into the sacristy to
+wait. The priests and choristers were there, changing their robes; they
+saluted me good-humoredly, though there was an expression in their faces
+that plainly said: "a heretic!" When the service was concluded, I went
+into the chapel and examined the high altar, with its rude wood-carvings,
+representing the surrender of Granada. The portraits of Ferdinand and
+Isabella, Cardinal Ximenez, Gonzalvo of Cordova, and King Boabdil, are
+very curious. Another tablet represents the baptism of the conquered
+Moors.
+
+In the centre of the chapel stand the monuments erected to Ferdinand and
+Isabella, and their successors Philip L, and Maria, by Charles V. They are
+tall catafalques of white marble, superbly sculptured, with the full
+length effigies of the monarchs upon them. The figures are admirable; that
+of Isabella, especially, though the features are settled in the repose of
+death, expresses all the grand and noble traits which belonged to her
+character. The sacristan removed the matting from a part of the floor,
+disclosing an iron grating underneath, A damp, mouldly smell, significant
+of death and decay, came up through the opening. He lighted two long waxen
+tapers, lifted the grating, and I followed him down the narrow steps into
+the vault where lie the coffins of the Catholic Sovereigns. They were
+brought here from the Alhambra, in 1525. The leaden sarcophagi, containing
+the bodies of Ferdinand and Isabella, lie, side by side, on stone slabs;
+and as I stood between the two, resting a hand on each, the sacristan
+placed the tapers in apertures in the stone, at the head and foot. They
+sleep, as they wished, in their beloved Granada, and no profane hand has
+ever disturbed the repose of their ashes.
+
+After visiting the Church of San Jeronimo, founded by Gonzalvo of Cordova,
+I went to the adjoining Church and Hospital of San Juan de Dios. A fat
+priest, washing his hands in the sacristy, sent a boy to show me the
+Chapel of San Juan, and the relics. The remains of the Saint rest in a
+silver chest, standing in the centre of a richly-adorned chapel. Among the
+relics is a thorn from the crown of Christ, which, as any botanist may
+see, must have grown on a different plant from the other thorn they show
+at Seville; and neither kind is found in Palestine. The true _spina
+christi_, the nebbuk, has very small thorns; but nothing could be more
+cruel, as I found when riding through patches of it near Jericho. The boy
+also showed me a tooth of San Lorenzo, a crooked brown _bicuspis_, from
+which I should infer that the saint was rather an ill-favored man. The
+gilded chapel of San Juan is in singular contrast with one of the garments
+which he wore when living--a cowl of plaited reeds, looking like an old
+fish basket--which is kept in a glass case. His portrait is also to be
+seen--a mild and beautiful face, truly that of one who went about doing
+good. He was a sort of Spanish John Howard, and deserved canonization, if
+anybody ever did.
+
+I ascended the street of the Darro to the Albaycin, which we entered by
+one of the ancient gates. This suburb is still surrounded by the original
+fortifications, and undermined by the capacious cisterns of the Moors. It
+looks down on Granada; and from the crumbling parapets there are superb
+views over the city, the Vega, and its inclosing mountains. The Alhambra
+rose opposite, against the dark-red and purple background of the Sierra
+Nevada, and a canopy of heavy rain-clouds rested on all the heights. A
+fitful gleam of sunshine now and then broke through and wandered over the
+plain, touching up white towers and olive groves and reaches of the
+winding Xenil, with a brilliancy which suggested the splendor of the whole
+picture, if once thus restored to its proper light. I could see Santa Fé
+in the distance, toward Loxa; nearer, and more eastward, the Sierra de
+Elvira, of a deep violet color, with the woods of the Soto de Roma, the
+Duke of Wellington's estate, at its base; and beyond it the Mountain of
+Parapanda, the weather-guage of Granada, still covered with clouds. There
+is an old Granadian proverb which says:--"When Parapanda wears his bonnet,
+it will rain whether God wills it or no." From the chapel of San Miguel,
+above the Albaycin, there is a very striking view of the deep gorge of the
+Darro, at one's feet, with the gardens and white walls of the Generalife
+rising beyond, and the Silla del Moro and the Mountain of the Sun towering
+above it. The long, irregular lines of the Alhambra, with the huge red
+towers rising here and there, reminded me somewhat of a distant view of
+Karnak; and, like Karnak, the Alhambra is picturesque from whatever point
+it is viewed.
+
+We descended through wastes of cactus to the Darro, in whose turbid stream
+a group of men were washing for gold. I watched one of them, as he
+twirled his bowl in precisely the California style, but got nothing for
+his pains. Mateo says that they often make a dollar a day, each. Passing
+under the Tower of Comares and along the battlements of the Alhambra, we
+climbed up to the Generalife. This charming villa is still in good
+preservation, though its exquisite filigree and scroll-work have been
+greatly injured by whitewash. The elegant colonnades surround gardens rich
+in roses, myrtles and cypresses, and the fountains that lulled the Moorish
+Kings in their summer idleness still pour their fertilizing streams. In
+one of the rooms is a small and bad portrait gallery, containing a
+supposed portrait of Boabdil. It is a mild, amiable face, but wholly lacks
+strength of character.
+
+To-day I devoted to the Alhambra. The storm, which, as the people say, has
+not been equalled for several years, showed no signs of breaking up, and
+in the midst of a driving shower I ascended to the Vermilion Towers, which
+are supposed to be of Phoenician origin. They stand on the extremity of a
+long, narrow ledge, which stretches out like an arm from the hill of the
+Alhambra. The _paséo_ lies between, and is shaded by beautiful elms, which
+the Moors planted.
+
+I entered the Alhambra by the Gate of Justice, which is a fine specimen of
+Moorish architecture, though of common red brick and mortar. It is
+singular what a grace the horse-shoe arch gives to the most heavy and
+lumbering mass of masonry. The round arches of the Christian edifices of
+Granada seem tame and inelegant, in comparison. Over the arch of the
+vestibule of this gate is the colossal hand, and over the inner entrance
+the key, celebrated in the tales of Washington Irving and the
+superstitions of the people. I first ascended the Torre de la Vela, where
+the Christian flag was first planted on the 2d of January, 1492. The view
+of the Vega and City of Granada was even grander than from the Albaycin.
+Parapanda was still bonneted in clouds, but patches of blue sky began to
+open above the mountains of Loxa. A little boy accompanied us, to see that
+I did not pull the bell, the sound of which would call together all the
+troops in the city. While we stood there, the funeral procession of the
+man murdered two nights before came up the street of Gomerez, and passed
+around the hill under the Vermilion Towers.
+
+I made the circuit of the walls before entering the Palace. In the Place
+of the Cisterns, I stopped to take a drink of the cool water of the Darro,
+which is brought thither by subterranean channels from the hills. Then,
+passing the ostentatious pile commenced by Charles V., but which was never
+finished, and never will be, nor ought to be, we walked along the southern
+ramparts to the Tower of the Seven Floors, amid the ruins of winch I
+discerned the top of the arch by which the unfortunate Boabdil quitted
+Granada, and which was thenceforth closed for ever. In the Tower of the
+Infantas, a number of workmen were busy restoring the interior, which has
+been cruelly damaged. The brilliant _azulejo_, or tile-work, the delicate
+arches and filigree sculpture of the walls, still attest its former
+elegance, and give some color to the tradition that it was the residence
+of the Moorish Princesses.
+
+As we passed through the little village which still exists among the ruins
+of the fortress, Mateo invited me to step in and see his father, the
+genuine "honest Mateo," immortalized in the "Tales of the Alhambra." The
+old man has taken up the trade of silk-weaving, and had a number of
+gay-colored ribbons on his loom. He is more than sixty years old and now
+quite gray-headed, but has the same simple manners, the same honest face
+that attracted his temporary master. He spoke with great enthusiasm of Mr.
+Irving, and brought out from a place of safety the "Alhambra" and the
+"Chronicles of the Conquest," which he has carefully preserved. He then
+produced an Andalusian sash, the work of his own hands, which he insisted
+on binding around my waist, to see how it would look. I must next take off
+my coat and hat, and put on his Sunday jacket and jaunty sombrero. "_Por
+Dios_!" he exclaimed: "_que buen mozo_! Senor, you are a legitimate
+Andalusian!" After this, of course, I could do no less than buy the sash.
+"You must show it to Washington Irving," said he, "and tell him it was
+made by Mateo's own hands;" which I promised. I must then go into the
+kitchen, and eat a pomegranate from his garden--a glorious pomegranate,
+with kernels of crimson, and so full of blood that you could not touch
+them but it trickled through your fingers. El Marques, a sprightly dog,
+and a great slate-colored cat, took possession of my legs, and begged for
+a share of every mouthful I took, while old Mateo sat beside me, rejoicing
+in the flavor of a Gibraltar cigar which I gave him. But my time was
+precious, and so I let the "Son of the Alhambra" go back to his loom, and
+set out for the Palace of the Moorish Kings.
+
+This palace is so hidden behind the ambitious shell of that of Charles V.
+that I was at a loss where it could be. I thought I had compassed the
+hill, and yet had seen no indications of the renowned magnificence of the
+Alhambra. But a little door in a blank wall ushered me into a true Moorish
+realm, the Court of the Fishpond, or of the Myrtles, as it is sometimes
+called. Here I saw again the slender pillars, the fringed and embroidered
+arches, and the perforated, lace-like tracery of the fairy corridors.
+Here, hedges of roses and myrtles still bloomed around the ancient tank,
+wherein hundreds of gold-fish disported. The noises of the hill do not
+penetrate here, and the solitary porter who admitted me went back to his
+post, and suffered me to wander at will through the enchanted halls.
+
+I passed out of this court by an opposite door, and saw, through the
+vistas of marble pillars and the wonderful fret-work which seems a thing
+of air rather than of earth, the Fountain of the Lions. Thence I entered
+in succession the Hall of the Abencerrages, the Hall of the Two Sisters,
+the apartments of the Sultanas, the Mosque, and the Hall of the
+Ambassadors. These places--all that is left of the renowned palace--are
+now well kept, and carefully guarded. Restorations are going on, here and
+there, and the place is scrupulously watched, that no foreign Vandal, may
+further injure what the native Goths have done their best to destroy. The
+rubbish has been cleared away; the rents in the walls have been filled up,
+and, for the first time since it passed into Spanish hands, there seems a
+hope that the Alhambra will be allowed to stand. What has been already
+destroyed we can only partially conjecture; but no one sees what remains
+without completing the picture in his own imagination, and placing it
+among the most perfect and marvellous creations of human genius.
+
+Nothing can exceed the richness of invention which, in this series of
+halls, corridors, and courts, never repeats the same ornaments, but, from
+the simplest primitive forms and colors, produces a thousand
+combinations, not one of which is in discord with the grand design. It is
+useless to attempt a detailed description of this architecture; and it is
+so unlike anything else in the world, that, like Karnak and Baalbec, those
+only know the Alhambra who see it. When you can weave stone, and hang your
+halls with marble tapestry, you may rival it. It is nothing to me that
+these ornaments are stucco; to sculpture them in marble is only the work
+of the hands. Their great excellence is in the design, which, like all
+great things, suggests even more than it gives. If I could create all that
+the Court of Lions suggested to me for its completion, it would fulfil the
+dream of King Sheddad, and surpass the palaces of the Moslem Paradise.
+
+The pavilions of the Court of Lions, and the halls which open into it, on
+either side, approach the nearest to their original perfection. The floors
+are marble, the wainscoting of painted tiles, the walls of embroidery,
+still gleaming with the softened lustre of their original tints, and the
+lofty conical domes seem to be huge sparry crystalizations, hung with
+dropping stalactites, rather than any work of the human hand. Each of
+these domes is composed of five thousand separate pieces, and the pendent
+prismatic blocks, colored and gilded, gradually resolve themselves, as you
+gaze, into the most intricate and elegant designs. But you must study long
+ere you have won all the secret of their beauty. To comprehend them, one
+should spend a whole day, lying on his back, under each one. Mateo spread
+his cloak for me in the fountain in the Hall of the Abencerrages, over the
+blood-stains made by the decapitation of those gallant chiefs, and I lay
+half an hour looking upward: and this is what I made out of the dome. From
+its central pinnacle hung the chalice of a flower with feathery petals,
+like the "crape myrtle" of our Southern States Outside of this, branched
+downward the eight rays of a large star, whose points touched the base of
+the dome; yet the star was itself composed of flowers, while between its
+rays and around its points fell a shower of blossoms, shells, and sparry
+drops. From the base of the dome hung a gorgeous pattern of lace, with a
+fringe of bugles, projecting into eight points so as to form a star of
+drapery, hanging from the points of the flowery star in the dome. The
+spaces between the angles were filled with masses of stalactites, dropping
+one below the other, till they tapered into the plain square sides of the
+hall.
+
+In the Hall of the Two Sisters, I lay likewise for a considerable time,
+resolving its misty glories into shape. The dome was still more suggestive
+of flowers. The highest and central piece was a deep trumpet-flower, whose
+mouth was cleft into eight petals. It hung in the centre of a superb
+lotus-cup, the leaves of which were exquisitely veined and chased. Still
+further below swung a mass of mimosa blossoms, intermixed with pods and
+lance-like leaves, and around the base of the dome opened the bells of
+sixteen gorgeous tulips. These pictures may not be very intelligible, but
+I know not how else to paint the effect of this fairy architecture.
+
+In Granada, as in Seville and Cordova, one's sympathies are wholly with
+the Moors. The few mutilated traces which still remain of their power,
+taste, and refinement, surpass any of the monuments erected by the race
+which conquered them. The Moorish Dynasty in Spain was truly, as Irving
+observes, a splendid exotic, doomed never to take a lasting root in the
+soil It was choked to death by the native weeds; and, in place of lands
+richly cultivated and teeming with plenty, we now have barren and-almost
+depopulated wastes--in place of education, industry, and the cultivation
+of the arts and sciences, an enslaved, ignorant and degenerate race.
+Andalusia would be far more prosperous at this day, had she remained in
+Moslem hands. True, she would not have received that Faith which is yet
+destined to be the redemption of the world, but the doctrines of Mahomet
+are more acceptable to God, and more beneficial to Man than those of that
+Inquisition, which, in Spain alone, has shed ten times as much Christian
+blood as all the Moslem races together for the last six centuries. It is
+not from a mere romantic interest that I lament the fate of Boabdil, and
+the extinction of his dynasty. Had he been a king worthy to reign in those
+wonderful halls, he never would have left them. Had he perished there,
+fighting to the last, he would have been freed from forty years of weary
+exile and an obscure death. Well did Charles V. observe, when speaking of
+him: "Better a tomb in the Alhambra than a palace in the Alpujanas!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVI.
+
+The Bridle-Roads of Andalusia.
+
+
+  Change of Weather--Napoleon and his Horses--Departure from Granada--My
+  Guide, José Garcia--His Domestic Troubles--The Tragedy of the
+  Umbrella--The Vow against Aguardiente--Crossing the Vega--The Sierra
+  Nevada--The Baths of Alhama--"Woe is Me, Alhama!"--The Valley of the
+  River Vélez--Vélez Malaga--The Coast Road--The Fisherman and his
+  Donkey--Malaga--Summer Scenery--The Story of Don Pedro, without Fear and
+  without Care--The Field of Monda--A Lonely Venta.
+
+
+Venta de Villalon, _November_ 20, 1852.
+
+The clouds broke away before I had been two hours in the Alhambra, and the
+sunshine fell broad and warm into its courts. They must be roofed with
+blue sky, in order to give the full impression of their brightness and
+beauty. Mateo procured me a bottle of _vino rancio_, and we drank it
+together in the Court of Lions. Six hours had passed away before I knew
+it, and I reluctantly prepared to leave. The clouds by this time had
+disappeared; the Vega slept in brilliant sunshine, and the peaks of the
+Sierra Nevada shone white and cold against the sky.
+
+On reaching the hotel, I found a little man, nicknamed Napoleon, awaiting
+me. He was desirous to furnish me with horses, and, having a prophetic
+knowledge of the weather, promised me a bright sky as far as Gibraltar. "I
+furnish all the señors," said he; "they know me, and never complain of me
+or my horses;" but, by way of security, on making the bargain, I
+threatened to put up a card in the hotel at Gibraltar, warning all
+travellers against him, in case I was not satisfied. My contract was for
+two horses and a guide, who were to be ready at sunrise the next morning.
+Napoleon was as good as his word; and before I had finished an early cup
+of chocolate, there was a little black Andalusian stallion awaiting me.
+The _alforjas_, or saddle-bags, of the guide were strengthened by a stock
+of cold provisions, the leathern bota hanging beside it was filled with
+ripe Granada wine; and now behold me ambling over the Vega, accoutred in a
+gay Andalusian jacket, a sash woven by Mateo Ximenes, and one of those
+bandboxy sombreros, which I at first thought so ungainly, but now consider
+quite picturesque and elegant.
+
+My guide, a short but sinewy and well-knit son of the mountains, named
+José Garcia, set off at a canter down the banks of the Darro. "Don't ride
+so fast!" cried Napoleon, who watched our setting out, from the door of
+the fonda; but José was already out of hearing. This guide is a companion
+to my liking. Although he is only twenty-seven, he has been for a number
+of years a _correo_, or mail-rider, and a guide for travelling parties.
+His olive complexion is made still darker by exposure to the sun and wind,
+and his coal-black eyes shine with Southern heat and fire. He has one of
+those rare mouths which are born with a broad smile in each corner, and
+which seem to laugh even in the midst of grief. We had not been two hours
+together, before I knew his history from beginning to end. He had already
+been married eight years, and his only trouble was a debt of twenty-four
+dollars, which the illness of his wife had caused him. This money was
+owing to the pawnbroker, who kept his best clothes in pledge until he
+could pay it. "Señor," said he, "if I had ten million dollars, I would
+rather give them all away than have a sick wife." He had a brother in
+Puerto Principe, Cuba, who sent over money enough to pay the rent of the
+house, but he found that children were a great expense. "It is most
+astonishing," he said, "how much children can eat. From morning till
+night, the bread is never out of their mouths."
+
+José has recently been travelling with some Spaniards, one of whom made
+him pay two dollars for an umbrella which was lost on the road. This
+umbrella is a thorn in his side. At every venta where we stop, the story
+is repeated, and he is not sparing of his maledictions. The ghost of that
+umbrella is continually raised, and it will be a long time before he can
+shut it. "One reason why I like to travel with foreign Señors," said he to
+me, "is, that when I lose anything, they never make me pay for it." "For
+all that," I answered, "take care you don't lose my umbrella: it cost
+three dollars." Since then, nothing can exceed José's attention to that
+article. He is at his wit's end how to secure it best. It appears
+sometimes before, sometimes behind him, lashed to the saddle with
+innumerable cords; now he sticks it into the alforja, now carries it in
+his hand, and I verily believe that he sleeps with it in his arms. Every
+evening, as he tells his story to the muleteers, around the kitchen fire,
+he always winds up by triumphantly appealing to me with: "Well, Señor,
+have I lost _your_ umbrella yet?"
+
+Our bargain is that I shall feed him on the way, and as we travel in the
+primitive style of the country, we always sit down together to the same
+dish. To his supervision, the olla is often indebted for an additional
+flavor, and no "thorough-bred" gentleman could behave at table with more
+ease and propriety. He is as moderate as a Bedouin in his wants, and never
+touches the burning aguardiente which the muleteers are accustomed to
+drink. I asked him the reason of this. "I drink wine. Senor," he replied,
+"because that, you know, is like meat and bread; but I have made a vow
+never to drink aguardiente again. Two of us got drunk on it, four or five
+years ago, in Granada, and we quarrelled. My comrade drew his knife and
+stabbed me here, in the left shoulder. I was furious and cut him across
+the breast. We both went to the hospital--I for three months and he for
+six--and he died in a few days after getting out. It cost my poor father
+many a thousand reals; and when I was able to go to work, I vowed before
+the Virgin that I would never touch aguardiente again."
+
+For the first league, our road lay over the rich Vega of Granada, but
+gradually became wilder and more waste. Passing the long, desert ridge,
+known as the "Last Sigh of the Moor," we struck across a region of low
+hills. The road was very deep, from the recent rains, and studded, at
+short intervals, by rude crosses, erected to persons who had been
+murdered. José took a grim delight in giving me the history of each.
+Beyond the village of Lamala, which lies with its salt-pans in a basin of
+the hills, we ascended the mountain ridge which forms the southern
+boundary of the Vega. Granada, nearly twenty miles distant, was still
+visible. The Alhambra was dwindled to a speck, and I took my last view of
+it and the magnificent landscape which lies spread out before it. The
+Sierra Nevada, rising to the height of 13,000 feet above the sea, was
+perfectly free from clouds, and the whole range was visible at one
+glance. All its chasms were filled with snow, and for nearly half-way down
+its sides there was not a speck of any other color. Its summits were
+almost wholly devoid of shadow, and their notched and jagged outlines
+rested flatly against the sky, like ivory inlaid on a table of
+lapis-lazuli.
+
+From these waste hills, we descended into the valley of Cacia, whose
+poplar-fringed river had been so swollen by the rains that the _correo_
+from Malaga had only succeeded in passing it that morning. We forded it
+without accident, and, crossing a loftier and bleaker range, came down
+into the valley of the Marchan. High on a cliff over the stream stood
+Alhama, my resting-place for the night. The natural warm baths, on account
+of which this spot was so beloved by the Moors, are still resorted to in
+the summer. They lie in the bosom of a deep and rugged gorge, half a mile
+further down the river. The town occupies the crest of a narrow
+promontory, bounded, on all sides but one, by tremendous precipices. It is
+one of the most picturesque spots imaginable, and reminded me--to continue
+the comparison between Syria and Andalusia, which I find so striking--of
+the gorge of the Barrada, near Damascus. Alhama is now a poor,
+insignificant town, only visited by artists and muleteers. The population
+wear long brown cloaks and slouched hats, like the natives of La Mancha.
+
+I found tolerable quarters in a house on the plaza, and took the remaining
+hour of daylight to view the town. The people looked at me with curiosity,
+and some boys, walking on the edge of the _tajo_, or precipice, threw over
+stones that I might see how deep it was. The rock, in some places, quite
+overhung the bed of the Marchan, which half-girdles its base. The close
+scrutiny to which I was subjected by the crowd in the plaza called to mind
+all I had heard of Spanish spies and robbers. At the venta, I was well
+treated, but received such an exorbitant bill in the morning that I was
+ready to exclaim, with King Boabdil, "Woe is me, Alhama!" On comparing
+notes with José, I found that he had been obliged to pay, in addition, for
+what he received--a discovery which so exasperated that worthy that he
+folded his hands, bowed his head, made three kisses in the air, and cried
+out: "I swear before the Virgin that I will never again take a traveller
+to that inn."
+
+We left Alhama an hour before daybreak, for we had a rough journey of more
+than forty miles before us. The bridle-path was barely visible in the
+darkness, but we continued ascending to a height of probably 5,000 feet
+above the sea, and thus met the sunrise half-way. Crossing the _llano_ of
+Ace faraya, we reached a tremendous natural portal in the mountains, from
+whence, as from a door, we looked down on all the country lying between us
+and the sea. The valley of the River Vélez, winding among the hills,
+pointed out the course of our road. On the left towered over us the barren
+Sierra Tejeda, an isolated group of peaks, about 8,000 feet in height. For
+miles, the road was a rocky ladder, which we scrambled down on foot,
+leading our horses. The vegetation gradually became of a warmer and more
+luxuriant cast; the southern slopes were planted with the vine that
+produces the famous Malaga raisins, and the orange groves in the sunny
+depths of the valleys were as yellow as autumnal beeches, with their
+enormous loads of fruit. As the bells of Vélez Malaga were ringing noon,
+we emerged from the mountains, near the mouth of the river, and rode into
+the town to breakfast.
+
+We halted at a queer old inn, more like a Turkish khan than a Christian
+hostlery. It was kept by a fat landlady, who made us an olla of kid and
+garlic, which, with some coarse bread and the red Malaga wine, soon took
+off the sharp edge of our mountain appetites. While I was washing my hands
+at a well in the court-yard, the _mozo_ noticed the pilgrim-seal of
+Jerusalem, which is stamped indelibly on my left arm. His admiration and
+reverence were so great that he called the fat landlady, who, on learning
+that it had been made in Jerusalem, and that I had visited the Holy
+Sepulchre, summoned her children to see it. "Here, my children!" she said;
+"cross yourselves, kneel down, and kiss this holy seal; for, as long as
+you live, you may never see the like of it again." Thus I, a Protestant
+heretic, became a Catholic shrine. The children knelt and kissed my arm
+with touching simplicity; and the seal will henceforth be more sacred to
+me than ever.
+
+The remaining twenty miles or more of the road to Malaga follow the line
+of the coast, passing headlands crowned by the _atalayas_, or
+watch-towers, of the Moors. It is a new road, and practicable for
+carriages, so that, for Spain, it may be considered an important
+achievement. The late rains have, however, already undermined it in a
+number of places. Here, as among the mountains, we met crowds of
+muleteers, all of whom greeted me with: "_Vaya usted con Dios,
+caballero_!"--("May you go with God, cavalier!") By this time, all my
+forgotten Spanish had come back again, and a little experience of the
+simple ways of the people made me quite at home among them. In almost
+every instance, I was treated precisely as a Spaniard would have been,
+and less annoyed by the curiosity of the natives than I have been in
+Germany, and even America.
+
+We were still two leagues from Malaga, at sunset, The fishermen along the
+coast were hauling in their nets, and we soon began to overtake companies
+of them, carrying their fish to the city on donkeys. One stout, strapping
+fellow, with flesh as hard and yellow as a sturgeon's, was seated sideways
+on a very small donkey, between two immense panniers of fish, As he
+trotted before us, shouting, and slapping the flanks of the sturdy little
+beast, José and I began to laugh, whereupon the fellow broke out into the
+following monologue, addressed to the donkey: "Who laughs at this
+_burrico_? Who says he's not fine gold from head to foot? What is it that
+he can't do? If there was a mountain ever so high, he would gallop over
+it. If there was a river ever so deep, he would swim through it If he
+could but speak, I might send him to market alone with the fish, and not a
+_chavo_ of the money would he spend on the way home. Who says he can't go
+as far as that limping horse? Arrrre, burrico! punate--ar-r-r-r-r-e-e!"
+
+We reached Malaga, at last, our horses sorely fagged. At the Fonda de la
+Alameda, a new and very elegant hotel, I found a bath and a good dinner,
+both welcome things to a tired traveller. The winter of Malaga is like
+spring in other lands and on that account it is much visited by invalids,
+especially English. It is a lively commercial town of about 80,000
+inhabitants, and, if the present scheme of railroad communication with
+Madrid is carried out, must continue to increase in size and importance. A
+number of manufacturing establishments have lately been started, and in
+this department it bids fair to rival Barcelona. The harbor is small, but
+good, and the country around rich in all the productions of temperate and
+even tropical climates. The city contains little to interest the tourist.
+I visited the Cathedral, an immense unfinished mass, without a particle of
+architectural taste outwardly, though the interior has a fine effect from
+its large dimensions.
+
+At noon to-day we were again in the saddle, and took the road to the Baths
+of Caratraca. The tall factory chimneys of Malaga, vomiting forth streams
+of black smoke, marred the serenity of the sky; but the distant view of
+the city is very fine. The broad Vega, watered by the Guadaljorce, is rich
+and well cultivated, and now rejoices in the verdure of spring. The
+meadows are clothed with fresh grass, butter-cups and daisies are in
+blossom, and larks sing in the olive-trees. Now and then, we passed a
+_casa del campo_, with its front half buried in orange-trees, over which
+towered two or three sentinel palms. After two leagues of this delightful
+travel, the country became more hilly, and the groups of mountains which
+inclosed us assumed the most picturesque and enchanting forms. The soft
+haze in which the distant peaks were bathed, the lovely violet shadows
+filling up their chasms and gorges, and the fresh meadows, vineyards, and
+olive groves below, made the landscape one of the most beautiful I have
+seen in Spain.
+
+As we were trotting along through the palmetto thickets, José asked me if
+I should not like to hear an Andalusian story. "Nothing would please me
+better," I replied. "Ride close beside me, then," said he, "that you may
+understand every word of it." I complied, and he gave me the following,
+just as I repeat it: "There was once a very rich man, who had thousands of
+cattle in the Sierra Nevada, and hundreds of houses in the city. Well:
+this man put a plate, with his name on it, on the door of the great house
+in which he lived, and the name was this: Don Pedro, without Fear and
+without Care. Now, when the King was making his _paséo_, he happened to
+ride by this house in his carriage, and saw the plate on the door. 'Read
+me the name on that plate!' said he to his officer. Then the officer read
+the name: Don Pedro, without Fear and without Care. 'I will see whether
+Don Pedro is without Fear and without Care,' said the King. The next day
+came a messenger to the house, and, when he saw Don Pedro, said he to him;
+'Don Pedro, without Fear and without Care, the King wants you!' 'What does
+the King want with me?' said Don Pedro. 'He sends you four questions which
+you must answer within four days, or he will have you shot; and the
+questions are:--How can the Sierra Nevada be cleared of snow? How can the
+sea be made smaller? How many arrobas does the moon weigh? And: How many
+leagues from here to the Land of Heavenly Glory?' Then Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care began to sweat from fright, and knew not what he
+should do. He called some of his arrieros and loaded twenty mules with
+money, and went up into the Sierra Nevada, where his herdsmen tended his
+flocks; for, as I said, he had many thousand cattle. 'God keep you, my
+master!' said the chief herdsman, who was young, and _buen mozo_, and had
+as good a head as ever was set on two shoulders. '_Anda, hombre!_ said Don
+Pedro, 'I am a dead man;' and so he told the herdsman all that the King
+had said. 'Oh, is that all?' said the knowing mozo. 'I can get you out of
+the scrape. Let me go and answer the questions in your name, my master!'
+'Ah, you fool! what can you do?' said Don Pedro without Fear and without
+Care, throwing himself upon the earth, and ready to die.
+
+"But, nevertheless, the herdsman dressed himself up as a _caballero_, went
+down to the city, and, on the fourth day, presented himself at the King's
+palace. 'What do you want?' said the officers. 'I am Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care, come to answer the questions which the King sent to
+me.' 'Well,' said the King, when he was brought before him, 'let me hear
+your answers, or I will have you shot this day.' 'Your Majesty,' said the
+herdsman, 'I think I can do it. If you were to set a million of children
+to playing among the snow of the Sierra Nevada, they would soon clear it
+all away; and if you were to dig a ditch as wide and as deep as all Spain,
+you would make the sea that much smaller,' 'But,' said the King, 'that
+makes only two questions; there are two more yet,' 'I think I can answer
+those, also,' said the herdsman: 'the moon contains four quarters, and
+therefore weighs only one arroba; and as for the last question, it is not
+even a single league to the Land of Heavenly Glory--for, if your Majesty
+were to die after breakfast, you would get there before you had an
+appetite for dinner,' 'Well done! said the King; and he then made him
+Count, and Marquez, and I don't know how many other titles. In the
+meantime, Don Pedro without Fear and without Care had died of his fright;
+and, as he left no family, the herdsman took possession of all his
+estates, and, until the day of his death, was called Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care."
+
+I write, sitting by the grated window of this lonely inn, looking out on
+the meadows of the Guadaljorce. The chain of mountains which rises to the
+west of Malaga is purpled by the light of the setting sun, and the houses
+and Castle of Carlama hang on its side, in full view. Further to the
+right, I see the smoke of Monda, where one of the greatest battles of
+antiquity was fought--that which overthrew the sons of Pompey, and gave
+the Roman Empire to Cæsar. The mozo of the venta is busy, preparing my kid
+and rice, and José is at his elbow, gently suggesting ingredients which
+may give the dish a richer flavor. The landscape is softened by the hush
+of coming evening; a few birds are still twittering among the bushes, and
+the half-moon grows whiter and clearer in mid-heaven. The people about me
+are humble, but appear honest and peaceful, and nothing indicates that I
+am in the wild _Serrania de Ronda_, the country of robbers,
+contrabandistas, and assassins.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVII.
+
+The Mountains of Ronda.
+
+
+
+  Orange Valleys--Climbing the Mountains--José's Hospitality--El
+  Burgo--The Gate of the Wind--The Cliff and Cascades of Ronda--The
+  Mountain Region--Traces of the Moors--Haunts of Robbers--A Stormy
+  Ride--The Inn at Gaucin--Bad News--A Boyish Auxiliary--Descent from the
+  Mountains--The Ford of the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
+  Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with José--Travelling
+  in Spain--Conclusion.
+
+
+Gibraltar, _Thursday, November_ 25, 1852.
+
+I passed an uncomfortable night at the Venta de Villalon, lying upon a bag
+stuffed with equal quantities of wool and fleas. Starting before dawn, we
+followed a path which led into the mountains, where herdsmen and boys were
+taking out their sheep and goats to pasture; then it descended into the
+valley of a stream, bordered with rich bottom-lands. I never saw the
+orange in a more flourishing state. We passed several orchards of trees
+thirty feet high, and every bough and twig so completely laden with fruit,
+that the foliage was hardly to be seen.
+
+At the Venta del Vicario, we found a number of soldiers just setting out
+for Ronda. They appeared to be escorting a convoy of goods, for there were
+twenty or thirty laden mules gathered at the door. We now ascended a most
+difficult and stony path, winding through bleak wastes of gray rock, till
+we reached a lofty pass in the mountain range. The wind swept through the
+narrow gateway with a force that almost unhorsed us. From the other side,
+a sublime but most desolate landscape opened to my view. Opposite, at ten
+miles' distance, rose a lofty ridge of naked rock, overhung with clouds.
+The country between was a chaotic jumble of stony hills, separated by deep
+chasms, with just a green patch here and there, to show that it was not
+entirely forsaken by man. Nevertheless as we descended into it, we found
+valleys with vineyards and olive groves, which were invisible from above.
+As we were both getting hungry, José stopped at a ventorillo and ordered
+two cups of wine, for which he insisted on paying. "If I had as many
+horses as my master, Napoleon," said he, "I would regale the Señors
+whenever I travelled with them. I would have _puros_, and sweetmeats, with
+plenty of Malaga or Valdepeñas in the bota, and they should never complain
+of their fare." Part of our road was studded with gray cork-trees, at a
+distance hardly to be distinguished from olives, and José dismounted to
+gather the mast, which was as sweet and palatable as chestnuts, with very
+little of the bitter quercine flavor. At eleven o'clock, we reached El
+Burgo, so called, probably, from its ancient Moorish fortress. It is a
+poor, starved village, built on a barren hill, over a stream which is
+still spanned by a lofty Moorish bridge of a single arch.
+
+The remaining three leagues to Ronda were exceedingly rough and difficult.
+Climbing a barren ascent of nearly a league in length, we reached the
+_Puerto del Viento_, or Gate of the Wind, through which drove such a
+current that we were obliged to dismount; and even then it required all my
+strength to move against it. The peaks around, far and near, faced with
+precipitous cliffs, wore the most savage and forbidding aspect: in fact,
+this region is almost a counterpart of the wilderness lying between
+Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, Very soon, we touched the skirt of a cloud,
+and were enveloped in masses of chill, whirling vapor, through which we
+travelled for three or four miles to a similar gate on the western side of
+the chain. Descending again, we emerged into a clearer atmosphere, and saw
+below us a wide extent of mountain country, but of a more fertile and
+cheerful character. Olive orchards and wheat-fields now appeared; and, at
+four o'clock, we rode into the streets of Ronda.
+
+No town can surpass this in the grandeur and picturesqueness of its
+position. It is built on the edge of a broad shelf of the mountains, which
+falls away in a sheer precipice of from six to eight hundred feet in
+height, and, from the windows of many of the houses you can look down the
+dizzy abyss. This shelf, again, is divided in the centre by a tremendous
+chasm, three hundred feet wide, and from four to six hundred feet in
+depth, in the bed of which roars the Guadalvin, boiling in foaming
+whirlpools or leaping in sparkling cascades, till it reaches the valley
+below. The town lies on both sides of the chasm, which is spanned by a
+stone bridge of a single arch, with abutments nearly four hundred feet in
+height. The view of this wonderful cleft, either from above or below, is
+one of the finest of its kind in the world. Honda is as far superior to
+Tivoli, as Tivoli is to a Dutch village, on the dead levels of Holland.
+The panorama which it commands is on the grandest scale. The valley below
+is a garden of fruit and vines; bold yet cultivated hills succeed, and in
+the distance rise the lofty summits of another chain of the Serrania de
+Honda. Were these sublime cliffs, these charming cascades of the
+Guadalvin, and this daring bridge, in Italy instead of in Spain, they
+would be sketched and painted every day in the year; but I have yet to
+know where a good picture of Ronda may be found.
+
+In the bottom of the chasm are a number of corn-mills as old as the time
+of the Moors. The water, gushing out from the arches of one, drives the
+wheel of that below, so that a single race supplies them all. I descended
+by a very steep zig-zag path nearly to the bottom. On a little point or
+promontory overhanging the black depths, there is a Moorish gateway still
+standing. The sunset threw a lovely glow over the brown cliffs and the
+airy town above; but they were far grander when the cascades glittered in
+the moonlight, and the gulf out of which they leap was lost in profound
+shadow. The window of my bed-room hung over the chasm.
+
+Honda was wrapped in fog, when José awoke me on the morning of the 22d. As
+we had but about twenty-four miles to ride that day, we did not leave
+until sunrise. We rode across the bridge, through the old town and down
+the hill, passing the triple lines of the Moorish walls by the original
+gateways. The road, stony and rugged beyond measure, now took to the
+mountains. From the opposite height, there was a fine view of the town,
+perched like an eagle's nest on the verge of its tremendous cliffs; but a
+curtain of rain soon fell before it, and the dense dark clouds settled
+around us, and filled up the gorges on either hand. Hour after hour, we
+toiled along the slippery paths, scaling the high ridges by rocky ladders,
+up which our horses climbed with the greatest difficulty. The scenery,
+whenever I could obtain a misty glimpse of it, was sublime. Lofty mountain
+ridges rose on either hand; bleak jagged summits of naked rock pierced
+the clouds, and the deep chasms which separated them sank far below us,
+dark and indistinct through the rain. Sometimes I caught sight of a little
+hamlet, hanging on some almost inaccessible ledge, the home of the
+lawless, semi-Moorish mountaineers who inhabit this wild region. The faces
+of those we met exhibited marked traces of their Moslem ancestry,
+especially in the almond-shaped eye and the dusky olive complexion. Their
+dialect retains many Oriental forms of expression, and I was not a little
+surprised at finding the Arabic "_eiwa_" (yes) in general use, instead of
+the Spanish "_si_."
+
+About eleven o'clock, we reached the rude village of Atajate, where we
+procured a very good breakfast of kid, eggs, and white Ronda wine. The
+wind and rain increased, but I had no time to lose, as every hour swelled
+the mountain floods and made the journey more difficult. This district is
+in the worst repute of any in Spain; it is a very nest of robbers and
+contrabandistas. At the venta in Atajate, they urged us to take a guard,
+but my valiant José declared that he had never taken one, and yet was
+never robbed; so I trusted to his good luck. The weather, however, was our
+best protection. In such a driving rain, we could bid defiance to the
+flint locks of their escopettes, if, indeed, any could be found, so fond
+of their trade, as to ply it in a storm
+
+  "Wherein the cub-drawn bear would crouch,
+  The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
+  Keep their furs dry."
+
+Nevertheless, I noticed that each of the few convoys of laden mules which
+we met, had one or more of the _guardia cicia_ accompanying it. Besides
+these, the only persons abroad were some wild-looking individuals, armed
+to the teeth, and muffled in long cloaks, towards whom, as they passed,
+José would give his head a slight toss, and whisper to me: "more
+contrabandistas."
+
+We were soon in a condition to defy the weather. The rain beat furiously
+in our faces, especially when threading the wind-blown passes between the
+higher peaks. I raised my umbrella as a defence, but the first blast
+snapped it in twain. The mountain-sides were veined with rills, roaring
+downward into the hollows, and smaller rills soon began to trickle down my
+own sides. During the last part of our way, the path was notched along
+precipitous steeps, where the storm was so thick that we could see nothing
+either above or below. It was like riding along the outer edge of the
+world, When once you are thoroughly wet, it is a great satisfaction to
+know that you can be no wetter; and so José and I went forward in the best
+possible humor, finding so much diversion in our plight that the dreary
+leagues were considerably shortened.
+
+At the venta of Gaucin, where we stopped, the people received us kindly.
+The house consisted of one room--stable, kitchen, and dining-room all in
+one. There was a small apartment in a windy loft, where a bed (much too
+short) was prepared for me. A fire of dry heather was made in the wide
+fire-place, and the ruddy flames, with a change of clothing and a draught
+of the amber vintage of Estepona, soon thawed out the chill of the
+journey. But I received news which caused me a great deal of anxiety. The
+River Guadiaro was so high that nobody could cross, and two forlorn
+muleteers had been waiting eight days at the inn, for the waters to
+subside. Augmented by the rain which had fallen, and which seemed to
+increase as night came on, how could I hope to cross it on the morrow? In
+two days, the India steamer would be at Gibraltar; my passage was already
+taken, and I _must_ be there. The matter was discussed for some time; it
+was pronounced impossible to travel by the usual road, but the landlord
+knew a path among the hills which led to a ferry on the Guadiaro, where
+there was a boat, and from thence we could make our way to San Roque,
+which is in sight of Gibraltar. He demanded rather a large fee for
+accompanying me, but there was nothing else to be done. José and I sat
+down in great tribulation to our accustomed olla, but neither of us could
+do justice to it, and the greater part gladdened the landlord's two
+boys--beautiful little imps, with faces like Murillo's cherubs.
+
+Nevertheless, I passed rather a merry evening, chatting with some of the
+villagers over a brazier of coals; and one of the aforesaid boys, who,
+although only eight years old, already performed the duties of mozo,
+lighted me to my loft. When he had put down the lamp, he tried' the door,
+and asked me: "Have you the key?" "No," said I, "I don't want one; I am
+not afraid." "But," he rejoined, "perhaps you may get afraid in the night;
+and if you do, strike on this part of the wall (suiting the action to the
+word)--_I_ sleep on that side." I willingly promised to call him to my
+aid, if I should get alarmed. I slept but little, for the wind was howling
+around the tiles over my head, and I was busy with plans for constructing
+rafts and swimming currents with a rope around my waist. Finally, I found
+a little oblivion, but it seemed that I had scarcely closed my eyes, when
+José pushed open the door. "Thanks be to God, senor!" said he, "it begins
+to dawn, and the sky is clear: we shall certainly get to Gibraltar
+to-day."
+
+The landlord was ready, so we took some bread and a basket of olives, and
+set out at once. Leaving Gaucin, we commenced descending the mountain
+staircase by which the Serrania of Ronda is scaled, on the side towards
+Gibraltar. "The road," says Mr. Ford, "seems made by the Evil One in a
+hanging garden of Eden." After four miles of frightfully rugged descent,
+we reached an orange grove on the banks of the Xenar, and then took a wild
+path leading along the hills on the right of the stream. We overtook a few
+muleteers, who were tempted out by the fine weather, and before long the
+_correo_, or mail-rider from Ronda to San Roque, joined us. After eight
+miles more of toilsome travel we reached the valley of the Guadiaro. The
+river was not more than twenty yards wide, flowing with a deep, strong
+current, between high banks. Two ropes were stretched across, and a large,
+clumsy boat was moored to the shore. We called to the ferrymen, but they
+hesitated, saying that nobody had yet been able to cross. However, we all
+got in, with our horses, and two of the men, with much reluctance, drew us
+over. The current was very powerful, although the river had fallen a
+little during the night, but we reached the opposite bank without
+accident.
+
+We had still another river, the Guargante, to pass, but we were cheered by
+some peasants whom we met, with the news that the ferry-boat had resumed
+operations. After this current lay behind us, and there was now nothing
+but firm land all the way to Gibraltar, José declared with much
+earnestness that he was quite as glad, for my sake, as if somebody had
+given him a million of dollars. Our horses, too, seemed to feel that
+something had been achieved, and showed such a fresh spirit that we
+loosened the reins and let them gallop to their hearts' content over the
+green meadows. The mountains were now behind us, and the Moorish castle of
+Gaucin crested a peak blue with the distance. Over hills covered with
+broom and heather in blossom, and through hollows grown with oleander,
+arbutus and the mastic shrub, we rode to the cork-wood forests of San
+Roque, the sporting-ground of Gibraltar officers. The barking of dogs, the
+cracking of whips, and now and then a distant halloo, announced that a
+hunt was in progress, and soon we came upon a company of thirty or forty
+horsemen, in caps, white gloves and top-boots, scattered along the crest
+of a hill. I had no desire to stop and witness the sport, for the
+Mediterranean now lay before me, and the huge gray mass of "The Rock"
+loomed in the distance.
+
+At San Roque, which occupies the summit of a conical hill, about half-way
+between Gibraltar and Algeciras, the landlord left us, and immediately
+started on his return. Having now exchanged the rugged bridle-paths of
+Ronda for a smooth carriage-road, José and I dashed on at full gallop, to
+the end of our journey. We were both bespattered with mud from head to
+foot, and our jackets and sombreros had lost something of their spruce
+air. We met a great many ruddy, cleanly-shaven Englishmen, who reined up
+on one side to let us pass, with a look of wonder at our Andalusian
+impudence. Nothing diverted José more than to see one of these Englishmen
+rising in his stirrups, as he went by on a trot. "Look, look, Señor!" he
+exclaimed; "did you ever see the like?" and then broke into a fresh
+explosion of laughter. Passing the Spanish Lines, which stretch across the
+neck of the sandy little peninsula, connecting Gibraltar with the main
+land, we rode under the terrible batteries which snarl at Spain from this
+side of the Rock. Row after row of enormous guns bristle the walls, or
+look out from the galleries hewn in the sides of inaccessible cliffs An
+artificial moat is cut along the base of the Rock, and a simple
+bridge-road leads into the fortress and town. After giving up my passport
+I was allowed to enter, José having already obtained a permit from the
+Spanish authorities.
+
+I clattered up the long street of the town to the Club House, where I
+found a company of English friends. In the evening, José made his
+appearance, to settle our accounts and take his leave of me. While
+scrambling down the rocky stair-way of Gaucin, José had said to me: "Look
+you, Señor, I am very fond of English beer, and if I get you to Gibraltar
+to day you must give me a glass of it." When, therefore, he came in the
+evening, his eyes sparkled at the sight of a bottle of Alsop's Ale, and a
+handful of good Gibraltar cigars. "Ah, Señor," said he, after our books
+were squared, and he had pocketed his _gratification_, "I am sorry we are
+going to part; for we are good friends, are we not, Señor?" "Yes, José,"
+said I; "if I ever come to Granada again, I shall take no other guide than
+José Garcia; and I will have you for a longer journey than this. We shall
+go over all Spain together, _mi amigo_!" "May God grant it!" responded
+José, crossing himself; "and now, Señor, I must go. I shall travel back to
+Granada, _muy triste_, Señor, _muy triste_" The faithful fellows eyes were
+full of tears, and, as he lifted my hand twice to his lips, some warm
+drops fell upon it. God bless his honest heart; wherever he goes!
+
+And now a word as to travelling in Spain, which is not attended with half
+the difficulties and annoyances I had been led to expect. My experience,
+of course, is limited to the provinces of Andalusia, but my route included
+some of the roughest roads and most dangerous robber-districts in the
+Peninsula. The people with whom I came in contact were invariably friendly
+and obliging, and I was dealt with much more honestly than I should have
+been in Italy. With every disposition to serve you, there is nothing like
+servility among the Spaniards. The native dignity which characterizes
+their demeanor prepossesses me very strongly in their favor. There is but
+one dialect of courtesy, and the muleteers and common peasants address
+each other with the same grave respect as the Dons and Grandees. My friend
+José was a model of good-breeding.
+
+I had little trouble either with passport-officers or custom-houses. My
+passport, in fact, was never once demanded, although I took the precaution
+to have it visèd in all the large cities. In Seville and Malaga, it was
+signed by the American Consuls, without the usual fee of two
+dollars--almost the only instances which have come under my observation.
+The regulations of the American Consular System, which gives the Consuls
+no salary, but permits them, instead, to get their pay out of travellers,
+is a disgrace to our government. It amounts, in effect, to _a direct tax
+on travel_, and falls heavily on the hundreds of young men of limited
+means, who annually visit Europe for the purpose of completing their
+education. Every American citizen who travels in Italy pays a passport tax
+of ten dollars. In all the ports of the Mediterranean, there is an
+American Vice-Consul, who does not even get the postage paid on his
+dispatches, and to whom the advent of a traveller is of course a welcome
+sight. Misled by a false notion of economy, our government is fast
+becoming proverbial for its meanness. If those of our own citizens who
+represent us abroad only worked as they are paid, and if the foreigners
+who act as Vice-Consuls without pay did not derive some petty trading
+advantages from their position, we should be almost without protection.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With my departure from Spain closes the record of my journey in the Lands
+of the Saracen; for, although I afterwards beheld more perfect types of
+Saracenic Art on the banks of the Jumna and the Ganges, they grew up under
+the great Empire of the descendants of Tamerlane, and were the creations
+of artists foreign to the soil. It would, no doubt, be interesting to
+contrast the remains of Oriental civilization and refinement, as they
+still exist at the extreme eastern and western limits of the Moslem sway,
+and to show how that Art, which had its birth in the capitals of the
+Caliphs--Damascus and Baghdad--attained its most perfect development in
+Spain and India; but my visit to the latter country connects itself
+naturally with my voyage to China, Loo-Choo, and Japan, forming a separate
+and distinct field of travel.
+
+On the 27th of November, the Overland Mail Steamer arrived at Gibraltar,
+and I embarked in her for Alexandria, entering upon another year of even
+more varied, strange, and adventurous experiences, than that which had
+closed. I am almost afraid to ask those patient readers, who have
+accompanied me thus far, to travel with me through another volume; but
+next to the pleasure of seeing the world, comes the pleasure of telling of
+it, and I must needs finish my story.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Lands of the Saracen, by Bayard Taylor
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+<title> The Lands of the Saracen, by Bayard Taylor</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lands of the Saracen, by Bayard Taylor
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lands of the Saracen
+       Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain
+
+Author: Bayard Taylor
+
+Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10924]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LANDS OF THE SARACEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distrbibuted Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h1 class="title">The Lands of the Saracen</h1>
+
+<h2 class="subtitle">or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain.</h2>
+
+<p style="text-align:center" class="smallcaps">by</p>
+
+<h2 class="author">Bayard Taylor.</h2>
+
+<h3>Twentieth Edition.</h3>
+
+
+
+<h4 style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-variant: small-caps">New York:<br />
+G. P. Putnam, 532 Broadway.<br />
+1863</h4>
+
+
+
+
+<p style="text-align: center">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by<br /> <span class="smallcaps">G. P. Putnam &amp;
+Co.</span>,<br /> In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
+the Southern District of New York.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="dedication">
+<h2>To Washington Irving,</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>This book--the chronicle of my travels through lands once occupied by the
+Saracens--naturally dedicates itself to you, who, more than any other
+American author, have revived the traditions, restored the history, and
+illustrated the character of that brilliant and heroic people. Your
+cordial encouragement confirmed me in my design of visiting the East, and
+making myself familiar with Oriental life; and though I bring you now but
+imperfect returns, I can at least unite with you in admiration of a field
+so rich in romantic interest, and indulge the hope that I may one day
+pluck from it fruit instead of blossoms. In Spain, I came upon your track,
+and I should hesitate to exhibit my own gleanings where you have
+harvested, were it not for the belief that the rapid sketches I have given
+will but enhance, by the contrast, the charm of your finished picture.</p>
+
+<p>Bayard Taylor.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="preface">
+<h2>Preface.</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>This volume comprises the second portion of a series of travels, of which
+the "Journey to Central Africa," already published, is the first part. I
+left home, intending to spend a winter in Africa, and to return during the
+following summer; but circumstances afterwards occurred, which prolonged
+my wanderings to nearly two years and a half, and led me to visit many
+remote and unexplored portions of the globe. To describe this journey in a
+single work, would embrace too many incongruous elements, to say nothing
+of its great length, and as it falls naturally into three parts, or
+episodes, of very distinct character, I have judged it best to group my
+experiences under three separate heads, merely indicating the links which
+connect them. This work includes my travels in Palestine, Syria, Asia
+Minor, Sicily and Spain, and will be followed by a third and concluding
+volume, containing my adventures in India, China, the Loo-Choo Islands,
+and Japan. Although many of the letters, contained in this volume,
+describe beaten tracks of travel, I have always given my own individual
+impressions, and may claim for them the merit of entire sincerity. The
+journey from Aleppo to Constantinople, through the heart of Asia Minor,
+illustrates regions rarely traversed by tourists, and will, no doubt, be
+new to most of my readers. My aim, throughout the work, has been to give
+correct pictures of Oriental life and scenery, leaving antiquarian
+research and speculation to abler hands. The scholar, or the man of
+science, may complain with reason that I have neglected valuable
+opportunities for adding something to the stock of human knowledge: but if
+a few of the many thousands, who can only travel by their firesides,
+should find my pages answer the purpose of a series of cosmoramic
+views--should in them behold with a clearer inward eye the hills of
+Palestine, the sun-gilded minarets of Damascus, or the lonely pine-forests
+of Phrygia--should feel, by turns, something of the inspiration and the
+indolence of the Orient--I shall have achieved all I designed, and more
+than I can justly hope.</p>
+
+<p>New York, <i>October</i>, 1854.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="toc">
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch01">Chapter I.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Life in a Syrian Quarantine.</p>
+
+<p class="abs">  Voyage from Alexandria to Beyrout--Landing at Quarantine--The
+  Guardians--Our Quarters--Our Companions--Famine and Feasting--The
+  Morning--The Holy Man of Timbuctoo--Sunday in Quarantine--Islamism--We
+  are Registered--Love through a Grating--Trumpets--The Mystery
+  Explained--Delights of Quarantine--Oriental <i>vs.</i> American
+  Exaggeration--A Discussion of Politics--Our
+  Release--Beyrout--Preparations for the Pilgrimage</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch02">Chapter II.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Coast of Palestine.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Pilgrimage Commences--The Muleteers--The Mules--The Donkey--Journey
+  to Sidon--The Foot of Lebanon--Pictures--The Ruins of Tyre--A Wild
+  Morning--The Tyrian Surges--Climbing the Ladder of Tyre--Panorama of the
+  Bay of Acre--The Plain of Esdraelon--Camp in a Garden--Acre--the Shore
+  of the Bay--Haifa--Mount Carmel and its Monastery--A Deserted Coast--The
+  Ruins of C&aelig;sarea--The Scenery of Palestine--We become Robbers--El
+  Haram--Wrecks--the Harbor and Town of Jaffa.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch03">Chapter III.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>From Jaffa to Jerusalem.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Garden of Jaffa--Breakfast at a Fountain--The Plain of Sharon--The
+  Ruined Mosque of Ramleh--A Judean Landscape--The Streets Ramleh--Am I in
+  Palestine?--A Heavenly Morning--The Land of Milk and Honey--Entering
+  the Hill Country--The Pilgrim's Breakfast--The Father of Lies--A Church
+  of the Crusaders--The Agriculture of the Hills--The Valley of
+  Elah--Day-Dreams--The Wilderness--The Approach--We See the Holy City</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch04">Chapter IV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Dead Sea and the River Jordan.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Bargaining for a Guard---Departure from Jerusalem--The Hill of
+  Offence--Bethany--The Grotto of Lazarus--The Valley of Fire--Scenery of
+  the Wilderness--The Hills of Engaddi--The shore of the Dead Sea--A
+  Bituminous Bath--Gallop to the Jordan--A watch for Robbers--The
+  Jordan--Baptism--The Plains of Jericho--The Fountain of Elisha--The
+  Mount of Temptation--Return to Jerusalem</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch05">Chapter V.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The City of Christ.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Modern Jerusalem--The Site of the City--Mount Zion--Mount Moriah--The
+  Temple--The Valley of Jehosaphat--The Olives of Gethsemane--The Mount
+  of Olives--Moslem Tradition--Panorama from the Summit--The Interior of
+  the City--The Population--Missions and Missionaries--Christianity in
+  Jerusalem--Intolerance--The Jews of Jerusalem--The Face of Christ--The
+  Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Holy of Holies--The Sacred
+  Localities--Visions of Christ--The Mosque of Omar--The Holy Man of
+  Timbuctoo--Preparations for Departure.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch06">Chapter VI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Hill-Country of Palestine.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Leaving Jerusalem--The Tombs of the Kings--El Bireh--The
+  Hill-Country--First View of Mount Hermon--The Tomb of Joseph--Ebal and
+  Gerizim--The Gardens of Nablous--The Samaritans--The Sacred Book--A
+  Scene in the Synagogue--Mentor and Telemachus--Ride to Samaria--The
+  Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
+  Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
+  Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
+  the Annunciation--The Holy Places.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch07">Chapter VII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Country of Galilee.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Departure from Nazareth--A Christian Guide--Ascent of Mount
+  Tabor--Wallachian Hermits--The Panorama of Tabor--Ride to Tiberias--A
+  Bath in Genesareth--The Flowers of Galilee--The Mount of
+  Beatitude--Magdala--Joseph's Well--Meeting with a Turk--The Fountain of
+  the Salt-Works--The Upper Valley of the Jordan--Summer Scenery--The
+  Rivers of Lebanon--Tell el-Kadi--An Arcadian Region--The Fountains of
+  Banias</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch08">Chapter VIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Harmless Guard--C&aelig;sarea Philippi--The Valley of the Druses--The
+  Sides of Mount Hermon--An Alarm--Threading a Defile--Distant view of
+  Djebel Hauaran--Another Alarm--Camp at Katana--We Ride into Damascus</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch09">Chapter IX.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Pictures of Damascus.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
+  Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
+  Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
+  Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
+  of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch10">Chapter X.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Visions of Hasheesh.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch11">Chapter XI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>A Dissertation on Bathing and Bodies.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch12">Chapter XII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Baalbec and Lebanon.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Departure from Damascus--The Fountains of the Pharpar--Pass of the
+  Anti-Lebanon--Adventure with the Druses--The Range of Lebanon--The
+  Demon of Hasheesh departs--Impressions of Baalbec--The Temple of the
+  Sun--Titanic Masonry--The Ruined Mosque--Camp on Lebanon--Rascality of
+  the Guide--The Summit of Lebanon--The Sacred Cedars--The Christians of
+  Lebanon--An Afternoon in Eden--Rugged Travel--We Reach the Coast--Return
+  to Beyrout</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch13">Chapter XIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Pipes and Coffee</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch14">Chapter XIV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Journey to Antioch and Aleppo.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Change of Plans--Routes to Baghdad--Asia Minor--We sail from
+  Beyrout--Yachting on the Syrian Coast--Tartus and Latakiyeh--The Coasts
+  of Syria--The Bay of Suediah--The Mouth of the Orontes--Landing--The
+  Garden of Syria--Ride to Antioch--The Modern City--The Plains of the
+  Orontes--Remains of the Greek Empire--The Ancient Road--The Plain of
+  Keftin--Approach to Aleppo.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch15">Chapter XV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Life in Aleppo.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Our Entry into Aleppo--We are conducted to a House--Our Unexpected
+  Welcome--The Mystery Explained--Aleppo--Its Name--Its Situation--The
+  Trade of Aleppo--The Christians--The Revolt of 1850--Present Appearance
+  of the City--Visit to Osman Pasha--The Citadel--View from the
+  Battlements--Society in Aleppo--Etiquette and Costume--Jewish Marriage
+  Festivities--A Christian Marriage Procession--Ride around the
+  Town--Nightingales--The Aleppo Button--A Hospital for Cats--Ferhat.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch16">Chapter XVI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Through the Syrian Gates.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
+  Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
+  Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
+  Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
+  Town--A Land of Gardens.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch17">Chapter XVII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Adana and Tarsus.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Black Gate--The Plain of Cilicia--A Koord Village--Missis--Cilician
+  Scenery--Arrival at Adana--Three days in Quarantine--We receive
+  Pratique--A Landscape--The Plain of Tarsus--The River Cydnus--A Vision
+  of Cleopatra--Tarsus and its Environs--The <i>Duniktash</i>--The Moon of
+  Ramazan.</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch18">Chapter XVIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Pass of Mount Taurus.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">We enter the Taurus--Turcomans--Forest Scenery--the Palace of Pan--Khan
+  Mezarluk--Morning among the Mountains--The Gorge of the Cydnus--The
+  Crag of the Fortress--The Cilician Grate--Deserted Forts--A Sublime
+  Landscape--The Gorge of the Sihoon--The Second Gate--Camp in the
+  Defile--Sunrise--Journey up the Sihoon--A Change of Scenery--A Pastoral
+  Valley--Kol&uuml; Kushla--A Deserted Khan--A Guest in Ramazan--Flowers--The
+  Plain of Karamania--Barren Hills--The Town of Eregli--The Hadji again</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch19">Chapter XIX.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Plains of Karamania.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Plains of Karamania--Afternoon Heat--A Well--Volcanic
+  Phenomena--Karamania--A Grand Ruined Khan--Moonlight Picture--A
+  Landscape of the Plains--Mirages--A Short Interview--The Village of
+  Ismil--Third Day on the Plains--Approach to Konia</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch20">Chapter XX.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Scenes in Konia.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Approach to Konia--Tomb of Hazret Mevlana--Lodgings in a Khan--An
+  American Luxury--A Night-Scene in Ramazan--Prayers in the
+  Mosque--Remains of the Ancient City--View from the Mosque--The
+  Interior--A Leaning Minaret--The Diverting History of the Muleteers</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch21">Chapter XXI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Heart of Asia Minor.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Scenery of the Hills--Ladik, the Ancient Laodicea--The Plague of
+  Gad-Flies--Camp at Ilg&uuml;n--A Natural Warm Bath--The Gad-Flies Again--A
+  Summer Landscape--Ak-Sheher--The Base of Sultan Dagh--The Fountain of
+  Midas--A Drowsy Journey--The Town of Bolawad&uuml;n</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch22">Chapter XXII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Forests of Phrygia.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Frontier of Phrygia--Ancient Quarries and Tombs--We Enter the Pine
+  Forests--A Guard-House--Encampments of the Turcomans--Pastoral
+  Scenery--A Summer Village--The Valley of the Tombs--Rock Sepulchres of
+  the Phrygian Kings--The Titan's Camp--The Valley of K&uuml;mbeh--A Land of
+  Flowers--Turcoman Hospitality--The Exiled Effendis--The Old Turcoman--A
+  Glimpse of Arcadia--A Landscape--Interested Friendship--The Valley of
+  the Pursek--Arrival at Kiutahya</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch23">Chapter XXIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Kiutahya, and the Ruins of &OElig;zani.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Entrance into Kiutahya--The New Khan--An Unpleasant
+  Discovery--Kiutahya--The Citadel--Panorama from the Walls--The Gorge of
+  the Mountains--Camp in a Meadow--The Valley of the
+  Rhyndacus--Chavd&uuml;r--The Ruins of &OElig;zani--The Acropolis and
+  Temple--The Theatre and Stadium--Ride down the Valley--Camp at Daghjk&ouml;i</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch24">Chapter XXIV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Mysian Olympus.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
+  of Taushanl&uuml;--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
+  Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
+  Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
+  of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghi&ouml;l--A Showery Ride--The
+  Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
+  Furled</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch25">Chapter XXV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
+  Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
+  Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
+  the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
+  Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Ca&iuml;que--Breakfast with
+  the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
+  View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch26">Chapter XXVI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Night of Predestination.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Constantinople in Ramazan--The Origin of the Fast--Nightly
+  Illuminations--The Night of Predestination--The Golden Horn at
+  Night--Illumination of the Shores---The Cannon of Constantinople--A
+  Fiery Panorama--The Sultan's Ca&iuml;que--Close of the Celebration--A Turkish
+  Mob--The Dancing Dervishes</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch27">Chapter XXVII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Solemnities of Bairam.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Appearance of the New Moon--The Festival of Bairam--The Interior of
+  the Seraglio--The Pomp of the Sultan's Court--Reschid Pasha--The
+  Sultan's Dwarf--Arabian Stallions--The Imperial Guard--Appearance of the
+  Sultan--The Inner Court--Return of the Procession--The Sultan on his
+  Throne--The Homage of the Pashas--An Oriental Picture--Kissing the
+  Scarf--The Shekh el-Isl&agrave;m--The Descendant of the Caliphs--Bairam
+  Commences</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch28">Chapter XXVIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Mosques of Constantinople.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Sojourn at Constantinople--Semi-European Character of the City--The
+  Mosque--Procuring a Firman--The Seraglio--The Library--The Ancient
+  Throne-Room--Admittance to St. Sophia--Magnificence of the Interior--The
+  Marvellous Dome--The Mosque of Sultan Achmed--The Sulemanye--Great
+  Conflagrations--Political Meaning of the Fires--Turkish Progress--Decay
+  of the Ottoman Power</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch29">Chapter XXIX.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Farewell to the Orient--Malta.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Embarcation--Farewell to the Orient--Leaving Constantinople--A
+  Wreck--The Dardanelles--Homeric Scenery--Smyrna Revisited--The Grecian
+  Isles--Voyage to Malta--Detention--La Valetta--The Maltese--The
+  Climate--A Boat for Sicily</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch30">Chapter XXX.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Festival of St. Agatha.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Departure from Malta--The Speronara--Our Fellow-Passengers--The First
+  Night on Board--Sicily--Scarcity of Provisions--Beating in the Calabrian
+  Channel--The Fourth Morning--The Gulf of Catania--A Sicilian
+  Landscape--The Anchorage--The Suspected List--The Streets of
+  Catania--Biography of St. Agatha--The Illuminations--The Procession of
+  the Veil--The Biscari Palace--The Antiquities of Catania--The Convent of
+  St. Nicola</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch31">Chapter XXXI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Eruption of Mount Etna.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">The Mountain Threatens--The Signs Increase--We Leave Catania--Gardens
+  Among the Lava--Etna Labors--Aci Reale--The Groans of Etna--The
+  Eruption--Gigantic Tree of Smoke--Formation of the New Crater--We Lose
+  Sight of the Mountain--Arrival at Messina--Etna is Obscured--Departure</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch32">Chapter XXXII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Gibraltar.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
+  Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
+  Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
+  Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch33">Chapter XXXIII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Cadiz and Seville.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
+  Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
+  House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
+  Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar--Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
+  House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
+  Evening in Seville</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch34">Chapter XXXIV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Journey in a Spanish Diligence.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Spanish Diligence Lines--Leaving Seville--An Unlucky Start--Alcal&agrave; of
+  the Bakers--Dinner at Carmona--A Dehesa--The Mayoral and his
+  Team--Ecija--Night Journey--Cordova--The Cathedral-Mosque--Moorish
+  Architecture--The Sierra Morena--A Rainy Journey--A Chapter of
+  Accidents--Baylen--The Fascination of Spain--Jaen--The Vega of Granada</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch35">Chapter XXXV.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>Granada and the Alhambra.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish
+  Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs
+  of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The
+  Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la
+  Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the
+  Fishpond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the Architecture--
+  Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The Moorish Dynasty
+  in Spain</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch36">Chapter XXXVI.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Bridle-Roads of Andalusia.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Change of Weather--Napoleon and his Horses--Departure from Granada--My
+  Guide, Jos&eacute; Garcia--His Domestic Troubles--The Tragedy of the
+  Umbrella--The Vow against Aguardiente--Crossing the Vega--The Sierra
+  Nevada--The Baths of Alhama--"Woe is Me, Alhama!"--The Valley of the
+  River V&eacute;lez--V&eacute;lez Malaga--The Coast Road--The Fisherman and his
+  Donkey--Malaga--Summer Scenery--The Story of Don Pedro, without Fear and
+  without Care--The Field of Monda--A Lonely Venta</p>
+
+
+<p><strong><a href="#ch37">Chapter XXXVII.</a></strong></p>
+
+<p>The Mountains of Fonda.</p>
+
+  <p class="abs">Orange Valleys--Climbing the Mountains--Jos&eacute;'s Hospitality--El
+  Burgo--The Gate of the Wind--The Cliff and Cascades of Ronda--The
+  Mountain Region--Traces of the Moors--Haunts of Robbers--A Stormy
+  Ride--The Inn at Gaucin--Bad News--A Boyish Auxiliary--Descent from the
+  Mountains--The Ford of the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
+  Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with Jos&eacute;--Travelling
+  in Spain--Conclusion</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h1>The Lands of the Saracen</h1>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch01">
+<h2>Chapter I.</h2>
+
+<h3>Life in a Syrian Quarantine.</h3>
+
+<p class="abs">  Voyage from Alexandria to Beyrout--Landing at Quarantine--The
+  Guardiano--Our Quarters--Our Companions--Famine and Feasting--The
+  Morning--The Holy Man of Timbuctoo--Sunday in Quarantine--Islamism--We
+  are Registered--Love through a Grating--Trumpets--The Mystery
+  Explained--Delights of Quarantine--Oriental <i>vs</i>. American
+  Exaggeration--A Discussion of Politics--Our
+  Release--Beyrout--Preparations for the Pilgrimage.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "The mountains look on Quarantine,
+  And Quarantine looks on the sea."</p>
+
+<p>  Quarantine MS.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>In Quarantine, Beyrout, <i>Saturday, April</i> 17, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Everybody has heard of Quarantine, but in our favored country there are
+many untravelled persons who do not precisely know what it is, and who no
+doubt wonder why it should be such a bugbear to travellers in the Orient.
+I confess I am still somewhat in the same predicament myself, although I
+have already been twenty-four hours in Quarantine. But, as a peculiarity
+of the place is, that one can do nothing, however good a will he has, I
+propose to set down my experiences each day, hoping that I and my readers
+may obtain some insight into the nature of Quarantine, before the term of
+my probation is over.</p>
+
+<p>I left Alexandria on the afternoon of the 14th inst., in company with Mr.
+Carter Harrison, a fellow-countryman, who had joined me in Cairo, for the
+tour through Palestine. We had a head wind, and rough sea, and I remained
+in a torpid state during most of the voyage. There was rain the second
+night; but, when the clouds cleared away yesterday morning, we were
+gladdened by the sight of Lebanon, whose summits glittered with streaks of
+snow. The lower slopes of the mountains were green with fields and
+forests, and Beyrout, when we ran up to it, seemed buried almost out of
+sight, in the foliage of its mulberry groves. The town is built along the
+northern side of a peninsula, which projects about two miles from the main
+line of the coast, forming a road for vessels. In half an hour after our
+arrival, several large boats came alongside, and we were told to get our
+baggage in order and embark for Quarantine. The time necessary to purify a
+traveller arriving from Egypt from suspicion of the plague, is five days,
+but the days of arrival and departure are counted, so that the durance
+amounts to but three full days. The captain of the Osiris mustered the
+passengers together, and informed them that each one would be obliged to
+pay six piastres for the transportation of himself and his baggage. Two
+heavy lighters are now drawn up to the foot of the gangway, but as soon as
+the first box tumbles into them, the men tumble out. They attach the craft
+by cables to two smaller boats, in which they sit, to tow the infected
+loads. We are all sent down together, Jews, Turks, and Christians--a
+confused pile of men, women, children, and goods. A little boat from the
+city, in which there are representatives from the two hotels, hovers
+around us, and cards are thrown to us. The zealous agents wish to supply
+us immediately with tables, beds, and all other household appliances; but
+we decline their help until we arrive at the mysterious spot. At last we
+float off--two lighters full of infected, though respectable, material,
+towed by oarsmen of most scurvy appearance, but free from every suspicion
+of taint.</p>
+
+<p>The sea is still rough, the sun is hot, and a fat Jewess becomes sea-sick.
+An Italian Jew rails at the boatmen ahead, in the Neapolitan patois, for
+the distance is long, the Quarantine being on the land-side of Beyrout. We
+see the rows of little yellow houses on the cliff, and with great apparent
+risk of being swept upon the breakers, are tugged into a small cove, where
+there is a landing-place. Nobody is there to receive us; the boatmen jump
+into the water and push the lighters against the stone stairs, while we
+unload our own baggage. A tin cup filled with sea-water is placed before
+us, and we each drop six piastres into it--for money, strange as it may
+seem, is infectious. By this time, the <i>guardianos</i> have had notice of our
+arrival, and we go up with them to choose our habitations. There are
+several rows of one-story houses overlooking the sea, each containing two
+empty rooms, to be had for a hundred piastres; but a square two-story
+dwelling stands apart from them, and the whole of it may be had for thrice
+that sum. There are seven Frank prisoners, and we take it for ourselves.
+But the rooms are bare, the kitchen empty, and we learn the important
+fact, that Quarantine is durance vile, without even the bread and water.
+The guardiano says the agents of the hotel are at the gate, and we can
+order from them whatever we want. Certainly; but at their own price, for
+we are wholly at their mercy. However, we go down stairs, and the chief
+officer, who accompanies us, gets into a corner as we pass, and holds a
+stick before him to keep us off. He is now clean, but if his garments
+brush against ours, he is lost. The people we meet in the grounds step
+aside with great respect to let us pass, but if we offer them our hands,
+no one would dare to touch a finger's tip.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the gate: a double screen of wire, with an interval between, so
+that contact is impossible. There is a crowd of individuals outside, all
+anxious to execute commissions. Among them is the agent of the hotel, who
+proposes to fill our bare rooms with furniture, send us a servant and
+cook, and charge us the same as if we lodged with him. The bargain is
+closed at once, and he hurries off to make the arrangements. It is now
+four o'clock, and the bracing air of the headland gives a terrible
+appetite to those of us who, like me, have been sea-sick and fasting for
+forty-eight hours. But there is no food within the Quarantine except a
+patch of green wheat, and a well in the limestone rock. We two Americans
+join company with our room-mate, an Alexandrian of Italian parentage, who
+has come to Beyrout to be married, and make the tour of our territory.
+There is a path along the cliffs overhanging the sea, with glorious views
+of Lebanon, up to his snowy top, the pine-forests at his base, and the
+long cape whereon the city lies at full length, reposing beside the waves.
+The Mahommedans and Jews, in companies of ten (to save expense), are
+lodged in the smaller dwellings, where they have already aroused millions
+of fleas from their state of torpid expectancy. We return, and take a
+survey of our companions in the pavilion: a French woman, with two ugly
+and peevish children (one at the breast), in the next room, and three
+French gentlemen in the other--a merchant, a young man with hair of
+extraordinary length, and a <i>filateur</i>, or silk-manufacturer, middle-aged
+and cynical. The first is a gentleman in every sense of the word, the
+latter endurable, but the young Absalom is my aversion, I am subject to
+involuntary likings and dislikings, for which I can give no reason, and
+though the man may be in every way amiable, his presence is very
+distasteful to me.</p>
+
+<p>We take a pipe of consolation, but it only whets our appetites. We give up
+our promenade, for exercise is still worse; and at last the sun goes down,
+and yet no sign of dinner. Our pavilion becomes a Tower of Famine, and the
+Italian recites Dante. Finally a strange face appears at the door. By
+Apicius! it is a servant from the hotel, with iron bedsteads, camp-tables,
+and some large chests, which breathe an odor of the Commissary Department.
+We go stealthily down to the kitchen, and watch the unpacking. Our dinner
+is there, sure enough, but alas! it is not yet cooked. Patience is no
+more; my companion manages to filch a raw onion and a crust of bread,
+which we share, and roll under our tongues as a sweet morsel, and it gives
+us strength for another hour. The Greek dragoman and cook, who are sent
+into Quarantine for our sakes, take compassion on us; the fires are
+kindled in the cold furnaces; savory steams creep up the stairs; the
+preparations increase, and finally climax in the rapturous announcement:
+"Messieurs, dinner is ready." The soup is liquified bliss; the <i>cotelettes
+d'agneau</i> are <i>cotelettes de bonheur</i>; and as for that broad dish of
+Syrian larks--Heaven forgive us the regret, that more songs had not been
+silenced for our sake! The meal is all nectar and ambrosia, and now,
+filled and contented, we subside into sleep on comfortable couches. So
+closes the first day of our incarceration.</p>
+
+<p>This morning dawned clear and beautiful. Lebanon, except his snowy crest,
+was wrapped in the early shadows, but the Mediterranean gleamed like a
+shield of sapphire, and Beyrout, sculptured against the background of its
+mulberry groves, was glorified beyond all other cities. The turf around
+our pavilion fairly blazed with the splendor of the yellow daisies and
+crimson poppies that stud it. I was satisfied with what I saw, and felt no
+wish to leave Quarantine to-day. Our Italian friend, however, is more
+impatient. His betrothed came early to see him, and we were edified by the
+great alacrity with which he hastened to the grate, to renew his vows at
+two yards' distance from her. In the meantime, I went down to the Turkish
+houses, to cultivate the acquaintance of a singular character I met on
+board the steamer. He is a negro of six feet four, dressed in a long
+scarlet robe. His name is Mahommed Senoosee, and he is a <i>fakeer</i>, or holy
+man, from Timbuctoo. He has been two years absent from home, on a
+pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and is now on his way to Jerusalem and
+Damascus. He has travelled extensively in all parts of Central Africa,
+from Dar-Fur to Ashantee, and professes to be on good terms with the
+Sultans of Houssa and Bornou. He has even been in the great kingdom of
+Waday, which has never been explored by Europeans, and as far south as
+Iola, the capital of Adamowa. Of the correctness of his narrations I have
+not the least doubt, as they correspond geographically with all that we
+know of the interior of Africa. In answer to my question whether a
+European might safely make the same tour, he replied that there would be
+no difficulty, provided he was accompanied by a native, and he offered to
+take me even to Timbuctoo, if I would return with him. He was very curious
+to obtain information about America, and made notes of all that I told
+him, in the quaint character used by the Mughrebbins, or Arabs of the
+West, which has considerable resemblance to the ancient Cufic. He wishes
+to join company with me for the journey to Jerusalem, and perhaps I shall
+accept him.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>Sunday, April</i> 18.</h4>
+
+<p>As Quarantine is a sort of limbo, without the pale of civilized society,
+we have no church service to-day. We have done the best we could, however,
+in sending one of the outside dragomen to purchase a Bible, in which we
+succeeded. He brought us a very handsome copy, printed by the American
+Bible Society in New York. I tried vainly in Cairo and Alexandria to find
+a missionary who would supply my heathenish destitution of the Sacred
+Writings; for I had reached the East through Austria, where they are
+prohibited, and to travel through Palestine without them, would be like
+sailing without pilot or compass. It gives a most impressive reality to
+Solomon's "house of the forest of Lebanon," when you can look up from the
+page to those very forests and those grand mountains, "excellent with the
+cedars." Seeing the holy man of Timbuctoo praying with his face towards
+Mecca, I went down to him, and we conversed for a long time on religious
+matters. He is tolerably well informed, having read the Books of Moses and
+the Psalms of David, but, like all Mahommedans, his ideas of religion
+consist mainly of forms, and its reward is a sensual paradise. The more
+intelligent of the Moslems give a spiritual interpretation to the nature
+of the Heaven promised by the Prophet, and I have heard several openly
+confess their disbelief in the seventy houries and the palaces of pearl
+and emerald. Shekh Mahommed Senoosee scarcely ever utters a sentence in
+which is not the word "Allah," and "La illah il' Allah" is repeated at
+least every five minutes. Those of his class consider that there is a
+peculiar merit in the repetition of the names and attributes of God. They
+utterly reject the doctrine of the Trinity, which they believe implies a
+sort of partnership, or God-firm (to use their own words), and declare
+that all who accept it are hopelessly damned. To deny Mahomet's
+prophetship would excite a violent antagonism, and I content myself with
+making them acknowledge that God is greater than all Prophets or Apostles,
+and that there is but one God for all the human race. I have never yet
+encountered that bitter spirit of bigotry which is so frequently ascribed
+to them; but on the contrary, fully as great a tolerance as they would
+find exhibited towards them by most of the Christian sects.</p>
+
+<p>This morning a paper was sent to us, on which we were requested to write
+our names, ages, professions, and places of nativity. We conjectured that
+we were subjected to the suspicion of political as well as physical taint,
+but happily this was not the case. I registered myself as a <i>voyageur</i>,
+the French as <i>negocians</i> and when it came to the woman's turn, Absalom,
+who is a partisan of female progress, wished to give her the same
+profession as her husband--a machinist. But she declared that her only
+profession was that of a "married woman," and she was so inscribed. Her
+peevish boy rejoiced in the title of "<i>pleuricheur</i>," or "weeper," and the
+infant as "<i>titeuse</i>," or "sucker." While this was going on, the
+guardiano of our room came in very mysteriously, and beckoned to my
+companion, saying that "Mademoiselle was at the gate." But it was the
+Italian who was wanted, and again, from the little window of our pavilion,
+we watched his hurried progress over the lawn. No sooner had she departed,
+than he took his pocket telescope, slowly sweeping the circuit of the bay
+as she drew nearer and nearer Beyrout. He has succeeded in distinguishing,
+among the mass of buildings, the top of the house in which she lives, but
+alas! it is one story too low, and his patient espial has only been
+rewarded by the sight of some cats promenading on the roof.</p>
+
+<p>I have succeeded in obtaining some further particulars in relation to
+Quarantine. On the night of our arrival, as we were about getting into our
+beds, a sudden and horrible gush of brimstone vapor came up stairs, and we
+all fell to coughing like patients in a pulmonary hospital. The odor
+increased till we were obliged to open the windows and sit beside them in
+order to breathe comfortably. This was the preparatory fumigation, in
+order to remove the ranker seeds of plague, after which the milder
+symptoms will of themselves vanish in the pure air of the place. Several
+times a day we are stunned and overwhelmed with the cracked brays of three
+discordant trumpets, as grating and doleful as the last gasps of a dying
+donkey. At first I supposed the object of this was to give a greater
+agitation to the air, and separate and shake down the noxious exhalations
+we emit; but since I was informed that the soldiers outside would shoot us
+in case we attempted to escape, I have concluded that the sound is meant
+to alarm us, and prevent our approaching too near the walls. On inquiring
+of our guardiano whether the wheat growing within the grounds was subject
+to Quarantine, he informed me that it did not ecovey infection, and that
+three old geese, who walked out past the guard with impunity, were free to
+go and come, as they had never been known to have the plague. Yesterday
+evening the medical attendant, a Polish physician, came in to inspect us,
+but he made a very hasty review, looking down on us from the top of a high
+horse.</p>
+
+
+<h4><i>Monday, April</i> 19.</h4>
+
+<p>Eureka! the whole thing is explained. Talking to day with the guardiano,
+he happened to mention that he had been three years in Quarantine, keeping
+watch over infected travellers. "What!" said I, "you have been sick three
+years." "Oh no," he replied; "I have never been sick at all." "But are not
+people sick in Quarantine?" "<i>Stafferillah!</i>" he exclaimed; "they are
+always in better health than the people outside." "What is Quarantine for,
+then?" I persisted. "What is it for?" he repeated, with a pause of blank
+amazement at my ignorance, "why, to get money from the travellers!"
+Indiscreet guardiano! It were better to suppose ourselves under suspicion
+of the plague, than to have such an explanation of the mystery. Yet, in
+spite of the unpalatable knowledge, I almost regret that this is our last
+day in the establishment. The air is so pure and bracing, the views from
+our windows so magnificent, the colonized branch of the Beyrout Hotel so
+comfortable, that I am content to enjoy this pleasant idleness--the more
+pleasant since, being involuntary, it is no weight on the conscience. I
+look up to the Maronite villages, perched on the slopes of Lebanon, with
+scarce a wish to climb to them, or turning to the sparkling Mediterranean,
+view</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "The speronara's sail of snowy hue<br />
+  Whitening and brightening on that field of blue,"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>and have none of that unrest which the sight of a vessel in motion
+suggests.</p>
+
+<p>To-day my friend from Timbuctoo came up to have another talk. He was
+curious to know the object of my travels, and as he would not have
+comprehended the exact truth, I was obliged to convey it to him through
+the medium of fiction. I informed him that I had been dispatched by the
+Sultan of my country to obtain information of the countries of Africa;
+that I wrote in a book accounts of everything I saw, and on my return,
+would present this book to the Sultan, who would reward me with a high
+rank--perhaps even that of Grand Vizier. The Orientals deal largely in
+hyperbole, and scatter numbers and values with the most reckless
+profusion. The Arabic, like the Hebrew, its sister tongue, and other old
+original tongues of Man, is a language of roots, and abounds with the
+boldest metaphors. Now, exaggeration is but the imperfect form of
+metaphor. The expression is always a splendid amplification of the simple
+fact. Like skilful archers, in order to hit the mark, they aim above it.
+When you have once learned his standard of truth, you can readily gauge an
+Arab's expressions, and regulate your own accordingly. But whenever I have
+attempted to strike the key-note myself, I generally found that it was
+below, rather than above, the Oriental pitch.</p>
+
+<p>The Shekh had already informed me that the King of Ashantee, whom he had
+visited, possessed twenty-four houses full of gold, and that the Sultan of
+Houssa had seventy thousand horses always standing saddled before his
+palace, in order that he might take his choice, when he wished to ride
+out. By this he did not mean that the facts were precisely so, but only
+that the King was very rich, and the Sultan had a great many horses. In
+order to give the Shekh an idea of the great wealth and power of the
+American Nation, I was obliged to adopt the same plan. I told him,
+therefore, that our country was two years' journey in extent, that the
+Treasury consisted of four thousand houses filled to the roof with gold,
+and that two hundred thousand soldiers on horseback kept continual guard
+around Sultan Fillmore's palace. He received these tremendous statements
+with the utmost serenity and satisfaction, carefully writing them in his
+book, together with the name of Sultan Fillmore, whose fame has ere this
+reached the remote regions of Timbuctoo. The Shekh, moreover, had the
+desire of visiting England, and wished me to give him a letter to the
+English Sultan. This rather exceeded my powers, but I wrote a simple
+certificate explaining who he was, and whence he came, which I sealed with
+an immense display of wax, and gave him. In return, he wrote his name in
+my book, in the Mughrebbin character, adding the sentence: "There is no
+God but God."</p>
+
+<p>This evening the forbidden subject of politics crept into our quiet
+community, and the result was an explosive contention which drowned even
+the braying of the agonizing trumpets outside. The gentlemanly Frenchman
+is a sensible and consistent republican, the old <i>filateur</i> a violent
+monarchist, while Absalom, as I might have foreseen, is a Red, of the
+schools of Proudhon and Considerant. The first predicted a Republic in
+France, the second a Monarchy in America, and the last was in favor of a
+general and total demolition of all existing systems. Of course, with such
+elements, anything like a serious discussion was impossible; and, as in
+most French debates, it ended in a bewildering confusion of cries and
+gesticulations. In the midst of it, I was struck by the cordiality with
+which the Monarchist and the Socialist united in their denunciations of
+England and the English laws. As they sat side by side, pouring out
+anathemas against "perfide Albion," I could not help exclaiming: "<i>Voil&agrave;,
+comme les extr&ecirc;mes se rencontrent</i>!" This turned the whole current of
+their wrath against me, and I was glad to make a hasty retreat.</p>
+
+<p>The physician again visited us to-night, to promise a release to-morrow
+morning. He looked us all in the faces, to be certain that there were no
+signs of pestilence, and politely regretted that he could not offer us his
+hand. The husband of the "married woman" also came, and relieved the other
+gentlemen from the charge of the "weeper." He was a stout, ruddy
+Proven&ccedil;al, in a white blouse, and I commiserated him sincerely for having
+such a disagreeable wife.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, being the last of our imprisonment, we have received many tokens
+of attention from dragomen, who have sent their papers through the grate
+to us, to be returned to-morrow after our liberation. They are not very
+prepossessing specimens of their class, with the exception of Yusef Badra,
+who brings a recommendation from my friend, Ross Browne. Yusef is a
+handsome, dashing fellow, with something of the dandy in his dress and
+air, but he has a fine, clear, sparkling eye, with just enough of the
+devil in it to make him attractive. I think, however, that, the Greek
+dragoman, who has been our companion in Quarantine, will carry the day. He
+is by birth a Boeotian, but now a citizen of Athens, and calls himself
+Fran&ccedil;ois Vitalis. He speaks French, German, and Italian, besides Arabic
+and Turkish, and as he has been for twelve or fifteen years vibrating
+between Europe and the East, he must by this time have amassed sufficient
+experience to answer the needs of rough-and-tumble travellers like
+ourselves. He has not asked us for the place, which displays so much
+penetration on his part, that we shall end by offering it to him. Perhaps
+he is content to rest his claims upon the memory of our first Quarantine
+dinner. If so, the odors of the cutlets and larks--even of the raw onion,
+which we remember with tears--shall not plead his cause in vain.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Beyrout (out of Quarantine), <i>Wednesday, May</i> 21.</h4>
+
+<p>The handsome Greek, Diamanti, one of the proprietors of the "Hotel de
+Belle Vue," was on hand bright and early yesterday morning, to welcome us
+out of Quarantine. The gates were thrown wide, and forth we issued between
+two files of soldiers, rejoicing in our purification. We walked through
+mulberry orchards to the town, and through its steep and crooked streets
+to the hotel, which stands beyond, near the extremity of the Cape, or Ras
+Beyrout. The town is small, but has an active population, and a larger
+commerce than any other port in Syria. The anchorage, however, is an open
+road, and in stormy weather it is impossible for a boat to land. There are
+two picturesque old castles on some rocks near the shore, but they were
+almost destroyed by the English bombardment in 1841. I noticed two or
+three granite columns, now used as the lintels of some of the arched ways
+in the streets, and other fragments of old masonry, the only remains of
+the ancient Berytus.</p>
+
+<p>Our time, since our release, has been occupied by preparations for the
+journey to Jerusalem. We have taken Fran&ccedil;ois as dragoman, and our
+<i>mukkairee</i>, or muleteers, are engaged to be in readiness to-morrow
+morning. I learn that the Druses are in revolt in Djebel Hauaran and parts
+of the Anti-Lebanon, which will prevent my forming any settled plan for
+the tour through Palestine and Syria. Up to this time, the country has
+been considered quite safe, the only robbery this winter having been that
+of the party of Mr. Degen, of New York, which was plundered near Tiberias.
+Dr. Robinson left here two weeks ago for Jerusalem, in company with Dr.
+Eli Smith, of the American Mission at this place.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch02">
+<h2>Chapter II.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Coast of Palestine.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Pilgrimage Commences--The Muleteers--The Mules--The Donkey--Journey
+  to Sidon--The Foot of Lebanon--Pictures--The Ruins of Tyre--A Wild
+  Morning--The Tyrian Surges--Climbing the Ladder of Tyre--Panorama of the
+  Bay of Acre--The Plain of Esdraelon--Camp in a Garden--Acre--the Shore
+  of the Bay--Haifa--Mount Carmel and its Monastery--A Deserted Coast--The
+  Ruins of C&aelig;sarea--The Scenery of Palestine--We become Robbers--El
+  Haram--Wrecks--the Harbor and Town of Jaffa.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Along the line of foam, the jewelled chain,
+  The largesse of the ever-giving main."</p>
+
+<p>R. H. Stoddard.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Ramleh, <i>April</i> 27, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We left Beyrout on the morning of the 22d. Our caravan consisted of three
+horses, three mules, and a donkey, in charge of two men--Dervish, an
+erect, black-bearded, and most impassive Mussulman, and Mustapha, who is
+the very picture of patience and good-nature. He was born with a smile on
+his face, and has never been able to change the expression. They are both
+masters of their art, and can load a mule with a speed and skill which I
+would defy any Santa F&eacute; trader to excel. The animals are not less
+interesting than their masters. Our horses, to be sure, are slow, plodding
+beasts, with considerable endurance, but little spirit; but the two
+baggage mules deserve gold medals from the Society for the Promotion of
+Industry. I can overlook any amount of waywardness in the creatures, in
+consideration of the steady, persevering energy, the cheerfulness and even
+enthusiasm with which they perform their duties. They seem to be conscious
+that they are doing well, and to take a delight in the consciousness. One
+of them has a band of white shells around his neck, fastened with a tassel
+and two large blue beads; and you need but look at him to see that he is
+aware how becoming it is. He thinks it was given to him for good conduct,
+and is doing his best to merit another. The little donkey is a still more
+original animal. He is a practical humorist, full of perverse tricks, but
+all intended for effect, and without a particle of malice. He generally
+walks behind, running off to one side or the other to crop a mouthful of
+grass, but no sooner does Dervish attempt to mount him, than he sets off
+at full gallop, and takes the lead of the caravan. After having performed
+one of his feats, he turns around with a droll glance at us, as much as to
+say: "Did you see that?" If we had not been present, most assuredly he
+would never have done it. I can imagine him, after his return to Beyrout,
+relating his adventures to a company of fellow-donkeys, who every now and
+then burst into tremendous brays at some of his irresistible dry sayings.</p>
+
+<p>I persuaded Mr. Harrison to adopt the Oriental costume, which, from five
+months' wear in Africa, I greatly preferred to the Frank. We therefore
+rode out of Beyrout as a pair of Syrian Beys, while Fran&ccedil;ois, with his
+belt, sabre, and pistols had much the aspect of a Greek brigand. The road
+crosses the hill behind the city, between the Forest of Pines and a long
+tract of red sand-hills next the sea. It was a lovely morning, not too
+bright and hot, for light, fleecy vapors hung along the sides of Lebanon.
+Beyond the mulberry orchards, we entered on wild, half-cultivated tracts,
+covered with a bewildering maze of blossoms. The hill-side and stony
+shelves of soil overhanging the sea fairly blazed with the brilliant dots
+of color which were rained upon them. The pink, the broom, the poppy, the
+speedwell, the lupin, that beautiful variety of the cyclamen, called by
+the Syrians "<i>deek e-djebel</i>" (cock o' the mountain), and a number of
+unknown plants dazzled the eye with their profusion, and loaded the air
+with fragrance as rare as it was unfailing. Here and there, clear, swift
+rivulets came down from Lebanon, coursing their way between thickets of
+blooming oleanders. Just before crossing the little river Damoor, Fran&ccedil;ois
+pointed out, on one of the distant heights, the residence of the late Lady
+Hester Stanhope. During the afternoon we crossed several offshoots of the
+Lebanon, by paths incredibly steep and stony, and towards evening reached
+Sa&iuml;da, the ancient Sidon, where we obtained permission to pitch our tent
+in a garden. The town is built on a narrow point of land, jutting out from
+the centre of a bay, or curve in the coast, and contains about five
+thousand inhabitants. It is a quiet, sleepy sort of a place, and contains
+nothing of the old Sidon except a few stones and the fragments of a mole,
+extending into the sea. The fortress in the water, and the Citadel, are
+remnants of Venitian sway. The clouds gathered after nightfall, and
+occasionally there was a dash of rain on our tent. But I heard it with the
+same quiet happiness, as when, in boyhood, sleeping beneath the rafters, I
+have heard the rain beating all night upon the roof. I breathed the sweet
+breath of the grasses whereon my carpet was spread, and old Mother Earth,
+welcoming me back to her bosom, cradled me into calm and refreshing
+sleep. There is no rest more grateful than that which we take on the turf
+or the sand, except the rest below it.</p>
+
+<p>We rose in a dark and cloudy morning, and continued our way between fields
+of barley, completely stained with the bloody hue of the poppy, and
+meadows turned into golden mosaic by a brilliant yellow daisy. Until noon
+our road was over a region of alternate meadow land and gentle though
+stony elevations, making out from Lebanon. We met continually with
+indications of ancient power and prosperity. The ground was strewn with
+hewn blocks, and the foundations of buildings remain in many places.
+Broken sarcophagi lie half-buried in grass, and the gray rocks of the
+hills are pierced with tombs. The soil, though stony, appeared to be
+naturally fertile, and the crops of wheat, barley, and lentils were very
+flourishing. After rounding the promontory which forms the southern
+boundary of the Gulf of Sidon, we rode for an hour or two over a plain
+near the sea, and then came down to a valley which ran up among the hills,
+terminating in a natural amphitheatre. An ancient barrow, or tumulus,
+nobody knows of whom, stands near the sea. During the day I noticed two
+charming little pictures. One, a fountain gushing into a broad square
+basin of masonry, shaded by three branching cypresses. Two Turks sat on
+its edge, eating their bread and curdled milk, while their horses drank
+out of the stone trough below. The other, an old Mahommedan, with a green
+turban and white robe, seated at the foot of a majestic sycamore, over the
+high bank of a stream that tumbled down its bed of white marble rock to
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The plain back of the narrow, sandy promontory on which the modern Soor
+is built, is a rich black loam, which a little proper culture would turn
+into a very garden. It helped me to account for the wealth of ancient
+Tyre. The approach to the town, along a beach on which the surf broke with
+a continuous roar, with the wreck of a Greek vessel in the foreground, and
+a stormy sky behind, was very striking. It was a wild, bleak picture, the
+white minarets of the town standing out spectrally against the clouds. We
+rode up the sand-hills, back of the town, and selected a good
+camping-place among the ruins of Tyre. Near us there was an ancient square
+building, now used as a cistern, and filled with excellent fresh water.
+The surf roared tremendously on the rocks, on either hand, and the boom of
+the more distant breakers came to my ear like the wind in a pine forest.
+The remains of the ancient sea-wall are still to be traced for the entire
+circuit of the city, and the heavy surf breaks upon piles of shattered
+granite columns. Along a sort of mole, protecting an inner harbor on the
+north side, are great numbers of these columns. I counted fifteen in one
+group, some of them fine red granite, and some of the marble of Lebanon.
+The remains of the pharos and the fortresses strengthening the sea-wall,
+were pointed out by the Syrian who accompanied us as a guide, but his
+faith was a little stronger than mine. He even showed us the ruins of the
+jetty built by Alexander, by means of which the ancient city, then
+insulated by the sea, was taken. The remains of the causeway gradually
+formed the promontory by which the place is now connected with the main
+land. These are the principal indications of Tyre above ground, but the
+guide informed us that the Arabs, in digging among the sand-hills for the
+stones of the old buildings, which they quarry out and ship to Beyrout,
+come upon chambers, pillars, arches, and other objects. The Tyrian purple
+is still furnished by a muscle found upon the coast, but Tyre is now only
+noted for its tobacco and mill-stones. I saw many of the latter lying in
+the streets of the town, and an Arab was selling a quantity at auction in
+the square, as we passed. They are cut out from a species of dark volcanic
+rock, by the Bedouins of the mountains. There were half a dozen small
+coasting vessels lying in the road, but the old harbors are entirely
+destroyed. Isaiah's prophecy is literally fulfilled: "Howl, ye ships of
+Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering
+in."</p>
+
+<p>On returning from our ramble we passed the house of the Governor, Daood
+Agha, who was dispensing justice in regard to a lawsuit then before him.
+He asked us to stop and take coffee, and received us with much grace and
+dignity. As we rose to leave, a slave brought me a large bunch of choice
+flowers from his garden.</p>
+
+<p>We set out from Tyre at an early hour, and rode along the beach around the
+head of the bay to the Ras-el-Abiad, the ancient Promontorium Album. The
+morning was wild and cloudy, with gleams of sunshine that flashed out over
+the dark violet gloom of the sea. The surf was magnificent, rolling up in
+grand billows, which broke and formed again, till the last of the long,
+falling fringes of snow slid seething up the sand. Something of ancient
+power was in their shock and roar, and every great wave that plunged and
+drew back again, called in its solemn bass: "Where are the ships of Tyre?
+where are the ships of Tyre?" I looked back on the city, which stood
+advanced far into the sea, her feet bathed in thunderous spray. By and by
+the clouds cleared away, the sun came out bold and bright, and our road
+left the beach for a meadowy plain, crossed by fresh streams, and sown
+with an inexhaustible wealth of flowers. Through thickets of myrtle and
+mastic, around which the rue and lavender grew in dense clusters, we
+reached the foot of the mountain, and began ascending the celebrated
+Ladder of Tyre. The road is so steep as to resemble a staircase, and
+climbs along the side of the promontory, hanging over precipices of naked
+white rock, in some places three hundred feet in height. The mountain is a
+mass of magnesian limestone, with occasional beds of marble. The surf has
+worn its foot into hollow caverns, into which the sea rushes with a dull,
+heavy boom, like distant thunder. The sides are covered with thickets of
+broom, myrtle, arbutus, ilex, mastic and laurel, overgrown with woodbine,
+and interspersed with patches of sage, lavender, hyssop, wild thyme, and
+rue. The whole mountain is a heap of balm; a bundle of sweet spices.</p>
+
+<p>Our horses' hoofs clattered up and down the rounds of the ladder, and we
+looked our last on Tyre, fading away behind the white hem of the breakers,
+as we turned the point of the promontory. Another cove of the
+mountain-coast followed, terminated by the Cape of Nakhura, the northern
+point of the Bay of Acre. We rode along a stony way between fields of
+wheat and barley, blotted almost out of sight by showers of scarlet
+poppies and yellow chrysanthemums. There were frequent ruins: fragments of
+sarcophagi, foundations of houses, and about half way between the two
+capes, the mounds of Alexandro-Sch&oelig;n&aelig;. We stopped at a khan, and
+breakfasted under a magnificent olive tree, while two boys tended our
+horses to see that they ate only the edges of the wheat field. Below the
+house were two large cypresses, and on a little tongue of land the ruins
+of one of those square towers of the corsairs, which line all this coast.
+The intense blue of the sea, seen close at hand over a broad field of
+goldening wheat, formed a dazzling and superb contrast of color. Early in
+the afternoon we climbed the Ras Nakhura, not so bold and grand, though
+quite as flowery a steep as the Promontorium Album. We had been jogging
+half an hour over its uneven summit, when the side suddenly fell away
+below us, and we saw the whole of the great gulf and plain of Acre, backed
+by the long ridge of Mount Carmel. Behind the sea, which makes a deep
+indentation in the line of the coast, extended the plain, bounded on the
+east, at two leagues' distance, by a range of hills covered with luxuriant
+olive groves, and still higher, by the distant mountains of Galilee. The
+fortifications of Acre were visible on a slight promontory near the middle
+of the Gulf. From our feet the line of foamy surf extended for miles along
+the red sand-beach, till it finally became like a chalk-mark on the edge
+of the field of blue.</p>
+
+<p>We rode down the mountain and continued our journey over the plain of
+Esdraelon--a picture of summer luxuriance and bloom. The waves of wheat
+and barley rolled away from our path to the distant olive orchards; here
+the water gushed from a stone fountain and flowed into a turf-girdled
+pool, around which the Syrian women were washing their garments; there, a
+garden of orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees in blossom, was a
+spring of sweet odors, which overflowed the whole land. We rode into some
+of these forests, for they were no less, and finally pitched our tent in
+one of them, belonging to the palace of the former Abdallah Pasha, within
+a mile of Acre. The old Saracen aqueduct, which still conveys water to
+the town, overhung our tent. For an hour before reaching our destination,
+we had seen it on the left, crossing the hollows on light stone arches. In
+one place I counted fifty-eight, and in another one hundred and three of
+these arches, some of which were fifty feet high. Our camp was a charming
+place: a nest of deep herbage, under two enormous fig-trees, and
+surrounded by a balmy grove of orange and citron. It was doubly beautiful
+when the long line of the aqueduct was lit up by the moon, and the orange
+trees became mounds of ambrosial darkness.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning we rode to Acre, the fortifications of which have been
+restored on the land-side. A ponderous double gateway of stone admitted us
+into the city, through what was once, apparently, the court-yard of a
+fortress. The streets of the town are narrow, terribly rough, and very
+dirty, but the bazaars are extensive and well stocked. The principal
+mosque, whose heavy dome is visible at some distance from the city, is
+surrounded with a garden, enclosed by a pillared corridor, paved with
+marble. All the houses of the city are built in the most massive style, of
+hard gray limestone or marble, and this circumstance alone prevented their
+complete destruction during the English bombardment in 1841. The marks of
+the shells are everywhere seen, and the upper parts of the lofty buildings
+are completely riddled with cannon-balls, some of which remain embedded in
+the stone. We made a rapid tour of the town on horseback, followed by the
+curious glances of the people, who were in doubt whether to consider us
+Turks or Franks. There were a dozen vessels in the harbor, which is
+considered the best in Syria.</p>
+
+<p>The baggage-mules had gone on, so we galloped after them along the hard
+beach, around the head of the bay. It was a brilliant morning; a
+delicious south-eastern breeze came to us over the flowery plain of
+Esdraelon; the sea on our right shone blue, and purple, and violet-green,
+and black, as the shadows or sunshine crossed it, and only the long lines
+of roaring foam, for ever changing in form, did not vary in hue. A
+fisherman stood on the beach in a statuesque attitude, his handsome bare
+legs bathed in the frothy swells, a bag of fish hanging from his shoulder,
+and the large square net, with its sinkers of lead in his right hand,
+ready for a cast. He had good luck, for the waves brought up plenty of
+large fish, and cast them at our feet, leaving them to struggle back into
+the treacherous brine. Between Acre and Haifa we passed six or eight
+wrecks, mostly of small trading vessels. Some were half buried in sand,
+some so old and mossy that they were fast rotting away, while a few had
+been recently hurled there. As we rounded the deep curve of the bay, and
+approached the line of palm-trees girding the foot of Mount Carmel, Haifa,
+with its wall and Saracenic town in ruin on the hill above, grew more
+clear and bright in the sun, while Acre dipped into the blue of the
+Mediterranean. The town of Haifa, the ancient Caiapha, is small, dirty,
+and beggarly looking; but it has some commerce, sharing the trade of Acre
+in the productions of Syria. It was Sunday, and all the Consular flags
+were flying. It was an unexpected delight to find the American colors in
+this little Syrian town, flying from one of the tallest poles. The people
+stared at us as we passed, and I noticed among them many bright Frankish
+faces, with eyes too clear and gray for Syria. O ye kind brothers of the
+monastery of Carmel! forgive me if I look to you for an explanation of
+this phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>We ascended to Mount Carmel. The path led through a grove of carob trees,
+from which the beans, known in Germany as St. John's bread, are produced.
+After this we came into an olive grove at the foot of the mountain, from
+which long fields of wheat, giving forth a ripe summer smell, flowed down
+to the shore of the bay. The olive trees were of immense size, and I can
+well believe, as Fra Carlo informed us, that they were probably planted by
+the Roman colonists, established there by Titus. The gnarled, veteran
+boles still send forth vigorous and blossoming boughs. There were all
+manner of lovely lights and shades chequered over the turf and the winding
+path we rode. At last we reached the foot of an ascent, steeper than the
+Ladder of Tyre. As our horses slowly climbed to the Convent of St. Elijah,
+whence we already saw the French flag floating over the shoulder of the
+mountain, the view opened grandly to the north and east, revealing the bay
+and plain of Acre, and the coast as far as Ras Nakhura, from which we
+first saw Mount Carmel the day previous. The two views are very similar in
+character, one being the obverse of the other. We reached the
+Convent--Dayr Mar Elias, as the Arabs call it--at noon, just in time to
+partake of a bountiful dinner, to which the monks had treated themselves.
+Fra Carlo, the good Franciscan who receives strangers, showed us the
+building, and the Grotto of Elijah, which is under the altar of the
+Convent Church, a small but very handsome structure of Italian marble. The
+sanctity of the Grotto depends on tradition entirely, as there is no
+mention in the Bible of Elijah having resided on Carmel, though it was
+from this mountain that he saw the cloud, "like a man's hand," rising from
+the sea. The Convent, which is quite new--not yet completed, in fact--is a
+large, massive building, and has the aspect of a fortress.</p>
+
+<p>As we were to sleep at Tantura, five hours distant, we were obliged to
+make a short visit, in spite of the invitation of the hospitable Fra Carlo
+to spend the night there. In the afternoon we passed the ruins of Athlit,
+a town of the Middle Ages, and the Castel Pellegrino of the Crusaders. Our
+road now followed the beach, nearly the whole distance to Jaffa, and was
+in many places, for leagues in extent, a solid layer of white, brown,
+purple and rosy shells, which cracked and rattled under our horses' feet.
+Tantura is a poor Arab village, and we had some difficulty in procuring
+provisions. The people lived in small huts of mud and stones, near the
+sea. The place had a thievish look, and we deemed it best to be careful in
+the disposal of our baggage for the night.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning we took the coast again, riding over millions of shells. A
+line of sandy hills, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, shut off
+the view of the plain and meadows between the sea and the hills of
+Samaria. After three hours' ride we saw the ruins of ancient C&aelig;sarea, near
+a small promontory. The road turned away from the sea, and took the wild
+plain behind, which is completely overgrown with camomile, chrysanthemum
+and wild shrubs. The ruins of the town are visible at a considerable
+distance along the coast. The principal remains consist of a massive wall,
+flanked with pyramidal bastions at regular intervals, and with the traces
+of gateways, draw-bridges and towers. It was formerly surrounded by a deep
+moat. Within this space, which may be a quarter of a mile square, are a
+few fragments of buildings, and toward the sea, some high arches and
+masses of masonry. The plain around abounds with traces of houses,
+streets, and court-yards. C&aelig;sarea was one of the Roman colonies, but owed
+its prosperity principally to Herod. St. Paul passed through it on his
+way from Macedon to Jerusalem, by the very road we were travelling.</p>
+
+<p>During the day the path struck inland over a vast rolling plain, covered
+with sage, lavender and other sweet-smelling shrubs, and tenanted by herds
+of gazelles and flocks of large storks. As we advanced further, the
+landscape became singularly beautiful. It was a broad, shallow valley,
+swelling away towards the east into low, rolling hills, far back of which
+rose the blue line of the mountains--the hill-country of Judea. The soil,
+where it was ploughed, was the richest vegetable loam. Where it lay fallow
+it was entirely hidden by a bed of grass and camomile. Here and there
+great herds of sheep and goats browsed on the herbage. There was a quiet
+pastoral air about the landscape, a soft serenity in its forms and colors,
+as if the Hebrew patriarchs still made it their abode. The district is
+famous for robbers, and we kept our arms in readiness, never suffering the
+baggage to be out of our sight.</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening, as Mr. H. and myself, with Fran&ccedil;ois, were riding in
+advance of the baggage mules, the former with his gun in his hand, I with
+a pair of pistols thrust through the folds of my shawl, and Fran&ccedil;ois with
+his long Turkish sabre, we came suddenly upon a lonely Englishman, whose
+companions were somewhere in the rear. He appeared to be struck with
+terror on seeing us making towards him, and, turning his horse's head,
+made an attempt to fly. The animal, however, was restive, and, after a few
+plunges, refused to move. The traveller gave himself up for lost; his arms
+dropped by his side; he stared wildly at us, with pale face and eyes
+opened wide with a look of helpless fright. Restraining with difficulty a
+shout of laughter, I said to him: "Did you leave Jaffa to-day?" but so
+completely was his ear the fool of his imagination, that he thought I was
+speaking Arabic, and made a faint attempt to get out the only word or two
+of that language which he knew. I then repeated, with as much distinctness
+as I could command: "Did--you--leave--Jaffa--to-day?" He stammered
+mechanically, through his chattering teeth, "Y-y-yes!" and we immediately
+dashed off at a gallop through the bushes. When we last saw him, he was
+standing as we left him, apparently not yet recovered from the shock.</p>
+
+<p>At the little village of El Haram, where we spent the night, I visited the
+tomb of Sultan Ali ebn-Aleym, who is now revered as a saint. It is
+enclosed in a mosque, crowning the top of a hill. I was admitted into the
+court-yard without hesitation, though, from the porter styling me
+"Effendi," he probably took me for a Turk. At the entrance to the inner
+court, I took off my slippers and walked to the tomb of the Sultan--a
+square heap of white marble, in a small marble enclosure. In one of the
+niches in the wall, near the tomb, there is a very old iron box, with a
+slit in the top. The porter informed me that it contained a charm,
+belonging to Sultan Ali, which was of great use in producing rain in times
+of drouth.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning we sent our baggage by a short road across the country to
+this place, and then rode down the beach towards Jaffa. The sun came out
+bright and hot as we paced along the line of spray, our horses' feet
+sinking above the fetlocks in pink and purple shells, while the droll
+sea-crabs scampered away from our path, and the blue gelatinous
+sea-nettles were tossed before us by the surge. Our view was confined to
+the sand-hills--sometimes covered with a flood of scarlet poppies--on one
+hand; and to the blue, surf-fringed sea on the other. The terrible coast
+was still lined with wrecks, and just before reaching the town, we passed
+a vessel of some two hundred tons, recently cast ashore, with her strong
+hull still unbroken. We forded the rapid stream of El Anjeh, which comes
+down from the Plain of Sharon, the water rising to our saddles. The low
+promontory in front now broke into towers and white domes, and great
+masses of heavy walls. The aspect of Jaffa is exceedingly picturesque. It
+is built on a hill, and the land for many miles around it being low and
+flat, its topmost houses overlook all the fields of Sharon. The old
+harbor, protected by a reef of rocks, is on the north side of the town,
+but is now so sanded up that large vessels cannot enter. A number of small
+craft were lying close to the shore. The port presented a different scene
+when the ships of Hiram, King of Tyre, came in with the materials for the
+Temple of Solomon. There is but one gate on the land side, which is rather
+strongly fortified. Outside of this there is an open space, which we found
+filled with venders of oranges and vegetables, camel-men and the like,
+some vociferating in loud dispute, some given up to silence and smoke,
+under the shade of the sycamores.</p>
+
+<p>We rode under the heavily arched and towered gateway, and entered the
+bazaar. The street was crowded, and there was such a confusion of camels,
+donkeys, and men, that we made our way with difficulty along the only
+practicable street in the city, to the sea-side, where Fran&ccedil;ois pointed
+out a hole in the wall as the veritable spot where Jonah was cast ashore
+by the whale. This part of the harbor is the receptacle of all the offal
+of the town; and I do not wonder that the whale's stomach should have
+turned on approaching it. The sea-street was filled with merchants and
+traders, and we were obliged to pick our way between bars of iron, skins
+of oil, heaps of oranges, and piles of building timber. At last we reached
+the end, and, as there was no other thoroughfare, returned the same way we
+went, passed out the gate, and took the road to Ramleh and Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>But I hear the voice of Fran&ccedil;ois, announcing, "<i>Messieurs, le diner est
+pr&ecirc;t.</i>" We are encamped just beside the pool of Ramleh, and the mongrel
+children of the town are making a great noise in the meadow below it. Our
+horses are enjoying their barley; and Mustapha stands at the tent-door
+tying up his sacks. Dogs are barking and donkeys braying all along the
+borders of the town, whose filth and dilapidation are happily concealed by
+the fig and olive gardens which surround it. I have not curiosity enough
+to visit the Greek and Latin Convents embedded in its foul purlieus, but
+content myself with gazing from my door upon the blue hills of Palestine,
+which we must cross to-morrow, on our way to Jerusalem.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch03">
+<h2>Chapter III.</h2>
+
+<h3>From Jaffa to Jerusalem.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Garden of Jaffa--Breakfast at a Fountain--The Plain of Sharon--The
+  Ruined Mosque of Ramleh--A Judean Landscape--The Streets of Ramleh--Am I
+  in Palestine?--A Heavenly Morning--The Land of Milk and Honey--Entering
+  the Hill-Country--The Pilgrim's Breakfast--The Father of Lies--A Church
+  of the Crusaders--The Agriculture of the Hills--The Valley of
+  Elah--Day-Dreams--The Wilderness--The Approach--We see the Holy City.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--"Through the air sublime,<br />
+Over the wilderness and o'er the plain;<br />
+Till underneath them fair Jerusalem,<br />
+The Holy City, lifted high her towers."</p>
+
+<p>  Paradise Regained.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Jerusalem, <i>Thursday, April</i> 29, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Leaving the gate of Jaffa, we rode eastward between delightful gardens of
+fig, citron, orange, pomegranate and palm. The country for several miles
+around the city is a complete level--part of the great plain of
+Sharon--and the gray mass of building crowning the little promontory, is
+the only landmark seen above the green garden-land, on looking towards the
+sea. The road was lined with hedges of giant cactus, now in blossom, and
+shaded occasionally with broad-armed sycamores. The orange trees were in
+bloom, and at the same time laden down with ripe fruit. The oranges of
+Jaffa are the finest in Syria, and great numbers of them are sent to
+Beyrout and other ports further north. The dark foliage of the
+pomegranate fairly blazed with its heavy scarlet blossoms, and here and
+there a cluster of roses made good the Scriptural renown of those of
+Sharon. The road was filled with people, passing to and fro, and several
+families of Jaffa Jews were having a sort of pic-nic in the choice shady
+spots.</p>
+
+<p>Ere long we came to a fountain, at a point where two roads met. It was a
+large square structure of limestone and marble, with a stone trough in
+front, and a delightful open chamber at the side. The space in front was
+shaded with immense sycamore trees, to which we tied our horses, and then
+took our seats in the window above the fountain, where the Greek brought
+us our breakfast. The water was cool and delicious, as were our Jaffa
+oranges. It was a charming spot, for as we sat we could look under the
+boughs of the great trees, and down between the gardens to Jaffa and the
+Mediterranean. After leaving the gardens, we came upon the great plain of
+Sharon, on which we could see the husbandmen at work far and near,
+ploughing and sowing their grain. In some instances, the two operations
+were made simultaneously, by having a sort of funnel attached to the
+plough-handle, running into a tube which entered the earth just behind the
+share. The man held the plough with one hand, while with the other he
+dropped the requisite quantity of seed through the tube into the furrow.
+The people are ploughing now for their summer crops, and the wheat and
+barley which they sowed last winter are already in full head. On other
+parts of the plain, there were large flocks of sheep and goats, with their
+attendant shepherds. So ran the rich landscape, broken only by belts of
+olive trees, to the far hills of Judea.</p>
+
+<p>Riding on over the long, low swells, fragrant with wild thyme and
+camomile, we saw at last the tower of Ramleh, and down the valley, an
+hour's ride to the north-east, the minaret of Ludd, the ancient Lydda.
+Still further, I could see the houses of the village of Sharon, embowered
+in olives. Ramleh is built along the crest and on the eastern slope of a
+low hill, and at a distance appears like a stately place, but this
+impression is immediately dissipated on entering it. West of the town is a
+large square tower, between eighty and ninety feet in height. We rode up
+to it through an orchard of ancient olive trees, and over a field of
+beans. The tower is evidently a minaret, as it is built in the purest
+Saracenic style, and is surrounded by the ruins of a mosque. I have rarely
+seen anything more graceful than the ornamental arches of the upper
+portions. Over the door is a lintel of white marble, with an Arabic
+inscription. The mosque to which the tower is attached is almost entirely
+destroyed, and only part of the arches of a corridor around three sides of
+a court-yard, with the fountain in the centre, still remain. The
+subterranean cisterns, under the court-yard, amazed me with their extent
+and magnitude. They are no less than twenty-four feet deep, and covered by
+twenty-four vaulted ceilings, each twelve feet square, and resting on
+massive pillars. The mosque, when entire, must have been one of the finest
+in Syria.</p>
+
+<p>We clambered over the broken stones cumbering the entrance, and mounted
+the steps to the very summit. The view reached from Jaffa and the sea to
+the mountains near Jerusalem, and southward to the plain of Ascalon--a
+great expanse of grain and grazing land, all blossoming as the rose, and
+dotted, especially near the mountains, with dark, luxuriant olive-groves.
+The landscape had something of the green, pastoral beauty of England,
+except the mountains, which were wholly of Palestine. The shadows of
+fleecy clouds, drifting slowly from east to west, moved across the
+landscape, which became every moment softer and fairer in the light of the
+declining sun.</p>
+
+<p>I did not tarry in Ramleh. The streets are narrow, crooked, and filthy as
+only an Oriental town can be. The houses have either flat roofs or domes,
+out of the crevices in which springs a plentiful crop of weeds. Some
+yellow dogs barked at us as we passed, children in tattered garments
+stared, and old turbaned heads were raised from the pipe, to guess who the
+two brown individuals might be, and why they were attended by such a
+fierce <i>cawass</i>. Passing through the eastern gate, we were gladdened by
+the sight of our tents, already pitched in the meadow beside the cistern.
+Dervish had arrived an hour before us, and had everything ready for the
+sweet lounge of an hour, to which we treat ourselves after a day's ride. I
+watched the evening fade away over the blue hills before us, and tried to
+convince myself that I should reach Jerusalem on the morrow. Reason said:
+"You certainly will!"---but to Faith the Holy City was as far off as ever.
+Was it possible that I was in Judea? Was this the Holy Land of the
+Crusades, the soil hallowed by the feet of Christ and his Apostles? I must
+believe it. Yet it seemed once that if I ever trod that earth, then
+beneath my feet, there would be thenceforth a consecration in my life, a
+holy essence, a purer inspiration on the lips, a surer faith in the heart.
+And because I was not other than I had been, I half doubted whether it was
+the Palestine of my dreams.</p>
+
+<p>A number of Arab cameleers, who had come with travellers across the
+Desert from Egypt, were encamped near us. Fran&ccedil;ois was suspicious of some
+of them, and therefore divided the night into three watches, which were
+kept by himself and our two men. Mustapha was the last, and kept not only
+himself, but myself, wide awake by his dolorous chants of love and
+religion. I fell sound asleep at dawn, but was roused before sunrise by
+Fran&ccedil;ois, who wished to start betimes, on account of the rugged road we
+had to travel. The morning was mild, clear, and balmy, and we were soon
+packed and in motion. Leaving the baggage to follow, we rode ahead over
+the fertile fields. The wheat and poppies were glistening with dew, birds
+sang among the fig-trees, a cool breeze came down from the hollows of the
+hills, and my blood leaped as nimbly and joyously as a young hart on the
+mountains of Bether.</p>
+
+<p>Between Ramleh and the hill-country, a distance of about eight miles, is
+the rolling plain of Arimathea, and this, as well as the greater part of
+the plain of Sharon, is one of the richest districts in the world. The
+soil is a dark-brown loam, and, without manure, produces annually superb
+crops of wheat and barley. We rode for miles through a sea of wheat,
+waving far and wide over the swells of land. The tobacco in the fields
+about Ramleh was the most luxuriant I ever saw, and the olive and fig
+attain a size and lusty strength wholly unknown in Italy. Judea cursed of
+God! what a misconception, not only of God's mercy and beneficence, but of
+the actual fact! Give Palestine into Christian hands, and it will again
+flow with milk and honey. Except some parts of Asia Minor, no portion of
+the Levant is capable of yielding such a harvest of grain, silk, wool,
+fruits, oil, and wine. The great disadvantage under which the country
+labors, is its frequent drouths, but were the soil more generally
+cultivated, and the old orchards replanted, these would neither be so
+frequent nor so severe.</p>
+
+<p>We gradually ascended the hills, passing one or two villages, imbedded in
+groves of olives. In the little valleys, slanting down to the plains, the
+Arabs were still ploughing and sowing, singing the while an old love-song,
+with its chorus of "<i>ya, ghazalee! ya, ghazalee!</i>" (oh, gazelle! oh,
+gazelle!) The valley narrowed, the lowlands behind us spread out broader,
+and in half an hour more we were threading a narrow pass, between stony
+hills, overgrown with ilex, myrtle, and dwarf oak. The wild purple rose of
+Palestine blossomed on all sides, and a fragrant white honeysuckle in some
+places hung from the rocks. The path was terribly rough, and barely wide
+enough for two persons on horseback to pass each other. We met a few
+pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, and a straggling company of armed
+Turks, who had such a piratical air, that without the solemn asseveration
+of Fran&ccedil;ois that the road was quite safe, I should have felt uneasy about
+our baggage. Most of the persons we passed were Mussulmen, few of whom
+gave the customary "Peace be with you!" but once a Syrian Christian
+saluted me with, "God go with you, O Pilgrim!" For two hours after
+entering the mountains, there was scarcely a sign of cultivation. The rock
+was limestone, or marble, lying in horizontal strata, the broken edges of
+which rose like terraces to the summits. These shelves were so covered
+with wild shrubs--in some places even with rows of olive trees---that to
+me they had not the least appearance of that desolation so generally
+ascribed to them.</p>
+
+<p>In a little dell among the hills there is a small ruined mosque, or
+chapel (I could not decide which), shaded by a group of magnificent
+terebinth trees. Several Arabs were resting in its shade, and we hoped to
+find there the water we were looking for, in order to make breakfast. But
+it was not to be found, and we climbed nearly to the summit of the first
+chain of hills, where in a small olive orchard, there was a cistern,
+filled by the late rains. It belonged to two ragged boys, who brought us
+an earthen vessel of the water, and then asked, "Shall we bring you milk,
+O Pilgrims!" I assented, and received a small jug of thick buttermilk, not
+remarkably clean, but very refreshing. My companion, who had not recovered
+from his horror at finding that the inhabitants of Ramleh washed
+themselves in the pool which supplied us and them, refused to touch it. We
+made but a short rest, for it was now nearly noon, and there were yet many
+rough miles between us and Jerusalem. We crossed the first chain of
+mountains, rode a short distance over a stony upland, and then descended
+into a long cultivated valley, running to the eastward. At the end nearest
+us appeared the village of Aboo 'l Ghosh (the Father of Lies), which takes
+its name from a noted Bedouin shekh, who distinguished himself a few years
+ago by levying contributions on travellers. He obtained a large sum of
+money in this way, but as he added murder to robbery, and fell upon Turks
+as well as Christians, he was finally captured, and is now expiating his
+offences in some mine on the coast of the Black Sea.</p>
+
+<p>Near the bottom of the village there is a large ruined building, now used
+as a stable by the inhabitants. The interior is divided into a nave and
+two side-aisles by rows of square pillars, from which spring pointed
+arches. The door-way is at the side, and is Gothic, with a dash of
+Saracenic in the ornamental mouldings above it. The large window at the
+extremity of the nave is remarkable for having round arches, which
+circumstance, together with the traces of arabesque painted ornaments on
+the columns, led me to think it might have been a mosque; but Dr.
+Robinson, who is now here, considers it a Christian church, of the time of
+the Crusaders. The village of Aboo 'l Ghosh is said to be the site of the
+birth-place of the Prophet Jeremiah, and I can well imagine it to have
+been the case. The aspect of the mountain-country to the east and
+north-east would explain the savage dreariness of his lamentations. The
+whole valley in which the village stands, as well as another which joins
+it on the east, is most assiduously cultivated. The stony mountain sides
+are wrought into terraces, where, in spite of soil which resembles an
+American turnpike, patches of wheat are growing luxuriantly, and olive
+trees, centuries old, hold on to the rocks with a clutch as hard and bony
+as the hand of Death. In the bed of the valley the fig tree thrives, and
+sometimes the vine and fig grow together, forming the patriarchal arbor of
+shade familiar to us all. The shoots of the tree are still young and
+green, but the blossoms of the grape do not yet give forth their goodly
+savor. I did not hear the voice of the turtle, but a nightingale sang in
+the briery thickets by the brook side, as we passed along.</p>
+
+<p>Climbing out of this valley, we descended by a stony staircase, as rugged
+as the Ladder of Tyre, into the Wady Beit-Hanineh. Here were gardens of
+oranges in blossom, with orchards of quince and apple, overgrown with
+vines, and the fragrant hawthorn tree, snowy with its bloom. A stone
+bridge, the only one on the road, crosses the dry bed of a winter stream,
+and, looking up the glen, I saw the Arab village of Kulonieh, at the
+entrance of the valley of Elah, glorious with the memories of the
+shepherd-boy, David. Our road turned off to the right, and commenced
+ascending a long, dry glen between mountains which grew more sterile the
+further we went. It was nearly two hours past noon, the sun fiercely hot,
+and our horses were nigh jaded out with the rough road and our impatient
+spurring. I began to fancy we could see Jerusalem from the top of the
+pass, and tried to think of the ancient days of Judea. But it was in vain.
+A newer picture shut them out, and banished even the diviner images of Our
+Saviour and His Disciples. Heathen that I was, I could only think of
+Godfrey and the Crusaders, toiling up the same path, and the ringing lines
+of Tasso vibrated constantly in my ear:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "Ecco apparir Gierusalemm' si vede;<br />
+Ecco additar Gierusalemm' si scorge;<br />
+Ecco da mille voci unitamente,<br />
+Gierusalemme salutar si sente!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Palestine of the Bible--the Land of Promise to the Israelites, the
+land of Miracle and Sacrifice to the Apostles and their followers--still
+slept in the unattainable distance, under a sky of bluer and more tranquil
+loveliness than that to whose cloudless vault I looked up. It lay as far
+and beautiful as it once seemed to the eye of childhood, and the swords of
+Seraphim kept profane feet from its sacred hills. But these rough rocks
+around me, these dry, fiery hollows, these thickets of ancient oak and
+ilex, had heard the trumpets of the Middle Ages, and the clang and
+clatter of European armor--I could feel and believe that. I entered the
+ranks; I followed the trumpets and the holy hymns, and waited breathlessly
+for the moment when every mailed knee should drop in the dust, and every
+bearded and sunburned cheek be wet with devotional tears.</p>
+
+<p>But when I climbed the last ridge, and looked ahead with a sort of painful
+suspense, Jerusalem did not appear. We were two thousand feet above the
+Mediterranean, whose blue we could dimly see far to the west, through
+notches in the chain of hills. To the north, the mountains were gray,
+desolate, and awful. Not a shrub or a tree relieved their frightful
+barrenness. An upland tract, covered with white volcanic rock, lay before
+us. We met peasants with asses, who looked (to my eyes) as if they had
+just left Jerusalem. Still forward we urged our horses, and reached a
+ruined garden, surrounded with hedges of cactus, over which I saw domes
+and walls in the distance. I drew a long breath and looked at Fran&ccedil;ois. He
+was jogging along without turning his head; he could not have been so
+indifferent if that was really the city. Presently, we reached another
+slight rise in the rocky plain. He began to urge his panting horse, and at
+the same instant we both lashed the spirit into ours, dashed on at a
+break-neck gallop, round the corner of an old wall on the top of the hill,
+and lo! the Holy City! Our Greek jerked both pistols from his holsters,
+and fired them into the air, as we reined up on the steep.</p>
+
+<p>From the descriptions of travellers, I had expected to see in Jerusalem an
+ordinary modern Turkish town; but that before me, with its walls,
+fortresses, and domes, was it not still the City of David? I saw the
+Jerusalem of the New Testament, as I had imagined it. Long lines of walls
+crowned with a notched parapet and strengthened by towers; a few domes and
+spires above them; clusters of cypress here and there; this was all that
+was visible of the city. On either side the hill sloped down to the two
+deep valleys over which it hangs. On the east, the Mount of Olives,
+crowned with a chapel and mosque, rose high and steep, but in front, the
+eye passed directly over the city, to rest far away upon the lofty
+mountains of Moab, beyond the Dead Sea. The scene was grand in its
+simplicity. The prominent colors were the purple of those distant
+mountains, and the hoary gray of the nearer hills. The walls were of the
+dull yellow of weather-stained marble, and the only trees, the dark
+cypress and moonlit olive. Now, indeed, for one brief moment, I knew that
+I was in Palestine; that I saw Mount Olivet and Mount Zion; and--I know
+not how it was--my sight grew weak, and all objects trembled and wavered
+in a watery film. Since we arrived, I have looked down upon the city from
+the Mount of Olives, and up to it from the Valley of Jehosaphat; but I
+cannot restore the illusion of that first view.</p>
+
+<p>We allowed our horses to walk slowly down the remaining half-mile to the
+Jaffa gate. An Englishman, with a red silk shawl over his head, was
+sketching the city, while an Arab held an umbrella over him. Inside the
+gate we stumbled upon an Italian shop with an Italian sign, and after
+threading a number of intricate passages under dark archways, and being
+turned off from one hotel, which was full of travellers, reached another,
+kept by a converted German Jew, where we found Dr. Robinson and Dr. Ely
+Smith, who both arrived yesterday. It sounds strange to talk of a hotel
+in Jerusalem, but the world is progressing, and there are already three. I
+leave to-morrow for Jericho, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea, and shall have
+more to say of Jerusalem on my return.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch04">
+<h2>Chapter IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Dead Sea and the Jordan River.</h3>
+
+<p class="abs">  Bargaining for a Guard--Departure from Jerusalem--The Hill of
+  Offence--Bethany--The Grotto of Lazarus--The Valley of Fire--Scenery of
+  the Wilderness--The Hills of Engaddi--The shore of the Dead Sea--A
+  Bituminous Bath--Gallop to the Jordan--A watch for Robbers--The
+  Jordan--Baptism--The Plains of Jericho--The Fountain of Elisha--The
+  Mount of Temptation--Return to Jerusalem.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"And the spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape;
+  the valley also shall perish and the plain shall be destroyed, as the
+  Lord hath spoken."</p>
+
+<p>  --Jeremiah, xlviii. 8.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Jerusalem, <i>May</i> 1, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>I returned this after noon from an excursion to the Dead Sea, the River
+Jordan, and the site of Jericho. Owing to the approaching heats, an early
+visit was deemed desirable, and the shekhs, who have charge of the road,
+were summoned to meet us on the day after we arrived. There are two of
+these gentlemen, the Shekh el-Ar&agrave;b (of the Bedouins), and the Shekh
+el-Fellaheen (of the peasants, or husbandmen), to whom each traveller is
+obliged to pay one hundred piastres for an escort. It is, in fact, a sort
+of compromise, by which the shekhs agree not to rob the traveller, and to
+protect him against other shekhs. If the road is not actually safe, the
+Turkish garrison here is a mere farce, but the arrangement is winked at by
+the Pasha, who, of course, gets his share of the 100,000 piastres which
+the two scamps yearly levy upon travellers. The shekhs came to our rooms,
+and after trying to postpone our departure, in order to attach other
+tourists to the same escort, and thus save a little expense, took half the
+pay and agreed to be ready the next morning. Unfortunately for my original
+plan, the Convent of San Saba has been closed within two or three weeks,
+and no stranger is now admitted. This unusual step was caused by the
+disorderly conduct of some Frenchmen who visited San Saba. We sent to the
+Bishop of the Greek Church, asking a simple permission to view the
+interior of the Convent; but without effect.</p>
+
+<p>We left the city yesterday morning by St. Stephen's Gate, descended to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat, rode under the stone wall which encloses the
+supposed Gethsemane, and took a path leading along the Mount of Olives,
+towards the Hill of Offence, which stands over against the southern end of
+the city, opposite the mouth of the Vale of Hinnon. Neither of the shekhs
+made his appearance, but sent in their stead three Arabs, two of whom were
+mounted and armed with sabres and long guns. Our man, Mustapha, had charge
+of the baggage-mule, carrying our tent and the provisions for the trip. It
+was a dull, sultry morning; a dark, leaden haze hung over Jerusalem, and
+the <i>khamseen</i>, or sirocco-wind, came from the south-west, out of the
+Arabian Desert. We had again resumed the Oriental costume, but in spite of
+an ample turban, my face soon began to scorch in the dry heat. From the
+crest of the Hill of Offence there is a wide view over the heights on both
+sides of the valley of the Brook Kedron. Their sides are worked into
+terraces, now green with springing grain, and near the bottom planted with
+olive and fig trees. The upland ridge or watershed of Palestine is
+cultivated for a considerable distance around Jerusalem. The soil is light
+and stony, yet appears to yield a good return for the little labor
+bestowed upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the southern flank of Mount Olivet, in half an hour we reached
+the village of Bethany, hanging on the side of the hill. It is a miserable
+cluster of Arab huts, with not a building which appears to be more than a
+century old. The Grotto of Lazarus is here shown, and, of course, we
+stopped to see it. It belongs to an old Mussulman, who came out of his
+house with a piece of waxed rope, to light us down. An aperture opens from
+the roadside into the hill, and there is barely room enough for a person
+to enter. Descending about twenty steps at a sharp angle, we landed in a
+small, damp vault, with an opening in the floor, communicating with a
+short passage below. The vault was undoubtedly excavated for sepulchral
+purposes, and the bodies were probably deposited (as in many Egyptian
+tombs) in the pit under it. Our guide, however, pointed to a square mass
+of masonry in one corner as the tomb of Lazarus, whose body, he informed
+us, was still walled up there. There was an arch in the side of the vault,
+once leading to other chambers, but now closed up, and the guide stated
+that seventy-four Prophets were interred therein. There seems to be no
+doubt that the present Arab village occupies the site of Bethany; and if
+it could be proved that this pit existed at the beginning of the Christian
+Era, and there never had been any other, we might accept it as the tomb of
+Lazarus. On the crest of a high hill, over against Bethany, is an Arab
+village on the site of Bethpage.</p>
+
+<p>We descended into the valley of a winter stream, now filled with patches
+of sparse wheat, just beginning to ripen. The mountains grew more bleak
+and desolate as we advanced, and as there is a regular descent in the
+several ranges over which one must pass, the distant hills of the lands of
+Moab and Ammon were always in sight, rising like a high, blue wall against
+the sky. The Dead Sea is 4,000 feet below Jerusalem, but the general slope
+of the intervening district is so regular that from the spires of the
+city, and the Mount of Olives, one can look down directly upon its waters.
+This deceived me as to the actual distance, and I could scarcely credit
+the assertion of our Arab escort, that it would require six hours to reach
+it. After we had ridden nearly two hours, we left the Jericho road,
+sending Mustapha and a staunch old Arab direct to our resting-place for
+the night, in the Valley of the Jordan. The two mounted Bedouins
+accompanied us across the rugged mountains lying between us and the Dead
+Sea.</p>
+
+<p>At first, we took the way to the Convent of Mar Saba, following the course
+of the Brook Kedron down the Wady en-Nar (Valley of Fire). In half an hour
+more we reached two large tanks, hewn out under the base of a limestone
+cliff, and nearly filled with rain. The surface was covered with a
+greenish vegetable scum, and three wild and dirty Arabs of the hills were
+washing themselves in the principal one. Our Bedouins immediately
+dismounted and followed their example, and after we had taken some
+refreshment, we had the satisfaction of filling our water-jug from the
+same sweet pool. After this, we left the San Saba road, and mounted the
+height east of the valley. From that point, all signs of cultivation and
+habitation disappeared. The mountains were grim, bare, and frightfully
+rugged. The scanty grass, coaxed into life by the winter rains, was
+already scorched out of all greenness; some bunches of wild sage,
+gnaphalium, and other hardy aromatic herbs spotted the yellow soil, and in
+sheltered places the scarlet poppies burned like coals of fire among the
+rifts of the gray limestone rock. Our track kept along the higher ridges
+and crests of the hills, between the glens and gorges which sank on either
+hand to a dizzy depth below, and were so steep as to be almost
+inaccessible. The region is so scarred, gashed and torn, that no work of
+man's hand can save it from perpetual desolation. It is a wilderness more
+hopeless than the Desert. If I were left alone in the midst of it, I
+should lie down and await death, without thought or hope of rescue.</p>
+
+<p>The character of the day was peculiarly suited to enhance the impression
+of such scenery. Though there were no clouds, the sun was invisible: as
+far as we could see, beyond the Jordan, and away southward to the
+mountains of Moab and the cliffs of Engaddi, the whole country was covered
+as with the smoke of a furnace; and the furious sirocco, that threatened
+to topple us down the gulfs yawning on either hand, had no coolness on its
+wings. The horses were sure-footed, but now and then a gust would come
+that made them and us strain against it, to avoid being dashed against the
+rock on one side, or hurled off the brink on the other. The atmosphere was
+painfully oppressive, and by and by a dogged silence took possession of
+our party. After passing a lofty peak which Fran&ccedil;ois called Djebel Nuttar,
+the Mountain of Rain, we came to a large Moslem building, situated on a
+bleak eminence, overlooking part of the valley of the Jordan. This is the
+tomb called Nebbee Moussa by the Arabs, and believed by them to stand
+upon the spot where Moses died. We halted at the gate, but no one came to
+admit us, though my companion thought he saw a man's head at one of the
+apertures in the wall. Arab tradition here is as much at fault as
+Christian tradition in many other places. The true Nebo is somewhere in
+the chain of Pisgah; and though, probably, I saw it, and all see it who go
+down to the Jordan, yet "no man knoweth its place unto this day."</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Nebbee Moussa, we came out upon the last heights overlooking the
+Dead Sea, though several miles of low hills remained to be passed. The
+head of the sea was visible as far as the Ras-el-Feshka on the west; and
+the hot fountains of Callirho&euml; on the eastern shore. Farther than this,
+all was vapor and darkness. The water was a soft, deep purple hue,
+brightening into blue. Our road led down what seemed a vast sloping
+causeway from the mountains, between two ravines, walled by cliffs several
+hundred feet in height. It gradually flattened into a plain, covered with
+a white, saline incrustation, and grown with clumps of sour willow,
+tamarisk, and other shrubs, among which I looked in vain for the osher, or
+Dead Sea apple. The plants appeared as if smitten with leprosy; but there
+were some flowers growing almost to the margin of the sea. We reached the
+shore about 2 P.M. The heat by this time was most severe, and the air so
+dense as to occasion pains in my ears. The Dead Sea is 1,300 feet below
+the Mediterranean, and without doubt the lowest part of the earth's
+surface. I attribute the oppression I felt to this fact and to the
+sultriness of the day, rather than to any exhalation from the sea itself.
+Fran&ccedil;ois remarked, however, that had the wind--which by this time was
+veering round to the north-east--blown from the south, we could scarcely
+have endured it. The sea resembles a great cauldron, sunk between
+mountains from three to four thousand feet in height; and probably we did
+not experience more than a tithe of the summer heat.</p>
+
+<p>I proposed a bath, for the sake of experiment, but Fran&ccedil;ois endeavored to
+dissuade us. He had tried it, and nothing could be more disagreeable; we
+risked getting a fever, and, besides, there were four hours of dangerous
+travel yet before us. But by this time we were half undressed, and soon
+were floating on the clear bituminous waves. The beach was fine gravel and
+shelved gradually down. I kept my turban on my head, and was careful to
+avoid touching the water with my face. The sea was moderately warm and
+gratefully soft and soothing to the skin. It was impossible to sink; and
+even while swimming, the body rose half out of the water. I should think
+it possible to dive for a short distance, but prefer that some one else
+would try the experiment. With a log of wood for a pillow, one might sleep
+as on one of the patent mattresses. The taste of the water is salty and
+pungent, and stings the tongue like saltpetre. We were obliged to dress in
+all haste, without even wiping off the detestable liquid; yet I
+experienced very little of that discomfort which most travellers have
+remarked. Where the skin had been previously bruised, there was a slight
+smarting sensation, and my body felt clammy and glutinous, but the bath
+was rather refreshing than otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>We turned our horses' heads towards the Jordan, and rode on over a dry,
+barren plain. The two Bedouins at first dashed ahead at full gallop,
+uttering cries, and whirling their long guns in the air. The dust they
+raised was blown in our faces, and contained so much salt that my eyes
+began to smart painfully. Thereupon I followed them at an equal rate of
+speed, and we left a long cloud of the accursed soil whirling behind us.
+Presently, however, they fell to the rear, and continued to keep at some
+distance from us. The reason of this was soon explained. The path turned
+eastward, and we already saw a line of dusky green winding through the
+wilderness. This was the Jordan, and the mountains beyond, the home of
+robber Arabs, were close at hand. Those robbers frequently cross the river
+and conceal themselves behind the sand-hills on this side. Our brave
+escort was, therefore, inclined to put us forward as a forlorn-hope, and
+secure their own retreat in case of an attack. But as we were all well
+armed, and had never considered their attendance as anything more than a
+genteel way of buying them off from robbing us, we allowed them to lag as
+much as they chose. Finally, as we approached the Pilgrims' Ford, one of
+them took his station at some distance from the river, on the top of a
+mound, while the other got behind some trees near at hand; in order, as
+they said, to watch the opposite hills, and alarm us whenever they should
+see any of the Beni Sukrs, or the Beni Adwams, or the Tyakh, coming down
+upon us.</p>
+
+<p>The Jordan at this point will not average more than ten yards in breadth.
+It flows at the bottom of a gully about fifteen feet deep, which traverses
+the broad valley in a most tortuous course. The water has a white, clayey
+hue, and is very swift. The changes of the current have formed islands and
+beds of soil here and there, which are covered with a dense growth of ash,
+poplar, willow, and tamarisk trees. The banks of the river are bordered
+with thickets, now overgrown with wild vines, and fragrant with flowering
+plants. Birds sing continually in the cool, dark coverts of the trees. I
+found a singular charm in the wild, lonely, luxuriant banks, the tangled
+undergrowth, and the rapid, brawling course of the sacred stream, as it
+slipped in sight and out of sight among the trees. It is almost impossible
+to reach the water at any other point than the Ford of the Pilgrims, the
+supposed locality of the passage of the Israelites and the baptism of
+Christ. The plain near it is still blackened by the camp-fires of the ten
+thousand pilgrims who went down from Jerusalem three weeks ago, to bathe.
+We tied our horses to the trees, and prepared to follow their example,
+which was necessary, if only to wash off the iniquitous slime of the Dead
+Sea. Fran&ccedil;ois, in the meantime, filled two tin flasks from the stream and
+stowed them in the saddle-bags. The current was so swift, that one could
+not venture far without the risk of being carried away; but I succeeded in
+obtaining a complete and most refreshing immersion. The taint of Gomorrah
+was not entirely washed away, but I rode off with as great a sense of
+relief as if the baptism had been a moral one, as well, and had purified
+me from sin.</p>
+
+<p>We rode for nearly two hours, in a north-west direction, to the Bedouin
+village of Rihah, near the site of ancient Jericho. Before reaching it,
+the gray salt waste vanishes, and the soil is covered with grass and
+herbs. The barren character of the first region is evidently owing to
+deposits from the vapors of the Dead Sea, as they are blown over the plain
+by the south wind. The channels of streams around Jericho are filled with
+nebbuk trees, the fruit of which is just ripening. It is apparently
+indigenous, and grows more luxuriantly than on the White Nile. It is a
+variety of the <i>rhamnus</i>, and is set down by botanists as the Spina
+Christi, of which the Saviour's mock crown of thorns was made. I see no
+reason to doubt this, as the twigs are long and pliant, and armed with
+small, though most cruel, thorns. I had to pay for gathering some of the
+fruit, with a torn dress and bleeding fingers. The little apples which it
+bears are slightly acid and excellent for alleviating thirst. I also
+noticed on the plain a variety of the nightshade with large berries of a
+golden color. The spring flowers, so plentiful now in all other parts of
+Palestine, have already disappeared from the Valley of the Jordan.</p>
+
+<p>Rihah is a vile little village of tents and mud-huts, and the only relic
+of antiquity near it is a square tower, which may possibly be of the time
+of Herod. There are a few gardens in the place, and a grove of superb
+fig-trees. We found our tent already pitched beside a rill which issues
+from the Fountain of Elisha. The evening was very sultry, and the
+musquitoes gave us no rest. We purchased some milk from an old man who
+came to the tent, but such was his mistrust of us that he refused to let
+us keep the earthen vessel containing it until morning. As we had already
+paid the money to his son, we would not let him take the milk away until
+he had brought the money back. He then took a dagger from his waist and
+threw it before us as security, while he carried off the vessel and
+returned the price. I have frequently seen the same mistrustful spirit
+exhibited in Egypt. Our two Bedouins, to whom I gave some tobacco in the
+evening, manifested their gratitude by stealing the remainder of our stock
+during the night.</p>
+
+<p>This morning we followed the stream to its source, the Fountain of
+Elisha, so called as being probably that healed by the Prophet. If so, the
+healing was scarcely complete. The water, which gushes up strong and free
+at the foot of a rocky mound, is warm and slightly brackish. It spreads
+into a shallow pool, shaded by a fine sycamore tree. Just below, there are
+some remains of old walls on both sides, and the stream goes roaring away
+through a rank jungle of canes fifteen feet in height. The precise site of
+Jericho, I believe, has not been fixed, but "the city of the palm trees,"
+as it was called, was probably on the plain, near some mounds which rise
+behind the Fountain. Here there are occasional traces of foundation walls,
+but so ruined as to give no clue to the date of their erection. Further
+towards the mountain there are some arches, which appear to be Saracenic.
+As we ascended again into the hill-country, I observed several traces of
+cisterns in the bottoms of ravines, which collect the rains. Herod, as is
+well known, built many such cisterns near Jericho, where he had a palace.
+On the first crest, to which we climbed, there is part of a Roman tower
+yet standing. The view, looking back over the valley of Jordan, is
+magnificent, extending from the Dead Sea to the mountains of Gilead,
+beyond the country of Ammon. I thought I could trace the point where the
+River Yabbok comes down from Mizpeh of Gilead to join the Jordan.</p>
+
+<p>The wilderness we now entered was fully as barren, but less rugged than
+that through which we passed yesterday. The path ascended along the brink
+of a deep gorge, at the bottom of which a little stream foamed over the
+rocks. The high, bleak summits towards which we were climbing, are
+considered by some Biblical geographers to be Mount Quarantana, the scene
+of Christ's fasting and temptation. After two hours we reached the ruins
+of a large khan or hostlery, under one of the peaks, which Fran&ccedil;ois stated
+to be the veritable "high mountain" whence the Devil pointed out all the
+kingdoms of the earth. There is a cave in the rock beside the road, which
+the superstitious look upon as the orifice out of which his Satanic
+Majesty issued. We met large numbers of Arab families, with their flocks,
+descending from the mountains to take up their summer residence near the
+Jordan. They were all on foot, except the young children and goats, which
+were stowed together on the backs of donkeys. The men were armed, and
+appeared to be of the same tribe as our escort, with whom they had a good
+understanding.</p>
+
+<p>The morning was cold and cloudy, and we hurried on over the hills to a
+fountain in the valley of the Brook Kedron, where we breakfasted. Before
+we had reached Bethany a rain came down, and the sky hung dark and
+lowering over Jerusalem, as we passed the crest of Mount Olivet. It still
+rains, and the filthy condition of the city exceeds anything I have seen,
+even in the Orient.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch05">
+<h2>Chapter V.</h2>
+
+<h3>The City of Christ.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Modern Jerusalem--The Site of the City--Mount Zion--Mount Moriah--The
+  Temple--the Valley of Jehosaphat--The Olives of Gethsemane--The Mount of
+  Olives--Moslem Tradition--Panorama from the Summit--The Interior of the
+  City--The Population--Missions and Missionaries--Christianity in
+  Jerusalem--Intolerance--The Jews of Jerusalem--The Face of Christ--The
+  Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Holy of Holies--The Sacred
+  Localities--Visions of Christ--The Mosque of Omar--The Holy Man of
+  Timbuctoo--Preparations for Departure.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Cut off thy hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a
+  lamentation in high places; for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the
+  generation of his wrath."--Jeremiah vii. 29.</p>
+
+<p>"Here pilgrims roam, that strayed so far to seek<br />
+  In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heaven."</p>
+
+<p>  Milton.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Jerusalem, <i>Monday, May</i> 3, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Since travel is becoming a necessary part of education, and a journey
+through the East is no longer attended with personal risk, Jerusalem will
+soon be as familiar a station on the grand tour as Paris or Naples. The
+task of describing it is already next to superfluous, so thoroughly has
+the topography of the city been laid down by the surveys of Robinson and
+the drawings of Roberts. There is little more left for Biblical research.
+The few places which can be authenticated are now generally accepted, and
+the many doubtful ones must always be the subjects of speculation and
+conjecture. There is no new light which can remove the cloud of
+uncertainties wherein one continually wanders. Yet, even rejecting all
+these with the most skeptical spirit, there still remains enough to make
+the place sacred in the eyes of every follower of Christ. The city stands
+on the ancient site; the Mount of Olives looks down upon it; the
+foundations of the Temple of Solomon are on Mount Moriah; the Pool of
+Siloam has still a cup of water for those who at noontide go down to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat; the ancient gate yet looketh towards Damascus, and
+of the Palace of Herod, there is a tower which Time and Turk and Crusader
+have spared.</p>
+
+<p>Jerusalem is built on the summit ridge of the hill-country of Palestine,
+just where it begins to slope eastward. Not half a mile from the Jaffa
+Gate, the waters run towards the Mediterranean. It is about 2,700 feet
+above the latter, and 4,000 feet above the Dead Sea, to which the descent
+is much more abrupt. The hill, or rather group of small mounts, on which
+Jerusalem stands, slants eastward to the brink of the Valley of
+Jehosaphat, and the Mount of Olives rises opposite, from the sides and
+summit of which, one sees the entire city spread out like a map before
+him. The Valley of Hinnon, the bed of which is on a much higher level than
+that of Jehosaphat, skirts the south-western and southern part of the
+walls, and drops into the latter valley at the foot of Mount Zion, the
+most southern of the mounts. The steep slope at the junction of the two
+valleys is the site of the city of the Jebusites, the most ancient part of
+Jerusalem. It is now covered with garden-terraces, the present wall
+crossing from Mount Zion on the south to Mount Moriah on the east. A
+little glen, anciently called the Tyropeon, divides the mounts, and winds
+through to the Damascus Gate, on the north, though from the height of the
+walls and the position of the city, the depression which it causes in the
+mass of buildings is not very perceptible, except from the latter point,
+Moriah is the lowest of the mounts, and hangs directly over the Valley of
+Jehosaphat. Its summit was built up by Solomon so as to form a
+quadrangular terrace, five hundred by three hundred yards in dimension.
+The lower courses of the grand wall, composed of huge blocks of gray
+conglomerate limestone, still remain, and there seems to be no doubt that
+they are of the time of Solomon. Some of the stones are of enormous size;
+I noticed several which were fifteen, and one twenty-two feet in length.
+The upper part of the wall was restored by Sultan Selim, the conqueror of
+Egypt, and the level of the terrace now supports the great Mosque of Omar,
+which stands on the very site of the temple. Except these foundation
+walls, the Damascus Gate and the Tower of Hippicus, there is nothing left
+of the ancient city. The length of the present wall of circumference is
+about two miles, but the circuit of Jerusalem, in the time of Herod, was
+probably double that distance.</p>
+
+<p>The best views of the city are from the Mount of Olives, and the hill
+north of it, whence Titus directed the siege which resulted in its total
+destruction. The Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon encamped on the same
+hill. My first walk after reaching here, was to the summit of the Mount of
+Olives. Not far from the hotel we came upon the Via Dolorosa, up which,
+according to Catholic tradition, Christ toiled with the cross upon his
+shoulders. I found it utterly impossible to imagine that I was walking in
+the same path, and preferred doubting the tradition. An arch is built
+across the street at the spot where they say he was shown to the populace.
+(<i>Ecce Homo</i>.) The passage is steep and rough, descending to St. Stephen's
+Gate by the Governor's Palace, which stands on the site of the house of
+Pontius Pilate. Here, in the wall forming the northern part of the
+foundation of the temple, there are some very fine remains of ancient
+workmanship. From the city wall, the ground descends abruptly to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat. The Turkish residents have their tombs on the city
+side, just under the terrace of the mosque, while thousands of Jews find a
+peculiar beatitude in having themselves interred on the opposite slope of
+the Mount of Olives, which is in some places quite covered with their
+crumbling tombstones. The bed of the Brook Kedron is now dry and stony. A
+sort of chapel, built in the bottom of the valley, is supposed by the
+Greeks to cover the tomb of the Virgin--a claim which the Latins consider
+absurd. Near this, at the very foot of the Mount of Olives, the latter
+sect have lately built a high stone wall around the Garden of Gethsemane,
+for the purpose, apparently, of protecting the five aged olives. I am
+ignorant of the grounds wherefore Gethsemane is placed here. Most
+travellers have given their faith to the spot, but Dr. Robinson, who is
+more reliable than any amount of mere tradition, does not coincide with
+them. The trees do not appear as ancient as some of those at the foot of
+Mount Carmel, which are supposed to date from the Roman colony established
+by Titus. Moreover, it is well known that at the time of the taking of
+Jerusalem by that Emperor, all the trees, for many miles around, were
+destroyed. The olive-trees, therefore, cannot be those under which Christ
+rested, even supposing this to be the true site of Gethseniane.</p>
+
+<p>The Mount of Olives is a steep and rugged hill, dominating over the city
+and the surrounding heights. It is still covered with olive orchards, and
+planted with patches of grain, which do not thrive well on the stony soil.
+On the summit is a mosque, with a minaret attached, which affords a grand
+panoramic view. As we reached it, the Chief of the College of Dervishes,
+in the court of the Mosque of Omar, came out with a number of attendants.
+He saluted us courteously, which would not have been the case had he been
+the Superior of the Latin Convent, and we Greek Monks. There were some
+Turkish ladies in the interior of the mosque, so that we could not gain
+admittance, and therefore did not see the rock containing the foot-prints
+of Christ, who, according to Moslem tradition, ascended to heaven from
+this spot. The Mohammedans, it may not be generally known, accept the
+history of Christ, except his crucifixion, believing that he passed to
+heaven without death, another person being crucified in his stead. They
+call him the <i>Roh-Allah,</i> or Spirit of God, and consider him, after
+Mahomet, as the holiest of the Prophets.</p>
+
+<p>We ascended to the gallery of the minaret. The city lay opposite, so
+fairly spread out to our view that almost every house might be separately
+distinguished. It is a mass of gray buildings, with dome-roofs, and but
+for the mosques of Omar and El Aksa, with the courts and galleries around
+them, would be exceedingly tame in appearance. The only other prominent
+points are the towers of the Holy Sepulchre, the citadel, enclosing
+Herod's Tower, and the mosque on mount Zion. The Turkish wall, with its
+sharp angles, its square bastions, and the long, embrasured lines of its
+parapet, is the most striking feature of the view. Stony hills stretch
+away from the city on all sides, at present cheered with tracts of
+springing wheat, but later in the season, brown and desolate. In the
+south, the convent of St. Elias is visible, and part of the little town of
+Bethlehem. I passed to the eastern side of the gallery, and looking
+thence, deep down among the sterile mountains, beheld a long sheet of blue
+water, its southern extremity vanishing in a hot, sulphury haze. The
+mountains of Ammon and Moab, which formed the background of my first view
+of Jerusalem, leaned like a vast wall against the sky, beyond the
+mysterious sea and the broad valley of the Jordan. The great depression of
+this valley below the level of the Mediterranean gives it a most
+remarkable character. It appears even deeper than is actually the case,
+and resembles an enormous chasm or moat, separating two different regions
+of the earth. The <i>khamseen</i> was blowing from the south, from out the
+deserts of Edom, and threw its veil of fiery vapor over the landscape. The
+muezzin pointed out to me the location of Jericho, of Kerak in Moab, and
+Es-Salt in the country of Ammon. Ere long the shadow of the minaret
+denoted noon, and, placing his hands on both sides of his mouth, he cried
+out, first on the South side, towards Mecca, and then to the West, and
+North, and East: "God is great: there is no God but God, and Mohammed is
+His Prophet! Let us prostrate ourselves before Him: and to Him alone be
+the glory!"</p>
+
+<p>Jerusalem, internally, gives no impression but that of filth, ruin,
+poverty, and degradation. There are two or three streets in the western or
+higher portion of the city which are tolerably clean, but all the others,
+to the very gates of the Holy Sepulchre, are channels of pestilence. The
+Jewish Quarter, which is the largest, so sickened and disgusted me, that I
+should rather go the whole round of the city walls than pass through it a
+second time. The bazaars are poor, compared with those of other Oriental
+cities of the same size, and the principal trade seems to be in rosaries,
+both Turkish and Christian, crosses, seals, amulets, and pieces of the
+Holy Sepulchre. The population, which may possibly reach 20,000, is
+apparently Jewish, for the most part; at least, I have been principally
+struck with the Hebrew face, in my walks. The number of Jews has increased
+considerably within a few years, and there is also quite a number who,
+having been converted to Protestantism, were brought hither at the expense
+of English missionary societies for the purpose of forming a Protestant
+community. Two of the hotels are kept by families of this class. It is
+estimated that each member of the community has cost the Mission about
+&pound;4,500: a sum which would have Christianized tenfold the number of English
+heathen. The Mission, however, is kept up by its patrons, as a sort of
+religious luxury. The English have lately built a very handsome church
+within the walls, and the Rev. Dr. Gobat, well known by his missionary
+labors in Abyssinia, now has the title of Bishop of Jerusalem. A friend of
+his in Central Africa gave me a letter of introduction for him, and I am
+quite disappointed in finding him absent. Dr. Barclay, of Virginia, a most
+worthy man in every respect, is at the head of the American Mission here.
+There is, besides, what is called the "American Colony," at the village of
+Artos, near Bethlehem: a little community of religious enthusiasts, whose
+experiments in cultivation have met with remarkable success, and are much
+spoken of at present.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever good the various missions here may, in time, accomplish (at
+present, it does not amount to much), Jerusalem is the last place in the
+world where an intelligent heathen would be converted to Christianity.
+Were I cast here, ignorant of any religion, and were I to compare the
+lives and practices of the different sects as the means of making my
+choice--in short, to judge of each faith by the conduct of its
+professors--I should at once turn Mussulman. When you consider that in the
+Holy Sepulchre there are <i>nineteen</i> chapels, each belonging to a different
+sect, calling itself Christian, and that a Turkish police is always
+stationed there to prevent the bloody quarrels which often ensue between
+them, you may judge how those who call themselves followers of the Prince
+of Peace practice the pure faith he sought to establish. Between the Greek
+and Latin churches, especially, there is a deadly feud, and their
+contentions are a scandal, not only to the few Christians here, but to the
+Moslems themselves. I believe there is a sort of truce at present, owing
+to the settlement of some of the disputes--as, for instance, the
+restoration of the silver star, which the Greeks stole from the shrine of
+the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The Latins, however, not long since,
+demolished, <i>vi et armis</i>, a chapel which the Greeks commenced building on
+Mount Zion. But, if the employment of material weapons has been abandoned
+for the time, there is none the less a war of words and of sounds still
+going on. Go into the Holy Sepulchre, when mass is being celebrated, and
+you can scarcely endure the din. No sooner does the Greek choir begin its
+shrill chant, than the Latins fly to the assault. They have an organ, and
+terribly does that organ strain its bellows and labor its pipes to drown
+the rival singing. You think the Latins will carry the day, when suddenly
+the cymbals of the Abyssinians strike in with harsh brazen clang, and, for
+the moment, triumph. Then there are Copts, and Maronites, and Armenians,
+and I know not how many other sects, who must have their share; and the
+service that should be a many-toned harmony pervaded by one grand spirit
+of devotion, becomes a discordant orgie, befitting the rites of Belial.</p>
+
+<p>A long time ago--I do not know the precise number of years--the Sultan
+granted a firman, in answer to the application of both Jews and
+Christians, allowing the members of each sect to put to death any person
+belonging to the other sect, who should be found inside of their churches
+or synagogues. The firman has never been recalled, though in every place
+but Jerusalem it remains a dead letter. Here, although the Jews freely
+permit Christians to enter their synagogue, a Jew who should enter the
+Holy Sepulchre would be lucky if he escaped with his life. Not long since,
+an English gentleman, who was taken by the monks for a Jew, was so
+severely beaten that he was confined to his bed for two months. What worse
+than scandal, what abomination, that the spot looked upon by so many
+Christians as the most awfully sacred on earth, should be the scene of
+such brutish intolerance! I never pass the group of Turkish officers,
+quietly smoking their long pipes and sipping their coffee within the
+vestibule of the Church, without a feeling of humiliation. Worse than the
+money-changers whom Christ scourged out of the Temple, the guardians of
+this edifice make use of His crucifixion and resurrection as a means of
+gain. You may buy a piece of the stone covering the Holy Sepulchre, duly
+certified by the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, for about $7. At Bethlehem,
+which I visited this morning, the Latin monk who showed us the manger, the
+pit where 12,000 innocents were buried, and other things, had much less to
+say of the sacredness or authenticity of the place, than of the injustice
+of allowing the Greeks a share in its possession.</p>
+
+<p>The native Jewish families in Jerusalem, as well as those in other parts
+of Palestine, present a marked difference to the Jews of Europe and
+America. They possess the same physical characteristics--the dark, oblong
+eye, the prominent nose, the strongly-marked cheek and jaw--but in the
+latter, these traits have become harsh and coarse. Centuries devoted to
+the lowest and most debasing forms of traffic, with the endurance of
+persecution and contumely, have greatly changed and vulgarized the
+appearance of the race. But the Jews of the Holy City still retain a noble
+beauty, which proved to my mind their descent from the ancient princely
+houses of Israel The forehead is loftier, the eye larger and more frank in
+its expression, the nose more delicate in its prominence, and the face a
+purer oval. I have remarked the same distinction in the countenances of
+those Jewish families of Europe, whose members have devoted themselves to
+Art or Literature. Mendelssohn's was a face that might have belonged to
+the House of David.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of my arrival in the city, as I set out to walk through the
+bazaars, I encountered a native Jew, whose face will haunt me for the rest
+of my life. I was sauntering slowly along, asking myself "Is this
+Jerusalem?" when, lifting my eyes, they met those of Christ! It was the
+very face which Raphael has painted--the traditional features of the
+Saviour, as they are recognised and accepted by all Christendom. The
+waving brown hair, partly hidden by a Jewish cap, fell clustering about
+the ears; the face was the most perfect oval, and almost feminine in the
+purity of its outline; the serene, child-like mouth was shaded with a
+light moustache, and a silky brown beard clothed the chin; but the
+eyes--shall I ever look into such orbs again? Large, dark, unfathomable,
+they beamed with an expression of divine love and divine sorrow, such as I
+never before saw in human face. The man had just emerged from a dark
+archway, and the golden glow of the sunset, reflected from a white wall
+above, fell upon his face. Perhaps it was this transfiguration which made
+his beauty so unearthly; but, during the moment that I saw him, he was to
+me a revelation of the Saviour. There are still miracles in the Land of
+Judah. As the dusk gathered in the deep streets, I could see nothing but
+the ineffable sweetness and benignity of that countenance, and my friend
+was not a little astonished, if not shocked, when I said to him, with the
+earnestness of belief, on my return: "I have just seen Christ."</p>
+
+<p>I made the round of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday, while the monks were
+celebrating the festival of the Invention of the Cross, in the chapel of
+the Empress Helena. As the finding of the cross by the Empress is almost
+the only authority for the places inclosed within the Holy Sepulchre, I
+went there inclined to doubt their authenticity, and came away with my
+doubt vastly strengthened. The building is a confused labyrinth of
+chapels, choirs, shrines, staircases, and vaults--without any definite
+plan or any architectural beauty, though very rich in parts and full of
+picturesque effects. Golden lamps continually burn before the sacred
+places, and you rarely visit the church without seeing some procession of
+monks, with crosses, censers, and tapers, threading the shadowy passages,
+from shrine to shrine It is astonishing how many localities are assembled
+under one roof. At first, you are shown, the stone on which Christ rested
+from the burden of the cross; then, the place where the soldiers cast lots
+for His garments, both of them adjoining the Sepulchre. After seeing this,
+you are taken to the Pillar of Flagellation; the stocks; the place of
+crowning with thorns; the spot where He met His mother; the cave where the
+Empress Helena found the cross; and, lastly, the summit of Mount Calvary.
+The Sepulchre is a small marble building in the centre of the church. We
+removed our shoes at the entrance, and were taken by a Greek monk, first
+into a sort of ante-chamber, lighted with golden lamps, and having in the
+centre, inclosed in a case of marble, the stone on which the angel sat.
+Stooping through a low door, we entered the Sepulchre itself. Forty lamps
+of gold burn unceasingly above the white marble slab, which, as the monks
+say, protects the stone whereon the body of Christ was laid. As we again
+emerged, our guide led us up a flight of steps to a second story, in which
+stood a shrine, literally blazing with gold. Kneeling on the marble floor,
+he removed a golden shield, and showed us the hole in the rock of Calvary,
+where the cross was planted. Close beside it was the fissure produced by
+the earthquake which followed the Crucifixion. But, to my eyes, aided by
+the light of the dim wax taper, it was no violent rupture, such as an
+earthquake would produce, and the rock did not appear to be the same as
+that of which Jerusalem is built. As we turned to leave, a monk appeared
+with a bowl of sacred rose-water, which he sprinkled on our hands,
+bestowing a double portion on a rosary of sandal-wood which I carried But
+it was a Mohammedan rosary, brought from Mecca, and containing the sacred
+number of ninety-nine beads.</p>
+
+<p>I have not space here to state all the arguments for and against the
+localities in the Holy Sepulchre, I came to the conclusion that none of
+them were authentic, and am glad to have the concurrence of such
+distinguished authority as Dr. Robinson. So far from this being a matter
+of regret, I, for one, rejoice that those sacred spots are lost to the
+world. Christianity does not need them, and they are spared a daily
+profanation in the name of religion. We know that Christ has walked on the
+Mount of Olives, and gone down to the Pool of Siloam, and tarried in
+Bethany; we know that here, within the circuit of our vision, He has
+suffered agony and death, and that from this little point went out all the
+light that has made the world greater and happier and better in its later
+than in its earlier days.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, I must frankly confess, in wandering through this city--revered
+alike by Christians, Jews and Turks as one of the holiest in the world--I
+have been reminded of Christ, the Man, rather, than of Christ, the God. In
+the glory which overhangs Palestine afar off, we imagine emotions which
+never come, when we tread the soil and walk over the hallowed sites. As I
+toiled up the Mount of Olives, in the very footsteps of Christ, panting
+with the heat and the difficult ascent, I found it utterly impossible to
+conceive that the Deity, in human form, had walked there before me. And
+even at night, as I walk on the terraced roof, while the moon, "the balmy
+moon of blessed Israel," restores the Jerusalem of olden days to my
+imagination, the Saviour who then haunts my thoughts is the Man Jesus, in
+those moments of trial when He felt the weaknesses of our common humanity;
+in that agony of struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, in that still more
+bitter cry of human doubt and human appeal from the cross: "My God, my
+God, why hast Thou forsaken me!" Yet there is no reproach for this
+conception of the character of Christ. Better the divinely-inspired Man,
+the purest and most perfect of His race, the pattern and type of all that
+is good and holy in Humanity, than the Deity for whose intercession we
+pray, while we trample His teachings under our feet. It would be well for
+many Christian sects, did they keep more constantly before their eyes the
+sublime humanity of Christ. How much bitter intolerance and persecution
+might be spared the world, if, instead of simply adoring Him as a Divine
+Mediator, they would strive to walk the ways He trod on earth. But
+Christianity is still undeveloped, and there is yet no sect which
+represents its fall and perfect spirit.</p>
+
+<p>It is my misfortune if I give offence by these remarks. I cannot assume
+emotions I do not feel, and must describe Jerusalem as I found it. Since
+being here, I have read the accounts of several travellers, and in many
+cases the devotional rhapsodies--the ecstacies of awe and reverence--in
+which they indulge, strike me as forced and affected. The pious writers
+have described what was expected of them, not what they found. It was
+partly from reading such accounts that my anticipations were raised too
+high, for the view of the city from the Jaffa road and the panorama from
+the Mount of Olives are the only things wherein I have been pleasantly
+disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>By far the most interesting relic left to the city is the foundation wall
+of Solomon's Temple. The Mosque of Omar, according to the accounts of the
+Turks, and Mr. Gather wood's examination, rests on immense vaults, which
+are believed to be the substructions of the Temple itself. Under the dome
+of the mosque there is a large mass of natural rock, revered by the
+Moslems as that from which Mahomet mounted the beast Borak when he visited
+the Seven Heavens, and believed by Mr. Catherwood to have served as part
+of the foundation of the Holy of Holies. No Christian is allowed to enter
+the mosque, or even its enclosure, on penalty of death, and even the
+firman of the Sultan has failed to obtain admission for a Frank. I have
+been strongly tempted to make the attempt in my Egyptian dress, which
+happens to resemble that of a mollah or Moslem priest, but the Dervishes
+in the adjoining college have sharp eyes, and my pronunciation of Arabic
+would betray me in case I was accosted. I even went so far as to buy a
+string of the large beads usually carried by a mollah, but unluckily I do
+not know the Moslem form of prayer, or I might carry out the plan under
+the guise of religious abstraction. This morning we succeeded in getting a
+nearer view of the mosque from the roof of the Governor's palace.
+Fran&ccedil;ois, by assuming the character of a Turkish <i>cawass, </i> gained us
+admission. The roof overlooks the entire enclosure of the Haram, and gives
+a complete view of the exterior of the mosque and the paved court
+surrounding it. There is no regularity in the style of the buildings in
+the enclosure, but the general effect is highly picturesque. The great
+dome of the mosque is the grandest in all the Orient, but the body of the
+edifice, made to resemble an octagonal tent, and covered with blue and
+white tiles, is not high enough to do it justice. The first court is paved
+with marble, and has four porticoes, each of five light Saracenic arches,
+opening into the green park, which occupies the rest of the terrace. This
+park is studded with cypress and fig trees, and dotted all over with the
+tombs of shekhs. As we were looking down on the spacious area, behold! who
+should come along but Shekh Mohammed Senoosee, the holy man of Timbuctoo,
+who had laid off his scarlet robe and donned a green one. I called down to
+him, whereupon he looked up and recognised us. For this reason I regret
+our departure from Jerusalem, as I am sure a little persuasion would
+induce the holy man to accompany me within the mosque.</p>
+
+<p>We leave to-morrow for Damascus, by way of Nazareth and Tiberius. My
+original plan was to have gone to Djerash, the ancient Geraza, in the land
+of Gilead, and thence to Bozrah, in Djebel Hauaran. But Djebel Adjeloun,
+as the country about Djerash is called, is under a powerful Bedouin shekh,
+named Abd-el Azeez, and without an escort from him, which involves
+considerable delay and a fee of $150, it would be impossible to make the
+journey. We are therefore restricted to the ordinary route, and in case we
+should meet with any difficulty by the way, Mr. Smith, the American
+Consul, who is now here, has kindly procured us a firman from the Pasha of
+Jerusalem. All the travellers here are making preparations to leave, but
+there are still two parties in the Desert.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch06">
+<h2>Chapter VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Hill-Country of Palestine.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Leaving Jerusalem--The Tombs of the Kings--El Bireh--The
+  Hill-Country--First View of Mount Hermon--The Tomb of Joseph--Ebal and
+  Gerizim--The Gardens of Nablous--The Samaritans--The Sacred Book--A
+  Scene in the Synagogue--Mentoi and Telemachus--Ride to Samaria--The
+  Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
+  Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
+  Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
+  the Annunciation--The Holy Places.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song,<br />
+Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng:<br />
+In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,<br />
+On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee!"</p>
+
+<p>J. G. Whittier.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Latin Convent, Nazareth, <i>Friday May</i> 7, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We left Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate, because within a few months neither
+travellers nor baggage are allowed to pass the Damascus Gate, on account
+of smuggling operations having been carried on there. Not far from the
+city wall there is a superb terebinth tree, now in the full glory of its
+shining green leaves. It appears to be bathed in a perpetual dew; the
+rounded masses of foliage sparkle and glitter in the light, and the great
+spreading boughs flood the turf below with a deluge of delicious shade. A
+number of persons were reclining on the grass under it, and one of them, a
+very handsome Christian boy, spoke to us in Italian and English. I
+scarcely remember a brighter and purer day than that of our departure.
+The sky was a sheet of spotless blue; every rift and scar of the distant
+hills was retouched with a firmer pencil, and all the outlines, blurred
+away by the haze of the previous few days, were restored with wonderful
+distinctness. The temperature was hot, but not sultry, and the air we
+breathed was an elixir of immortality.</p>
+
+<p>Through a luxuriant olive grove we reached the Tombs of the Kings,
+situated in a small valley to the north of the city. Part of the valley,
+if not the whole of it, has been formed by quarrying away the crags of
+marble and conglomerate limestone for building the city. Near the edge of
+the low cliffs overhanging it, there are some illustrations of the ancient
+mode of cutting stone, which, as well as the custom of excavating tombs in
+the rock, was evidently borrowed from Egypt. The upper surface of the
+rocks, was first made smooth, after which the blocks were mapped out and
+cut apart by grooves chiselled between them. I visited four or five tombs,
+each of which had a sort of vestibule or open portico in front. The door
+was low, and the chambers which I entered, small and black, without
+sculptures of any kind. The tombs bear some resemblance in their general
+plan to those of Thebes, except that they are without ornaments, either
+sculptured or painted. There are fragments of sarcophagi in some of them.
+On the southern side of the valley is a large quarry, evidently worked for
+marble, as the blocks have been cut out from below, leaving a large
+overhanging mass, part of which has broken off and fallen down. Some
+pieces which I picked up were of a very fine white marble, somewhat
+resembling that of Carrara. The opening of the quarry made a striking
+picture, the soft pink hue of the weather-stained rock contrasting
+exquisitely with the vivid green of the vines festooning the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>From the long hill beyond the Tombs, we took our last view of Jerusalem,
+far beyond whose walls I saw the Church of the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The
+Jewish synagogue on the top of the mountain called Nebbee Samwil, the
+highest peak in Palestine, was visible at some distance to the west.
+Notwithstanding its sanctity, I felt little regret at leaving Jerusalem,
+and cheerfully took the rough road northward, over the stony hills. There
+were few habitations in sight, yet the hill-sides were cultivated,
+wherever it was possible for anything to grow. The wheat was just coming
+into head, and the people were at work, planting maize. After four hours'
+ride, we reached El Bireh, a little village on a hill, with the ruins of a
+convent and a large khan. The place takes its name from a fountain of
+excellent water, beside which we found our tents already pitched. In the
+evening, two Englishmen, an ancient Mentor, with a wild young Telemachus
+in charge, arrived, and camped near us. The night was calm and cool, and
+the full moon poured a flood of light over the bare and silent hills.</p>
+
+<p>We rose long before sunrise, and rode off in the brilliant morning--the
+sky unstained by a speck of vapor. In the valley, beyond El Bireh, the
+husbandmen were already at their ploughs, and the village boys were on
+their way to the uncultured parts of the hills, with their flocks of sheep
+and goats. The valley terminated in a deep gorge, with perpendicular walls
+of rock on either side. Our road mounted the hill on the eastern side, and
+followed the brink of the precipice through the pass, where an enchanting
+landscape opened upon us. The village of Yebrood crowned a hill which rose
+opposite, and the mountain slopes leaning towards it on all sides were
+covered with orchards of fig trees; and either rustling with wheat or
+cleanly ploughed for maize. The soil was a dark brown loam, and very rich.
+The stones have been laboriously built into terraces; and, even where
+heavy rocky boulders almost hid the soil, young fig and olive trees were
+planted in the crevices between them. I have never seen more thorough and
+patient cultivation. In the crystal of the morning air, the very hills
+laughed with plenty, and the whole landscape beamed with the signs of
+gladness on its countenance.</p>
+
+<p>The site of ancient Bethel was not far to the right of our road. Over
+hills laden with the olive, fig, and vine, we passed to Ain el-Haramiyeh,
+or the Fountain of the Bobbers. Here there are tombs cut in the rock on
+both sides of the valley. Over another ridge, we descended to a large,
+bowl-shaped valley, entirely covered with wheat, and opening eastward
+towards the Jordan. Thence to Nablous (the Shechem of the Old and Sychar
+of the New Testament) is four hours through a winding dell of the richest
+harvest land; On the way, we first caught sight of the snowy top of Mount
+Hermon, distant at least eighty miles in a straight line. Before reaching
+Nablous, I stopped to drink at a fountain of clear and sweet water, beside
+a square pile of masonry, upon which sat two Moslem dervishes. This, we
+were told, was the Tomb of Joseph, whose body, after having accompanied
+the Israelites in all their wanderings, was at last deposited near
+Shechem. There is less reason to doubt this spot than most of the sacred
+places of Palestine, for the reason that it rests, not on Christian, but
+on Jewish tradition. The wonderful tenacity with which the Jews cling to
+every record or memento of their early history, and the fact that from
+the time of Joseph a portion of them have always lingered near the spot,
+render it highly probable that the locality of a spot so sacred should
+have been preserved from generation to generation to the present time. It
+has been recently proposed to open this tomb, by digging under it from the
+side. If the body of Joseph was actually deposited here, there are, no
+doubt, some traces of it remaining. It must have been embalmed, according
+to the Egyptian custom, and placed in a coffin of the Indian sycamore, the
+wood of which is so nearly incorruptible, that thirty-five centuries would
+not suffice for its decomposition. The singular interest of such a
+discovery would certainly justify the experiment. Not far from the tomb is
+Jacob's Well, where Christ met the Woman of Samaria. This place is also
+considered as authentic, for the same reasons. If not wholly convincing to
+all, there is, at least, so much probability in them that one is freed
+from that painful coldness and incredulity with which he beholds the
+sacred shows of Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the Tomb of Joseph, the road turned to the west, and entered the
+narrow pass between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. The former is a steep, barren
+peak, clothed with terraces of cactus, standing on the northern side of
+the pass. Mount Gerizim is cultivated nearly to the top, and is truly a
+mountain of blessing, compared with its neighbor. Through an orchard of
+grand old olive-trees, we reached Nablous, which presented a charming
+picture, with its long mass of white, dome-topped stone houses, stretching
+along the foot of Gerizim through a sea of bowery orchards. The bottom of
+the valley resembles some old garden run to waste. Abundant streams,
+poured from the generous heart of the Mount of Blessing, leap and gurgle
+with pleasant noises through thickets of orange, fig, and pomegranate,
+through bowers of roses and tangled masses of briars and wild vines. We
+halted in a grove of olives, and, after our tent was pitched, walked
+upward through the orchards to the Ras-el-Ain (Promontory of the
+Fountain), on the side of Mount Gerizim. A multitude of beggars sat at the
+city gate; and, as they continued to clamor after I had given sufficient
+alms, I paid them with "<i>Allah deelek</i>!"--(God give it to you!)--the
+Moslem's reply to such importunity--and they ceased in an instant. This
+exclamation, it seems, takes away from them the power of demanding a
+second time.</p>
+
+<p>From under the Ras-el-Ain gushes forth the Fountain of Honey, so called
+from the sweetness and purity of the water. We drank of it, and I found
+the taste very agreeable, but my companion declared that it had an
+unpleasant woolly flavor. When we climbed a little higher, we found that
+the true source from which the fountain is supplied was above, and that an
+Arab was washing a flock of sheep in it! We continued our walk along the
+side of the mountain to the other end of the city, through gardens of
+almond, apricot, prune, and walnut-trees, bound each to each by great
+vines, whose heavy arms they seemed barely able to support. The interior
+of the town is dark and filthy; but it has a long, busy bazaar extending
+its whole length, and a caf&eacute;, where we procured the best coffee in Syria.</p>
+
+<p>Nablous is noted for the existence of a small remnant of the ancient
+Samaritans. The stock has gradually dwindled away, and amounts to only
+forty families, containing little more than a hundred and fifty
+individuals. They live in a particular quarter of the city, and are
+easily distinguished from the other inhabitants by the cast of their
+features. After our guide, a native of Nablous, had pointed out three or
+four, I had no difficulty in recognising all the others we met. They have
+long, but not prominent noses, like the Jews; small, oblong eyes, narrow
+lips, and fair complexions, most of them having brown hair. They appear to
+be held in considerable obloquy by the Moslems. Our attendant, who was of
+the low class of Arabs, took the boys we met very unceremoniously by the
+head, calling out: "Here is another Samaritan!" He then conducted us to
+their synagogue, to see the celebrated Pentateuch, which is there
+preserved. We were taken to a small, open court, shaded by an
+apricot-tree, where the priest, an old man in a green robe and white
+turban, was seated in meditation. He had a long grey beard, and black
+eyes, that lighted up with a sudden expression of eager greed when we
+promised him backsheesh for a sight of the sacred book. He arose and took
+us into a sort of chapel, followed by a number of Samaritan boys. Kneeling
+down at a niche in the wall, he produced from behind a wooden case a piece
+of ragged parchment, written with Hebrew characters. But the guide was
+familiar with this deception, and rated him so soundly that, after a
+little hesitation, he laid the fragment away, and produced a large tin
+cylinder, covered with a piece of green satin embroidered in gold. The
+boys stooped down and reverently kissed the blazoned cover, before it was
+removed. The cylinder, sliding open by two rows of hinges, opened at the
+same time the parchment scroll, which was rolled at both ends. It was,
+indeed, a very ancient manuscript, and in remarkable preservation. The
+rents have been carefully repaired and the scroll neatly stitched upon
+another piece of parchment, covered on the outside with violet satin. The
+priest informed me that it was written by the son of Aaron; but this does
+not coincide with the fact that the Samaritan Pentateuch is different from
+that of the Jews. It is, however, no doubt one of the oldest parchment
+records in the world, and the Samaritans look upon it with unbounded faith
+and reverence. The Pentateuch, according to their version, contains their
+only form of religion. They reject everything else which the Old Testament
+contains. Three or four days ago was their grand feast of sacrifice, when
+they made a burnt offering of a lamb, on the top of Mount Gerizim. Within
+a short time, it is said they have shown some curiosity to become
+acquainted with the New Testament, and the High Priest sent to Jerusalem
+to procure Arabic copies.</p>
+
+<p>I asked one of the wild-eyed boys whether he could read the sacred book.
+"Oh, yes," said the priest, "all these boys can read it;" and the one I
+addressed immediately pulled a volume from his breast, and commenced
+reading in fluent Hebrew. It appeared to be a part of their church
+service, for both the priest and <i>boab</i>, or door-keeper, kept up a running
+series of responses, and occasionally the whole crowd shouted out some
+deep-mouthed word in chorus. The old man leaned forward with an expression
+as fixed and intense as if the text had become incarnate in him, following
+with his lips the sound of the boy's voice. It was a strange picture of
+religious enthusiasm, and was of itself sufficient to convince me of the
+legitimacy of the Samaritan's descent. When I rose to leave I gave him the
+promised fee, and a smaller one to the boy who read the service. This was
+the signal for a general attack from the door-keeper and all the boys who
+were present. They surrounded me with eyes sparkling with the desire of
+gain, kissed the border of my jacket, stroked my beard coaxingly with
+their hands, which they then kissed, and, crowding up with a boisterous
+show of affection, were about to fall on my neck in a heap, after the old
+Hebrew fashion. The priest, clamorous for more, followed with glowing
+face, and the whole group had a riotous and bacchanalian character, which
+I should never have imagined could spring from such a passion as avarice.</p>
+
+<p>On returning to our camp, we found Mentor and Telemachus arrived, but not
+on such friendly terms as their Greek prototypes. We were kept awake for a
+long time that night by their high words, and the first sound I heard the
+next morning came from their tent. Telemachus, I suspect, had found some
+island of Calypso, and did not relish the cold shock of the plunge into
+the sea, by which Mentor had forced him away. He insisted on returning to
+Jerusalem, but as Mentor would not allow him a horse, he had not the
+courage to try it on foot. After a series of altercations, in which he
+took a pistol to shoot the dragoman, and applied very profane terms to
+everybody in the company, his wrath dissolved into tears, and when we
+left, Mentor had decided to rest a day at Nablous, and let him recover
+from the effects of the storm.</p>
+
+<p>We rode down the beautiful valley, taking the road to Sebaste (Samaria),
+while our luggage-mules kept directly over the mountains to Jenin. Our
+path at first followed the course of the stream, between turfy banks and
+through luxuriant orchards. The whole country we overlooked was planted
+with olive-trees, and, except the very summits of the mountains, covered
+with grain-fields. For two hours our course was north-east, leading over
+the hills, and now and then dipping into beautiful dells. In one of these
+a large stream gushes from the earth in a full fountain, at the foot of a
+great olive-tree. The hill-side above it was a complete mass of foliage,
+crowned with the white walls of a Syrian village. Descending the valley,
+which is very deep, we came in sight of Samaria, situated on the summit of
+an isolated hill. The sanctuary of the ancient Christian church of St.
+John towers high above the mud walls of the modern village. Riding between
+olive-orchards and wheat-fields of glorious richness and beauty, we passed
+the remains of an acqueduct, and ascended the hill The ruins of the church
+occupy the eastern summit. Part of them have been converted into a mosque,
+which the Christian foot is not allowed to profane. The church, which is
+in the Byzantine style, is apparently of the time of the Crusaders. It had
+originally a central and two side-aisles, covered with groined Gothic
+vaults. The sanctuary is semi-circular, with a row of small arches,
+supported by double pillars. The church rests on the foundations of some
+much more ancient building--probably a temple belonging to the Roman
+city.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the modern village, the hill terminates in a long, elliptical
+mound, about one-third of a mile in length. We made the tour of it, and
+were surprised at finding a large number of columns, each of a single
+piece of marble. They had once formed a double colonnade, extending from
+the church to a gate on the western side of the summit. Our native guide
+said they had been covered with an arch, and constituted a long market or
+bazaar--a supposition in which he may be correct. From the gate, which is
+still distinctly marked, we overlooked several deep valleys to the west,
+and over them all, the blue horizon of the Mediterranean, south of
+C&aelig;sarea. On the northern side of the hill there are upwards of twenty more
+pillars standing, besides a number hurled down, and the remains of a
+quadrangular colonnade, on the side of the hill below. The total number of
+pillars on the summit cannot be less than one hundred, from twelve to
+eighteen feet in height. The hill is strewn, even to its base, with large
+hewn blocks and fragments of sculptured stone. The present name of the
+city was given to it by Herod, and it must have been at that time a most
+stately and beautiful place.</p>
+
+<p>We descended to a valley on the east, climbed a long ascent, and after
+crossing the broad shoulder of a mountain beyond, saw below us a landscape
+even more magnificent than that of Nablous. It was a great winding valley,
+its bottom rolling in waves of wheat and barley, while every hill-side, up
+to the bare rock, was mantled with groves of olive. The very summits which
+looked into this garden of Israel, were green with fragrant plants--wild
+thyme and sage, gnaphalium and camomile. Away to the west was the sea, and
+in the north-west the mountain chain of Carmel. We went down to the
+gardens and pasture-land, and stopped to rest at the Village of Geba,
+which hangs on the side of the mountain. A spring of whitish but delicious
+water gushed out of the soil, in the midst of a fig orchard. The women
+passed us, going back and forth with tall water-jars on their heads. Some
+herd-boys brought down a flock of black goats, and they were all given
+drink in a large wooden bowl. They were beautiful animals, with thick
+curved horns, white eyes, and ears a foot long. It was a truly Biblical
+picture in every feature.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this valley we passed a circular basin, which has no outlet, so
+that in winter the bottom of it must be a lake. After winding among the
+hills an hour more, we came out upon the town of Jenin, a Turkish village,
+with a tall white minaret, at the head of the great plain of Esdraelon. It
+is supposed to be the ancient Jezreel, where the termagant Jezebel was
+thrown out of the window. We pitched our tent in a garden near the town,
+under a beautiful mulberry tree, and, as the place is in very bad repute,
+engaged a man to keep guard at night. An English family was robbed there
+two or three weeks ago. Our guard did his duty well, pacing back and
+forth, and occasionally grounding his musket to keep up his courage by the
+sound. In the evening, Fran&ccedil;ois caught a chameleon, a droll-looking little
+creature, which changed color in a marvellous manner.</p>
+
+<p>Our road, next day, lay directly across the Plain of Esdraelon, one of the
+richest districts in the world. It is now a green sea, covered with fields
+of wheat and barley, or great grazing tracts, on which multitudes of sheep
+and goats are wandering. In some respects it reminded me of the Valley of
+San Jos&eacute;, and if I were to liken Palestine to any other country I have
+seen, it would be California. The climate and succession of the seasons
+are the same, the soil is very similar in quality, and the landscapes
+present the same general features. Here, in spring, the plains are covered
+with that deluge of floral bloom, which makes California seem a paradise.
+Here there are the same picturesque groves, the same rank fields of wild
+oats clothing the mountain-sides, the same aromatic herbs impregnating the
+air with balm, and above all, the same blue, cloudless days and dewless
+nights. While travelling here, I am constantly reminded of our new Syria
+on the Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>Towards noon, Mount Tabor separated itself from the chain of hills before
+us, and stood out singly, at the extremity of the plain. We watered our
+horses at a spring in a swamp, were some women were collected, beating
+with sticks the rushes they had gathered to make mats. After reaching the
+mountains on the northern side of the plain, an ascent of an hour and
+a-half, through a narrow glen, brought us to Nazareth, which is situated
+in a cul-de-sac, under the highest peaks of the range. As we were passing
+a rocky part of the road, Mr. Harrison's horse fell with him and severely
+injured his leg. We were fortunately near our destination, and on reaching
+the Latin Convent, Fra Joachim, to whose surgical abilities the
+traveller's book bore witness, took him in charge. Many others besides
+ourselves have had reason to be thankful for the good offices of the Latin
+monks in Palestine. I have never met with a class more kind, cordial, and
+genial. All the convents are bound to take in and entertain all
+applicants--of whatever creed or nation--for the space of three days.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, Fra Joachim accompanied me to the Church of the Virgin,
+which is inclosed within the walls of the convent. It is built over the
+supposed site of the house in which the mother of Christ was living, at
+the time of the angelic annunciation. Under the high altar, a flight of
+steps leads down to the shrine of the Virgin, on the threshold of the
+house, where the Angel Gabriel's foot rested, as he stood, with a lily in
+his hand, announcing the miraculous conception. The shrine, of white
+marble and gold, gleaming in the light of golden lamps, stands under a
+rough arch of the natural rock, from the side of which hangs a heavy
+fragment of a granite pillar, suspended, as the devout believe, by divine
+power. Fra Joachim informed me that, when the Moslems attempted to
+obliterate all tokens of the holy place, this pillar was preserved by a
+miracle, that the locality might not be lost to the Christians. At the
+same time, he said, the angels of God carried away the wooden house which
+stood at the entrance of the grotto; and, after letting it drop in
+Marseilles, while they rested, picked it up again and set it down in
+Loretto, where it still remains. As he said this, there was such entire,
+absolute belief in the good monk's eyes, and such happiness in that
+belief, that not for ten times the gold on the shrine would I have
+expressed a doubt of the story. He then bade me kneel, that I might see
+the spot where the angel stood, and devoutly repeated a paternoster while
+I contemplated the pure plate of snowy marble, surrounded with vases of
+fragrant flowers, between which hung cressets of gold, wherein perfumed
+oils were burning. All the decorations of the place conveyed the idea of
+transcendent purity and sweetness; and, for the first time in Palestine, I
+wished for perfect faith in the spot. Behind the shrine, there are two or
+three chambers in the rock, which served as habitations for the family of
+the Virgin.</p>
+
+<p>A young Christian Nazarene afterwards conducted me to the House of Joseph,
+the Carpenter, which is now inclosed in a little chapel. It is merely a
+fragment of wall, undoubtedly as old as the time of Christ, and I felt
+willing to consider it a genuine relic. There was an honest roughness
+about the large stones, inclosing a small room called the carpenter's
+shop, which I could not find it in my heart to doubt. Besides, in a quiet
+country town like Nazareth, which has never knows such vicissitudes as
+Jerusalem, much more dependence can be placed on popular tradition. For
+the same reason, I looked with reverence on the Table of Christ, also
+inclosed within a chapel. This is a large, natural rock, about nine feet
+by twelve, nearly square, and quite flat on the top. It is said that it
+once served as a table for Christ and his Disciples. The building called
+the School of Christ, where he went with other children of his age, is now
+a church of the Syrian Christians, who were performing a doleful mass, in
+Arabic, at the time of my visit. It is a vaulted apartment, about forty
+feet long, and only the lower part of the wall is ancient. At each of
+these places, the Nazarene put into my hand a piece of pasteboard, on
+which was printed a prayer in Latin, Italian, and Arabic, with the
+information that whoever visited the place, and made the prayer, would be
+entitled to seven years' indulgence. I duly read all the prayers, and,
+accordingly, my conscience ought to be at rest for twenty-one years.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch07">
+<h2>Chapter VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Country of Galilee.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Departure from Nazareth--A Christian Guide--Ascent of Mount
+  Tabor--Wallachian Hermits--The Panorama of Tabor--Ride to Tiberias--A
+  Bath in Genesareth--The Flowers of Galilee--The Mount of
+  Beatitude--Magdala--Joseph's Well--Meeting with a Turk--The Fountain of
+  the Salt-Works--The Upper Valley of the Jordan--Summer Scenery--The
+  Rivers of Lebanon--Tell el-Kadi--An Arcadian Region--The Fountains of
+  Banias.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,<br />
+And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene;<br />
+And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see<br />
+The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee!"--Whittier.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Banias (C&aelig;sarea Philippi), <i>May</i> 10, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We left Nazareth on the morning of the 8th inst. My companion had done so
+well under the care of Fra Joachim that he was able to ride, and our
+journey was not delayed by his accident. The benedictions of the good
+Franciscans accompanied us as we rode away from the Convent, past the
+Fountain of the Virgin, and out of the pleasant little valley where the
+boy Jesus wandered for many peaceful years. The Christian guide we engaged
+for Mount Tabor had gone ahead, and we did not find him until we had
+travelled for more than two hours among the hills. As we approached the
+sacred mountain, we came upon the region of oaks--the first oak I had seen
+since leaving Europe last autumn. There are three or four varieties, some
+with evergreen foliage, and in their wild luxuriance and the
+picturesqueness of their forms and groupings, they resemble those of
+California. The sea of grass and flowers in which they stood was sprinkled
+with thick tufts of wild oats--another point of resemblance to the latter
+country. But here, there is no gold; there, no sacred memories.</p>
+
+<p>The guide was waiting for us beside a spring, among the trees. He was a
+tall youth of about twenty, with a mild, submissive face, and wore the
+dark-blue turban, which appears to be the badge of a native Syrian
+Christian. I found myself involuntarily pitying him for belonging to a
+despised sect. There is no disguising the fact that one feels much more
+respect for the Mussulman rulers of the East, than for their oppressed
+subjects who profess his own faith. The surest way to make a man
+contemptible is to treat him contemptuously, and the Oriental Christians,
+who have been despised for centuries, are, with some few exceptions,
+despicable enough. Now, however, since the East has become a favorite
+field of travel, and the Frank possesses an equal dignity with the Moslem,
+the native Christians are beginning to hold up their heads, and the return
+of self-respect will, in the course of time, make them respectable.</p>
+
+<p>Mount Tabor stands a little in advance of the hill-country, with which it
+is connected only by a low spur or shoulder, its base being the Plain of
+Esdraelon. This is probably the reason why it has been fixed upon as the
+place of the Transfiguration, as it is not mentioned by name in the New
+Testament. The words are: "an high mountain apart," which some suppose to
+refer to the position of the mountain, and not to the remoteness of Christ
+and the three Disciples from men. The sides of the mountain are covered
+with clumps of oak, hawthorn and other trees, in many places overrun with
+the white honeysuckle, its fingers dropping with odor of nutmeg and
+cloves. The ascent, by a steep and winding path, occupied an hour. The
+summit is nearly level, and resembles some overgrown American field, or
+"oak opening." The grass is more than knee-deep; the trees grow high and
+strong, and there are tangled thickets and bowers of vines without end.
+The eastern and highest end of the mountain is covered with the remains of
+an old fortress-convent, once a place of great strength, from the
+thickness of its walls. In a sort of cell formed among the ruins we found
+two monk-hermits. I addressed them in all languages of which I know a
+salutation, without effect, but at last made out that they were
+Wallachians. They were men of thirty-five, with stupid faces, dirty
+garments, beards run to waste, and fur caps. Their cell was a mere hovel,
+without furniture, except a horrid caricature of the Virgin and Child, and
+four books of prayers in the Bulgarian character. One of them walked about
+knitting a stocking, and paid no attention to us; but the other, after
+giving us some deliciously cold water, got upon a pile of rubbish, and
+stood regarding us with open mouth while we took breakfast. So far from
+this being a cause of annoyance, I felt really glad that our presence had
+agitated the stagnant waters of his mind.</p>
+
+<p>The day was hazy and sultry, but the panoramic view from Mount Tabor was
+still very fine. The great Plain of Esdraelon lay below us like a vast
+mosaic of green and brown--jasper and verd-antique. On the west, Mount
+Carmel lifted his head above the blue horizon line of the Mediterranean.
+Turning to the other side, a strip of the Sea of Galilee glimmered deep
+down among the hills, and the Ghor, or the Valley of the Jordan,
+stretched like a broad gash through them. Beyond them, the country of
+Djebel Adjeloun, the ancient Decapolis, which still holds the walls of
+Gadara and the temples and theatres of Djerash, faded away into vapor,
+and, still further to the south, the desolate hills of Gilead, the home of
+Jephthah. Mount Hermon is visible when the atmosphere is clear but we were
+not able to see it.</p>
+
+<p>From the top of Mount Tabor to Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, is a
+journey of five hours, through a wild country, with but one single
+miserable village on the road. At first we rode through lonely dells,
+grown with oak and brilliant with flowers, especially the large purple
+mallow, and then over broad, treeless tracts of rolling land, but
+partially cultivated. The heat was very great; I had no thermometer, but
+should judge the temperature to have been at least 95&deg; in the shade. From
+the edge of the upland tract, we looked down on the Sea of Galilee--a
+beautiful sheet of water sunk among the mountains, and more than 300 feet
+below the level of the Mediterranean. It lay unruffled in the bottom of
+the basin, reflecting the peaks of the bare red mountains beyond it.
+Tiberias was at our very feet, a few palm trees alone relieving the
+nakedness of its dull walls. After taking a welcome drink at the Fountain
+of Fig-trees, we descended to the town, which has a desolate and forlorn
+air. Its walls have been partly thrown down by earthquakes, and never
+repaired. We found our tents already pitched on the bank above the lake,
+and under one of the tottering towers.</p>
+
+<p>Not a breath of air was stirring; the red hills smouldered in the heat,
+and the waters of Genesareth at our feet glimmered with an oily
+smoothness, unbroken by a ripple. We untwisted our turbans, kicked off our
+baggy trowsers, and speedily releasing ourselves from the barbarous
+restraints of dress, dipped into the tepid sea and floated lazily out
+until we could feel the exquisite coldness of the living springs which
+sent up their jets from the bottom. I was lying on my back, moving my fins
+just sufficiently to keep afloat, and gazing dreamily through half-closed
+eyes on the forlorn palms of Tiberias, when a shrill voice hailed me with:
+"O Howadji, get out of our way!" There, at the old stone gateway below our
+tent, stood two Galilean damsels, with heavy earthen jars upon their
+heads. "Go away yourselves, O maidens!" I answered, "if you want us to
+come out of the water." "But we must fill our pitchers," one of them
+replied. "Then fill them at once, and be not afraid; or leave them, and we
+will fill them for you." Thereupon they put the pitchers down, but
+remained watching us very complacently while we sank the vessels to the
+bottom of the lake, and let them fill from the colder and purer tide of
+the springs. In bringing them back through the water to the gate, the one
+I propelled before me happened to strike against a stone, and its fair
+owner, on receiving it, immediately pointed to a crack in the side, which
+she declared I had made, and went off lamenting. After we had resumed our
+garments, and were enjoying the pipe of indolence and the coffee of
+contentment, she returned and made such an outcry, that I was fain to
+purchase peace by the price of a new pitcher. I passed the first hours
+of-the night in looking out of my tent-door, as I lay, on the stars
+sparkling in the bosom of Galilee, like the sheen of Assyrian spears, and
+the glare of the great fires kindled on the opposite shore.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, we travelled northward along the lake, passing through
+continuous thickets of oleander, fragrant with its heavy pink blossoms.
+The thistles were more abundant and beautiful than ever. I noticed, in
+particular, one with a superb globular flower of a bright blue color,
+which would make a choice ornament for our gardens at home. At the
+north-western head of the lake, the mountains fall back and leave a large
+tract of the richest meadow-land, which narrows away into a deep dell,
+overhung by high mountain headlands, faced with naked cliffs of red rock.
+The features of the landscape are magnificent. Up the dell, I saw plainly
+the Mount of Beatitude, beyond which lies the village of Cana of Galilee.
+In coming up the meadow, we passed a miserable little village of thatched
+mud huts, almost hidden by the rank weeds which grew around them. A
+withered old crone sat at one of the doors, sunning herself. "What is the
+name of this village?" I asked. "It is Mejdel," was her reply. This was
+the ancient Magdala, the home of that beautiful but sinful Magdalene,
+whose repentance has made her one of the brightest of the Saints. The
+crystal waters of the lake here lave a shore of the cleanest pebbles. The
+path goes winding through oleanders, nebbuks, patches of hollyhock,
+anise-seed, fennel, and other spicy plants, while, on the west, great
+fields of barley stand ripe for the cutting. In some places, the Fellahs,
+men and women, were at work, reaping and binding the sheaves. After
+crossing this tract, we came to the hill, at the foot of which was a
+ruined khan, and on the summit, other undistinguishable ruins, supposed by
+some to be those of Capernaum. The site of that exalted town, however, is
+still a matter of discussion.</p>
+
+<p>We journeyed on in a most sweltering atmosphere over the ascending hills,
+the valley of the Upper Jordan lying deep on our right. In a shallow
+hollow, under one of the highest peaks, there stands a large deserted
+khan; over a well of very cold; sweet water, called <i>Bir Youssuf</i> by the
+Arabs. Somewhere near it, according to tradition, is the field where
+Joseph was sold by his brethren; and the well is, no doubt, looked upon by
+many as the identical pit into which he was thrown. A stately Turk of
+Damascus, with four servants behind him, came riding up as we were resting
+in the gateway of the khan, and, in answer to my question, informed me
+that the well was so named from Nebbee Youssuf (the Prophet Joseph), and
+not from Sultan Joseph Saladin. He took us for his countrymen, accosting
+me first in Turkish, and, even after I had talked with him some time in
+bad Arabic, asked me whether I had been making a pilgrimage to the tombs
+of certain holy Moslem saints, in the neighborhood of Jaffa. He joined
+company with us, however, and shared his pipe with me, as we continued our
+journey. We rode for two hours more over hills bare of trees, but covered
+thick with grass and herbs, and finally lost our way. Fran&ccedil;ois went ahead,
+dashing through the fields of barley and lentils, and we reached the path
+again, as the Waters of Merom came in sight. We then descended into the
+Valley of the Upper Jordan, and encamped opposite the lake, at Ain
+el-Mellaha (the Fountain of the Salt-Works), the first source of the
+sacred river. A stream of water, sufficient to turn half-a-dozen mills,
+gushes and gurgles up at the foot of the mountain. There are the remains
+of an ancient dam, by which a large pool was formed for the irrigation of
+the valley. It still supplies a little Arab mill below the fountain. This
+is a frontier post, between the jurisdictions of the Pashas of Jerusalem
+and Damascus, and the <i>mukkairee</i> of the Greek Caloyer, who left us at
+Tiberias, was obliged to pay a duty of seven and a half piastres on
+fifteen mats, which he had bought at Jerusalem for one and a half piastres
+each. The poor man will perhaps make a dozen piastres (about half a
+dollar) on these mats at Damascus, after carrying them on his mule for
+more than two hundred miles.</p>
+
+<p>We pitched our tents on the grassy meadow below the mill--a charming spot,
+with Tell el-Khanzir (the hill of wild boars) just in front, over the
+Waters of Merom, and the snow-streaked summit of Djebel esh-Shekh--the
+great Mount Hermon--towering high above the valley. This is the loftiest
+peak of the Anti-Lebanon, and is 10,000 feet above the sea. The next
+morning, we rode for three hours before reaching the second spring of the
+Jordan, at a place which Fran&ccedil;ois called Tell el-Kadi, but which did not
+at all answer with the description given me by Dr. Robinson, at Jerusalem.
+The upper part of the broad valley, whence the Jordan draws his waters, is
+flat, moist, and but little cultivated. There are immense herds of sheep,
+goats, and buffaloes wandering over it. The people are a dark Arab tribe,
+and live in tents and miserable clay huts. Where the valley begins to
+slope upward towards the hills, they plant wheat, barley, and lentils. The
+soil is the fattest brown loam, and the harvests are wonderfully rich. I
+saw many tracts of wheat, from half a mile to a mile in extent, which
+would average forty bushels to the acre. Yet the ground is never manured,
+and the Arab plough scratches up but a few inches of the surface. What a
+paradise might be made of this country, were it in better hands!</p>
+
+<p>The second spring is not quite so large as Ain el-Mellaha but, like it,
+pours out a strong stream from a single source The pool was filled with
+women, washing the heavy fleeces of their sheep, and beating the dirt out
+of their striped camel's hair abas with long poles. We left it, and
+entered on a slope of stony ground, forming the head of the valley. The
+view extended southward, to the mountains closing the northern cove of the
+Sea of Galilee. It was a grand, rich landscape--so rich that its
+desolation seems forced and unnatural. High on the summit of a mountain to
+the west, the ruins of a large Crusader fortress looked down upon us. The
+soil, which slowly climbs upward through a long valley between Lebanon and
+Anti-Lebanon, is cut with deep ravines. The path is very difficult to
+find; and while we were riding forward at random, looking in all
+directions for our baggage mules, we started up a beautiful gazelle. At
+last, about noon, hot, hungry, and thirsty, we reached a swift stream,
+roaring at the bottom of a deep ravine, through a bed of gorgeous foliage.
+The odor of the wild grape-blossoms, which came up to us, as we rode along
+the edge, was overpowering in its sweetness. An old bridge of two arches
+crossed the stream. There was a pile of rocks against the central pier,
+and there we sat and took breakfast in the shade of the maples, while the
+cold green waters foamed at our feet. By all the Naiads and Tritons, what
+a joy there is in beholding a running stream! The rivers of Lebanon are
+miracles to me, after my knowledge of the Desert. A company of Arabs,
+seven in all, were gathered under the bridge; and, from a flute which one
+of them blew, I judged they were taking a pastoral holiday. We kept our
+pistols beside us; for we did not like their looks. Before leaving, they
+told us that the country was full of robbers, and advised us to be on the
+lookout. We rode more carefully, after this, and kept with our baggage on
+reaching it, An hour after leaving the bridge, we came to a large
+circular, or rather annular mound, overgrown with knee-deep grass and
+clumps of oak-trees. A large stream, of a bright blue color, gushed down
+the north side, and after half embracing the mound swept off across the
+meadows to the Waters of Merom. There could be no doubt that this was Tell
+el-Kadi, the site of Dan, the most northern town of ancient Israel. The
+mound on which it was built is the crater of an extinct volcano. The
+Hebrew word <i>Dan </i> signifies "judge," and Tell el-Kadi, in Arabic, is "The
+Hill of the Judge."</p>
+
+<p>The Anti-Lebanon now rose near us, its northern and western slopes green
+with trees and grass. The first range, perhaps 5,000 feet in height, shut
+out the snowy head of Hermon; but still the view was sublime in its large
+and harmonious outlines. Our road was through a country resembling
+Arcadia--the earth hidden by a dense bed of grass and flowers; thickets of
+blossoming shrubs; old, old oaks, with the most gnarled of trunks, the
+most picturesque of boughs, and the glossiest of green leaves; olive-trees
+of amazing antiquity; and, threading and enlivening all, the clear-cold
+floods of Lebanon. This was the true haunt of Pan, whose altars are now
+before me, graven on the marble crags of Hermon. Looking on those altars,
+and on the landscape, lovely as a Grecian dream, I forget that the lament
+has long been sung:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Pan, Pan is dead!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In another hour, we reached this place, the ancient C&aelig;sarea Philippi, now
+a poor village, embowered in magnificent trees, and washed by glorious
+waters. There are abundant remains of the old city: fragments of immense
+walls; broken granite columns; traces of pavements; great blocks of hewn
+stone; marble pedestals, and the like. In the rock at the foot of the
+mountain, there are several elegant niches, with Greek inscriptions,
+besides a large natural grotto. Below them, the water gushes up through
+the stones, in a hundred streams, forming a flood of considerable size. We
+have made our camp in an olive grove near the end of the village, beside
+an immense terebinth tree, which is inclosed in an open court, paved with
+stone. This is the town-hall of Banias, where the Shekh dispenses justice,
+and at the same time, the resort of all the idlers of the place. We went
+up among them, soon after our arrival, and were given seats of honor near
+the Shekh, who talked with me a long time about America. The people
+exhibit a very sensible curiosity, desiring to know the extent of our
+country, the number of inhabitants, the amount of taxation, the price of
+grain, and other solid information.</p>
+
+<p>The Shekh and the men of the place inform us that the Druses are infesting
+the road to Damascus. This tribe is in rebellion in Djebel Hauaran, on
+account of the conscription, and some of them, it appears, have taken
+refuge in the fastnesses of Hermon, where they are beginning to plunder
+travellers. While I was talking with the Shekh, a Druse came down from the
+mountains, and sat for half an hour among the villagers, under the
+terebinth, and we have just heard that he has gone back the way he came.
+This fact has given us some anxiety, as he may have been a spy sent down
+to gather news and, if so, we are almost certain to be waylaid. If we were
+well armed, we should not fear a dozen, but all our weapons consist of a
+sword and four pistols. After consulting together, we decided to apply to
+the Shekh for two armed men, to accompany us. I accordingly went to him
+again, and exhibited the firman of the Pasha of Jerusalem, which he read,
+stating that, even without it, he would have felt it his duty to grant our
+request. This is the graceful way in which the Orientals submit to a
+peremptory order. He thinks that one man will be sufficient, as we shall
+probably not meet with any large party.</p>
+
+<p>The day has been, and still is, excessively hot. The atmosphere is
+sweltering, and all around us, over the thick patches of mallow and wild
+mustard, the bees are humming with a continuous sultry sound. The Shekh,
+with a number of lazy villagers, is still seated under the terebinth, in a
+tent of shade, impervious to the sun. I can hear the rush of the fountains
+of Banias--the holy springs of Hermon, whence Jordan is born. But what is
+this? The odor of the velvety weed of Shiraz meets my nostrils; a
+dark-eyed son of Pan places the narghileh at my feet; and, bubbling more
+sweetly than the streams of Jordan, the incense most dear to the god dims
+the crystal censer, and floats from my lips in rhythmic ejaculations. I,
+too, am in Arcadia!</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch08">
+<h2>Chapter VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Harmless Guard--C&aelig;sarea Philippi--The Valley of the Druses--The
+  Sides of Mount Hermon--An Alarm--Threading a Defile--Distant view of
+  Djebel Hauaran--Another Alarm--Camp at Katana--We Ride into Damascus.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Damascus, <i>May</i> 12, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We rose early, so as to be ready for a long march. The guard came--a
+mild-looking Arab--without arms; but on our refusing to take him thus, he
+brought a Turkish musket, terrible to behold, but quite guiltless of any
+murderous intent. We gave ourselves up to fate, with true
+Arab-resignation, and began ascending the Anti-Lebanon. Up and up, by
+stony paths, under the oaks, beside the streams, and between the
+wheat-fields, we climbed for two hours, and at last reached a comb or
+dividing ridge, whence we could look into a valley on the other side, or
+rather inclosed between the main chain and the offshoot named Djebel
+Heish, which stretches away towards the south-east. About half-way up the
+ascent, we passed the ruined acropolis of C&aelig;sarea Philippi, crowning the
+summit of a lower peak. The walls and bastions cover a great extent of
+ground, and were evidently used as a stronghold in the Middle Ages.</p>
+
+<p>The valley into which we descended lay directly under one of the peaks of
+Hermon and the rills that watered it were fed from his snow-fields. It was
+inhabited by Druses, but no men were to be seen, except a few poor
+husbandmen, ploughing on the mountain-sides. The women, wearing those
+enormous horns on their heads which distinguish them from the Mohammedan
+females, were washing at a pool below. We crossed the valley, and slowly
+ascended the height on the opposite side, taking care to keep with the
+baggage-mules. Up to this time, we met very few persons; and we forgot the
+anticipated perils in contemplating the rugged scenery of the
+Anti-Lebanon. The mountain-sides were brilliant with flowers, and many new
+and beautiful specimens arrested our attention. The asphodel grew in
+bunches beside the streams, and the large scarlet anemone outshone even
+the poppy, whose color here is the quintessence of flame. Five hours after
+leaving Banias, we reached the highest part of the pass--a dreary volcanic
+region, covered with fragments of lava. Just at this place, an old Arab
+met us, and, after scanning us closely, stopped and accosted Dervish. The
+latter immediately came running ahead, quite excited with the news that
+the old man had seen a company of about fifty Druses descend from the
+sides of Mount Hermon, towards the road we were to travel. We immediately
+ordered the baggage to halt, and Mr. Harrison, Fran&ccedil;ois, and myself rode
+on to reconnoitre. Our guard, the valiant man of Banias, whose teeth
+already chattered with fear, prudently kept with the baggage. We crossed
+the ridge and watched the stony mountain-sides for some time; but no spear
+or glittering gun-barrel could we see. The caravan was then set in motion;
+and we had not proceeded far before we met a second company of Arabs, who
+informed us that the road was free.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the heights, we descended cautiously into a ravine with walls of
+rough volcanic rock on each side. It was a pass where three men might have
+stood their ground against a hundred; and we did not feel thoroughly
+convinced of our safety till we had threaded its many windings and emerged
+upon a narrow valley. A village called Beit Jenn nestled under the rocks;
+and below it, a grove of poplar-trees shaded the banks of a rapid stream.
+We had now fairly crossed the Anti-Lebanon. The dazzling snows of Mount
+Hermon overhung us on the west; and, from the opening of the valley, we
+looked across a wild, waste country, to the distant range of Djebel
+Hauaran, the seat of the present rebellion, and one of the most
+interesting regions of Syria. I regretted more than ever not being able to
+reach it. The ruins of Bozrah, Ezra, and other ancient cities, would well
+repay the arduous character of the journey, while the traveller might
+succeed in getting some insight into the life and habits of that singular
+people, the Druses. But now, and perhaps for some time to come, there is
+no chance of entering the Hauaran.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the middle of the afternoon, we reached a large village, which is
+usually the end of the first day's journey from Banias. Our men wanted to
+stop here, but we considered that to halt then would be to increase the
+risk, and decided to push on to Katana, four hours' journey from Damascus.
+They yielded with a bad grace; and we jogged on over the stony road,
+crossing the long hills which form the eastern base of the Anti-Lebanon.
+Before long, another Arab met us with the news that there was an
+encampment of Druses on the plain between us and Katana. At this, our
+guard, who had recovered sufficient spirit to ride a few paces in advance,
+fell back, and the impassive Dervish became greatly agitated. Where there
+is an uncertain danger, it is always better to go ahead than to turn back;
+and we did so. But the guard reined up on the top of the first ridge,
+trembling as he pointed to a distant hill, and cried out: <i>"Ah&ograve;, ah&ograve;
+hen&agrave;k!"</i> (There they are!) There were, in fact, the shadows of some rocks,
+which bore a faint resemblance to tents. Before sunset, we reached the
+last declivity of the mountains, and saw far in the dusky plain, the long
+green belt of the gardens of Damascus, and here and there the indistinct
+glimmer of a minaret. Katana, our resting-place for the night, lay below
+us, buried in orchards of olive and orange. We pitched our tents on the
+banks of a beautiful stream, enjoyed the pipe of tranquillity, after our
+long march, and soon forgot the Druses, in a slumber that lasted unbroken
+till dawn.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning we sent back the man of Banias, left the baggage to take
+care of itself, and rode on to Damascus, as fast as our tired horses could
+carry us. The plain, at first barren and stony, became enlivened with
+vineyards and fields of wheat, as we advanced. Arabs were everywhere at
+work, ploughing and directing the water-courses. The belt of living green,
+the bower in which the great city, the Queen of the Orient, hides her
+beauty, drew nearer and nearer, stretching out a crescent of foliage for
+miles on either hand, that gradually narrowed and received us into its
+cool and fragrant heart. We sank into a sea of olive, pomegranate, orange,
+plum, apricot, walnut, and plane trees, and were lost. The sun sparkled in
+the rolling surface above; but we swam through the green depths, below
+his reach, and thus, drifted on through miles of shade, entered the city.</p>
+
+<p>Since our arrival, I find that two other parties of travellers, one of
+which crossed the Anti-Lebanon on the northern side of Mount Hermon, were
+obliged to take guards, and saw several Druse spies posted on the heights,
+as they passed. A Russian gentleman travelling from here to Tiberias, was
+stopped three times on the road, and only escaped being plundered from the
+fact of his having a Druse dragoman. The disturbances are more serious
+than I had anticipated. Four regiments left here yesterday, sent to the
+aid of a company of cavalry, which is surrounded by the rebels in a valley
+of Dejebel Hauaran, and unable to get out.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch09">
+<h2>Chapter IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>Pictures of Damascus.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
+  Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
+  Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
+  Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
+  of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the
+  waters of Israel?"--2 Kings, v. 12.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Damascus, <i>Wednesday, May</i> 19, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Damascus is considered by many travellers as the best remaining type of an
+Oriental city. Constantinople is semi-European; Cairo is fast becoming so;
+but Damascus, away from the highways of commerce, seated alone between the
+Lebanon and the Syrian Desert, still retains, in its outward aspect and in
+the character of its inhabitants, all the pride and fancy and fanaticism
+of the times of the Caliphs. With this judgment, in general terms, I
+agree; but not to its ascendancy, in every respect, over Cairo. True, when
+you behold Damascus from the Salahiyeh, the last slope of the
+Anti-Lebanon, it is the realization of all that you have dreamed of
+Oriental splendor; the world has no picture more dazzling. It is Beauty
+carried to the Sublime, as I have felt when overlooking some boundless
+forest of palms within the tropics. From the hill, whose ridges heave
+behind you until in the south they rise to the snowy head of Mount Hermon,
+the great Syrian plain stretches away to the Euphrates, broken at
+distances of ten and fifteen miles, by two detached mountain chains. In a
+terrible gorge at your side, the river Barrada, the ancient Pharpar,
+forces its way to the plain, and its waters, divided into twelve different
+channels, make all between you and those blue island-hills of the desert,
+one great garden, the boundaries of which your vision can barely
+distinguish. Its longest diameter cannot be less than twenty miles. You
+look down on a world of foliage, and fruit, and blossoms, whose hue, by
+contrast with the barren mountains and the yellow rim of the desert which
+incloses it, seems brighter than all other gardens in the world. Through
+its centre, following the course of the river, lies Damascus; a line of
+white walls, topped with domes and towers and tall minarets, winding away
+for miles through the green sea. Nothing less than a city of palaces,
+whose walls are marble and whose doors are ivory and pearl, could keep up
+the enchantment of that distant view.</p>
+
+<p>We rode for an hour through the gardens before entering the gate. The
+fruit-trees, of whatever variety---walnut, olive, apricot, or fig--were
+the noblest of their kind. Roses and pomegranates in bloom starred the
+dark foliage, and the scented jasmine overhung the walls. But as we
+approached the city, the view was obscured by high mud walls on either
+side of the road, and we only caught glimpses now and then of the fragrant
+wilderness. The first street we entered was low and mean, the houses of
+clay. Following this, we came to an uncovered bazaar, with rude shops on
+either side, protected by mats stretched in front and supported by poles.
+Here all sorts of common stuns and utensils were sold, and the street was
+filled with crowds of Fellahs and Desert Arabs. Two large sycamores shaded
+it, and the Seraglio of the Pasha of Damascus, a plain two-story building,
+faced the entrance of the main bazaar, which branched off into the city.
+We turned into this, and after passing through several small bazaars
+stocked with dried fruits, pipes and pipe-bowls, groceries, and all the
+primitive wares of the East, reached a large passage, covered with a steep
+wooden roof, and entirely occupied by venders of silk stuffs. Out of this
+we passed through another, devoted to saddles and bridles; then another,
+full of spices, and at last reached the grand bazaar, where all the
+richest stuffs of Europe and the East were displayed in the shops. We rode
+slowly along through the cool twilight, crossed here and there by long
+pencils of white light, falling through apertures in the roof, and
+illuminating the gay turbans and silk caftans of the lazy merchants. But
+out of this bazaar, at intervals, opened the grand gate of a khan, giving
+us a view of its marble court, its fountains, and the dark arches of its
+storerooms; or the door of a mosque, with its mosaic floor and pillared
+corridor. The interminable lines of bazaars, with their atmospheres of
+spice and fruit and fragrant tobacco, the hushed tread of the slippered
+crowds; the plash of falling fountains and the bubbling of innumerable
+narghilehs; the picturesque merchants and their customers, no longer in
+the big trowsers of Egypt, but the long caftans and abas of Syria; the
+absence of Frank faces and dresses--in all these there was the true spirit
+of the Orient, and so far, we were charmed with Damascus.</p>
+
+<p>At the hotel in the Soog el-Har&agrave;b, or Frank quarter, the illusion was not
+dissipated. It had once been the house of some rich merchant. The court
+into which we were ushered is paved with marble, with a great stone basin,
+surrounded with vases of flowering plants, in the centre. Two large lemon
+trees shade the entrance, and a vine, climbing to the top of the house,
+makes a leafy arbor over the flat roof. The walls of the house are painted
+in horizontal bars of blue, white, orange and white--a gay grotesqueness
+of style which does not offend the eye under an eastern sun. On the
+southern side of the court is the <i>liwan</i>, an arrangement for which the
+houses of Damascus are noted. It is a vaulted apartment, twenty feet high,
+entirely open towards the court, except a fine pointed arch at the top,
+decorated with encaustic ornaments of the most brilliant colors. In front,
+a tesselated pavement of marble leads to the doors of the chambers on each
+side. Beyond this is a raised floor covered with matting, and along the
+farther end a divan, whose piled cushions are the most tempting trap ever
+set to catch a lazy man. Although not naturally indolent, I find it
+impossible to resist the fascination of this lounge. Leaning back,
+cross-legged, against the cushions, with the inseparable pipe in one's
+hand, the view of the court, the water-basin, the flowers and lemon trees,
+the servants and dragomen going back and forth, or smoking their
+narghilehs in the shade--all framed in the beautiful arched entrance, is
+so perfectly Oriental, so true a tableau from the times of good old Haroun
+Al-Raschid, that one is surprised to find how many hours have slipped away
+while he has been silently enjoying it.</p>
+
+<p>Opposite the <i>liwan</i> is a large room paved with marble, with a handsome
+fountain in the centre. It is the finest in the hotel, and now occupied
+by Lord Dalkeith and his friends. Our own room is on the upper floor, and
+is so rich in decorations that I have not yet finished the study of them.
+Along the side, looking down on the court, we have a mosaic floor of
+white, red, black and yellow marble. Above this is raised a second floor,
+carpeted and furnished in European style. The walls, for a height of ten
+feet, are covered with wooden panelling, painted with arabesque devices in
+the gayest colors, and along the top there is a series of Arabic
+inscriptions in gold. There are a number of niches or open closets in the
+walls, whose arched tops are adorned with pendent wooden ornaments,
+resembling stalactites, and at the corners of the room the heavy gilded
+and painted cornice drops into similar grotesque incrustations. A space of
+bare white wall intervenes between this cornice and the ceiling, which is
+formed of slim poplar logs, laid side by side, and so covered with paint
+and with scales and stripes and network devices in gold and silver, that
+one would take them to be clothed with the skins of the magic serpents
+that guard the Valley of Diamonds. My most satisfactory remembrance of
+Damascus will be this room.</p>
+
+<p>My walks through the city have been almost wholly confined to the bazaars,
+which are of immense extent. One can walk for many miles, without going
+beyond the cover of their peaked wooden roofs, and in all this round will
+find no two precisely alike. One is devoted entirely to soap; another to
+tobacco, through which you cough and sneeze your way to the bazaar of
+spices, and delightedly inhale its perfumed air. Then there is the bazaar
+of sweetmeats; of vegetables; of red slippers; of shawls; of caftans; of
+bakers and ovens; of wooden ware; of jewelry---a great stone building,
+covered with vaulted passages; of Aleppo silks; of Baghdad carpets; of
+Indian stuffs; of coffee; and so on, through a seemingly endless variety.
+As I have already remarked, along the line of the bazaars are many khans,
+the resort of merchants from all parts of Turkey and Persia, and even
+India. They are large, stately buildings, and some of them have superb
+gateways of sculptured marble. The interior courts are paved with stone,
+with fountains in the centre, and many of them are covered with domes
+resting on massive pillars. The largest has a roof of nine domes,
+supported by four grand pillars, which inclose a fountain. The mosques,
+into which no Christian is allowed to enter, are in general inferior to
+those of Cairo, but their outer courts are always paved with marble,
+adorned with fountains, and surrounded by light and elegant corridors. The
+grand mosque is an imposing edifice, and is said to occupy the site of a
+former Christian church.</p>
+
+<p>Another pleasant feature of the city is its coffee shops, which abound in
+the bazaars and on the outskirts of the gardens, beside the running
+streams. Those in the bazaars are spacious rooms with vaulted ceilings,
+divans running around the four walls, and fountains in the centre. During
+the afternoon they are nearly always filled with Turks, Armenians and
+Persians, smoking the narghileh, or water-pipe, which is the universal
+custom in Damascus. The Persian tobacco, brought here by the caravans from
+Baghdad, is renowned for this kind of smoking. The most popular
+coffee-shop is near the citadel, on the banks and over the surface of the
+Pharpar. It is a rough wooden building, with a roof of straw mats, but the
+sight and sound of the rushing waters, as they shoot away with arrowy
+swiftness under your feet, the shade of the trees that line the banks,
+and the cool breeze that always visits the spot, beguile you into a second
+pipe ere you are aware. <i>"El m&agrave;, wa el kh&ograve;dra, wa el widj el
+hass&agrave;n</i>--water, verdure and a beautiful face," says an old Arab proverb,
+"are three things which delight the heart," and the Syrians avow that all
+three are to be found in Damascus. Not only on the three Sundays of each
+week, but every day, in the gardens about the city, you may see whole
+families (and if Jews or Christians, many groups of families) spending the
+day in the shade, beside the beautiful waters. There are several gardens
+fitted up purposely for these picnics, with kiosks, fountains and pleasant
+seats under the trees. You bring your pipes, your provisions and the like
+with you, but servants are in attendance to furnish fire and water and
+coffee, for which, on leaving, you give them a small gratuity. Of all the
+Damascenes I have yet seen, there is not one but declares his city to be
+the Garden of the World, the Pearl of the Orient, and thanks God and the
+Prophet for having permitted him to be born and to live in it. But, except
+the bazaars, the khans and the baths, of which there are several most
+luxurious establishments, the city itself is neither so rich nor so purely
+Saracenic in its architecture as Cairo. The streets are narrow and dirty,
+and the houses, which are never more than two low stories in height, are
+built of sun-dried bricks, coated with plaster. I miss the solid piles of
+stone, the elegant doorways, and, above all, the exquisite hanging
+balconies of carved wood, which meet one in the old streets of Cairo.
+Damascus is the representative of all that is gay, brilliant, and
+picturesque, in Oriental life; but for stately magnificence, Cairo, and, I
+suspect, Baghdad, is its superior.</p>
+
+<p>We visited the other day the houses of some of the richest Jews and
+Christians. Old Abou-Ibrahim, the Jewish servant of the hotel, accompanied
+and introduced us. It is customary for travellers to make these visits,
+and the families, far from being annoyed, are flattered by it. The
+exteriors of the houses are mean; but after threading a narrow passage, we
+emerged into a court, rivalling in profusion of ornament and rich contrast
+of colors one's early idea of the Palace of Aladdin. The floors and
+fountains are all of marble mosaic; the arches of the <i>liwan</i> glitter with
+gold, and the walls bewilder the eye with the intricacy of their
+adornments. In the first house, we were received by the family in a room
+of precious marbles, with niches in the walls, resembling grottoes of
+silver stalactites. The cushions of the divan were of the richest silk,
+and a chandelier of Bohemian crystal hung from the ceiling. Silver
+narghilehs were brought to us, and coffee was served in heavy silver
+<i>zerfs</i>. The lady of the house was a rather corpulent lady of about
+thirty-five, and wore a semi-European robe of embroidered silk and lace,
+with full trowsers gathered at the ankles, and yellow slippers. Her black
+hair was braided, and fastened at the end with golden ornaments, and the
+light scarf twisted around her head blazed with diamonds. The lids of her
+large eyes were stained with <i>kohl</i>, and her eyebrows were plucked out and
+shaved away so as to leave only a thin, arched line, as if drawn with a
+pencil, above each eye. Her daughter, a girl of fifteen, who bore the
+genuine Hebrew name of Rachel, had even bigger and blacker eyes than her
+mother; but her forehead was low, her mouth large, and the expression of
+her face exceedingly stupid. The father of the family was a middle-aged
+man, with a well-bred air, and talked with an Oriental politeness which
+was very refreshing. An English lady, who was of our party, said to him,
+through me, that if she possessed such a house she should be willing to
+remain in Damascus. "Why does she leave, then?" he immediately answered:
+"this is her house, and everything that is in it." Speaking of visiting
+Jerusalem, he asked me whether it was not a more beautiful city than
+Damascus. "It is not more beautiful," I said, "but it is more holy," an
+expression which the whole company received with great satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>The second house we visited was even larger and richer than the first, but
+had an air of neglect and decay. The slabs of rich marble were loose and
+broken, about the edges of the fountains; the rich painting of the
+wood-work was beginning to fade; and the balustrades leading to the upper
+chambers were broken off in places. We were ushered into a room, the walls
+and ceilings of which were composed entirely of gilded arabesque
+frame-work, set with small mirrors. When new, it must have had a gorgeous
+effect; but the gold is now tarnished, and the glasses dim. The mistress
+of the house was seated on the cushions, dividing her time between her
+pipe and her needle-work. She merely made a slight inclination of her head
+as we entered, and went on with her occupation. Presently her two
+daughters and an Abyssinian slave appeared, and took their places on the
+cushions at her feet, the whole forming a charming group, which I
+regretted some of my artist friends at home could not see. The mistress
+was so exceedingly dignified, that she bestowed but few words on us. She
+seemed to resent our admiration of the slave, who was a most graceful
+creature; yet her jealousy, it afterwards appeared, had reference to her
+own husband, for we had scarcely left, when a servant followed to inform
+the English lady that if she was willing to buy the Abyssinian, the
+mistress would sell her at once for two thousand piastres.</p>
+
+<p>The last visit we paid was to the dwelling of a Maronite, the richest
+Christian in Damascus. The house resembled those we had already seen,
+except that, having been recently built, it was in better condition, and
+exhibited better taste in the ornaments. No one but the lady was allowed
+to enter the female apartments, the rest of us being entertained by the
+proprietor, a man of fifty, and without exception the handsomest and most
+dignified person of that age I have ever seen. He was a king without a
+throne, and fascinated me completely by the noble elegance of his manner.
+In any country but the Orient, I should have pronounced him incapable of
+an unworthy thought: here, he may be exactly the reverse.</p>
+
+<p>Although Damascus is considered the oldest city in the world, the date of
+its foundation going beyond tradition, there are very few relics of
+antiquity in or near it. In the bazaar are three large pillars, supporting
+half the pediment, which are said to have belonged to the Christian Church
+of St. John, but, if so, that church must have been originally a Roman
+temple. Part of the Roman walls and one of the city gates remain; and we
+saw the spot where, according to tradition, Saul was let down from the
+wall in a basket. There are two localities pointed out as the scene of his
+conversion, which, from his own account, occurred near the city. I visited
+a subterranean chapel claimed by the Latin monks to be the cellar of the
+house of Ananias, in which the Apostle was concealed. The cellar is,
+undoubtedly, of great antiquity; but as the whole quarter was for many
+centuries inhabited wholly by Turks, it would be curious to know how the
+monks ascertained which was the house of Ananias. As for the "street
+called Straight," it would be difficult at present to find any in Damascus
+corresponding to that epithet.</p>
+
+<p>The famous Damascus blades, so renowned in the time of the Crusaders, are
+made here no longer. The art has been lost for three or four centuries.
+Yet genuine old swords, of the true steel, are occasionally to be found.
+They are readily distinguished from modern imitations by their clear and
+silvery ring when struck, and by the finely watered appearance of the
+blade, produced by its having been first made of woven wire, and then
+worked over and over again until it attained the requisite temper. A droll
+Turk, who is the <i>shekh ed-dell&agrave;l,</i> or Chief of the Auctioneers, and is
+nicknamed Abou-Anteeka (the Father of the Antiques), has a large
+collection of sabres, daggers, pieces of mail, shields, pipes, rings,
+seals, and other ancient articles. He demands enormous prices, but
+generally takes about one-third of what he first asks. I have spent
+several hours in his curiosity shop, bargaining for turquoise rings,
+carbuncles, Persian amulets, and Circassian daggers. While looking over
+some old swords the other day, I noticed one of exquisite temper, but with
+a shorter blade than usual. The point had apparently been snapped off in
+fight, but owing to the excellence of the sword, or the owner's affection
+for it, the steel had been carefully shaped into a new point. Abou-Anteeka
+asked five hundred piastres, and I, who had taken a particular fancy to
+possess it, offered him two hundred in an indifferent way, and then laid
+it aside to examine other articles. After his refusal to accept my offer,
+I said nothing more, and was leaving the shop, when the old fellow called
+me back, saying: "You have forgotten your sword,"--which I thereupon took
+at my own price. I have shown it to Mr. Wood, the British Consul, who
+pronounced it an extremely fine specimen of Damascus steel; and, on
+reading the inscription enamelled upon the blade, ascertains that it was
+made in the year of the Hegira, 181, which corresponds to A.D. 798. This
+was during the Caliphate of Haroun Al-Raschid, and who knows but the sword
+may have once flashed in the presence of that great and glorious
+sovereign--nay, been drawn by his own hand! Who knows but that the Milan
+armor of the Crusaders may have shivered its point, on the field of
+Askalon! I kiss the veined azure of thy blade, O Sword of Haroun! I hang
+the crimson cords of thy scabbard upon my shoulder, and thou shalt
+henceforth clank in silver music at my side, singing to my ear, and mine
+alone, thy chants of battle, thy rejoicing songs of slaughter!</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday evening, three gentlemen of Lord Dalkeith's party arrived from a
+trip to Palmyra. The road thither lies through a part of the Syrian Desert
+belonging to the Aneyzeh tribe, who are now supposed to be in league with
+the Druses, against the Government. Including this party, only six persons
+have succeeded in reaching Palmyra within a year, and two of them, Messrs.
+Noel and Cathcart, were imprisoned four days by the Arabs, and only
+escaped by the accidental departure of a caravan for Damascus. The present
+party was obliged to travel almost wholly by night, running the gauntlet
+of a dozen Arab encampments, and was only allowed a day's stay at Palmyra.
+They were all disguised as Bedouins, and took nothing with them but the
+necessary provisions. They made their appearance here last evening, in
+long, white abas, with the Bedouin <i>keffie</i> bound over their heads, their
+faces burnt, their eyes inflamed, and their frames feverish with seven
+days and nights of travel. The shekh who conducted them was not an
+Aneyzeh, and would have lost his life had they fallen in with any of that
+tribe.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch10">
+<h2>Chapter X.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Visions of Hasheesh.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,<br />
+Possessed beyond the Muse's painting."</p>
+
+<p>  Collins.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>During my stay in Damascus, that insatiable curiosity which leads me to
+prefer the acquisition of all lawful knowledge through the channels of my
+own personal experience, rather than in less satisfactory and less
+laborious ways, induced me to make a trial of the celebrated
+<i>Hasheesh</i>--that remarkable drug which supplies the luxurious Syrian with
+dreams more alluring and more gorgeous than the Chinese extracts from his
+darling opium pipe. The use of Hasheesh--which is a preparation of the
+dried leaves of the <i>cannabis indica</i>--has been familiar to the East for
+many centuries. During the Crusades, it was frequently used by the Saracen
+warriors to stimulate them to the work of slaughter, and from the Arabic
+term of "<i>Hashashe&euml;n,"</i> or Eaters of Hasheesh, as applied to them, the
+word "assassin" has been naturally derived. An infusion of the same plant
+gives to the drink called "<i>bhang</i>," which is in common use throughout
+India and Malaysia, its peculiar properties. Thus prepared, it is a more
+fierce and fatal stimulant than the paste of sugar and spices to which the
+Turk resorts, as the food of his voluptuous evening reveries. While its
+immediate effects seem to be more potent than those of opium, its
+habitual use, though attended with ultimate and permanent injury to the
+system, rarely results in such utter wreck of mind and body as that to
+which the votaries of the latter drug inevitably condemn themselves.</p>
+
+<p>A previous experience of the effects of hasheesh--which I took once, and
+in a very mild form, while in Egypt--was so peculiar in its character,
+that my curiosity, instead of being satisfied, only prompted me the more
+to throw myself, for once, wholly under its influence. The sensations it
+then produced were those, physically, of exquisite lightness and
+airiness--of a wonderfully keen perception of the ludicrous, in the most
+simple and familiar objects. During the half hour in which it lasted, I
+was at no time so far under its control, that I could not, with the
+clearest perception, study the changes through which I passed. I noted,
+with careful attention, the fine sensations which spread throughout the
+whole tissue of my nervous fibre, each thrill helping to divest my frame
+of its earthy and material nature, until my substance appeared to me no
+grosser than the vapors of the atmosphere, and while sitting in the calm
+of the Egyptian twilight, I expected to be lifted up and carried away by
+the first breeze that should ruffle the Nile. While this process was going
+on, the objects by which I was surrounded assumed a strange and whimsical
+expression. My pipe, the oars which my boatmen plied, the turban worn by
+the captain, the water-jars and culinary implements, became in themselves
+so inexpressibly absurd and comical, that I was provoked into a long fit
+of laughter. The hallucination died away as gradually as it came, leaving
+me overcome with a soft and pleasant drowsiness, from which I sank into a
+deep, refreshing sleep.</p>
+
+<p>My companion and an English gentleman, who, with his wife, was also
+residing in Antonio's pleasant caravanserai--agreed to join me in the
+experiment. The dragoman of the latter was deputed to procure a sufficient
+quantity of the drug. He was a dark Egyptian, speaking only the <i>lingua
+franca</i> of the East, and asked me, as he took the money and departed on
+his mission, whether he should get hasheesh "<i>per ridere, a per dormire?</i>"
+"Oh, <i>per ridere</i>, of course," I answered; "and see that it be strong and
+fresh." It is customary with the Syrians to take a small portion
+immediately before the evening meal, as it is thus diffused through the
+stomach and acts more gradually, as well as more gently, upon the system.
+As our dinner-hour was at sunset, I proposed taking hasheesh at that time,
+but my friends, fearing that its operation might be more speedy upon fresh
+subjects, and thus betray them into some absurdity in the presence of the
+other travellers, preferred waiting until after the meal. It was then
+agreed that we should retire to our room, which, as it rose like a tower
+one story higher than the rest of the building, was in a manner isolated,
+and would screen us from observation.</p>
+
+<p>We commenced by taking a tea-spoonful each of the mixture which Abdallah
+had procured. This was about the quantity I had taken in Egypt, and as the
+effect then had been so slight, I judged that we ran no risk of taking an
+over-dose. The strength of the drug, however, must have been far greater
+in this instance, for whereas I could in the former case distinguish no
+flavor but that of sugar and rose leaves, I now found the taste intensely
+bitter and repulsive to the palate. We allowed the paste to dissolve
+slowly on our tongues, and sat some time, quietly waiting the result. But,
+having been taken upon a full stomach, its operation was hindered, and
+after the lapse of nearly an hour, we could not detect the least change in
+our feelings. My friends loudly expressed their conviction of the humbug
+of hasheesh, but I, unwilling to give up the experiment at this point,
+proposed that we should take an additional half spoonful, and follow it
+with a cup of hot tea, which, if there were really any virtue in the
+preparation, could not fail to call it into action. This was done, though
+not without some misgivings, as we were all ignorant of the precise
+quantity which constituted a dose, and the limits within which the drug
+could be taken with safety. It was now ten o'clock; the streets of
+Damascus were gradually becoming silent, and the fair city was bathed in
+the yellow lustre of the Syrian moon. Only in the marble court-yard below
+us, a few dragomen and <i>mukkairee</i> lingered under the lemon-trees, and
+beside the fountain in the centre.</p>
+
+<p>I was seated alone, nearly in the middle of the room, talking with my
+friends, who were lounging upon a sofa placed in a sort of alcove, at the
+farther end, when the same fine nervous thrill, of which I have spoken,
+suddenly shot through me. But this time it was accompanied with a burning
+sensation at the pit of the stomach; and, instead of growing upon me with
+the gradual pace of healthy slumber, and resolving me, as before, into
+air, it came with the intensity of a pang, and shot throbbing along the
+nerves to the extremities of my body. The sense of limitation---of the
+confinement of our senses within the bounds of our own flesh and
+blood--instantly fell away. The walls of my frame were burst outward and
+tumbled into ruin; and, without thinking what form I wore--losing sight
+even of all idea of form--I felt that I existed throughout a vast extent
+of space. The blood, pulsed from my heart, sped through uncounted leagues
+before it reached my extremities; the air drawn into my lungs expanded
+into seas of limpid ether, and the arch of my skull was broader than the
+vault of heaven. Within the concave that held my brain, were the
+fathomless deeps of blue; clouds floated there, and the winds of heaven
+rolled them together, and there shone the orb of the sun. It was--though I
+thought not of that at the time--like a revelation of the mystery of
+omnipresence. It is difficult to describe this sensation, or the rapidity
+with which it mastered me. In the state of mental exaltation in which I
+was then plunged, all sensations, as they rose, suggested more or less
+coherent images. They presented themselves to me in a double form: one
+physical, and therefore to a certain extent tangible; the other spiritual,
+and revealing itself in a succession of splendid metaphors. The physical
+feeling of extended being was accompanied by the image of an exploding
+meteor, not subsiding into darkness, but continuing to shoot from its
+centre or nucleus--which corresponded to the burning spot at the pit of my
+stomach--incessant adumbrations of light that finally lost themselves in
+the infinity of space. To my mind, even now, this image is still the best
+illustration of my sensations, as I recall them; but I greatly doubt
+whether the reader will find it equally clear.</p>
+
+<p>My curiosity was now in a way of being satisfied; the Spirit (demon, shall
+I not rather say?) of Hasheesh had entire possession of me. I was cast
+upon the flood of his illusions, and drifted helplessly whithersoever they
+might choose to bear me. The thrills which ran through my nervous system
+became more rapid and fierce, accompanied with sensations that steeped my
+whole being in unutterable rapture. I was encompassed by a sea of light,
+through which played the pure, harmonious colors that are born of light.
+While endeavoring, in broken expressions, to describe my feelings to my
+friends, who sat looking upon me incredulously--not yet having been
+affected by the drug--I suddenly found myself at the foot of the great
+Pyramid of Cheops. The tapering courses of yellow limestone gleamed like
+gold in the sun, and the pile rose so high that it seemed to lean for
+support upon the blue arch of the sky. I wished to ascend it, and the wish
+alone placed me immediately upon its apex, lifted thousands of feet above
+the wheat-fields and palm-groves of Egypt. I cast my eyes downward, and,
+to my astonishment, saw that it was built, not of limestone, but of huge
+square plugs of Cavendish tobacco! Words cannot paint the overwhelming
+sense of the ludicrous which I then experienced. I writhed on my chair in
+an agony of laughter, which was only relieved by the vision melting away
+like a dissolving view; till, out of my confusion of indistinct images and
+fragments of images, another and more wonderful vision arose.</p>
+
+<p>The more vividly I recall the scene which followed, the more carefully I
+restore its different features, and separate the many threads of sensation
+which it wove into one gorgeous web, the more I despair of representing
+its exceeding glory. I was moving over the Desert, not upon the rocking
+dromedary, but seated in a barque made of mother-of-pearl, and studded
+with jewels of surpassing lustre. The sand was of grains of gold, and my
+keel slid through them without jar or sound. The air was radiant with
+excess of light, though no sun was to be seen. I inhaled the most
+delicious perfumes; and harmonies, such as Beethoven may have heard in
+dreams, but never wrote, floated around me. The atmosphere itself was
+light, odor, music; and each and all sublimated beyond anything the sober
+senses are capable of receiving. Before me--for a thousand leagues, as it
+seemed--stretched a vista of rainbows, whose colors gleamed with the
+splendor of gems--arches of living amethyst, sapphire, emerald, topaz, and
+ruby. By thousands and tens of thousands, they flew past me, as my
+dazzling barge sped down the magnificent arcade; yet the vista still
+stretched as far as ever before me. I revelled in a sensuous elysium,
+which was perfect, because no sense was left ungratified. But beyond all,
+my mind was filled with a boundless feeling of triumph. My journey was
+that of a conqueror--not of a conqueror who subdues his race, either by
+Love or by Will, for I forgot that Man existed--but one victorious over
+the grandest as well as the subtlest forces of Nature. The spirits of
+Light, Color, Odor, Sound, and Motion were my slaves; and, having these, I
+was master of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>Those who are endowed to any extent with the imaginative faculty, must
+have at least once in their lives experienced feelings which may give them
+a clue to the exalted sensuous raptures of my triumphal march. The view of
+a sublime mountain landscape, the hearing of a grand orchestral symphony,
+or of a choral upborne by the "full-voiced organ," or even the beauty and
+luxury of a cloudless summer day, suggests emotions similar in kind, if
+less intense. They took a warmth and glow from that pure animal joy which
+degrades not, but spiritualizes and ennobles our material part, and which
+differs from cold, abstract, intellectual enjoyment, as the flaming
+diamond of the Orient differs from the icicle of the North. Those finer
+senses, which occupy a middle ground between our animal and intellectual
+appetites, were suddenly developed to a pitch beyond what I had ever
+dreamed, and being thus at one and the same time gratified to the fullest
+extent of their preternatural capacity, the result was a single harmonious
+sensation, to describe which human language has no epithet. Mahomet's
+Paradise, with its palaces of ruby and emerald, its airs of musk and
+cassia, and its rivers colder than snow and sweeter than honey, would have
+been a poor and mean terminus for my arcade of rainbows. Yet in the
+character of this paradise, in the gorgeous fancies of the Arabian Nights,
+in the glow and luxury of all Oriental poetry, I now recognize more or
+less of the agency of hasheesh.</p>
+
+<p>The fulness of my rapture expanded the sense of time; and though the whole
+vision was probably not more than five minutes in passing through my mind,
+years seemed to have elapsed while I shot under the dazzling myriads of
+rainbow arches. By and by, the rainbows, the barque of pearl and jewels,
+and the desert of golden sand, vanished; and, still bathed in light and
+perfume, I found myself in a land of green and flowery lawns, divided by
+hills of gently undulating outline. But, although the vegetation was the
+richest of earth, there were neither streams nor fountains to be seen; and
+the people who came from the hills, with brilliant garments that shone in
+the sun, besought me to give them the blessing of water. Their hands were
+full of branches of the coral honeysuckle, in bloom. These I took; and,
+breaking off the flowers one by one, set them in the earth. The slender,
+trumpet-like tubes immediately became shafts of masonry, and sank deep
+into the earth; the lip of the flower changed into a circular mouth of
+rose-colored marble, and the people, leaning over its brink, lowered their
+pitchers to the bottom with cords, and drew them up again, filled to the
+brim, and dripping with honey.</p>
+
+<p>The most remarkable feature of these illusions was, that at the time when
+I was most completely under their influence, I knew myself to be seated in
+the tower of Antonio's hotel in Damascus, knew that I had taken hasheesh,
+and that the strange, gorgeous and ludicrous fancies which possessed me,
+were the effect of it. At the very same instant that I looked upon the
+Valley of the Nile from the pyramid, slid over the Desert, or created my
+marvellous wells in that beautiful pastoral country, I saw the furniture
+of my room, its mosaic pavement, the quaint Saracenic niches in the walls,
+the painted and gilded beams of the ceiling, and the couch in the recess
+before me, with my two companions watching me. Both sensations were
+simultaneous, and equally palpable. While I was most given up to the
+magnificent delusion, I saw its cause and felt its absurdity most clearly.
+Metaphysicians say that the mind is incapable of performing two operations
+at the same time, and may attempt to explain this phenomenon by supposing
+a rapid and incessant vibration of the perceptions between the two states.
+This explanation, however, is not satisfactory to me; for not more clearly
+does a skilful musician with the same breath blow two distinct musical
+notes from a bugle, than I was conscious of two distinct conditions of
+being in the same moment. Yet, singular as it may seem, neither conflicted
+with the other. My enjoyment of the visions was complete and absolute,
+undisturbed by the faintest doubt of their reality, while, in some other
+chamber of my brain, Reason sat coolly watching them, and heaping the
+liveliest ridicule on their fantastic features. One set of nerves was
+thrilled with the bliss of the gods, while another was convulsed with
+unquenchable laughter at that very bliss. My highest ecstacies could not
+bear down and silence the weight of my ridicule, which, in its turn, was
+powerless to prevent me from running into other and more gorgeous
+absurdities. I was double, not "swan and shadow," but rather, Sphinx-like,
+human and beast. A true Sphinx, I was a riddle and a mystery to myself.</p>
+
+<p>The drug, which had been retarded in its operation on account of having
+been taken after a meal, now began to make itself more powerfully felt.
+The visions were more grotesque than ever, but less agreeable; and there
+was a painful tension throughout my nervous system--the effect of
+over-stimulus. I was a mass of transparent jelly, and a confectioner
+poured me into a twisted mould. I threw my chair aside, and writhed and
+tortured myself for some time to force my loose substance into the mould.
+At last, when I had so far succeeded that only one foot remained outside,
+it was lifted off, and another mould, of still more crooked and intricate
+shape, substituted. I have no doubt that the contortions through which I
+went, to accomplish the end of my gelatinous destiny, would have been
+extremely ludicrous to a spectator, but to me they were painful and
+disagreeable. The sober half of me went into fits of laughter over them,
+and through that laughter, my vision shifted into another scene. I had
+laughed until my eyes overflowed profusely. Every drop that fell,
+immediately became a large loaf of bread, and tumbled upon the shop-board
+of a baker in the bazaar at Damascus. The more I laughed, the faster the
+loaves fell, until such a pile was raised about the baker, that I could
+hardly see the top of his head. "The man will be suffocated," I cried,
+"but if he were to die, I cannot stop!"</p>
+
+<p>My perceptions now became more dim and confused. I felt that I was in the
+grasp of some giant force; and, in the glimmering of my fading reason,
+grew earnestly alarmed, for the terrible stress under which my frame
+labored increased every moment. A fierce and furious heat radiated from my
+stomach throughout my system; my mouth and throat were as dry and hard as
+if made of brass, and my tongue, it seemed to me, was a bar of rusty iron.
+I seized a pitcher of water, and drank long and deeply; but I might as
+well have drunk so much air, for not only did it impart no moisture, but
+my palate and throat gave me no intelligence of having drunk at all. I
+stood in the centre of the room, brandishing my arms convulsively, an
+heaving sighs that seemed to shatter my whole being. "Will no one," I
+cried in distress, "cast out this devil that has possession of me?" I no
+longer saw the room nor my friends, but I heard one of them saying, "It
+must be real; he could not counterfeit such an expression as that. But it
+don't look much like pleasure." Immediately afterwards there was a scream
+of the wildest laughter, and my countryman sprang upon the floor,
+exclaiming, "O, ye gods! I am a locomotive!" This was his ruling
+hallucination; and, for the space of two or three hours, he continued to
+pace to and fro with a measured stride, exhaling his breath in violent
+jets, and when he spoke, dividing his words into syllables, each of which
+he brought out with a jerk, at the same time turning his hands at his
+sides, as if they were the cranks of imaginary wheels, The Englishman, as
+soon as he felt the dose beginning to take effect, prudently retreated to
+his own room, and what the nature of his visions was, we never learned,
+for he refused to tell, and, moreover, enjoined the strictest silence on
+his wife.</p>
+
+<p>By this time it was nearly midnight. I had passed through the Paradise of
+Hasheesh, and was plunged at once into its fiercest Hell. In my ignorance
+I had taken what, I have since learned, would have been a sufficient
+portion for six men, and was now paying a frightful penalty for my
+curiosity. The excited blood rushed through my frame with a sound like the
+roaring of mighty waters. It was projected into my eyes until I could no
+longer see; it beat thickly in my ears, and so throbbed in my heart, that
+I feared the ribs would give way under its blows. I tore open my vest,
+placed my hand over the spot, and tried to count the pulsations; but there
+were two hearts, one beating at the rate of a thousand beats a minute, and
+the other with a slow, dull motion. My throat, I thought, was filled to
+the brim with blood, and streams of blood were pouring from my ears. I
+felt them gushing warm down my cheeks and neck. With a maddened, desperate
+feeling, I fled from the room, and walked over the flat, terraced roof of
+the house. My body seemed to shrink and grow rigid as I wrestled with the
+demon, and my face to become wild, lean and haggard. Some lines which had
+struck me, years before, in reading Mrs. Browning's "Rhyme of the Duchess
+May," flashed into my mind:--</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "And the horse, in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;On the last verge, rears amain;<br />
+And he hangs, he rocks between--and his nostrils curdle in--<br />
+And he shivers, head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And his face grows fierce and thin."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That picture of animal terror and agony was mine. I was the horse,
+hanging poised on the verge of the giddy tower, the next moment to be
+borne sheer down to destruction. Involuntarily, I raised my hand to feel
+the leanness and sharpness of my face. Oh horror! the flesh had fallen
+from my bones, and it was a skeleton head that I carried on my shoulders!
+With one bound I sprang to the parapet, and looked down into the silent
+courtyard, then filled with the shadows thrown into it by the sinking
+moon. Shall I cast myself down headlong? was the question I proposed to
+myself; but though the horror of that skeleton delusion was greater than
+my fear of death, there was an invisible hand at my breast which pushed me
+away from the brink.</p>
+
+<p>I made my way back to the room, in a state of the keenest suffering. My
+companion was still a locomotive, rushing to and fro, and jerking out his
+syllables with the disjointed accent peculiar to a steam-engine. His mouth
+had turned to brass, like mine, and he raised the pitcher to his lips in
+the attempt to moisten it, but before he had taken a mouthful, set the
+pitcher down again with a yell of laughter, crying out: "How can I take
+water into my boiler, while I am letting off steam?"</p>
+
+<p>But I was now too far gone to feel the absurdity of this, or his other
+exclamations. I was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of unutterable
+agony and despair. For, although I was not conscious of real pain in any
+part of my body, the cruel tension to which my nerves had been subjected
+filled me through and through with a sensation of distress which was far
+more severe than pain itself. In addition to this, the remnant of will
+with which I struggled against the demon, became gradually weaker, and I
+felt that I should soon be powerless in his hands. Every effort to
+preserve my reason was accompanied by a pang of mortal fear, lest what I
+now experienced was insanity, and would hold mastery over me for ever. The
+thought of death, which also haunted me, was far less bitter than this
+dread. I knew that in the struggle which was going on in my frame, I was
+borne fearfully near the dark gulf, and the thought that, at such a time,
+both reason and will were leaving my brain, filled me with an agony, the
+depth and blackness of which I should vainly attempt to portray. I threw
+myself on my bed, with the excited blood still roaring wildly in my ears,
+my heart throbbing with a force that seemed to be rapidly wearing away my
+life, my throat dry as a pot-sherd, and my stiffened tongue cleaving to
+the roof of my mouth--resisting no longer, but awaiting my fate with the
+apathy of despair.</p>
+
+<p>My companion was now approaching the same condition, but as the effect of
+the drug on him had been less violent, so his stage of suffering was more
+clamorous. He cried out to me that he was dying, implored me to help him,
+and reproached me vehemently, because I lay there silent, motionless, and
+apparently careless of his danger. "Why will he disturb me?" I thought;
+"he thinks he is dying, but what is death to madness? Let him die; a
+thousand deaths were more easily borne than the pangs I suffer." While I
+was sufficiently conscious to hear his exclamations, they only provoked my
+keen anger; but after a time, my senses became clouded, and I sank into a
+stupor. As near as I can judge, this must have been three o'clock in the
+morning, rather more than five hours after the hasheesh began to take
+effect. I lay thus all the following day and night, in a state of gray,
+blank oblivion, broken only by a single wandering gleam of consciousness.
+I recollect hearing Fran&ccedil;ois' voice. He told me afterwards that I arose,
+attempted to dress myself, drank two cups of coffee, and then fell back
+into the same death-like stupor; but of all this, I did not retain the
+least knowledge. On the morning of the second day, after a sleep of thirty
+hours, I awoke again to the world, with a system utterly prostrate and
+unstrung, and a brain clouded with the lingering images of my visions. I
+knew where I was, and what had happened to me, but all that I saw still
+remained unreal and shadowy. There was no taste in what I ate, no
+refreshment in what I drank, and it required a painful effort to
+comprehend what was said to me and return a coherent answer. Will and
+Reason had come back, but they still sat unsteadily upon their thrones.</p>
+
+<p>My friend, who was much further advanced in his recovery, accompanied me
+to the adjoining bath, which I hoped would assist in restoring me. It was
+with great difficulty that I preserved the outward appearance of
+consciousness. In spite of myself, a veil now and then fell over my mind,
+and after wandering for years, as it seemed, in some distant world, I
+awoke with a shock, to find myself in the steamy halls of the bath, with a
+brown Syrian polishing my limbs. I suspect that my language must have been
+rambling and incoherent, and that the menials who had me in charge
+understood my condition, for as soon as I had stretched myself upon the
+couch which follows the bath, a glass of very acid sherbet was presented
+to me, and after drinking it I experienced instant relief. Still the spell
+was not wholly broken, and for two or three days I continued subject to
+frequent involuntary fits of absence, which made me insensible, for the
+time, to all that was passing around me. I walked the streets of Damascus
+with a strange consciousness that I was in some other place at the same
+time, and with a constant effort to reunite my divided perceptions.</p>
+
+<p>Previous to the experiment, we had decided on making a bargain with the
+shekh for the journey to Palmyra. The state, however, in which we now
+found ourselves, obliged us to relinquish the plan. Perhaps the excitement
+of a forced march across the desert, and a conflict with the hostile
+Arabs, which was quite likely to happen, might have assisted us in
+throwing off the baneful effects of the drug; but all the charm which lay
+in the name of Palmyra and the romantic interest of the trip, was gone. I
+was without courage and without energy, and nothing remained for me but to
+leave Damascus.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, fearful as my rash experiment proved to me, I did not regret having
+made it. It revealed to me deeps of rapture and of suffering which my
+natural faculties never could have sounded. It has taught me the majesty
+of human reason and of human will, even in the weakest, and the awful
+peril of tampering with that which assails their integrity. I have here
+faithfully and fully written out my experience, on account of the lesson
+which it may convey to others. If I have unfortunately failed in my
+design, and have but awakened that restless curiosity which I have
+endeavored to forestall, let me beg all who are thereby led to repeat the
+experiment upon themselves, that they be content to take the portion of
+hasheesh which is considered sufficient for one man, and not, like me,
+swallow enough for six.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch11">
+<h2>Chapter XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>A Dissertation on Bathing and Bodies.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "No swan-soft woman, rubbed with lucid oils,<br />
+The gift of an enamored god, more fair."</p>
+
+<p>  Browning.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>We shall not set out from Damascus--we shall not leave the Pearl of the
+Orient to glimmer through the seas of foliage wherein it lies
+buried--without consecrating a day to the Bath, that material agent of
+peace and good-will unto men. We have bathed in the Jordan, like Naaman,
+and been made clean; let us now see whether Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
+Damascus, are better than the waters of Israel.</p>
+
+<p>The Bath is the "peculiar institution" of the East. Coffee has become
+colonized in France and America; the Pipe is a cosmopolite, and his blue,
+joyous breath congeals under the Arctic Circle, or melts languidly into
+the soft airs of the Polynesian Isles; but the Bath, that sensuous elysium
+which cradled the dreams of Plato, and the visions of Zoroaster, and the
+solemn meditations of Mahomet, is only to be found under an Oriental sky.
+The naked natives of the Torrid Zone are amphibious; they do not bathe,
+they live in the water. The European and Anglo-American wash themselves
+and think they have bathed; they shudder under cold showers and perform
+laborious antics with coarse towels. As for the Hydropathist, the Genius
+of the Bath, whose dwelling is in Damascus, would be convulsed with
+scornful laughter, could he behold that aqueous Diogenes sitting in his
+tub, or stretched out in his wet wrappings, like a sodden mummy, in a
+catacomb of blankets and feather beds. As the rose in the East has a rarer
+perfume than in other lands, so does the Bath bestow a superior
+purification and impart a more profound enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>Listen not unto the lamentations of travellers, who complain of the heat,
+and the steam, and the dislocations of their joints. They belong to the
+stiff-necked generation, who resist the processes, whereunto the Oriental
+yields himself body and soul. He who is bathed in Damascus, must be as
+clay in the hands of a potter. The Syrians marvel how the Franks can walk,
+so difficult is it to bend their joints. Moreover, they know the
+difference between him who comes to the Bath out of a mere idle curiosity,
+and him who has tasted its delight and holds it in due honor. Only the
+latter is permitted to know all its mysteries. The former is carelessly
+hurried through the ordinary forms of bathing, and, if any trace of the
+cockney remain in him, is quite as likely to be disgusted as pleased.
+Again, there are many second and third-rate baths, whither cheating
+dragomen conduct their victims, in consideration of a division of spoils
+with the bath-keeper. Hence it is, that the Bath has received but partial
+justice at the hands of tourists in the East. If any one doubts this, let
+him clothe himself with Oriental passiveness and resignation, go to the
+Hamman el-Khyate&euml;n, at Damascus, or the Bath of Mahmoud Pasha, at
+Constantinople, and demand that he be perfectly bathed.</p>
+
+<p>Come with me, and I will show you the mysteries of the perfect bath. Here
+is the entrance, a heavy Saracenic arch, opening upon the crowded bazaar.
+We descend a few steps to the marble pavement of a lofty octagonal hall,
+lighted by a dome. There is a jet of sparkling water in the centre,
+falling into a heavy stone basin. A platform about five feet in height
+runs around the hall, and on this are ranged a number of narrow couches,
+with their heads to the wall, like the pallets in a hospital ward. The
+platform is covered with straw matting, and from the wooden gallery which
+rises above it are suspended towels, with blue and crimson borders. The
+master of the bath receives us courteously, and conducts us to one of the
+vacant couches. We kick off our red slippers below, and mount the steps to
+the platform. Yonder traveller, in Frank dress, who has just entered, goes
+up with his boots on, and we know, from that fact, what sort of a bath he
+will get.</p>
+
+<p>As the work of disrobing proceeds, a dark-eyed boy appears with a napkin,
+which he holds before us, ready to bind it about the waist, as soon as we
+regain our primitive form. Another attendant throws a napkin over our
+shoulders and wraps a third around our head, turban-wise. He then thrusts
+a pair of wooden clogs upon our feet, and, taking us by the arm, steadies
+our tottering and clattering steps, as we pass through a low door and a
+warm ante-chamber into the first hall of the bath. The light, falling
+dimly through a cluster of bull's-eyes in the domed ceiling, shows, first,
+a silver thread of water, playing in a steamy atmosphere; next, some dark
+motionless objects, stretched out on a low central platform of marble. The
+attendant spreads a linen sheet in one of the vacant places, places a
+pillow at one end, takes off our clogs, deposits us gently on our back,
+and leaves us. The pavement is warm beneath us, and the first breath we
+draw gives us a sense of suffocation. But a bit of burning aloe-wood has
+just been carried through the hall, and the steam is permeated with
+fragrance. The dark-eyed boy appears with a narghileh, which he places
+beside us, offering the amber mouth-piece to our submissive lips. The
+smoke we inhale has an odor of roses; and as the pipe bubbles with our
+breathing, we feel that the dews of sweat gather heavily upon us. The
+attendant now reappears, kneels beside us, and gently kneads us with
+dexterous hands. Although no anatomist, he knows every muscle and sinew
+whose suppleness gives ease to the body, and so moulds and manipulates
+them that we lose the rigidity of our mechanism, and become plastic in his
+hands. He turns us upon our face, repeats the same process upon the back,
+and leaves us a little longer to lie there passively, glistening in our
+own dew.</p>
+
+<p>We are aroused from a reverie about nothing by a dark-brown shape, who
+replaces the clogs, puts his arm around our waist and leads us into an
+inner hall, with a steaming tank in the centre. Here he slips us off the
+brink, and we collapse over head and ears in the fiery fluid.
+Once--twice--we dip into the delicious heat, and then are led into a
+marble alcove, and seated flat upon the floor. The attendant stands behind
+us, and we now perceive that his hands are encased in dark hair-gloves. He
+pounces upon an arm, which he rubs until, like a serpent, we slough the
+worn-out skin, and resume our infantile smoothness and fairness. No man
+can be called clean until he has bathed in the East. Let him walk directly
+from his accustomed bath and self-friction with towels, to the Hammam
+el-Khyate&euml;n, and the attendant will exclaim, as he shakes out his
+hair-gloves: "O Frank! it is a long time since you have bathed." The other
+arm follows, the back, the breast, the legs, until the work is complete,
+and we know precisely how a horse feels after he has been curried.</p>
+
+<p>Now the attendant turns two cocks at the back of the alcove, and holding a
+basin alternately under the cold and hot streams, floods us at first with
+a fiery dash, that sends a delicious warm shiver through every nerve;
+then, with milder applications, lessening the temperature of the water by
+semi-tones, until, from the highest key of heat which we can bear, we
+glide rapturously down the gamut until we reach the lowest bass of
+coolness. The skin has by this time attained an exquisite sensibility, and
+answers to these changes of temperature with thrills of the purest
+physical pleasure. In fact, the whole frame seems purged of its earthy
+nature and transformed into something of a finer and more delicate
+texture.</p>
+
+<p>After a pause, the attendant makes his appearance with a large wooden
+bowl, a piece of soap, and a bunch of palm-fibres. He squats down beside
+the bowl, and speedily creates a mass of snowy lather, which grows up to a
+pyramid and topples over the edge. Seizing us by the crown-tuft of hair
+upon our shaven head, he plants the foamy bunch of fibres full in our
+face. The world vanishes; sight, hearing, smell, taste (unless we open our
+mouth), and breathing, are cut off; we have become nebulous. Although our
+eyes are shut, we seem to see a blank whiteness; and, feeling nothing but
+a soft fleeciness, we doubt whether we be not the Olympian cloud which
+visited lo. But the cloud clears away before strangulation begins, and the
+velvety mass descends upon the body. Twice we are thus "slushed" from head
+to foot, and made more slippery than the anointed wrestlers of the Greek
+games. Then the basin comes again into play, and we glide once more
+musically through the scale of temperature.</p>
+
+<p>The brown sculptor has now nearly completed his task. The figure of clay
+which entered the bath is transformed into polished marble. He turns the
+body from side to side, and lifts the limbs to see whether the workmanship
+is adequate to his conception. His satisfied gaze proclaims his success. A
+skilful bath-attendant has a certain aesthetic pleasure in his occupation.
+The bodies he polishes become to some extent his own workmanship, and he
+feels responsible for their symmetry or deformity. He experiences a degree
+of triumph in contemplating a beautiful form, which has grown more airily
+light and beautiful under his hands. He is a great connoisseur of bodies,
+and could pick you out the finest specimens with as ready an eye as an
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>I envy those old Greek bathers, into whose hands were delivered Pericles,
+and Alcibiades, and the perfect models of Phidias. They had daily before
+their eyes the highest types of Beauty which the world has ever produced;
+for of all things that are beautiful, the human body is the crown. Now,
+since the delusion of artists has been overthrown, and we know that
+Grecian Art is but the simple reflex of Nature--that the old masterpieces
+of sculpture were no miraculous embodiments of a <i>beau ideal</i>, but copies
+of living forms--we must admit that in no other age of the world has the
+physical Man been so perfectly developed. The nearest approach I have ever
+seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of
+Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo.</p>
+
+<p>Oriental life is too full of repose, and the Ottoman race has become too
+degenerate through indulgence, to exhibit many striking specimens of
+physical beauty. The face is generally fine, but the body is apt to be
+lank, and with imperfect muscular development. The best forms I saw in the
+baths were those of laborers, who, with a good deal of rugged strength,
+showed some grace and harmony of proportion. It may be received as a
+general rule, that the physical development of the European is superior to
+that of the Oriental, with the exception of the Circassians and Georgians,
+whose beauty well entitles them to the distinction of giving their name to
+our race.</p>
+
+<p>So far as female beauty is concerned, the Circassian women have no
+superiors. They have preserved in their mountain home the purity of the
+Grecian models, and still display the perfect physical loveliness, whose
+type has descended to us in the Venus de Medici. The Frank who is addicted
+to wandering about the streets of Oriental cities can hardly fail to be
+favored with a sight of the faces of these beauties. More than once it has
+happened to me, in meeting a veiled lady, sailing along in her
+balloon-like feridjee, that she has allowed the veil to drop by a skilful
+accident, as she passed, and has startled me with the vision of her
+beauty, recalling the line of the Persian poet: "Astonishment! is this the
+dawn of the glorious sun, or is it the full moon?" The Circassian face is
+a pure oval; the forehead is low and fair, "an excellent thing in woman,"
+and the skin of an ivory whiteness, except the faint pink of the cheeks
+and the ripe, roseate stain of the lips. The hair is dark, glossy, and
+luxuriant, exquisitely outlined on the temples; the eyebrows slightly
+arched, and drawn with a delicate pencil; while lashes like "rays of
+darkness" shade the large, dark, humid orbs below them. The alabaster of
+the face, so pure as scarcely to show the blue branching of the veins on
+the temples, is lighted by those superb eyes--</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone,"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>--whose wells are so dark and deep, that you are cheated into the belief
+that a glorious soul looks out of them.</p>
+
+<p>Once, by an unforeseen chance, I beheld the Circassian form, in its most
+perfect development. I was on board an Austrian steamer in the harbor of
+Smyrna, when the harem of a Turkish pasha came out in a boat to embark for
+Alexandria. The sea was rather rough, and nearly all the officers of the
+steamer were ashore. There were six veiled and swaddled women, with a
+black eunuch as guard, in the boat, which lay tossing for some time at the
+foot of the gangway ladder, before the frightened passengers could summon
+courage to step out. At last the youngest of them--a Circassian girl of
+not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age--ventured upon the ladder,
+clasping the hand-rail with one hand, while with the other she held
+together the folds of her cumbrous feridjee. I was standing in the
+gangway, watching her, when a slight lurch of the steamer caused her to
+loose her hold of the garment, which, fastened at the neck, was blown back
+from her shoulders, leaving her body screened but by a single robe
+of-light, gauzy silk. Through this, the marble whiteness of her skin, the
+roundness, the glorious symmetry of her form, flashed upon me, as a vision
+of Aphrodite, seen</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "Through leagues of shimmering water, like a star."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was but a momentary glimpse; yet that moment convinced me that forms
+of Phidian perfection are still nurtured in the vales of Caucasus.</p>
+
+<p>The necessary disguise of dress hides from us much of the beauty and
+dignity of Humanity, I have seen men who appeared heroic in the freedom of
+nakedness, shrink almost into absolute vulgarity, when clothed. The soul
+not only sits at the windows of the eyes, and hangs upon the gateway of
+the lips; she speaks as well in the intricate, yet harmonious lines of the
+body, and the ever-varying play of the limbs. Look at the torso of
+Ilioneus, the son of Niobe, and see what an agony of terror and
+supplication cries out from that headless and limbless trunk! Decapitate
+Laoco&ouml;n, and his knotted muscles will still express the same dreadful
+suffering and resistance. None knew this better than the ancient
+sculptors; and hence it was that we find many of their statues of
+distinguished men wholly or partly undraped. Such a view of Art would be
+considered transcendental now-a-days, when our dress, our costumes, and
+our modes of speech either ignore the existence of our bodies, or treat
+them with little of that reverence which is their due.</p>
+
+<p>But, while we have been thinking these thoughts, the attendant has been
+waiting to give us a final plunge into the seething tank. Again we slide
+down to the eyes in the fluid heat, which wraps us closely about until we
+tingle with exquisite hot shiverings. Now comes the graceful boy, with
+clean, cool, lavendered napkins, which he folds around our waist and wraps
+softly about the head. The pattens are put upon our feet, and the brown
+arm steadies us gently through the sweating-room and ante-chamber into the
+outer hall, where we mount to our couch. We sink gently upon the cool
+linen, and the boy covers us with a perfumed sheet. Then, kneeling beside
+the couch, he presses the folds of the sheet around us, that it may absorb
+the lingering moisture and the limpid perspiration shed by the departing
+heat. As fast as the linen becomes damp, he replaces it with fresh,
+pressing the folds about us as tenderly as a mother arranges the drapery
+of her sleeping babe; for we, though of the stature of a man, are now
+infantile in our helpless happiness. Then he takes our passive hand and
+warms its palm by the soft friction of his own; after which, moving to the
+end of the couch, he lifts our feet upon his lap, and repeats the friction
+upon their soles, until the blood comes back to the surface of the body
+with a misty glow, like that which steeps the clouds of a summer
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>We have but one more process to undergo, and the attendant already stands
+at the head of our couch. This is the course of passive gymnastics, which
+excites so much alarm and resistance in the ignorant Franks. It is only
+resistance that is dangerous, completely neutralizing the enjoyment of the
+process. Give yourself with a blind submission into the arms of the brown
+Fate, and he will lead you to new chambers of delight. He lifts us to a
+sitting posture, places himself behind us, and folds his arms around our
+body, alternately tightening and relaxing his clasp, as if to test the
+elasticity of the ribs. Then seizing one arm, he draws it across the
+opposite shoulder, until the joint cracks like a percussion-cap. The
+shoulder-blades, the elbows, the wrists, and the finger-joints are all
+made to fire off their muffled volleys; and then, placing one knee between
+our shoulders, and clasping both hands upon our forehead, he draws our
+head back until we feel a great snap of the vertebral column. Now he
+descends to the hip-joints, knees, ankles, and feet, forcing each and all
+to discharge a salvo <i>de joie</i>. The slight languor left from the bath is
+gone, and an airy, delicate exhilaration, befitting the winged Mercury,
+takes its place.</p>
+
+<p>The boy, kneeling, presents us with <i>finjan</i> of foamy coffee, followed by
+a glass of sherbet cooled with the snows of Lebanon. He presently returns
+with a narghileh, which we smoke by the effortless inhalation of the
+lungs. Thus we lie in perfect repose, soothed by the fragrant weed, and
+idly watching the silent Orientals, who are undressing for the bath or
+reposing like ourselves. Through the arched entrance, we see a picture of
+the bazaars: a shadowy painting of merchants seated amid their silks and
+spices, dotted here and there with golden drops and splashes of sunshine,
+which have trickled through the roof. The scene paints itself upon our
+eyes, yet wakes no slightest stir of thought. The brain is a becalmed sea,
+without a ripple on its shores. Mind and body are drowned in delicious
+rest; and we no longer remember what we are. We only know that there is an
+Existence somewhere in the air, and that wherever it is, and whatever it
+may be, it is happy.</p>
+
+<p>More and more dim grows the picture. The colors fade and blend into each
+other, and finally merge into a bed of rosy clouds, flooded with the
+radiance of some unseen sun. Gentlier than "tired eyelids upon tired
+eyes," sleep lies upon our senses: a half-conscious sleep, wherein we know
+that we behold light and inhale fragrance. As gently, the clouds dissipate
+into air, and we are born again into the world. The Bath is at an end. We
+arise and put on our garments, and walk forth into the sunny streets of
+Damascus. But as we go homewards, we involuntarily look down to see
+whether we are really treading upon the earth, wondering, perhaps, that we
+should be content to do so, when it would be so easy to soar above the
+house-tops.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch12">
+<h2>Chapter XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Baalbec and Lebanon.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Departure from Damascus--The Fountains of the Pharpar--Pass of the
+  Anti-Lebanon--Adventure with the Druses--The Range of Lebanon--The Demon
+  of Hasheesh departs--Impressions of Baalbec--The Temple of the
+  Sun--Titanic Masonry--The Ruined Mosque--Camp on Lebanon--Rascality of
+  the Guide--The Summit of Lebanon--The Sacred Cedars--The Christians of
+  Lebanon--An Afternoon in Eden--Rugged Travel--We Reach the Coast--Return
+  to Beyrout.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Peor and Ba&auml;lim<br />
+Forsake their temples dim."</p>
+
+<p>  Milton.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "The cedars wave on Lebanon,<br />
+But Judah's statelier maids are gone."</p>
+
+<p>  Byron.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Beyrout, <i>Thursday, May</i> 27, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>After a stay of eight days in Damascus, we called our men, Dervish and
+Mustapha, again into requisition, loaded our enthusiastic mules, and
+mounted our despairing horses. There were two other parties on the way to
+Baalbec--an English gentleman and lady, and a solitary Englishman, so that
+our united forces made an imposing caravan. There is always a custom-house
+examination, not on entering, but on issuing from an Oriental city, but
+travellers can avoid it by procuring the company of a Consular Janissary
+as far as the gate. Mr. Wood, the British Consul, lent us one of his
+officers for the occasion, whom we found waiting, outside of the wall, to
+receive his private fee for the service. We mounted the long, barren hill
+west of the plain, and at the summit, near the tomb of a Moslem shekh,
+turned to take a last long look at the bowery plain, and the minarets of
+the city, glittering through the blue morning vapor.
+
+A few paces further on the rocky road, a different scene presented itself
+to us. There lay, to the westward, a long stretch of naked yellow
+mountains, basking in the hot glare of the sun, and through the centre,
+deep down in the heart of the arid landscape, a winding line of living
+green showed the course of the Barrada. We followed the river, until the
+path reached an impassable gorge, which occasioned a detour of two or
+three hours. We then descended to the bed of the dell, where the
+vegetation, owing to the radiated heat from the mountains and the
+fertilizing stimulus of the water below, was even richer than on the plain
+of Damascus. The trees were plethoric with an overplus of life. The boughs
+of the mulberries were weighed down with the burden of the leaves;
+pomegranates were in a violent eruption of blossoms; and the foliage of
+the fig and poplar was of so deep a hue that it shone black in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through a gateway of rock, so narrow that we were often obliged to
+ride in the bed of the stream, we reached a little meadow, beyond which
+was a small hamlet, almost hidden in the leaves. Here the mountains again
+approached each other, and from the side of that on the right hand, the
+main body of the Barrada, or Pharpar, gushed forth in one full stream. The
+fountain is nearly double the volume of that of the Jordan at Banias, and
+much more beautiful. The foundations of an ancient building, probably a
+temple, overhang it, and tall poplars and sycamores cover it with
+impenetrable shade. From the low aperture, where it bursts into the light,
+its waters, white with foam, bound away flashing in the chance rays of
+sunshine, until they are lost to sight in the dense, dark foliage. We sat
+an hour on the ruined walls, listening to the roar and rush of the flood,
+and enjoying the shade of the walnuts and sycamores. Soon after leaving,
+our path crossed a small stream, which comes down to the Barrada from the
+upper valleys of the Anti-Lebanon, and entered a wild pass, faced with
+cliffs of perpendicular rock. An old bridge, of one arch, spanned the
+chasm, out of which we climbed to a tract of high meadow land. In the pass
+there were some fragments of ancient columns, traces of an aqueduct, and
+inscriptions on the rocks, among which Mr. H. found the name of Antoninus.
+The place is not mentioned in any book of travel I have seen, as it is not
+on the usual road from Damascus to Baalbec.</p>
+
+<p>As we were emerging from the pass, we saw a company of twelve armed men
+seated in the grass, near the roadside. They were wild-looking characters,
+and eyed us somewhat sharply as we passed. We greeted them with the usual
+"salaam aleikoom!" which they did not return. The same evening, as we
+encamped at the village of Zebdeni, about three hours further up the
+valley, we were startled by a great noise and outcry, with the firing of
+pistols. It happened, as we learned on inquiring the cause of all this
+confusion, that the men we saw in the pass were rebel Druses, who were
+then lying in wait for the Shekh of Zebdeni, whom, with his son, they had
+taken captive soon after we passed. The news had by some means been
+conveyed to the village, and a company of about two hundred persons was
+then marching out to the rescue. The noise they made was probably to give
+the Druses intimation of their coming, and thus avoid a fight. I do not
+believe that any of the mountaineers of Lebanon would willingly take part
+against the Druses, who, in fact, are not fighting so much against the
+institution of the conscription law, as its abuse. The law ordains that
+the conscript shall serve for five years; but since its establishment, as
+I have been informed, there has not been a single instance of discharge.
+It amounts, therefore, to lifelong servitude, and there is little wonder
+that these independent sons of the mountains, as well as the tribes
+inhabiting the Syrian Desert, should rebel rather than submit.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, we crossed a pass in the Anti-Lebanon beyond Zebdeni,
+descended a beautiful valley on the western side, under a ridge which was
+still dotted with patches of snow, and after travelling for some hours
+over a wide, barren height, the last of the range, saw below us the plain
+of Baalbec. The grand ridge of Lebanon opposite, crowned with glittering
+fields of snow, shone out clearly through the pure air, and the hoary head
+of Hermon, far in the south, lost something of its grandeur by the
+comparison. Though there is a "divide," or watershed, between Husbeiya, at
+the foot of Mount Hermon, and Baalbec, whose springs join the Orontes,
+which flows northward to Antioch, the great natural separation of the two
+chains continues unbroken to the Gulf of Akaba, in the Red Sea. A little
+beyond Baalbec, the Anti-Lebanon terminates, sinking into the Syrian
+plain, while the Lebanon, though its name and general features are lost,
+about twenty miles further to the north is succeeded by other ranges,
+which, though broken at intervals, form a regular series, connecting with
+the Taurus, in Asia Minor.</p>
+
+<p>On leaving Damascus, the Demon of Hasheesh still maintained a partial
+control over me. I was weak in body and at times confused in my
+perceptions, wandering away from the scenes about me to some unknown
+sphere beyond the moon. But the healing balm of my sleep at Zebdeni, and
+the purity of the morning air among the mountains, completed my cure. As I
+rode along the valley, with the towering, snow-sprinkled ridge of the
+Anti-Lebanon on my right, a cloudless heaven above my head, and meads
+enamelled with the asphodel and scarlet anemone stretching before me, I
+felt that the last shadow had rolled away from my brain. My mind was now
+as clear as that sky--my heart as free and joyful as the elastic morning
+air. The sun never shone so brightly to my eyes; the fair forms of Nature
+were never penetrated with so perfect a spirit of beauty. I was again
+master of myself, and the world glowed as if new-created in the light of
+my joy and gratitude. I thanked God, who had led me out of a darkness more
+terrible than that of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and while my feet
+strayed among the flowery meadows of Lebanon, my heart walked on the
+Delectable Hills of His Mercy.</p>
+
+<p>By the middle of the afternoon, we reached Baalbec. The distant view of
+the temple, on descending the last slope of the Anti-Lebanon, is not
+calculated to raise one's expectations. On the green plain at the foot of
+the mountain, you see a large square platform of masonry, upon which stand
+six columns, the body of the temple, and a quantity of ruined walls. As a
+feature in the landscape, it has a fine effect, but you find yourself
+pronouncing the speedy judgment, that "Baalbec, without Lebanon, would be
+rather a poor show." Having come to this conclusion, you ride down the
+hill with comfortable feelings of indifference. There are a number of
+quarries on the left hand; you glance at them with an expression which
+merely says: "Ah! I suppose they got the stones here," and so you saunter
+on, cross a little stream that flows down from the modern village, pass a
+mill, return the stare of the quaint Arab miller who comes to the door to
+see you, and your horse is climbing a difficult path among the broken
+columns and friezes, before you think it worth while to lift your eyes to
+the pile above you. Now re-assert your judgment, if you dare! This is
+Baalbec: what have you to say? Nothing; but you amazedly measure the
+torsos of great columns which lie piled across one another in magnificent
+wreck; vast pieces which have dropped from the entablature, beautiful
+Corinthian capitals, bereft of the last graceful curves of their acanthus
+leaves, and blocks whose edges are so worn away that they resemble
+enormous natural boulders left by the Deluge, till at last you look up to
+the six glorious pillars, towering nigh a hundred feet above your head,
+and there is a sensation in your brain which would be a shout, if you
+could give it utterance, of faultless symmetry and majesty, such as no
+conception of yours and no other creation of art, can surpass.</p>
+
+<p>I know of nothing so beautiful in all remains of ancient Art as these six
+columns, except the colonnade of the Memnonium, at Thebes, which is of
+much smaller proportions. From every position, and with all lights of the
+day or night, they are equally perfect, and carry your eyes continually
+away from the peristyle of the smaller temple, which is better preserved,
+and from the exquisite architecture of the outer courts and pavilions.
+The two temples of Baalbec stand on an artificial platform of masonry, a
+thousand feet in length, and from fifteen to thirty feet (according to the
+depression of the soil) in height, The larger one, which is supposed to
+have been a Pantheon, occupies the whole length of this platform. The
+entrance was at the north, by a grand flight of steps, now broken away,
+between two lofty and elegant pavilions which are still nearly entire.
+Then followed a spacious hexagonal court, and three grand halls, parts of
+which, with niches for statues, adorned with cornices and pediments of
+elaborate design, still remain entire to the roof. This magnificent series
+of chambers was terminated at the southern extremity of the platform by
+the main temple, which had originally twenty columns on a side, similar to
+the six now standing.</p>
+
+<p>The Temple of the Sun stands on a smaller and lower platform, which
+appears to have been subsequently added to the greater one. The cella, or
+body of the temple, is complete except the roof, and of the colonnade
+surrounding it, nearly one-half of its pillars are still standing,
+upholding the frieze, entablature, and cornice, which altogether form
+probably the most ornate specimen of the Corinthian order of architecture
+now extant. Only four pillars of the superb portico remain, and the
+Saracens have nearly ruined these by building a sort of watch-tower upon
+the architrave. The same unscrupulous race completely shut up the portal
+of the temple with a blank wall, formed of the fragments they had hurled
+down, and one is obliged to creep through a narrow hole in order to reach
+the interior. Here the original doorway faces you--and I know not how to
+describe the wonderful design of its elaborate sculptured mouldings and
+cornices. The genius of Greek art seems to have exhausted itself in
+inventing ornaments, which, while they should heighten the gorgeous effect
+of the work, must yet harmonize with the grand design of the temple. The
+enormous keystone over the entrance has slipped down, no doubt from the
+shock of an earthquake, and hangs within six inches of the bottom of the
+two blocks which uphold it on either side. When it falls, the whole
+entablature of the portal will be destroyed. On its lower side is an eagle
+with outspread wings, and on the side-stones a genius with garlands of
+flowers, exquisitely sculptured in bas relief. Hidden among the wreaths of
+vines which adorn the jambs are the laughing heads of fauns. This portal
+was a continual study to me, every visit revealing new refinements of
+ornament, which I had not before observed. The interior of the temple,
+with its rich Corinthian pilasters, its niches for statues, surmounted by
+pediments of elegant design, and its elaborate cornice, needs little aid
+of the imagination to restore it to its original perfection. Like that of
+Dendera, in Egypt, the Temple of the Sun leaves upon the mind an
+impression of completeness which makes you forget far grander remains.</p>
+
+<p>But the most wonderful thing at Baalbec is the foundation platform upon
+which the temples stand. Even the colossal fabrics of Ancient Egypt
+dwindle before this superhuman masonry. The platform itself, 1,000 feet
+long, and averaging twenty feet in height, suggests a vast mass of stones,
+but when you come to examine the single blocks of which it is composed,
+you are crushed with their incredible bulk. On the western side is a row
+of eleven foundation stones, each of which is thirty-two feet in length,
+twelve in height, and ten in thickness, forming a wall three hundred and
+fifty-two feet long! But while you are walking on, thinking of the art
+which cut and raised these enormous blocks, you turn the southern corner
+and come upon <i>three</i> stones, the united length of which is <i>one hundred
+and eighty-seven feet</i>--two of them being sixty-two and the other
+sixty-three feet in length! There they are, cut with faultless exactness,
+and so smoothly joined to each other, that you cannot force a cambric
+needle into the crevice. There is one joint so perfect that it can only be
+discerned by the minutest search; it is not even so perceptible as the
+junction of two pieces of paper which have been pasted together. In the
+quarry, there still lies a finished block, ready for transportation, which
+is sixty-seven feet in length. The weight of one of these masses has been
+reckoned at near 9,000 tons, yet they do not form the base of the
+foundation, but are raised upon other courses, fifteen feet from the
+ground. It is considered by some antiquarians that they are of a date
+greatly anterior to that of the temples, and were intended as the basement
+of a different edifice.</p>
+
+<p>In the village of Baalbec there is a small circular Corinthian temple of
+very elegant design. It is not more than thirty feet in diameter, and may
+have been intended as a tomb. A spacious mosque, now roofless and
+deserted, was constructed almost entirely out of the remains of the
+temples. Adjoining the court-yard and fountain are five rows of ancient
+pillars, forty (the sacred number) in all, supporting light Saracenic
+arches. Some of them are marble, with Corinthian capitals, and eighteen
+are single shafts of red Egyptian granite. Beside the fountain lies a
+small broken pillar of porphyry, of a dark violet hue, and of so fine a
+grain that the stone has the soft rich lustre of velvet. This fragment is
+the only thing I would carry away if I had the power.</p>
+
+<p>After a day's sojourn, we left Baalbec at noon, and took the road for the
+Cedars, which lie on the other side of Lebanon, in the direction of
+Tripoli. Our English fellow-travellers chose the direct road to Beyrout.
+We crossed the plain in three hours; to the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, and
+then commenced ascending the lowest slopes of the great range, whose
+topmost ridge, a dazzling parapet of snow, rose high above us. For several
+hours, our path led up and down stony ridges, covered with thickets of oak
+and holly, and with wild cherry, pear, and olive-trees. Just as the sun
+threw the shadows of the highest Lebanon over us, we came upon a narrow,
+rocky glen at his very base. Streams that still kept the color and the
+coolness of the snow-fields from which they oozed, foamed over the stones
+into the chasm at the bottom. The glen descended into a mountain basin, in
+which lay the lake of Yemouni, cold and green under the evening shadows.
+But just opposite us, on a little shelf of soil, there was a rude mill,
+and a group of superb walnut-trees, overhanging the brink of the largest
+torrent. We had sent our baggage before us, and the men, with an eye to
+the picturesque which I should not have suspected in Arabs, had pitched
+our tents under those trees, where the stream poured its snow-cold beakers
+beside us, and the tent-door looked down on the plain of Baalbec and
+across to the Anti-Lebanon. The miller and two or three peasants, who were
+living in this lonely spot, were Christians.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning we commenced ascending the Lebanon. We had slept just
+below the snow-line, for the long hollows with which the ridge is cloven
+were filled up to within a short distance of the glen, out of which we
+came. The path was very steep, continually ascending, now around the
+barren shoulder of the mountain, now up some ravine, where the holly and
+olive still flourished, and the wild rhubarb-plant spread its large,
+succulent leaves over the soil. We had taken a guide, the day before, at
+the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, but as the way was plain before us, and he
+demanded an exorbitant sum, we dismissed him, We had not climbed far,
+however, before he returned, professing to be content with whatever we
+might give him, and took us into another road, the first, he said, being
+impracticable. Up and up we toiled, and the long hollows of snow lay below
+us, and the wind came cold from the topmost peaks, which began to show
+near at hand. But now the road, as we had surmised, turned towards that we
+had first taken, and on reaching the next height we saw the latter at a
+short distance from us. It was not only a better, but a shorter road, the
+rascal of a guide having led us out of it in order to give the greater
+effect to his services. In order to return to it, as was necessary, there
+were several dangerous snow-fields to be passed. The angle of their
+descent was so great that a single false step would have hurled our
+animals, baggage and all, many hundred feet below. The snow was melting,
+and the crust frozen over the streams below was so thin in places that the
+animals broke through and sank to their bellies.</p>
+
+<p>It were needless to state the number and character of the anathemas
+bestowed upon the guide. The impassive Dervish raved; Mustapha stormed;
+Fran&ccedil;ois broke out in a frightful eruption of Greek and Turkish oaths, and
+the two travellers, though not (as I hope and believe) profanely inclined,
+could not avoid using a few terse Saxon expressions. When the general
+indignation had found vent, the men went to work, and by taking each
+animal separately, succeeded, at imminent hazard, in getting them all
+over the snow. We then dismissed the guide, who, far from being abashed by
+the discovery of his trickery, had the impudence to follow us for some
+time, claiming his pay. A few more steep pulls, over deep beds of snow and
+patches of barren stone, and at length the summit ridge--a sharp, white
+wall, shining against the intense black-blue of the zenith--stood before
+us. We climbed a toilsome zig-zag through the snow, hurried over the
+stones cumbering the top, and all at once the mountains fell away, ridge
+below ridge, gashed with tremendous chasms, whose bottoms were lost in
+blue vapor, till the last heights, crowned with white Maronite convents,
+hung above the sea, whose misty round bounded the vision. I have seen many
+grander mountain views, but few so sublimely rugged and broken in their
+features. The sides of the ridges dropped off in all directions into sheer
+precipices, and the few villages we could see were built like eagles'
+nests on the brinks. In a little hollow at our feet was the sacred Forest
+of Cedars, appearing like a patch of stunted junipers. It is the highest
+speck of vegetation on Lebanon, and in winter cannot be visited, on
+account of the snow. The summit on which we stood was about nine thousand
+feet above the sea, but there were peaks on each side at least a thousand
+feet higher.</p>
+
+<p>We descended by a very steep path, over occasional beds of snow, and
+reached the Cedars in an hour and a half. Not until we were within a
+hundred yards of the trees, and below their level, was I at all impressed
+with their size and venerable aspect. But, once entered into the heart of
+the little wood, walking over its miniature hills and valleys, and
+breathing the pure, balsamic exhalations of the trees, all the
+disappointment rising to my mind was charmed away in an instant There are
+about three hundred trees, in all, many of which are of the last century's
+growth, but at least fifty of them would be considered grand in any
+forest. The patriarchs are five in number, and are undoubtedly as old as
+the Christian Era, if not the Age of Solomon. The cypresses in the Garden
+of Montezuma, at Chapultepec, are even older and grander trees, but they
+are as entire and shapely as ever, whereas these are gnarled and twisted
+into wonderful forms by the storms of twenty centuries, and shivered in
+some places by lightning. The hoary father of them all, nine feet in
+diameter, stands in the centre of the grove, on a little knoll, and
+spreads his ponderous arms, each a tree in itself, over the heads of the
+many generations that have grown up below, as if giving his last
+benediction before decay. He is scarred less with storm and lightning,
+than with the knives of travellers, and the marble crags of Lebanon do not
+more firmly retain their inscriptions than his stony trunk. Dates of the
+last century are abundant, and I recollect a tablet inscribed: "Souard,
+1670," around which the newer wood has grown to the height of three or
+four inches. The seclusion of the grove, shut in by peaks of barren snow,
+is complete. Only the voice of the nightingale, singing here by daylight
+in the solemn shadows, breaks the silence. The Maronite monk, who has
+charge of a little stone chapel standing in the midst, moves about like a
+shade, and, not before you are ready to leave, brings his book for you to
+register your name therein, I was surprised to find how few of the crowd
+that annually overrun Syria reach the Cedars, which, after Baalbec, are
+the finest remains of antiquity in the whole country.</p>
+
+<p>After a stay of three hours, we rode on to Eden, whither our men had
+already gone with the baggage. Our road led along the brink of a
+tremendous gorge, a thousand feet deep, the bottom of which was only
+accessible here and there by hazardous foot-paths. On either side, a long
+shelf of cultivated land sloped down to the top, and the mountain streams,
+after watering a multitude of orchards and grain-fields, tumbled over the
+cliffs in long, sparkling cascades, to join the roaring flood below. This
+is the Christian region of Lebanon, inhabited almost wholly by Maronites,
+who still retain a portion of their former independence, and are the most
+thrifty, industrious, honest, and happy people in Syria. Their villages
+are not concrete masses of picturesque filth, as are those of the Moslems,
+but are loosely scattered among orchards of mulberry, poplar, and vine,
+washed by fresh rills, and have an air of comparative neatness and
+comfort. Each has its two or three chapels, with their little belfries,
+which toll the hours of prayer. Sad and poetic as is the call from the
+minaret, it never touched me as when I heard the sweet tongues of those
+Christian bells, chiming vespers far and near on the sides of Lebanon.</p>
+
+<p>Eden merits its name. It is a mountain paradise, inhabited by people so
+kind and simple-hearted, that assuredly no vengeful angel will ever drive
+them out with his flaming sword. It hangs above the gorge, which is here
+nearly two thousand feet deep, and overlooks a grand wilderness of
+mountain-piles, crowded on and over each other, from the sea that gleams
+below, to the topmost heights that keep off the morning sun. The houses
+are all built of hewn stone, and grouped in clusters under the shade of
+large walnut-trees. In walking among them, we received kind greetings
+everywhere, and every one who was seated rose and remained standing as we
+passed. The women are beautiful, with sprightly, intelligent faces, quite
+different from the stupid Mahometan females.</p>
+
+<p>The children were charming creatures, and some of the girls of ten or
+twelve years were lovely as angels. They came timidly to our tent (which
+the men had pitched as before, under two superb trees, beside a fountain),
+and offered us roses and branches of fragrant white jasmine. They expected
+some return, of course, but did not ask it, and the delicate grace with
+which the offering was made was beyond all pay. It was Sunday, and the men
+and boys, having nothing better to do, all came to see and talk with us. I
+shall not soon forget the circle of gay and laughing villagers, in which
+we sat that evening, while the dark purple shadows gradually filled up the
+gorges, and broad golden lights poured over the shoulders of the hills.
+The men had much sport in inducing the smaller boys to come up and salute
+us. There was one whom they called "the Consul," who eluded them for some
+time, but was finally caught and placed in the ring before us. "Peace be
+with you, O Consul," I said, making him a profound inclination, "may your
+days be propitious! may your shadow be increased!" but I then saw, from
+the vacant expression on the boy's face, that he was one of those
+harmless, witless creatures, whom yet one cannot quite call idiots. "He is
+an unfortunate; he knows nothing; he has no protector but God," said the
+men, crossing themselves devoutly. The boy took off his cap, crept up and
+kissed my hand, as I gave him some money, which he no sooner grasped, than
+he sprang up like a startled gazelle, and was out of sight in an instant.</p>
+
+<p>In descending from Eden to the sea-coast, we were obliged to cross the
+great gorge of which I spoke. Further down, its sides are less steep, and
+clothed even to the very bottom with magnificent orchards of mulberry,
+fig, olive, orange, and pomegranate trees. We were three hours in reaching
+the opposite side, although the breadth across the top is not more than a
+mile. The path was exceedingly perilous; we walked down, leading our
+horses, and once were obliged to unload our mules to get them past a tree,
+which would have forced them off the brink of a chasm several hundred feet
+deep. The view from the bottom was wonderful. We were shut in by steeps of
+foliage and blossoms from two to three thousand feet high, broken by crags
+of white marble, and towering almost precipitously to the very clouds. I
+doubt if Melville saw anything grander in the tropical gorges of Typee.
+After reaching the other side, we had still a journey of eight hours to
+the sea, through a wild and broken, yet highly cultivated country.</p>
+
+<p>Beyrout was now thirteen hours distant, but by making a forced march we
+reached it in a day, travelling along the shore, past the towns of Jebeil,
+the ancient Byblus, and Joonieh. The hills about Jebeil produce the
+celebrated tobacco known in Egypt as the <i>Jebelee</i>, or "mountain" tobacco,
+which is even superior to the Latakiyeh.</p>
+
+<p>Near Beyrout, the mulberry and olive are in the ascendant. The latter tree
+bears the finest fruit in all the Levant, and might drive all other oils
+out of the market, if any one had enterprise enough to erect proper
+manufactories. Instead of this the oil of the country is badly prepared,
+rancid from the skins in which it is kept, and the wealthy natives import
+from France and Italy in preference to using it. In the bottoms near the
+sea, I saw several fields of the taro-plant, the cultivation of which I
+had supposed was exclusively confined to the Islands of the Pacific. There
+would be no end to the wealth of Syria were the country in proper hands.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch13">
+<h2>Chapter XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Pipes and Coffee.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>--"the kind nymph to Bacchus born<br />
+By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems<br />
+Gifted upon her natal morn<br />
+By him with fire, by her with dreams--<br />
+Nicotia, dearer to the Muse<br />
+Than all the grape's bewildering juice." Lowell.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>In painting the picture of an Oriental, the pipe and the coffee-cup are
+indispensable accessories. There is scarce a Turk, or Arab, or
+Persian--unless he be a Dervish of peculiar sanctity--but breathes his
+daily incense to the milder Bacchus of the moderns. The custom has become
+so thoroughly naturalized in the East, that we are apt to forget its
+comparatively recent introduction, and to wonder that no mention is made
+of the pipe in the Arabian Nights. The practice of smoking harmonizes so
+thoroughly with the character of Oriental life, that it is difficult for
+us to imagine a time when it never existed. It has become a part of that
+supreme patience, that wonderful repose, which forms so strong a contrast
+to the over-active life of the New World--the enjoyment of which no one
+can taste, to whom the pipe is not familiar. Howl, ye Reformers! but I
+solemnly declare unto you, that he who travels through the East without
+smoking, does not know the East.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange that our Continent, where the meaning of Rest is unknown,
+should have given to the world this great agent of Rest. There is nothing
+more remarkable in history than the colonization of Tobacco over the whole
+Earth. Not three centuries have elapsed since knightly Raleigh puffed its
+fumes into the astonished eyes of Spenser and Shakspeare; and now, find me
+any corner of the world, from Nova Zembla to the Mountains of the Moon,
+where the use of the plant is unknown! Tarshish (if India was Tarshish) is
+less distinguished by its "apes, ivory, and peacocks," than by its
+hookahs; the valleys of Luzon, beyond Ternate and Tidore, send us more
+cheroots than spices; the Gardens of Shiraz produce more velvety <i>toombek</i>
+than roses, and the only fountains which bubble in Samarcand are those of
+the narghilehs: Lebanon is no longer "excellent with the Cedars," as in
+the days of Solomon, but most excellent with its fields of Jebelee and
+Latakiyeh. On the unvisited plains of Central Africa, the table-lands of
+Tartary, and in the valleys of Japan, the wonderful plant has found a
+home. The naked negro, "panting at the Line," inhales it under the palms,
+and the Lapp and Samoyed on the shores of the Frozen Sea.</p>
+
+<p>It is idle for those who object to the use of Tobacco to attribute these
+phenomena wholly to a perverted taste. The fact that the custom was at
+once adopted by all the races of men, whatever their geographical position
+and degree of civilization, proves that there must be a reason for it in
+the physical constitution of man. Its effect, when habitually used, is
+slightly narcotic and sedative, not stimulating--or if so, at times, it
+stimulates only the imagination and the social faculties. It lulls to
+sleep the combative and destructive propensities, and hence--so far as a
+material agent may operate--it exercises a humanizing and refining
+influence. A profound student of Man, whose name is well known to the
+world, once informed me that he saw in the eagerness with which savage
+tribes adopt the use of Tobacco, a spontaneous movement of Nature towards
+Civilization.</p>
+
+<p>I will not pursue these speculations further, for the narghileh (bubbling
+softly at my elbow, as I write) is the promoter of repose and the begetter
+of agreeable reverie. As I inhale its cool, fragrant breath, and partly
+yield myself to the sensation of healthy rest which wraps my limbs as with
+a velvet mantle, I marvel how the poets and artists and scholars of olden
+times nursed those dreams which the world calls indolence, but which are
+the seeds that germinate into great achievements. How did Plato
+philosophize without the pipe? How did gray Homer, sitting on the
+temple-steps in the Grecian twilights, drive from his heart the bitterness
+of beggary and blindness? How did Phidias charm the Cerberus of his animal
+nature to sleep, while his soul entered the Elysian Fields and beheld the
+forms of heroes? For, in the higher world of Art, Body and Soul are sworn
+enemies, and the pipe holds an opiate more potent than all the drowsy
+syrups of the East, to drug the former into submission. Milton knew this,
+as he smoked his evening pipe at Chalfont, wandering, the while, among the
+palms of Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>But it is also our loss, that Tobacco was unknown to the Greeks. They
+would else have given us, in verse and in marble, another divinity in
+their glorious Pantheon--a god less drowsy than Morpheus and Somnus, less
+riotous than Bacchus, less radiant than Apollo, but with something of the
+spirit of each: a figure, beautiful with youth, every muscle in perfect
+repose, and the vague expression of dreams in his half-closed eyes. His
+temple would have been built in a grove of Southern pines, on the borders
+of a land-locked gulf, sheltered from the surges that buffet without,
+where service would have been rendered him in the late hours of the
+afternoon, or in the evening twilight. From his oracular tripod words of
+wisdom would have been spoken, and the fanes of Delphi and Dodona would
+have been deserted for his.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, non-smoking friends, who read these lines with pain and
+incredulity--and you, ladies, who turn pale at the thought of a pipe--let
+me tell you that you are familiar only with the vulgar form of tobacco,
+and have never passed between the wind and its gentility. The word conveys
+no idea to you but that of "long nines," and pig-tail, and cavendish.
+Forget these for a moment, and look upon this dark-brown cake of dried
+leaves and blossoms, which exhales an odor of pressed flowers. These are
+the tender tops of the <i>Jebelee</i>, plucked as the buds begin to expand, and
+carefully dried in the shade. In order to be used, it is moistened with
+rose-scented water, and cut to the necessary degree of fineness. The test
+of true Jebelee is, that it burns with a slow, hidden fire, like tinder,
+and causes no irritation to the eye when held under it. The smoke, drawn
+through a long cherry-stick pipe and amber mouth-piece, is pure, cool, and
+sweet, with an aromatic flavor, which is very pleasant in the mouth. It
+excites no salivation, and leaves behind it no unpleasant, stale odor.</p>
+
+<p>The narghileh (still bubbling beside me) is an institution known only in
+the East. It requires a peculiar kind of tobacco, which grows to
+perfection in the southern provinces of Persia. The smoke, after passing
+through water (rose-flavored, if you choose), is inhaled through a long,
+flexible tube directly into the lungs. It occasions not the slightest
+irritation or oppression, but in a few minutes produces a delicious sense
+of rest, which is felt even in the finger-ends. The pure physical
+sensation of rest is one of strength also, and of perfect contentment.
+Many an impatient thought, many an angry word, have I avoided by a resort
+to the pipe. Among our aborigines the pipe was the emblem of Peace, and I
+strongly recommend the Peace Society to print their tracts upon papers of
+smoking tobacco (Turkish, if possible), and distribute pipes with them.</p>
+
+<p>I know of nothing more refreshing, after the fatigue of a long day's
+journey, than a well-prepared narghileh. That slight feverish and
+excitable feeling which is the result of fatigue yields at once to its
+potency. The blood loses its heat and the pulse its rapidity; the muscles
+relax, the nerves are soothed into quiet, and the frame passes into a
+condition similar to sleep, except that the mind is awake and active. By
+the time one has finished his pipe, he is refreshed for the remainder of
+the day, and his nightly sleep is sound and healthy. Such are some of the
+physical effects of the pipe, in Eastern lands. Morally and
+psychologically, it works still greater transformations; but to describe
+them now, with the mouth-piece at my lips, would require an active
+self-consciousness which the habit does not allow.</p>
+
+<p>A servant enters with a steamy cup of coffee, seated in a silver <i>zerf</i>,
+or cup-holder. His thumb and fore-finger are clasped firmly upon the
+bottom of the zerf, which I inclose near the top with my own thumb and
+finger, so that the transfer is accomplished without his hand having
+touched mine.</p>
+
+<p>After draining the thick brown liquid, which must be done with due
+deliberation and a pause of satisfaction between each sip, I return the
+zerf, holding it in the middle, while the attendant places a palm of each
+hand upon the top and bottom and carries it off without contact. The
+beverage is made of the berries of Mocha, slightly roasted, pulverized in
+a mortar, and heated to a foam, without the addition of cream or sugar.
+Sometimes, however, it is flavored with the extract of roses or violets.
+When skilfully made, each cup is prepared separately, and the quantity of
+water and coffee carefully measured.</p>
+
+<p>Coffee is a true child of the East, and its original home was among the
+hills of Yemen, the Arabia Felix of the ancients. Fortunately for
+Mussulmen, its use was unknown in the days of Mahomet, or it would
+probably have fallen under the same prohibition as wine. The word <i>Kahweh</i>
+(whence <i>caf&eacute;</i>) is an old Arabic term for wine. The discovery of the
+properties of coffee is attributed to a dervish, who, for some
+misdemeanor, was carried into the mountains of Yemen by his brethren and
+there left to perish by starvation. In order to appease the pangs of
+hunger he gathered the ripe berries from the wild coffee-trees, roasted
+and ate them. The nourishment they contained, with water from the springs,
+sustained his life, and after two or three months he returned in good
+condition to his brethren, who considered his preservation as a miracle,
+and ever afterwards looked upon him as a pattern of holiness. He taught
+the use of the miraculous fruit, and the demand for it soon became so
+great as to render the cultivation of the tree necessary. It was a long
+time, however, before coffee was introduced into Europe. As late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century, Sandys, the quaint old traveller,
+describes the appearance and taste of the beverage, which he calls
+"Coffa," and sagely asks: "Why not that black broth which the
+Lacedemonians used?"</p>
+
+<p>On account of the excellence of the material, and the skilful manner of
+its preparation, the Coffee of the East is the finest in the world. I have
+found it so grateful and refreshing a drink, that I can readily pardon the
+pleasant exaggeration of the Arabic poet, Abd-el Kader Anazari Djezeri
+Hanbali, the son of Mahomet, who thus celebrates its virtues. After such
+an exalted eulogy, my own praises would sound dull and tame; and I
+therefore resume my pipe, commending Abd-el Kader to the reader.</p>
+
+<p>"O Coffee! thou dispellest the cares of the great; thou bringest back
+those who wander from the paths of knowledge. Coffee is the beverage of
+the people of God, and the cordial of his servants who thirst for wisdom.
+When coffee is infused into the bowl, it exhales the odor of musk, and is
+of the color of ink. The truth is not known except to the wise, who drink
+it from the foaming coffee-cup. God has deprived fools of coffee, who,
+with invincible obstinacy, condemn it as injurious.</p>
+
+<p>"Coffee is our gold; and in the place of its libations we are in the
+enjoyment of the best and noblest society. Coffee is even as innocent a
+drink as the purest milk, from which it is distinguished only by its
+color. Tarry with thy coffee in the place of its preparation, and the good
+God will hover over thee and participate in his feast. There the graces of
+the saloon, the luxury of life, the society of friends, all furnish a
+picture of the abode of happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Every care vanishes when the cup-bearer presents the delicious chalice.
+It will circulate fleetly through thy veins, and will not rankle there:
+if thou doubtest this, contemplate the youth and beauty of those who drink
+it. Grief cannot exist where it grows; sorrow humbles itself in obedience
+before its powers.</p>
+
+<p>"Coffee is the drink of God's people; in it is health. Let this be the
+answer to those who doubt its qualities. In it we will drown our
+adversities, and in its fire consume our sorrows. Whoever has once seen
+the blissful chalice, will scorn the wine-cup. Glorious drink! thy color
+is the seal of purity, and reason proclaims it genuine. Drink with
+confidence, and regard not the prattle of fools, who condemn without
+foundation."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch14">
+<h2>Chapter XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Journey to Antioch and Aleppo.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Change of Plans--Routes to Baghdad--Asia Minor--We sail from
+  Beyrout--Yachting on the Syrian Coast--Tartus and Latakiyeh--The Coasts
+  of Syria--The Bay of Suediah--The Mouth of the Orontes--Landing--The
+  Garden of Syria--Ride to Antioch--The Modern City--The Plains of the
+  Orontes--Remains of the Greek Empire--The Ancient Road--The Plain of
+  Keftin--Approach to Aleppo.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The living breath is fresh behind,<br />
+As, with dews and sunrise fed,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Comes the laughing morning wind."</p>
+
+<p>  Shelley.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Aleppo, <i>Friday, June</i> 4, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>A Traveller in the East, who has not unbounded time and an extensive
+fortune at his disposal, is never certain where and how far he shall go,
+until his journey is finished. With but a limited portion of both these
+necessaries, I have so far carried out my original plan with scarcely a
+variation; but at present I am obliged to make a material change of route.
+My farthest East is here at Aleppo. At Damascus, I was told by everybody
+that it was too late in the season to visit either Baghdad or Mosul, and
+that, on account of the terrible summer heats and the fevers which prevail
+along the Tigris, it would be imprudent to undertake it. Notwithstanding
+this, I should probably have gone (being now so thoroughly acclimated that
+I have nothing to fear from the heat), had I not met with a friend of
+Col. Rawlinson, the companion of Layard, and the sharer in his discoveries
+at Nineveh. This gentleman, who met Col. R. not long since in
+Constantinople, on his way to Baghdad (where he resides as British
+Consul), informed me that since the departure of Mr. Layard from Mosul,
+the most interesting excavations have been filled up, in order to preserve
+the sculptures. Unless one was able to make a new exhumation, he would be
+by no means repaid for so long and arduous a journey. The ruins of Nineveh
+are all below the surface of the earth, and the little of them that is now
+left exposed, is less complete and interesting than the specimens in the
+British Museum.</p>
+
+<p>There is a route from Damascus to Baghdad, across the Desert, by way of
+Palmyra, but it is rarely travelled, even by the natives, except when the
+caravans are sufficiently strong to withstand the attacks of the Bedouins.
+The traveller is obliged to go in Arab costume, to leave his baggage
+behind, except a meagre scrip for the journey, and to pay from $300 to
+$500 for the camels and escort. The more usual route is to come northward
+to this city, then cross to Mosul and descend the Tigris--a journey of
+four or five weeks. After weighing all the advantages and disadvantages of
+undertaking a tour of such length as it would be necessary to make before
+reaching Constantinople, I decided at Beyrout to give up the fascinating
+fields of travel in Media, Assyria and Armenia, and take a rather shorter
+and-perhaps equally interesting route from Aleppo to Constantinople, by
+way of Tarsus, Konia (Iconium), and the ancient countries of Phrygia,
+Bithynia, and Mysia. The interior of Asia Minor is even less known to us
+than the Persian side of Asiatic Turkey, which has of late received more
+attention from travellers; and, as I shall traverse it in its whole
+length, from Syria to the Bosphorus, I may find it replete with "green
+fields and pastures new," which shall repay me for relinquishing the first
+and more ambitious undertaking. At least, I have so much reason to be
+grateful for the uninterrupted good health and good luck I have enjoyed
+during seven months in Africa and the Orient, that I cannot be otherwise
+than content with the prospect before me.</p>
+
+<p>I left Beyrout on the night of the 28th of May, with Mr. Harrison, who has
+decided to keep me company as far as Constantinople. Fran&ccedil;ois, our classic
+dragoman, whose great delight is to recite Homer by the sea-side, is
+retained for the whole tour, as we have found no reason to doubt his
+honesty or ability. Our first thought was to proceed to Aleppo by land, by
+way of Homs and Hamah, whence there might be a chance of reaching Palmyra;
+but as we found an opportunity of engaging an American yacht for the
+voyage up the coast, it was thought preferable to take her, and save time.
+She was a neat little craft, called the "American Eagle," brought out by
+Mr. Smith, our Consul at Beyrout. So, one fine moonlit night, we slowly
+crept out of the harbor, and after returning a volley of salutes from our
+friends at Demetri's Hotel, ran into the heart of a thunder-storm, which
+poured down more rain than all I had seen for eight months before. But our
+ra&iuml;s, Assad (the Lion), was worthy of his name, and had two good Christian
+sailors at his command, so we lay in the cramped little cabin, and heard
+the floods washing our deck, without fear.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, we were off Tripoli, which is even more deeply buried than
+Beyrout in its orange and mulberry groves, and slowly wafted along the
+bold mountain-coast, in the afternoon reached Tartus, the Ancient Tortosa.
+A mile from shore is the rocky island of Aradus, entirely covered by a
+town. There were a dozen vessels lying in the harbor. The remains of a
+large fortress and ancient mole prove it to have been a place of
+considerable importance. Tartus is a small old place on the sea-shore--not
+so large nor so important in appearance as its island-port. The country
+behind is green and hilly, though but partially cultivated, and rises into
+Djebel Ansairiyeh, which divides the valley of the Orontes from the sea.
+It is a lovely coast, especially under the flying lights and shadows of
+such a breezy day as we had. The wind fell at sunset; but by the next
+morning, we had passed the tobacco-fields of Latakiyeh, and were in sight
+of the southern cape of the Bay of Suediah. The mountains forming this
+cape culminate in a grand conical peak, about 5,000 feet in height, called
+Djebel Okrab. At ten o'clock, wafted along by a slow wind, we turned the
+point and entered the Bay of Suediah, formed by the embouchure of the
+River Orontes. The mountain headland of Akma Dagh, forming the portal of
+the Gulf of Scanderoon, loomed grandly in front of us across the bay; and
+far beyond it, we could just distinguish the coast of Karamania, the
+snow-capped range of Taurus.</p>
+
+<p>The Coasts of Syria might be divided, like those of Guinea, according to
+the nature of their productions. The northern division is bold and bare,
+yet flocks of sheep graze on the slopes of its mountains; and the inland
+plains behind them are covered with orchards of pistachio-trees. Silk is
+cultivated in the neighborhood of Suediah, but forms only a small portion
+of the exports. This region may be called the Wool and Pistachio Coast.
+Southward, from Latakiyeh to Tartus and the northern limit of Lebanon,
+extends the Tobacco Coast, whose undulating hills are now clothed with the
+pale-green leaves of the renowned plant. From Tripoli to Tyre, embracing
+all the western slope of Lebanon, and the deep, rich valleys lying between
+his knees, the mulberry predominates, and the land is covered with the
+houses of thatch and matting which shelter the busy worms. This is the
+Silk Coast. The palmy plains of Jaffa, and beyond, until Syria meets the
+African sands between Gaza and El-Arish, constitute the Orange Coast. The
+vine, the olive, and the fig flourish everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>We were all day getting up the bay, and it seemed as if we should never
+pass Djebel Okrab, whose pointed top rose high above a long belt of fleecy
+clouds that girdled his waist. At sunset we made the mouth of the Orontes.
+Our lion of a Captain tried to run into the river, but the channel was
+very narrow, and when within three hundred yards of the shore the yacht
+struck. We had all sail set, and had the wind been a little stronger, we
+should have capsized in an instant. The lion went manfully to work, and by
+dint of hard poling, shoved us off, and came to anchor in deep water. Not
+until the danger was past did he open his batteries on the unlucky
+helmsman, and then the explosion of Arabic oaths was equal to a broadside
+of twenty-four pounders. We lay all night rocking on the swells, and the
+next morning, by firing a number of signal guns, brought out a boat, which
+took us off. We entered the mouth of the Orontes, and sailed nearly a mile
+between rich wheat meadows before reaching the landing-place of
+Suediah--two or three uninhabited stone huts, with three or four small
+Turkish craft, and a health officer. The town lies a mile or two inland,
+scattered along the hill-side amid gardens so luxuriant as almost to
+conceal it from view.</p>
+
+<p>This part of the coast is ignorant of travellers, and we were obliged to
+wait half a day before we could find a sufficient number of horses to take
+us to Antioch, twenty miles distant. When they came, they were solid
+farmers' horses, with the rudest gear imaginable. I was obliged to mount
+astride of a broad pack-saddle, with my legs suspended in coils of rope.
+Leaving the meadows, we entered a lane of the wildest, richest and
+loveliest bloom and foliage. Our way was overhung with hedges of
+pomegranate, myrtle, oleander, and white rose, in blossom, and
+occasionally with quince, fig, and carob trees, laced together with grape
+vines in fragrant bloom. Sometimes this wilderness of color and odor met
+above our heads and made a twilight; then it opened into long, dazzling,
+sun-bright vistas, where the hues of the oleander, pomegranate and white
+rose made the eye wink with their gorgeous profusion. The mountains we
+crossed were covered with thickets of myrtle, mastic, daphne, and arbutus,
+and all the valleys and sloping meads waved with fig, mulberry, and olive
+trees. Looking towards the sea, the valley broadened out between mountain
+ranges whose summits were lost in the clouds. Though the soil was not so
+rich as in Palestine, the general aspect of the country was much wilder
+and more luxuriant.</p>
+
+<p>So, by this glorious lane, over the myrtled hills and down into valleys,
+whose bed was one hue of rose from the blossoming oleanders, we travelled
+for five hours, crossing the low ranges of hills through which the Orontes
+forces his way to the sea. At last we reached a height overlooking the
+valley of the river, and saw in the east, at the foot of the mountain
+chain, the long lines of barracks built by Ibrahim Pasha for the defence
+of Antioch. Behind them the ancient wall of the city clomb the mountains,
+whose crest it followed to the last peak of the chain, From the next hill
+we saw the city--a large extent of one-story houses with tiled roofs,
+surrounded with gardens, and half buried in the foliage of sycamores. It
+extends from the River Orontes, which washes its walls, up the slope of
+the mountain to the crags of gray rock which overhang it. We crossed the
+river by a massive old bridge, and entered the town. Riding along the
+rills of filth which traverse the streets, forming their central avenues,
+we passed through several lines of bazaars to a large and dreary-looking
+khan, the keeper of which gave us the best vacant chamber--a narrow place,
+full of fleas.</p>
+
+<p>Antioch presents not even a shadow of its former splendor. Except the
+great walls, ten to fifteen miles in circuit, which the Turks have done
+their best to destroy, every vestige of the old city has disappeared. The
+houses are all of one story, on account of earthquakes, from which Antioch
+has suffered more than any other city in the world. At one time, during
+the Middle Ages, it lost 120,000 inhabitants in one day. Its situation is
+magnificent, and the modern town, notwithstanding its filth, wears a
+bright and busy aspect. Situated at the base of a lofty mountain, it
+overlooks, towards the east, a plain thirty or forty miles in length,
+producing the most abundant harvests. A great number of the inhabitants
+are workers in wood and leather, and very thrifty and cheerful people they
+appear to be.</p>
+
+<p>We remained until the next day at noon, by which time a gray-bearded
+scamp, the chief of the <i>mukkairees</i>, or muleteers, succeeded in getting
+us five miserable beasts for the journey to Aleppo. On leaving the city,
+we travelled along a former street of Antioch, part of the ancient
+pavement still remaining, and after two miles came to the old wall of
+circuit, which we passed by a massive gateway, of Roman time. It is now
+called <i>Bab Boulos</i>, or St. Paul's Gate. Christianity, it will be
+remembered, was planted in Antioch by Paul and Barnabas, and the Apostle
+Peter was the first bishop of the city. We now entered the great plain of
+the Orontes--a level sea, rioting in the wealth of its ripening harvests.
+The river, lined with luxuriant thickets, meandered through the centre of
+this glorious picture. We crossed it during the afternoon, and keeping on
+our eastward course, encamped at night in a meadow near the tents of some
+wandering Turcomans, who furnished us with butter and milk from their
+herds.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the plain the next morning, we travelled due east all day, over
+long stony ranges of mountains, inclosing only one valley, which bore
+evidence of great fertility. It was circular, about ten miles in its
+greater diameter, and bounded on the north by the broad peak of Djebel
+Saman, or Mount St. Simon. In the morning we passed a ruined castle,
+standing in a dry, treeless dell, among the hot hills. The muleteers
+called it the Maiden's Palace, and said that it was built long ago by a
+powerful Sultan, as a prison for his daughter. For several hours
+thereafter, our road was lined with remains of buildings, apparently
+dating from the time of the Greek Empire. There were tombs, temples of
+massive masonry, though in a bad style of architecture, and long rows of
+arched chambers, which resembled store-houses. They were all more or less
+shattered by earthquakes, but in one place I noticed twenty such arches,
+each of at least twenty feet span. All-the hills, on either hand, as far
+as we could see, were covered with the remains of buildings. In the plain
+of St. Simon, I saw two superb pillars, apparently part of a portico, or
+gateway, and the village of Dana is formed almost entirely of churches and
+convents, of the Lower Empire. There were but few inscriptions, and these
+I could not read; but the whole of this region would, no doubt, richly
+repay an antiquarian research. I am told here that the entire chain of
+hills, which extends southward for more than a hundred miles, abounds with
+similar remains, and that, in many places, whole cities stand almost
+entire, as if recently deserted by their inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>During the afternoon, we came upon a portion of the ancient road from
+Antioch to Aleppo, which is still as perfect as when first constructed. It
+crossed a very stony ridge, and is much the finest specimen of road-making
+I ever saw, quite putting to shame the Appian and Flaminian Ways at Rome.
+It is twenty feet wide, and laid with blocks of white marble, from two to
+four feet square. It was apparently raised upon a more ancient road, which
+diverges here and there from the line, showing the deeply-cut traces of
+the Roman chariot-wheels. In the barren depths of the mountains we found
+every hour cisterns cut in the rock and filled with water left by the
+winter rains. Many of them, however, are fast drying up, and a month later
+this will be a desert road.</p>
+
+<p>Towards night we descended from the hills upon the Plain of Keftin, which
+stretches south-westward from Aleppo, till the mountain-streams which
+fertilize it are dried up, when it is merged into the Syrian Desert. Its
+northern edge, along which we travelled, is covered with fields of wheat,
+cotton, and castor-beans. We stopped all night at a village called Taireb,
+planted at the foot of a tumulus, older than tradition. The people were
+in great dread of the Aneyzeh Arabs, who come in from the Desert to
+destroy their harvests and carry off their cattle. They wanted us to take
+a guard, but after our experience on the Anti-Lebanon, we felt safer
+without one.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday we travelled for seven hours over a wide, rolling country, now
+waste and barren, but formerly covered with wealth and supporting an
+abundant population, evidences of which are found in the buildings
+everywhere scattered over the hills. On and on we toiled in the heat, over
+this inhospitable wilderness, and though we knew Aleppo must be very near,
+yet we could see neither sign of cultivation nor inhabitants. Finally,
+about three o'clock, the top of a line of shattered wall and the points of
+some minarets issued out of the earth, several miles in front of us, and
+on climbing a glaring chalky ridge, the renowned city burst at once upon
+our view. It filled a wide hollow or basin among the white hills, against
+which its whiter houses and domes glimmered for miles, in the dead, dreary
+heat of the afternoon, scarcely relieved by the narrow belt of gardens on
+the nearer side, or the orchards of pistachio trees beyond. In the centre
+of the city rose a steep, abrupt mound, crowned with the remains of the
+ancient citadel, and shining minarets shot up, singly or in clusters,
+around its base. The prevailing hue of the landscape was a whitish-gray,
+and the long, stately city and long, monotonous hills, gleamed with equal
+brilliancy under a sky of cloudless and intense blue. This singular
+monotony of coloring gave a wonderful effect to the view, which is one of
+the most remarkable in all the Orient.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch15">
+<h2>Chapter XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Life in Aleppo.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Our Entry into Aleppo--We are conducted to a House--Our Unexpected
+  Welcome--The Mystery Explained--Aleppo--Its Name--Its Situation--The
+  Trade of Aleppo--The Christians--The Revolt of 1850--Present Appearance
+  of the City--Visit to Osman Pasha--The Citadel--View from the
+  Battlements--Society in Aleppo--Etiquette and Costume--Jewish Marriage
+  Festivities--A Christian Marriage Procession--Ride around the
+  Town--Nightingales--The Aleppo Button--A Hospital for Cats--Ferhat
+  Pasha.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Aleppo, <i>Tuesday, June</i> 8, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Our entry into Aleppo was a fitting preliminary to our experiences during
+the five days we have spent here. After passing a blackamoor, who acted as
+an advanced guard of the Custom House, at a ragged tent outside of the
+city, and bribing him with two piastres, we crossed the narrow line of
+gardens on the western side, and entered the streets. There were many
+coffee-houses, filled with smokers, nearly all of whom accosted us in
+Turkish, though Arabic is the prevailing language here. Ignorance made us
+discourteous, and we slighted every attempt to open a conversation. Out of
+the narrow streets of the suburbs, we advanced to the bazaars, in order to
+find a khan where we could obtain lodgings. All the best khans, however,
+were filled, and we were about to take a very inferior room, when a
+respectable individual came up to Fran&ccedil;ois and said: "The house is ready
+for the travellers, and I will show you the way." We were a little
+surprised at this address, but followed him to a neat, quiet and pleasant
+street near the bazaars, where we were ushered into a spacious court-yard,
+with a row of apartments opening upon it, and told to make ourselves at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>The place had evidently been recently inhabited, for the rooms were well
+furnished, with not only divans, but beds in the Frank style. A lean
+kitten was scratching at one of the windows, to the great danger of
+overturning a pair of narghilehs, a tame sea-gull was walking about the
+court, and two sheep bleated in a stable at the further end. In the
+kitchen we not only found a variety of utensils, but eggs, salt, pepper,
+and other condiments. Our guide had left, and the only information we
+could get, from a dyeing establishment next door, was that the occupants
+had gone into the country. "Take the good the gods provide thee," is my
+rule in such cases, and as we were very hungry, we set Fran&ccedil;ois to work at
+preparing dinner. We arranged a divan in the open air, had a table brought
+out, and by the aid of the bakers in the bazaar, and the stores which the
+kitchen supplied, soon rejoiced over a very palatable meal. The romantic
+character of our reception made the dinner a merry one. It was a chapter
+out of the Arabian Nights, and be he genie or afrite, caliph or merchant
+of Bassora, into whose hands we had fallen, we resolved to let the
+adventure take its course. We were just finishing a nondescript pastry
+which Fran&ccedil;ois found at a baker's, and which, for want of a better name,
+he called <i>m&eacute;ringues &agrave; la Khorassan,</i> when there was a loud knock at the
+street door. We felt at first some little trepidation, but determined to
+maintain our places, and gravely invite the real master to join us.</p>
+
+<p>It was a female servant, however, who, to our great amazement, made a
+profound salutation, and seemed delighted to see us. "My master did not
+expect your Excellencies to-day; he has gone into the gardens, but will
+soon return. Will your Excellencies take coffee after your dinner?" and
+coffee was forthwith served. The old woman was unremitting in her
+attentions; and her son, a boy of eight years, and the most venerable
+child I ever saw, entertained us with the description of a horse which his
+master had just bought--a horse which had cost two thousand piastres, and
+was ninety years old. Well, this Aleppo is an extraordinary place, was my
+first impression, and the inhabitants are remarkable people; but I waited
+the master's arrival, as the only means of solving the mystery. About
+dusk, there was another rap at the door. A lady dressed in white, with an
+Indian handkerchief bound over her black hair, arrived. "Pray excuse us,"
+said she; "we thought you would not reach here before to-morrow; but my
+brother will come directly." In fact, the brother did come soon
+afterwards, and greeted us with a still warmer welcome. "Before leaving
+the gardens," he said, "I heard of your arrival, and have come in a full
+gallop the whole way." In order to put an end to this comedy of errors, I
+declared at once that he was mistaken; nobody in Aleppo could possibly
+know of our coming, and we were, perhaps, transgressing on his
+hospitality. But no: he would not be convinced. He was a dragoman to the
+English Consulate; his master had told him we would be here the next day,
+and he must be prepared to receive us. Besides, the janissary of the
+Consulate had showed us the way to his house. We, therefore, let the
+matter rest until next morning, when we called on Mr. Very, the Consul,
+who informed us that the janissary had mistaken us for two gentlemen we
+had met in Damascus, the travelling companions of Lord Dalkeith. As they
+had not arrived, he begged us to remain in the quarters which had been
+prepared for them. We have every reason to be glad of this mistake, as it
+has made us acquainted with one of the most courteous and hospitable
+gentlemen in the East.</p>
+
+<p>Aleppo lies so far out of the usual routes of travel, that it is rarely
+visited by Europeans. One is not, therefore, as in the case of Damascus,
+prepared beforehand by volumes of description, which preclude all
+possibility of mistake or surprise. For my part, I only knew that Aleppo
+had once been the greatest commercial city of the Orient, though its power
+had long since passed into other hands. But there were certain stately
+associations lingering around the name, which drew me towards it, and
+obliged me to include it, at all hazards, in my Asiatic tour. The scanty
+description of Captains Irby and Mangles, the only one I had read, gave me
+no distinct idea of its position or appearance; and when, the other day, I
+first saw it looming grand and gray among the gray hills, more like a vast
+natural crystallization than the product of human art, I revelled in the
+novelty of that startling first impression.</p>
+
+<p>The tradition of the city's name is curious, and worth relating. It is
+called, in Arabic, <i>Haleb el-Shahba</i>--Aleppo, the Gray--which most persons
+suppose to refer to the prevailing color of the soil. The legend, however,
+goes much farther. <i>Haleb</i>, which the Venetians and Genoese softened into
+Aleppo, means literally: "has milked," According to Arab tradition, the
+patriarch Abraham once lived here: his tent being pitched near the mound
+now occupied by the citadel. He had a certain gray cow (<i>el-shahba</i>)
+which was milked every morning for the benefit of the poor. When,
+therefore, it was proclaimed: "<i>Ibrahim haleb el-shahba</i>" (Abraham has
+milked the gray cow), all the poor of the tribe came up to receive their
+share. The repetition of this morning call attached itself to the spot,
+and became the name of the city which was afterwards founded.</p>
+
+<p>Aleppo is built on the eastern slope of a shallow upland basin, through
+which flows the little River Koweik. There are low hills to the north and
+south, between which the country falls into a wide, monotonous plain,
+extending unbroken to the Euphrates. The city is from eight to ten miles
+in circuit, and, though not so thickly populated, covers a greater extent
+of space than Damascus. The population is estimated at 100,000. In the
+excellence (not the elegance) of its architecture, it surpasses any
+Oriental city I have yet seen. The houses are all of hewn stone,
+frequently three and even four stories in height, and built in a most
+massive and durable style, on account of the frequency of earthquakes. The
+streets are well paved, clean, with narrow sidewalks, and less tortuous
+and intricate than the bewildering alleys of Damascus. A large part of the
+town is occupied with bazaars, attesting the splendor of its former
+commerce. These establishments are covered with lofty vaults of stone,
+lighted from the top; and one may walk for miles beneath the spacious
+roofs. The shops exhibit all the stuffs of the East, especially of Persia
+and India. There is also an extensive display of European fabrics, as the
+eastern provinces of Asiatic Turkey, as far as Baghdad, are supplied
+entirely from Aleppo and Trebizond.</p>
+
+<p>Within ten years--in fact, since the Allied Powers drove Ibrahim Pasha
+out of Syria--the trade of Aleppo has increased, at the expense of
+Damascus. The tribes of the Desert, who were held in check during the
+Egyptian occupancy, are now so unruly that much of the commerce between
+the latter place and Baghdad goes northward to Mosul, and thence by a
+safer road to this city. The khans, of which there are a great number,
+built on a scale according with the former magnificence of Aleppo, are
+nearly all filled, and Persian, Georgian, and Armenian merchants again
+make their appearance in the bazaars. The principal manufactures carried
+on are the making of shoes (which, indeed, is a prominent branch in every
+Turkish city), and the weaving of silk and golden tissues. Two long
+bazaars are entirely occupied with shoe-shops, and there is nearly a
+quarter of a mile of confectionery, embracing more varieties than I ever
+saw, or imagined possible. I saw yesterday the operation of weaving silk
+and gold, which is a very slow process. The warp and the body of the woof
+were of purple silk. The loom only differed from the old hand-looms in
+general use in having some thirty or forty contrivances for lifting the
+threads of the warp, so as to form, by variation, certain patterns. The
+gold threads by which the pattern was worked were contained in twenty
+small shuttles, thrust by hand under the different parcels of the warp, as
+they were raised by a boy trained for that purpose, who sat on the top of
+the loom. The fabric was very brilliant in its appearance, and sells, as
+the weavers informed me, at 100 piastres per <i>pik</i>--about $7 per yard.</p>
+
+<p>We had letters to Mr. Ford, an American Missionary established here, and
+Signor di Picciotto, who acts as American Vice-Consul. Both gentlemen have
+been very cordial in their offers of service, and by their aid we have
+been enabled to see something of Aleppo life and society. Mr. Ford, who
+has been here four years, has a pleasant residence at Jedaida, a Christian
+suburb of the city. His congregation numbers some fifty or sixty
+proselytes, who are mostly from the schismatic sects of the Armenians. Dr.
+Smith, who established the mission at Ain-tab (two days' journey north of
+this), where he died last year, was very successful among these sects, and
+the congregation there amounts to nine hundred. The Sultan, a year ago,
+issued a firman, permitting his Christian subjects to erect houses of
+worship; but, although this was proclaimed in Constantinople and much
+lauded in Europe as an act of great generosity and tolerance, there has
+been no official promulgation of it here. So of the aid which the Turkish
+Government was said to have afforded to its destitute Christian subjects,
+whose houses were sacked during the fanatical rebellion of 1850. The world
+praised the Sultan's charity and love of justice, while the sufferers, to
+this day, lack the first experience of it. But for the spontaneous relief
+contributed in Europe and among the Christian communities of the Levant,
+the amount of misery would have been frightful.</p>
+
+<p>To Feridj Pasha, who is at present the commander of the forces here, is
+mainly due the credit of having put down the rebels with a strong hand.
+There were but few troops in the city at the time of the outbreak, and as
+the insurgents, who were composed of the Turkish and Arab population, were
+in league with the Aneyzehs of the Desert, the least faltering or delay
+would have led to a universal massacre of the Christians. Fortunately, the
+troops were divided into two portions, one occupying the barracks on a
+hill north of the city, and the other, a mere corporal's guard of a dozen
+men, posted in the citadel. The leaders of the outbreak went to the latter
+and offered him a large sum of money (the spoils of Christian houses) to
+give up the fortress. With a loyalty to his duty truly miraculous among
+the Turks, he ordered his men to fire upon them, and they beat a hasty
+retreat. The quarter of the insurgents lay precisely between the barracks
+and the citadel, and by order of Feridj Pasha a cannonade was immediately
+opened on it from both points. It was not, however, until many houses had
+been battered down, and a still larger number destroyed by fire, that the
+rebels were brought to submission. Their allies, the Aneyzehs, appeared on
+the hill east of Aleppo, to the number of five or six thousand, but a few
+well-directed cannon-balls told them what they might expect, and they
+speedily retreated. Two or three hundred Christian families lost nearly
+all of their property during the sack, and many were left entirely
+destitute. The house in which Mr. Ford lives was plundered of jewels and
+furniture to the amount of 400,000 piastres ($20,000). The robbers, it is
+said, were amazed at the amount of spoil they found. The Government made
+some feeble efforts to recover it, but the greater part was already sold
+and scattered through a thousand hands, and the unfortunate Christians
+have only received about seven per cent. of their loss.</p>
+
+<p>The burnt quarter has since been rebuilt, and I noticed several Christians
+occupying shops in various parts of it. But many families, who fled at the
+time, still remain in various parts of Syria, afraid to return to their
+homes. The Aneyzehs and other Desert tribes have latterly become more
+daring than ever. Even in the immediate neighborhood of the city, the
+inhabitants are so fearful of them that all the grain is brought up to
+the very walls to be threshed. The burying-grounds on both sides are now
+turned into threshing-floors, and all day long the Turkish peasants drive
+their heavy sleds around among the tomb-stones.</p>
+
+<p>On the second day after our arrival, we paid a visit to Osman Pasha,
+Governor of the City and Province of Aleppo. We went in state, accompanied
+by the Consul, with two janissaries in front, bearing silver maces, and a
+dragoman behind. The <i>sera&iuml;</i>, or palace, is a large, plain wooden
+building, and a group of soldiers about the door, with a shabby carriage
+in the court, were the only tokens of its character. We were ushered at
+once into the presence of the Pasha, who is a man of about seventy years,
+with a good-humored, though shrewd face. He was quite cordial in his
+manners, complimenting us on our Turkish costume, and vaunting his skill
+in physiognomy, which at once revealed to him that we belonged to the
+highest class of American nobility. In fact, in the firman which he has
+since sent us, we are mentioned as "nobles." He invited us to pass a day
+or two with him, saying that he should derive much benefit from our
+superior knowledge. We replied that such an intercourse could only benefit
+ourselves, as his greater experience, and the distinguished wisdom which
+had made his name long since familiar to our ears, precluded the hope of
+our being of any service to him. After half an hour's stay, during which
+we were regaled with jewelled pipes, exquisite Mocha coffee, and sherbet
+breathing of the gardens of G&uuml;listan, we took our leave.</p>
+
+<p>The Pasha sent an officer to show us the citadel. We passed around the
+moat to the entrance on the western side, consisting of a bridge and
+double gateway. The fortress, as I have already stated, occupies the crest
+of an elliptical mound, about one thousand feet by six hundred, and two
+hundred feet in height. It is entirely encompassed by the city and forms a
+prominent and picturesque feature in the distant view thereof. Formerly,
+it was thickly inhabited, and at the time of the great earthquake of 1822,
+there were three hundred families living within the walls, nearly all of
+whom perished. The outer walls were very much shattered on that occasion,
+but the enormous towers and the gateway, the grandest specimen of
+Saracenic architecture in the East, still remain entire. This gateway, by
+which we entered, is colossal in its proportions. The outer entrance,
+through walls ten feet thick, admitted us into a lofty vestibule lined
+with marble, and containing many ancient inscriptions in mosaic. Over the
+main portal, which is adorned with sculptured lions' heads, there is a
+tablet stating that the fortress was built by El Melek el Ashraf (the
+Holiest of Kings), after which follows: "Prosperity to the True
+Believers--Death to the Infidels!" A second tablet shows that it was
+afterwards repaired by Mohammed ebn-Berkook, who, I believe, was one of
+the Fatimite Caliphs. The shekh of the citadel, who accompanied us, stated
+the age of the structure at nine hundred years, which, as nearly as I can
+recollect the Saracenic chronology, is correct. He called our attention to
+numbers of iron arrow-heads sticking in the solid masonry--the marks of
+ancient sieges. Before leaving, we were presented with a bundle of arrows
+from the armory--undoubted relics of Saracen warfare.</p>
+
+<p>The citadel is now a mass of ruins, having been deserted since the
+earthquake. Grass is growing on the ramparts, and the caper plant, with
+its white-and-purple blossoms, flourishes among the piles of rubbish.
+Since the late rebellion, however, a small military barrack has been
+built, and two companies of soldiers are stationed there, We walked around
+the walls, which command a magnificent view of the city and the wide
+plains to the south and east. It well deserves to rank with the panorama
+of Cairo from the citadel, and that of Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon, in
+extent, picturesqueness and rich oriental character. Out of the gray ring
+of the city, which incloses the mound, rise the great white domes and the
+whiter minarets of its numerous mosques, many of which are grand and
+imposing structures. The course of the river through the centre of the
+picture is marked by a belt of the greenest verdure, beyond which, to the
+west, rises a chain of naked red hills, and still further, fading on the
+horizon, the blue summit of Mt. St. Simon, and the coast range of Akma
+Dagh. Eastward, over vast orchards of pistachio trees, the barren plain of
+the Euphrates fades away to a glimmering, hot horizon. Looking downwards
+on the heart of the city, I was surprised to see a number of open, grassy
+tracts, out of which, here and there, small trees were growing. But,
+perceiving what appeared to be subterranean entrances at various points, I
+found that these tracts were upon the roofs of the houses and bazaars,
+verifying what I had frequently heard, that in Aleppo the inhabitants
+visit their friends in different parts of the city, by passing over the
+roofs of the houses. Previous to the earthquake of 1822, these vast
+roof-plains were cultivated as gardens, and presented an extent of airy
+bowers as large, if not as magnificent, as the renowned Hanging Gardens of
+ancient Babylon.</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by Signor di Picciotto, we spent two or three days in
+visiting the houses of the principal Jewish and Christian families in
+Aleppo. We found, it is true, no such splendor as in Damascus, but more
+solid and durable architecture, and a more chastened elegance of taste.
+The buildings are all of hewn stone, the court-yards paved with marble,
+and the walls rich with gilding and carved wood. Some of the larger
+dwellings have small but beautiful gardens attached to them. We were
+everywhere received with the greatest hospitality, and the visits were
+considered as a favor rather than an intrusion. Indeed, I was frequently
+obliged to run the risk of giving offence, by declining the refreshments
+which were offered us. Each round of visits was a feat of strength, and we
+were obliged to desist from sheer inability to support more coffee,
+rose-water, pipes, and aromatic sweetmeats. The character of society in
+Aleppo is singular; its very life and essence is etiquette. The laws which
+govern it are more inviolable than those of the Medes and Persians. The
+question of precedence among the different families is adjusted by the
+most delicate scale, and rigorously adhered to in the most trifling
+matters. Even we, humble voyagers as we are, have been obliged to regulate
+our conduct according to it. After our having visited certain families,
+certain others would have been deeply mortified had we neglected to call
+upon them. Formerly, when a traveller arrived here, he was expected to
+call upon the different Consuls, in the order of their established
+precedence: the Austrian first, English second, French third, &amp;c. After
+this, he was obliged to stay at home several days, to give the Consuls an
+opportunity of returning the visits, which they made in the same order.
+There was a diplomatic importance about all his movements, and the least
+violation of etiquette, through ignorance or neglect, was the town talk
+for days.</p>
+
+<p>This peculiarity in society is evidently a relic of the formal times, when
+Aleppo was a semi-Venetian city, and the opulent seat of Eastern commerce.
+Many of the inhabitants are descended from the traders of those times, and
+they all speak the <i>lingua franca</i>, or Levantine Italian. The women wear a
+costume partly Turkish and partly European, combining the graces of both;
+it is, in my eyes, the most beautiful dress in the world. They wear a rich
+scarf of some dark color on the head, which, on festive occasions, is
+almost concealed by their jewels, and the heavy scarlet pomegranate
+blossoms which adorn their dark hair. A Turkish vest and sleeves of
+embroidered silk, open in front, and a skirt of white or some light color,
+completes the costume. The Jewesses wear in addition a short Turkish
+<i>caftan</i>, and full trousers gathered at the ankles. At a ball given by Mr.
+Very, the English Consul, which we attended, all the Christian beauties of
+Aleppo were present. There was a fine display of diamonds, many of the
+ladies wearing several thousand dollars' worth on their heads. The
+peculiar etiquette of the place was again illustrated on this occasion.
+The custom is, that the music must be heard for at least one hour before
+the guests come. The hour appointed was eight, but when we went there, at
+nine, nobody had arrived. As it was generally supposed that the ball was
+given on our account, several of the families had servants in the
+neighborhood to watch our arrival; and, accordingly, we had not been there
+five minutes before the guests crowded through the door in large numbers.
+When the first dance (an Arab dance, performed by two ladies at a time)
+was proposed, the wives of the French and Spanish Consuls were first led,
+or rather dragged, out. When a lady is asked to dance, she invariably
+refuses. She is asked a second and a third time; and if the gentleman does
+not solicit most earnestly, and use some gentle force in getting her upon
+the floor, she never forgives him.</p>
+
+<p>At one of the Jewish houses which we visited, the wedding festivities of
+one of the daughters were being celebrated. We were welcomed with great
+cordiality, and immediately ushered into the room of state, an elegant
+apartment, overlooking the gardens below the city wall. Half the room was
+occupied by a raised platform, with a divan of blue silk cushions. Here
+the ladies reclined, in superb dresses of blue, pink, and gold, while the
+gentlemen were ranged on the floor below. They all rose at our entrance,
+and we were conducted to seats among the ladies. Pipes and perfumed drinks
+were served, and the bridal cake, made of twenty-six different fruits, was
+presented on a golden salver. Our fair neighbors, some of whom literally
+blazed with jewels, were strikingly beautiful. Presently the bride
+appeared at the door, and we all rose and remained standing, as she
+advanced, supported on each side by the two <i>shebeeniyeh</i>, or bridesmaids.
+She was about sixteen, slight and graceful in appearance, though not
+decidedly beautiful, and was attired with the utmost elegance. Her dress
+was a pale blue silk, heavy with gold embroidery; and over her long dark
+hair, her neck, bosom, and wrists, played a thousand rainbow gleams from
+the jewels which covered them. The Jewish musicians, seated at the bottom
+of the hall, struck up a loud, rejoicing harmony on their violins,
+guitars, and dulcimers, and the women servants, grouped at the door,
+uttered in chorus that wild, shrill cry, which accompanies all such
+festivals in the East. The bride was careful to preserve the decorum
+expected of her, by speaking no word, nor losing the sad, resigned
+expression of her countenance. She ascended to the divan, bowed to each of
+us with a low, reverential inclination, and seated herself on the
+cushions. The music and dances lasted some time, accompanied by the
+<i>zugh&agrave;reet</i>, or cry of the women, which was repeated with double force
+when we rose to take leave. The whole company waited on us to the street
+door, and one of the servants, stationed in the court, shouted some long,
+sing-song phrases after us as we passed out. I could not learn the words,
+but was told that it was an invocation of prosperity upon us, in return
+for the honor which our visit had conferred.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I went to view a Christian marriage procession, which,
+about midnight, conveyed the bride to the house of the bridegroom. The
+house, it appeared, was too small to receive all the friends of the
+family, and I joined a large number of them, who repaired to the terrace
+of the English Consulate, to greet the procession as it passed. The first
+persons who appeared were a company of buffoons; after them four
+janissaries, carrying silver maces; then the male friends, bearing colored
+lanterns and perfumed torches, raised on gilded poles; then the females,
+among whom I saw some beautiful Madonna faces in the torchlight; and
+finally the bride herself, covered from head to foot with a veil of cloth
+of gold, and urged along by two maidens: for it is the etiquette of such
+occasions that the bride should resist being taken, and must be forced
+every step of the way, so that she is frequently three hours in going the
+distance of a mile. We watched the procession a long time, winding away
+through the streets--a line of torches, and songs, and incense, and noisy
+jubilee--under the sweet starlit heaven.</p>
+
+<p>The other evening, Signor di Picciotto mounted us from his fine Arabian
+stud, and we rode around the city, outside of the suburbs. The sun was
+low, and a pale yellow lustre touched the clusters of minarets that rose
+out of the stately masses of buildings, and the bare, chalky hills to the
+north. After leaving the gardens on the banks of the Koweik, we came upon
+a dreary waste of ruins, among which the antiquarian finds traces of the
+ancient Aleppo of the Greeks, the Mongolian conquerors of the Middle Ages,
+and the Saracens who succeeded them. There are many mosques and tombs,
+which were once imposing specimens of Saracenic art; but now, split and
+shivered by wars and earthquakes, are slowly tumbling into utter decay. On
+the south-eastern side of the city, its chalk foundations have been
+hollowed into vast, arched caverns, which extend deep into the earth.
+Pillars have been left at regular intervals, to support the masses above,
+and their huge, dim labyrinths resemble the crypts of some great
+cathedral. They are now used as rope-walks, and filled with cheerful
+workmen.</p>
+
+<p>Our last excursion was to a country-house of Signor di Picciotto, in the
+Gardens of Babala, about four miles from Aleppo. We set out in the
+afternoon on our Arabians, with our host's son on a large white donkey of
+the Baghdad breed. Passing the Turkish cemetery, where we stopped to view
+the tomb of General Bem, we loosened rein and sped away at full gallop
+over the hot, white hills. In dashing down a stony rise, the ambitious
+donkey, who was doing his best to keep up with the horses, fell, hurling
+Master Picciotto over his head. The boy was bruised a little, but set his
+teeth together and showed no sign of pain, mounted again, and followed
+us. The Gardens of Babala are a wilderness of fruit-trees, like those of
+Damascus. Signor P.'s country-house is buried in a wild grove of apricot,
+fig, orange, and pomegranate-trees. A large marble tank, in front of the
+open, arched <i>liwan</i>, supplies it with water. We mounted to the flat roof,
+and watched the sunset fade from the beautiful landscape. Beyond the
+bowers of dazzling greenness which surrounded us, stretched the wide, gray
+hills; the minarets of Aleppo, and the walls of its castled mount shone
+rosily in the last rays of the sun; an old palace of the Pashas, with the
+long, low barracks of the soldiery, crowned the top of a hill to the
+north; dark, spiry cypresses betrayed the place of tombs; and, to the
+west, beyond the bare red peak of Mount St. Simon, rose the faint blue
+outline of Giaour Dagh, whose mural chain divides Syria from the plains of
+Cilicia. As the twilight deepened over the scene, there came a long,
+melodious cry of passion and of sorrow from the heart of a starry-flowered
+pomegranate tree in the garden. Other voices answered it from the gardens
+around, until not one, but fifty nightingales charmed the repose of the
+hour. They vied with each other in their bursts of passionate music. Each
+strain soared over the last, or united with others, near and far, in a
+chorus of the divinest pathos--an expression of sweet, unutterable,
+unquenchable longing. It was an ecstasy, yet a pain, to listen. "Away!"
+said Jean Paul to Music: "thou tellest me of that which I have not, and
+never can have--which I forever seek, and never find!"</p>
+
+<p>But space fails me to describe half the incidents of our stay in Aleppo.
+There are two things peculiar to the city, however, which I must not omit
+mentioning. One is the Aleppo Button, a singular ulcer, which attacks
+every person born in the city, and every stranger who spends more than a
+month there. It can neither be prevented nor cured, and always lasts for a
+year. The inhabitants almost invariably have it on the face--either on the
+cheek, forehead, or tip of the nose--where it often leaves an indelible
+and disfiguring scar. Strangers, on the contrary, have it on one of the
+joints; either the elbow, wrist, knee, or ankle. So strictly is its
+visitation confined to the city proper, that in none of the neighboring
+villages, nor even in a distant suburb, is it known. Physicians have
+vainly attempted to prevent it by inoculation, and are at a loss to what
+cause to ascribe it. We are liable to have it, even after five days' stay;
+but I hope it will postpone its appearance until after I reach home.</p>
+
+<p>The other remarkable thing here is the Hospital for Cats. This was founded
+long ago by a rich, cat-loving Mussulman, and is one of the best endowed
+institutions in the city. An old mosque is appropriated to the purpose,
+under the charge of several directors; and here sick cats are nursed,
+homeless cats find shelter, and decrepit cats gratefully purr away their
+declining years. The whole category embraces several hundreds, and it is
+quite a sight to behold the court, the corridors, and terraces of the
+mosque swarming with them. Here, one with a bruised limb is receiving a
+cataplasm; there, a cataleptic patient is tenderly cared for; and so on,
+through the long concatenation of feline diseases. Aleppo, moreover,
+rejoices in a greater number of cats than even Jerusalem. At a rough
+guess, I should thus state the population of the city: Turks and Arabs,
+70,000; Christians of all denominations, 15,000; Jews, 10,000; dogs,
+12,000; and cats, 8,000.</p>
+
+<p>Among other persons whom I have met here, is Ferhat Pasha, formerly
+General Stein, Hungarian Minister of War, and Governor of Transylvania. He
+accepted Moslemism with Bem and others, and now rejoices in his
+circumcision and 7,000 piastres a month. He is a fat, companionable sort
+of man; who, by his own confession, never labored very zealously for the
+independence of Hungary, being an Austrian by birth. He conversed with me
+for several hours on the scenes in which he had participated, and
+attributed the failure of the Hungarians to the want of material means.
+General Bem, who died here, is spoken of with the utmost respect, both by
+Turks and Christians. The former have honored him with a large tomb, or
+mausoleum, covered with a dome.</p>
+
+<p>But I must close, leaving half unsaid. Suffice it to say that no Oriental
+city has interested me so profoundly as Aleppo, and in none have I
+received such universal and cordial hospitality. We leave to-morrow for
+Asia Minor, having engaged men and horses for the whole route to
+Constantinople.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch16">
+<h2>Chapter XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Through the Syrian Gates.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
+  Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
+  Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
+  Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
+  Town--A Land of Gardens.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Mountains, on whose barren breast<br />
+The lab'ring clouds do often rest."</p>
+
+<p>  Milton.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>In Quarantine (Adana, Asia Minor), <i>Tuesday, June</i> 15, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We left Aleppo on the morning of the 9th, under circumstances not the most
+promising for the harmony of our journey. We had engaged horses and
+baggage-mules from the <i>capidji</i>, or chief of the muleteers, and in order
+to be certain of having animals that would not break down on the way, made
+a particular selection from a number that were brought us. When about
+leaving the city, however, we discovered that one of the horses had been
+changed. Signor di Picciotto, who accompanied us past the Custom-House
+barriers, immediately dispatched the delinquent muleteer to bring back the
+true horse, and the latter made a farce of trying to find him, leading the
+Consul and the capidji (who, I believe, was at the bottom of the cheat) a
+wild-goose chase over the hills around Aleppo, where of course, the animal
+was not to be seen. When, at length, we had waited three hours, and had
+wandered about four miles from the city, we gave up the search, took leave
+of the Consul and went on with the new horse. Our proper plan would have
+been to pitch the tent and refuse to move till the matter was settled. The
+animal, as we discovered during the first day's journey, was hopelessly
+lame, and we only added to the difficulty by taking him.</p>
+
+<p>We rode westward all day over barren and stony hills, meeting with
+abundant traces of the power and prosperity of this region during the
+times of the Greek Emperors. The nevastation wrought by earthquakes has
+been terrible; there is scarcely a wall or arch standing, which does not
+bear marks of having been violently shaken. The walls inclosing the
+fig-orchards near the villages contain many stones with Greek
+inscriptions, and fragments of cornices. We encamped the first night on
+the plain at the foot of Mount St. Simon, and not far from the ruins of
+the celebrated Church of the same name. The building stands in a stony
+wilderness at the foot of the mountain. It is about a hundred feet long
+and thirty in height, with two lofty square towers in front. The pavement
+of the interior is entirely concealed by the masses of pillars, capitals,
+and hewn blocks that lie heaped upon it. The windows, which are of the
+tall, narrow, arched form, common in Byzantine Churches, have a common
+moulding which falls like a mantle over and between them. The general
+effect of the Church is very fine, though there is much inelegance in the
+sculptured details. At the extremity is a half-dome of massive stone, over
+the place of the altar, and just in front of this formerly stood the
+pedestal whereon, according to tradition, St. Simeon Stylites commenced
+his pillar-life. I found a recent excavation at the spot, but no
+pedestal, which has probably been carried off by the Greek monks. Beside
+the Church stands a large building, with an upper and lower balcony,
+supported by square stone pillars, around three sides. There is also a
+paved court-yard, a large cistern cut in the rock and numerous
+out-buildings, all going to confirm the supposition of its having been a
+monastery. The main building is three stories high, with pointed gables,
+and bears a strong resemblance to an American summer hotel, with verandas.
+Several ancient fig and walnut trees are growing among the ruins, and add
+to their picturesque appearance.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we crossed a broad chain of hills to the Plain of Antioch,
+which we reached near its northern extremity. In one of the valleys
+through which the road lay, we saw a number of hot sulphur springs, some
+of them of a considerable volume of water. Not far from them was a
+beautiful fountain of fresh and cold water gushing from the foot of a high
+rock. Soon after reaching the plain, we crossed the stream of Kara Su,
+which feeds the Lake of Antioch. This part of the plain is low and swampy,
+and the streams are literally alive with fish. While passing over the
+bridge I saw many hundreds, from one to two feet in length. We wandered
+through the marshy meadows for two or three hours, and towards sunset
+reached a Turcoman encampment, where the ground was dry enough to pitch
+our tents. The rude tribe received us hospitably, and sent us milk and
+cheese in abundance. I visited the tent of the Shekh, who was very
+courteous, but as he knew no language but Turkish, our conversation was
+restricted to signs. The tent was of camel's-hair cloth, spacious, and
+open at the sides. A rug was spread for me, and the Shekh's wife brought
+me a pipe of tolerable tobacco. The household were seated upon the
+ground, chatting pleasantly with one another, and apparently not in the
+least disturbed by my presence. One of the Shekh's sons, who was deaf and
+dumb, came and sat before me, and described by very expressive signs the
+character of the road to Scanderoon. He gave me to understand that there
+were robbers in the mountains, with many grim gestures descriptive of
+stabbing and firing muskets.</p>
+
+<p>The mosquitoes were so thick during the night that we were obliged to fill
+the tent with smoke in order to sleep. When morning came, we fancied there
+would be a relief for us, but it only brought a worse pest, in the shape
+of swarms of black gnats, similar to those which so tormented me in Nubia.
+I know of no infliction so terrible as these gnats, which you cannot drive
+away, and which assail ears, eyes, and nostrils in such quantities that
+you become mad and desperate in your efforts to eject them. Through glens
+filled with oleander, we ascended the first slopes of Akma Dagh, the
+mountain range which divides the Gulf of Scanderoon from the Plain of
+Antioch. Then, passing a natural terrace, covered with groves of oak, our
+road took the mountain side, climbing upwards in the shadow of pine and
+wild olive trees, and between banks of blooming lavender and myrtle. We
+saw two or three companies of armed guards, stationed by the road-side,
+for the mountain is infested with robbers, and a caravan had been
+plundered only three days before. The view, looking backward, took in the
+whole plain, with the Lake of Antioch glittering in the centre, the valley
+of the Orontes in the south, and the lofty cone of Djebel-Okrab far to the
+west. As we approached the summit, violent gusts of wind blew through the
+pass with such force as almost to overturn our horses. Here the road from
+Antioch joins that from Aleppo, and both for some distance retain the
+ancient pavement.</p>
+
+<p>From the western side we saw the sea once more, and went down through the
+<i>Pyl&aelig; Syri&aelig;</i>, or Syrian Gates, as this defile was called by the Romans. It
+is very narrow and rugged, with an abrupt descent. In an hour from the
+summit we came upon an aqueduct of a triple row of arches, crossing the
+gorge. It is still used to carry water to the town of Beilan, which hangs
+over the mouth of the pass, half a mile below. This is one of the most
+picturesque spots in Syria. The houses cling to the sides and cluster on
+the summits of precipitous crags, and every shelf of soil, every crevice
+where a tree can thrust its roots, upholds a mass of brilliant vegetation.
+Water is the life of the place. It gushes into the street from exhaustless
+fountains; it trickles from the terraces in showers of misty drops; it
+tumbles into the gorge in sparkling streams; and everywhere it nourishes a
+life as bright and beautiful as its own. The fruit trees are of enormous
+size, and the crags are curtained with a magnificent drapery of vines.
+This green gateway opens suddenly upon another, cut through a glittering
+mass of micaceous rock, whence one looks down on the town and Gulf of
+Scanderoon, the coast of Karamania beyond, and the distant snows of the
+Taurus. We descended through groves of pine and oak, and in three hours
+more reached the shore.</p>
+
+<p>Scanderoon is the most unhealthy place on the Syrian Coast, owing to the
+malaria from a marsh behind it. The inhabitants are a wretched pallid set,
+who are visited every year with devastating fevers. The marsh was partly
+drained some forty years ago by the Turkish government, and a few
+thousand dollars would be sufficient to remove it entirely, and make the
+place--which is of some importance as the seaport of Aleppo--healthy and
+habitable. At present, there are not five hundred inhabitants, and half of
+these consist of the Turkish garrison and the persons attached to the
+different Vice-Consulates. The streets are depositories of filth, and
+pools of stagnant water, on all sides, exhale the most fetid odors. Near
+the town are the ruins of a castle built by Godfrey of Bouillon. We
+marched directly down to the sea-shore, and pitched our tent close beside
+the waves, as the place most free from malaria. There were a dozen vessels
+at anchor in the road, and one of them proved to be the American bark
+Columbia, Capt. Taylor. We took a skiff and went on board, where we were
+cordially welcomed by the mate. In the evening, the captain came to our
+tent, quite surprised to find two wandering Americans in such a lonely
+corner of the world. Soon afterwards, with true seaman-like generosity, he
+returned, bringing a jar of fine Spanish olives and a large bottle of
+pickles, which he insisted on adding to our supplies. The olives have the
+choicest Andalusian flavor, and the pickles lose none of their relish from
+having been put up in New York.</p>
+
+<p>The road from Scanderoon to this place lies mostly along the shore of the
+gulf, at the foot of Akma Dagh, and is reckoned dangerous on account of
+the marauding bands of Koords who infest the mountains. These people, like
+the Druses, have rebelled against the conscription, and will probably hold
+their ground with equal success, though the Turks talk loudly of invading
+their strongholds. Two weeks ago, the post was robbed, about ten miles
+from Scanderoon, and a government vessel, now lying at anchor in the bay,
+opened a cannonade on the plunderers, before they could be secured. In
+consequence of the warnings of danger in everybody's mouth, we decided to
+take an escort, and therefore waited upon the commander of the forces,
+with the firman of the Pasha of Aleppo. A convoy of two soldiers was at
+once promised us; and at sunrise, next morning, they took the lead of our
+caravan.</p>
+
+<p>In order to appear more formidable, in case we should meet with robbers,
+we put on our Frank pantaloons, which had no other effect than to make the
+heat more intolerable. But we formed rather a fierce cavalcade, six armed
+men in all. Our road followed the shore of the bay, having a narrow,
+uninhabited flat, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, between us
+and the mountains. The two soldiers, more valiant than the guard of
+Banias, rode in advance, and showed no signs of fear as we approached the
+suspicious places. The morning was delightfully clear, and the
+snow-crowned range of Taurus shone through the soft vapors hanging over
+the gulf. In one place, we skirted the shore for some distance, under a
+bank twenty feet in height, and so completely mantled with shrubbery, that
+a small army might have hidden in it. There were gulleys at intervals,
+opening suddenly on our path, and we looked up them, expecting every
+moment to see the gleam of a Koordish gun-barrel, or a Turcoman spear,
+above the tops of the myrtles.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing a promontory which makes out from the mountains, we came upon the
+renowned plain of Issus, where Darius lost his kingdom to Alexander. On a
+low cliff overhanging the sea, there are the remains of a single tower of
+gray stone. The people in Scanderoon call it "Jonah's Pillar," and say
+that it marks the spot where the Ninevite was cast ashore by the whale.
+[This makes three places on the Syrian coast where Jonah was vomited
+forth.] The plain of Issus is from two to three miles long, but not more
+than half a mile wide, It is traversed by a little river, supposed to be
+the Pinarus, which comes down through a tremendous cleft in the Akma Dagh.
+The ground seems too small for the battle-field of such armies as were
+engaged on the occasion. It is bounded on the north by a low hill,
+separating it from the plain of Ba&iuml;as, and it is possible that Alexander
+may have made choice of this position, leaving the unwieldy forces of
+Darius to attack him from the plain. His advantage would be greater, on
+account of the long, narrow form of the ground, which would prevent him
+from being engaged with more than a small portion of the Persian army, at
+one time. The plain is now roseate with blooming oleanders, but almost
+entirely uncultivated. About midway there are the remains of an ancient
+quay jutting into the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after leaving the field of Issus, we reached the town of Ba&iuml;as, which
+is pleasantly situated on the shore, at the mouth of a river whose course
+through the plain is marked with rows of tall poplar trees. The walls of
+the town, and the white dome and minaret of its mosque, rose dazzlingly
+against the dark blue of the sea, and the purple stretch of the mountains
+of Karamania. A single palm lifted its crest in the foreground. We
+dismounted for breakfast under the shade of an old bridge which crosses
+the river. It was a charming spot, the banks above and below being
+overhung with oleander, white rose, honeysuckle and clematis. The two
+guardsmen finished the remaining half of our Turcoman cheese, and almost
+exhausted our supply of bread. I gave one of them a cigar, which he was at
+a loss how to smoke, until our muleteer showed him.</p>
+
+<p>Ba&iuml;as was celebrated fifty years ago, as the residence of the robber
+chief, Kutchuk Ali, who, for a long time, braved the authority of the
+Porte itself. He was in the habit of levying a yearly tribute on the
+caravan to Mecca, and the better to enforce his claims, often suspended
+two or three of his captives at the gates of the town, a day or two before
+the caravan arrived. Several expeditions were sent against him, but he
+always succeeded in bribing the commanders, who, on their return to
+Constantinople, made such representations that Kutchuk Ali, instead of
+being punished, received one dignity after another, until finally he
+attained the rank of a Pasha of two tails. This emboldened him to commit
+enormities too great to be overlooked, and in 1812 Ba&iuml;as was taken, and
+the atrocious nest of land-pirates broken up.</p>
+
+<p>I knew that the town had been sacked on this occasion, but was not
+prepared to find such a complete picture of desolation. The place is
+surrounded with a substantial wall, with two gateways, on the north and
+south. A bazaar, covered with a lofty vaulted roof of stone, runs directly
+through from gate to gate; and there was still a smell of spices in the
+air, on entering. The massive shops on either hand, with their open doors,
+invited possession, and might readily be made habitable again. The great
+iron gates leading from the bazaar into the khans and courts, still swing
+on their rusty hinges. We rode into the court of the mosque, which is
+surrounded with a light and elegant corridor, supported by pillars. The
+grass has as yet but partially invaded the marble pavement, and a stone
+drinking-trough still stands in the centre. I urged my horse up the steps
+and into the door of the mosque. It is in the form of a Greek cross, with
+a dome in the centre, resting on four very elegant pointed arches. There
+is an elaborately gilded and painted gallery of wood over the entrance,
+and the pulpit opposite is as well preserved as if the <i>mollah</i> had just
+left it. Out of the mosque we passed into a second court, and then over a
+narrow bridge into the fortress. The moat is perfect, and the walls as
+complete as if just erected. Only the bottom is dry, and now covered with
+a thicket of wild pomegranate trees. The heavy iron doors of the fortress
+swung half open, as we entered unchallenged. The interior is almost
+entire, and some of the cannon still lie buried in the springing grass.
+The plan of the little town, which appears to have been all built at one
+time, is most admirable. The walls of circuit, including the fortress,
+cannot be more than 300 yards square, and yet none of the characteristics
+of a large Oriental city are omitted.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Ba&iuml;as, we travelled northward, over a waste, though fertile plain.
+The mountains on our right made a grand appearance, with their feet
+mantled in myrtle, and their tops plumed with pine. They rise from the sea
+with a long, bold sweep, but each peak falls off in a precipice on the
+opposite side, as if the chain were the barrier of the world and there was
+nothing but space beyond. In the afternoon we left the plain for a belt of
+glorious garden land, made by streams that came down from the mountains.
+We entered a lane embowered in pomegranate, white rose, clematis, and
+other flowering vines and shrubs, and overarched by superb plane, lime,
+and beech trees, chained together with giant grape vines. On either side
+were fields of ripe wheat and barley, mulberry orchards and groves of
+fruit trees, under the shade of which the Turkish families sat or slept
+during the hot hours of the day. Birds sang in the boughs, and the
+gurgling of water made a cool undertone to their music. Out of fairyland
+where shall I see again such lovely bowers? We were glad when the soldiers
+announced that it was necessary to encamp there; as we should find no
+other habitations for more than twenty miles.</p>
+
+<p>Our tent was pitched under a grand sycamore, beside a swift mountain
+stream which almost made the circuit of our camp. Beyond the tops of the
+elm, beech, and fig groves, we saw the picturesque green summits of the
+lower ranges of Giaour Dagh, in the north-east, while over the southern
+meadows a golden gleam of sunshine lay upon the Gulf of Scanderoon. The
+village near us was Chaya, where there is a military station. The guards
+we had brought from Scanderoon here left us; but the commanding officer
+advised us to take others on the morrow, as the road was still considered
+unsafe.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch17">
+<h2>Chapter XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Adana and Tarsus.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Black Gate--The Plain of Cilicia--A Koord Village--Missis--Cilician
+  Scenery--Arrival at Adana--Three days in Quarantine--We receive
+  Pratique--A Landscape--The Plain of Tarsus--The River Cydnus--A Vision
+  of Cleopatra--Tarsus and its Environs--The <i>Duniktash</i>--The Moon of
+  Ramazan.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a
+  citizen of no mean city."--Acts, xxi. 89.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Khan on Mt. Taurus, <i>Saturday, June</i> 19, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We left our camp at Chaya at dawn, with an escort of three soldiers, which
+we borrowed from the guard stationed at that place. The path led along the
+shore, through clumps of myrtle beaten inland by the wind, and rounded as
+smoothly as if they had been clipped by a gardener's shears. As we
+approached the head of the gulf, the peaked summits of Giaour Dagh, 10,000
+feet in height, appeared in the north-east. The streams we forded swarmed
+with immense trout. A brown hedgehog ran across our road, but when I
+touched him with the end of my pipe, rolled himself into an impervious
+ball of prickles. Soon after turning the head of the gulf, the road
+swerved off to the west, and entered a narrow pass, between hills covered
+with thick copse-wood. Here we came upon an ancient gateway of black lava
+stone, which bears marks of great antiquity It is now called <i>Kara Kapu,</i>
+the "Black Gate," and some suppose it to have been one of the ancient
+gates of Cilicia.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this, our road led over high, grassy hills, without a sign of human
+habitation, to the ruined khan of Koord Koolak, We dismounted and unloaded
+our baggage in the spacious stone archway, and drove our beasts into the
+dark, vaulted halls behind. The building was originally intended for a
+magazine of supplies, and from the ruined mosque near it, I suspect it was
+formerly one of the caravan stations for the pilgrims from Constantinople
+to Mecca. The weather was intensely hot and sultry, and our animals were
+almost crazy from the attacks of a large yellow gad-fly. After the noonday
+heat was over we descended to the first Cilician plain, which is bounded
+on the west by the range of Durdun Dagh. As we had now passed the most
+dangerous part of the road, we dismissed the three soldiers and took but a
+single man with us. The entire plain is covered with wild fennel, six to
+eight feet in height, and literally blazing with its bloomy yellow tops.
+Riding through it, I could barely look over them, and far and wide, on all
+sides, spread a golden sea, out of which the long violet hills rose with
+the liveliest effect. Brown, shining serpents, from four to six feet in
+length, frequently slid across our path. The plain, which must be sixty
+miles in circumference, is wholly uncultivated, though no land could
+possibly be richer.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the region of fennel we passed into one of red and white clover,
+timothy grass and wild oats. The thistles were so large as to resemble
+young palm-trees, and the salsify of our gardens grew rank and wild. At
+length we dipped into the evening shadow of Durdun Dagh, and reached the
+village of Koord Keui, on his lower slope. As there was no place for our
+tent on the rank grass of the plain or the steep side of the hill, we took
+forcible possession of the winnowing-floor, a flat terrace built up under
+two sycamores, and still covered with the chaff of the last threshing. The
+Koords took the whole thing as a matter of course, and even brought us a
+felt carpet to rest upon. They came and seated themselves around us,
+chatting sociably, while we lay in the tent-door, smoking the pipe of
+refreshment. The view over the wide golden plain, and the hills beyond, to
+the distant, snow-tipped peaks of Akma Dagh, was superb, as the shadow of
+the mountain behind us slowly lengthened over it, blotting out the mellow
+lights of sunset. There were many fragments of pillars and capitals of
+white marble built up in the houses, showing that they occupied the site
+of some ancient village or temple.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, we crossed Durdun Dagh, and entered the great plain of
+Cilicia. The range, after we had passed it, presented a grand, bold,
+broken outline, blue in the morning vapor, and wreathed with shifting
+belts of cloud. A stately castle, called the Palace of Serpents, on the
+summit of an isolated peak to the north, stood out clear and high, in the
+midst of a circle of fog, like a phantom picture of the air. The River
+Jyhoon, the ancient Pyramus, which rises on the borders of Armenia, sweeps
+the western base of the mountains. It is a larger stream than the Orontes,
+with a deep, rapid current, flowing at the bottom of a bed lower than the
+level of the plain. In three hours, we reached Missis, the ancient
+Mopsuestia, on the right bank of the river. There are extensive ruins on
+the left bank, which were probably those of the former city. The soil for
+some distance around is scattered with broken pillars, capitals, and hewn
+stones. The ancient bridge still crosses the river, but the central arch
+having been broken away, is replaced with a wooden platform. The modern
+town is a forlorn place, and all the glorious plain around it is
+uncultivated. The view over this plain was magnificent: unbounded towards
+the sea, but on the north girdled by the sublime range of Taurus, whose
+great snow-fields gleamed in the sun. In the afternoon, we reached the old
+bridge over the Jyhoon, at Adana. The eastern bank is occupied with the
+graves of the former inhabitants, and there are at least fifteen acres of
+tombstones, as thickly planted as the graves can be dug. The fields of
+wheat and barley along the river are very rich, and at present the natives
+are busily occupied in drawing the sheaves on large sleds to the open
+threshing-floors.</p>
+
+<p>The city is built over a low eminence, and its four tall minarets, with a
+number of palm-trees rising from the mass of brown brick walls, reminded
+me of Egypt. At the end of the bridge, we were met by one of the
+Quarantine officers, who preceded us, taking care that we touched nobody
+in the streets, to the Quarantine building. This land quarantine, between
+Syria and Asia Minor, when the former country is free from any epidemic,
+seems a most absurd thing. We were detained at Adana three days and a
+half, to be purified, before proceeding further. Lately, the whole town
+was placed in quarantine for five days, because a Turkish Bey, who lives
+near Ba&iuml;as, entered the gates without being noticed, and was found in the
+bazaars. The Quarantine building was once a palace of the Pashas of Adana,
+but is now in a half-ruined condition. The rooms are large and airy, and
+there is a spacious open divan which affords ample shade and a cool
+breeze throughout the whole day. Fortunately for us, there were only three
+persons in Quarantine, who occupied a room distant from ours. The
+Inspector was a very obliging person, and procured us a table and two
+chairs. The only table to be had in the whole place--a town of 15,000
+inhabitants--belonged to an Italian merchant, who kindly gave it for our
+use. We employed a messenger to purchase provisions in the bazaars; and
+our days passed quietly in writing, smoking, and gazing indolently from
+our windows upon the flowery plains beyond the town. Our nights, however,
+were tormented by small white gnats, which stung us unmercifully. The
+physician of Quarantine, Dr. Spagnolo, is a Venetian refugee, and formerly
+editor of <i>La Lega Italiana</i>, a paper published in Venice during the
+revolution. He informed us that, except the Princess Belgioioso, who
+passed through Adana on her way to Jerusalem, we were the only travellers
+he had seen for eleven months.</p>
+
+<p>After three days and four nights of grateful, because involuntary,
+indolence, Dr. Spagnolo gave us <i>pratique</i>, and we lost no time in getting
+under weigh again. We were the only occupants of Quarantine; and as we
+moved out of the portal of the old sera&iuml;, at sunrise, no one was guarding
+it. The Inspector and Mustapha, the messenger, took their back-sheeshes
+with silent gratitude. The plain on the west side of the town is well
+cultivated; and as we rode along towards Tarsus, I was charmed with the
+rich pastoral air of the scenery. It was like one of the midland
+landscapes of England, bathed in Southern sunshine. The beautiful level,
+stretching away to the mountains, stood golden with the fields of wheat
+which the reapers were cutting. It was no longer bare, but dotted with
+orange groves, clumps of holly, and a number of magnificent
+terebinth-trees, whose dark, rounded masses of foliage remind one of the
+Northern oak. Cattle were grazing in the stubble, and horses, almost
+buried under loads of fresh grass, met us as they passed to the city. The
+sheaves were drawn to the threshing-floor on sleds, and we could see the
+husbandmen in the distance treading out and winnowing the grain. Over
+these bright, busy scenes, rose the lesser heights of the Taurus, and
+beyond them, mingled in white clouds, the snows of the crowning range.</p>
+
+<p>The road to Tarsus, which is eight hours distant, lies over an unbroken
+plain. Towards the sea, there are two tumuli, resembling those on the
+plains east of Antioch. Stone wells, with troughs for watering horses,
+occur at intervals of three or four miles; but there is little cultivation
+after leaving the vicinity of Adana. The sun poured down an intense summer
+heat, and hundreds of large gad-flies, swarming around us, drove the
+horses wild with their stings. Towards noon, we stopped at a little
+village for breakfast. We took possession of a shop, which the
+good-natured merchant offered us, and were about to spread our provisions
+upon the counter, when the gnats and mosquitoes fairly drove us away. We
+at once went forward in search of a better place, which gave occasion to
+our chief mukkairee, Hadji Youssuf, for a violent remonstrance. The terms
+of the agreement at Aleppo gave the entire control of the journey into our
+own hands, and the Hadji now sought to violate it. He protested against
+our travelling more than six hours a day, and conducted himself so
+insolently, that we threatened to take him before the Pasha of Tarsus.
+This silenced him for the time; but we hate him so cordially since then,
+that I foresee we shall have more trouble. In the afternoon, a gust,
+sweeping along the sides of Taurus, cooled the air and afforded us a
+little relief.</p>
+
+<p>By three o'clock we reached the River Cydnus, which is bare of trees on
+its eastern side, but flows between banks covered with grass and shrubs.
+It is still spanned by the ancient bridge, and the mules now step in the
+hollow ruts worn long ago by Roman and Byzantine chariot wheels. The
+stream is not more than thirty yards broad, but has a very full and rapid
+current of a bluish-white color, from the snows which feed it. I rode down
+to the brink and drank a cup of the water. It was exceedingly cold, and I
+do not wonder that a bath in it should have killed the Emperor Barbarossa.
+From the top of the bridge, there is a lovely view, down the stream, where
+it washes a fringe of willows and heavy fruit-trees on its western bank,
+and then winds away through the grassy plain, to the sea. For once, my
+fancy ran parallel with the inspiration of the scene. I could think of
+nothing but the galley of Cleopatra slowly stemming the current of the
+stream, its silken sails filled with the sea-breeze, its gilded oars
+keeping time to the flutes, whose voluptuous melodies floated far out over
+the vernal meadows. Tarsus was probably almost hidden then, as now, by its
+gardens, except just where it touched the river; and the dazzling vision
+of the Egyptian Queen, as she came up conquering and to conquer, must have
+been all the more bewildering, from the lovely bowers through which she
+sailed.</p>
+
+<p>From the bridge an ancient road still leads to the old Byzantine gate of
+Tarsus. Part of the town is encompassed by a wall, built by the Caliph
+Haroun Al-Raschid, and there is a ruined fortress, which is attributed to
+Sultan Bajazet Small streams, brought from the Cydnus, traverse the
+environs, and, with such a fertile soil, the luxuriance of the gardens in
+which the city lies buried is almost incredible. In our rambles in search
+of a place to pitch the tent, we entered a superb orange-orchard, the
+foliage of which made a perpetual twilight. Many of the trunks were two
+feet in diameter. The houses are mostly of one story, and the materials
+are almost wholly borrowed from the ancient city. Pillars, capitals,
+fragments of cornices and entablatures abound. I noticed here, as in
+Adana, a high wooden frame on the top of every house, raised a few steps
+above the roof, and covered with light muslin, like a portable
+bathing-house. Here the people put up their beds in the evening, sleep,
+and come down to the roofs in the morning--an excellent plan for getting
+better air in these malarious plains and escaping from fleas and
+mosquitoes. In our search for the Armenian Church, which is said to have
+been founded by St. Paul ("Saul of Tarsus"), we came upon a mosque, which
+had been originally a Christian Church, of Greek times.</p>
+
+<p>From the top of a mound, whereupon stand the remains of an ancient
+circular edifice, we obtained a fine view of the city and plain of Tarsus.
+A few houses or clusters of houses stood here and there like reefs amid
+the billowy green, and the minarets--one of them with a nest of young
+storks on its very summit--rose like the masts of sunken ships. Some palms
+lifted their tufted heads from the gardens, beyond which the great plain
+extended from the mountains to the sea. The tumulus near Mersyn, the port
+of Tarsus, was plainly visible. Two hours from Mersyn are the ruins of
+Pompeiopolis, the name given by Pompey to the town of Soli, after his
+conquest of the Cilician pirates. From Soli, on account of the bad Greek
+spoken by its inhabitants, came the term "solecism." The ruins of
+Pompeiopolis consist of a theatre, temples, and a number of houses, still
+in good preservation. The whole coast, as far as Aleya, three hundred
+miles west of this, is said to abound with ruined cities, and I regret
+exceedingly that time will not permit me to explore it.</p>
+
+<p>While searching for the antiquities about Tarsus, I accosted a man in a
+Frank dress, who proved to be the Neapolitan Consul. He told us that the
+most remarkable relic was the <i>Duniktash</i> (the Round Stone), and procured
+us a guide. It lies in a garden near the city, and is certainly one of the
+most remarkable monuments in the East. It consists of a square inclosure
+of solid masonry, 350 feet long by 150 feet wide, the walls of which are
+eighteen feet in thickness and twenty feet high. It appears to have been
+originally a solid mass, without entrance, but a passage has been broken
+in one place, and in another there is a split or fissure, evidently
+produced by an earthquake. The material is rough stone, brick and mortar.
+Inside of the inclosure are two detached square masses of masonry, of
+equal height, and probably eighty feet on a side, without opening of any
+kind. One of them has been pierced at the bottom, a steep passage leading
+to a pit or well, but the sides of the passage thus broken indicate that
+the whole structure is one solid mass. It is generally supposed that they
+were intended as tombs: but of whom? There is no sign by which they may be
+recognized, and, what is more singular, no tradition concerning them.</p>
+
+<p>The day we reached Tarsus was the first of the Turkish fast-month of
+Ramazan, the inhabitants having seen the new moon the night before. At
+Adana, where they did not keep such a close look-out, the fast had not
+commenced. During its continuance, which is from twenty-eight to
+twenty-nine days, no Mussulman dares eat, drink, or smoke, from an hour
+before sunrise till half an hour after sunset. The Mohammedan months are
+lunar, and each month makes the whole round of the seasons, once in
+thirty-three years. When, therefore, the Ramazan comes in midsummer, as at
+present, the fulfilment of this fast is a great trial, even to the
+strongest and most devout. Eighteen hours without meat or drink, and what
+is still worse to a genuine Turk, without a pipe, is a rigid test of
+faith. The rich do the best they can to avoid it, by feasting all night
+and sleeping all day, but the poor, who must perform their daily
+avocations, as usual, suffer exceedingly. In walking through Tarsus I saw
+many wretched faces in the bazaars, and the guide who accompanied us had a
+painfully famished air. Fortunately the Koran expressly permits invalids,
+children, and travellers to disregard the fast, so that although we eat
+and drink when we like, we are none the less looked upon as good
+Mussulmans. About dark a gun is fired and a rocket sent up from the
+mosque, announcing the termination of the day's fast. The meals are
+already prepared, the pipes filled, the coffee smokes in the <i>finjans</i>,
+and the echoes have not died away nor the last sparks of the rocket become
+extinct, before half the inhabitants are satisfying their hunger, thirst
+and smoke-lust.</p>
+
+<p>We left Tarsus this morning, and are now encamped among the pines of Mount
+Taurus. The last flush of sunset is fading from his eternal snows, and I
+drop my pen to enjoy the silence of twilight in this mountain solitude.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch18">
+<h2>Chapter XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Pass of Mount Taurus.</h3>
+
+<p class="abs">  We enter the Taurus--Turcomans--Forest Scenery--the Palace of Pan--Khan
+  Mezarluk--Morning among the Mountains--The Gorge of the Cydnus--The Crag
+  of the Fortress--The Cilician Gate--Deserted Forts--A Sublime
+  Landscape--The Gorge of the Sihoon--The Second Gate--Camp in the
+  Defile--Sunrise--Journey up the Sihoon--A Change of Scenery--A Pastoral
+  Valley--Kol&uuml; Kushla--A Deserted Khan--A Guest in Ramazan--Flowers--The
+  Plain of Karamania--Barren Hills--The Town of Eregli--The Hadji again.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Lo! where the pass expands<br />
+Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,<br />
+And seems, with its accumulated crags,<br />
+To overhang the world." Shelley.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Eregli, <i>in Karamania, June</i> 22, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Striking our tent in the gardens of Tarsus, we again crossed the Cydnus,
+and took a northern course across the plain. The long line of Taurus rose
+before us, seemingly divided into four successive ranges, the highest of
+which was folded in clouds; only the long streaks of snow, filling the
+ravines, being visible. The outlines of these ranges were very fine, the
+waving line of the summits cut here and there by precipitous gorges--the
+gateways of rivers that came down to the plain. In about two hours, we
+entered the lower hills. They are barren and stony, with a white, chalky
+soil; but the valleys were filled with myrtle, oleander, and lauristinus
+in bloom, and lavender grew in great profusion on the hill-sides. The
+flowers of the oleander gave out a delicate, almond-like fragrance, and
+grew in such dense clusters as frequently to hide the foliage. I amused
+myself with finding a derivation of the name of this beautiful plant,
+which may answer until somebody discovers a better one. Hero, when the
+corpse of her lover was cast ashore by the waves, buried him under an
+oleander bush, where she was accustomed to sit daily, and lament over his
+untimely fate. Now, a foreign horticulturist, happening to pass by when
+the shrub was in blossom, was much struck with its beauty, and asked Hero
+what it was called. But she, absorbed in grief, and thinking only of her
+lover, clasped her hands, and sighed out: "O Leander! O Leander!" which
+the horticulturist immediately entered in his note-book as the name of the
+shrub; and by that name it is known, to the present time.</p>
+
+<p>For two or three hours, the scenery was rather tame, the higher summits
+being obscured with a thunder-cloud. Towards noon, however, we passed the
+first chain, and saw, across a strip of rolling land intervening, the
+grand ramparts of the second, looming dark and large under the clouds. A
+circular watch-tower of white stone, standing on the summit of a
+promontory at the mouth of a gorge on our right, flashed out boldly
+against the storm. We stopped under an oak-tree to take breakfast; but
+there was no water; and two Turks, who were resting while their horses
+grazed in the meadow, told us we should find a good spring half a mile
+further. We ascended a long slope, covered with wheat-fields, where
+numbers of Turcoman reapers were busy at work, passed their black tents,
+surrounded with droves of sheep and goats, and reached a rude stone
+fountain of good water, where two companies of these people had stopped
+to rest, on their way to the mountains. It was the time of noon prayer,
+and they went through their devotions with great solemnity. We nestled
+deep in a bed of myrtles, while we breakfasted; for the sky was clouded,
+and the wind blew cool and fresh from the region of rain above us. Some of
+the Turcomans asked us for bread, and were very grateful when we gave it
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, we came into a higher and wilder region, where the road
+led through thickets of wild olive, holly, oak, and lauristinus, with
+occasional groves of pine. What a joy I felt in hearing, once more, the
+grand song of my favorite tree! Our way was a woodland road; a storm had
+passed over the region in the morning; the earth was still fresh and
+moist, and there was an aromatic smell of leaves in the air. We turned
+westward into the entrance of a deep valley, over which hung a
+perpendicular cliff of gray and red rock, fashioned by nature so as to
+resemble a vast fortress, with windows, portals and projecting bastions.
+Fran&ccedil;ois displayed his knowledge of mythology, by declaring it to be the
+Palace of Pan. While we were carrying out the idea, by making chambers for
+the Fauns and Nymphs in the basement story of the precipice, the path
+wound around the shoulder of the mountain, and the glen spread away before
+us, branching up into loftier ranges, disclosing through its gateway of
+cliffs, rising out of the steeps of pine forest, a sublime vista of blue
+mountain peaks, climbing to the topmost snows. It was a magnificent Alpine
+landscape, more glowing and rich than Switzerland, yet equalling it in all
+the loftier characteristics of mountain scenery. Another and greater
+precipice towered over us on the right, and the black eagles which had
+made their eyries in its niched and caverned vaults, were wheeling around
+its crest. A branch of the Cydnus foamed along the bottom of the gorge,
+and soma Turcoman boys were tending their herds on its banks.</p>
+
+<p>Further up the glen, we found a fountain of delicious water, beside the
+deserted Khan of Mezarluk, and there encamped for the night. Our tent was
+pitched on the mountain side, near a fountain of the coolest, clearest and
+sweetest water I have seen in all the East. There was perfect silence
+among the mountains, and the place was as lonely as it was sublime. The
+night was cool and fresh; but I could not sleep until towards morning.
+When I opened my belated eyes, the tall peaks on the opposite side of the
+glen were girdled below their waists with the flood of a sparkling
+sunrise. The sky was pure as crystal, except a soft white fleece that
+veiled the snowy pinnacles of Taurus, folding and unfolding, rising and
+sinking, as if to make their beauty still more attractive by the partial
+concealment. The morning air was almost cold, but so pure and bracing--so
+aromatic with the healthy breath of the pines--that I took it down in the
+fullest possible draughts.</p>
+
+<p>We rode up the glen, following the course of the Cydnus, through scenery
+of the wildest and most romantic character. The bases of the mountains
+were completely enveloped in forests of pine, but their summits rose in
+precipitous crags, many hundreds of feet in height, hanging above our very
+heads. Even after the sun was five hours high, their shadows fell upon us
+from the opposite side of the glen. Mixed with the pine were occasional
+oaks, an undergrowth of hawthorn in bloom, and shrubs covered with yellow
+and white flowers. Over these the wild grape threw its rich festoons,
+filling the air with exquisite fragrance.</p>
+
+<p>Out of this glen, we passed into another, still narrower and wilder. The
+road was the old Roman way, and in tolerable condition, though it had
+evidently not been mended for many centuries. In half an hour, the pass
+opened, disclosing an enormous peak in front of us, crowned with the ruins
+of an ancient fortress of considerable extent. The position was almost
+impregnable, the mountain dropping on one side into a precipice five
+hundred feet in perpendicular height. Under the cliffs of the loftiest
+ridge, there was a terrace planted with walnut-trees: a charming little
+hamlet in the wilderness. Wild sycamore-trees, with white trunks and
+bright green foliage, shaded the foamy twists of the Cydnus, as it plunged
+down its difficult bed. The pine thrust its roots into the naked
+precipices, and from their summits hung out over the great abysses below.
+I thought of &OElig;none's</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  --"tall, dark pines, that fringed the craggy ledge<br />
+High over the blue gorge, and all between<br />
+The snowy peak and snow-white cataract<br />
+Fostered the callow eaglet;"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>and certainly she had on Mount Ida no more beautiful trees than these.</p>
+
+<p>We had doubled the Crag of the Fortress, when the pass closed before us,
+shut in by two immense precipices of sheer, barren rock, more than a
+thousand feet in height. Vast fragments, fallen from above, choked up the
+entrance, whence the Cydnus, spouting forth in foam, leaped into the
+defile. The ancient road was completely destroyed, but traces of it were
+to be seen on the rocks, ten feet above the present bed of the stream, and
+on the broken masses which had been hurled below. The path wound with
+difficulty among these wrecks, and then merged into the stream itself, as
+we entered the gateway. A violent wind blew in our faces as we rode
+through the strait, which is not ten yards in breadth, while its walls
+rise to the region of the clouds. In a few minutes we had traversed it,
+and stood looking back on the enormous gap. There were several Greek
+tablets cut in the rock above the old road, but so defaced as to be
+illegible. This is undoubtedly the principal gate of the Taurus, and the
+pass through which the armies of Cyrus and Alexander entered Cilicia.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the gate the mountains retreated, and we climbed up a little dell,
+past two or three Turcoman houses, to the top of a hill, whence opened a
+view of the principal range, now close at hand. The mountains in front
+were clothed with dark cedars to their very tops, and the snow-fields
+behind them seemed dazzlingly bright and near. Our course for several
+miles now lay through a more open valley, drained by the upper waters of
+the Cydnus. On two opposing terraces of the mountain chains are two
+fortresses, built by Ibraham Pasha, but now wholly deserted. They are
+large and well-constructed works of stone, and surrounded by ruins of
+stables, ovens, and the rude houses of the soldiery. Passing between
+these, we ascended to the shelf dividing the waters of the Cydnus and the
+Sihoon. From the point where the slope descends to the latter river, there
+opened before me one of the most glorious landscapes I ever beheld. I
+stood at the extremity of a long hollow or depression between the two
+ranges of the Taurus--not a valley, for it was divided by deep cloven
+chasms, hemmed in by steeps overgrown with cedars. On my right rose a
+sublime chain, soaring far out of the region of trees, and lifting its
+peaked summits of gray rock into toe sky. Another chain, nearly as lofty,
+but not so broken, nor with such large, imposing features, overhung me on
+the left; and far in front, filling up the magnificent vista--filling up
+all between the lower steeps, crowned with pine, and the round white
+clouds hanging on the verge of heaven--were the shining snows of the
+Taurus. Great God, how shall I describe the grandeur of that view! How
+draw the wonderful outlines of those mountains! How paint the airy hue of
+violet-gray, the soft white lights, the thousandfold pencillings of mellow
+shadow, the height, the depth, the far-reaching vastness of the landscape!</p>
+
+<p>In the middle distance, a great blue gorge passed transversely across the
+two ranges and the region between. This, as I rightly conjectured, was the
+bed of the Sihoon. Our road led downward through groves of fragrant
+cedars, and we travelled thus for two hours before reaching the river.
+Taking a northward course up his banks, we reached the second of the <i>Pyl&aelig;
+Cilici&aelig;</i> before sunset. It is on a grander scale than the first gate,
+though not so startling and violent in its features. The bare walls on
+either side fall sheer to the water, and the road, crossing the Sihoon by
+a lofty bridge of a single arch, is cut along the face of the rock. Near
+the bridge a subterranean stream, almost as large as the river, bursts
+forth from the solid heart of the mountain. On either side gigantic masses
+of rock, with here and there a pine to adorn their sterility, tower to the
+height of 6,000 feet, in some places almost perpendicular from summit to
+base. They are worn and broken into all fantastic forms. There are
+pyramids, towers, bastions, minarets, and long, sharp spires, splintered
+and jagged as the turrets of an iceberg. I have seen higher mountains,
+but I have never seen any which looked so high as these. We camped on a
+narrow plot of ground, in the very heart of the tremendous gorge. A
+soldier, passing along at dusk, told us that a merchant and his servant
+were murdered in the same place last winter, and advised us to keep watch.
+But we slept safely all night, while the stars sparkled over the chasm,
+and slips of misty cloud hung low on the thousand pinnacles of rock.</p>
+
+<p>When I awoke, the gorge lay in deep shadow; but high up on the western
+mountain, above the enormous black pyramids that arose from the river, the
+topmost pinnacles of rock sparkled like molten silver, in the full gush of
+sunrise. The great mountain, blocking up the gorge behind us, was bathed
+almost to its foot in the rays, and, seen through such a dark vista, was
+glorified beyond all other mountains of Earth. The air was piercingly cold
+and keen, and I could scarcely bear the water of the Sihoon on my
+sun-inflamed face. There was a little spring not far off, from which we
+obtained sufficient water to drink, the river being too muddy. The spring
+was but a thread oozing from the soil; but the Hadji collected it in
+handfuls, which he emptied into his water-skin, and then brought to us.</p>
+
+<p>The morning light gave a still finer effect to the manifold forms of the
+mountains than that of the afternoon sun. The soft gray hue of the rocks
+shone clearly against the cloudless sky, fretted all over with the shadows
+thrown by their innumerable spires and jutting points, and by the natural
+arches scooped out under the cliffs. After travelling less than an hour,
+we passed the riven walls of the mighty gateway, and rode again under the
+shade of pine forests. The height of the mountains now gradually
+diminished, and their sides, covered with pine and cedar, became less
+broken and abrupt. The summits, nevertheless, still retained the same
+rocky spine, shooting up into tall, single towers, or long lines of even
+parapets Occasionally, through gaps between, we caught glimpses of the
+snow-fields, dazzlingly high and white.</p>
+
+<p>After travelling eight or nine miles, we emerged from the pass, and left
+the Sihoon at a place called Chiftlik Khan--a stone building, with a small
+fort adjoining, wherein fifteen splendid bronze cannon lay neglected on
+their broken and rotting carriages. As we crossed the stone bridge over
+the river, a valley opened suddenly on the left, disclosing the whole
+range of the Taurus, which we now saw on its northern side, a vast stretch
+of rocky spires, with sparkling snow-fields between, and long ravines
+filled with snow, extending far down between the dark blue cliffs and the
+dark green plumage of the cedars.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after passing the central chain of the Taurus, the character
+of the scenery changed. The heights were rounded, the rocky strata only
+appearing on the higher peaks, and the slopes of loose soil were deeply
+cut and scarred by the rains of ages. Both in appearance, especially in
+the scattered growth of trees dotted over the dark red soil, and in their
+formation, these mountains strongly resemble the middle ranges of the
+Californian Sierra Nevada. We climbed a long, winding glen, until we had
+attained a considerable height, when the road reached a dividing ridge,
+giving us a view of a deep valley, beyond which a chain of barren
+mountains rose to the height of some five thousand feet. As we descended
+the rocky path, a little caravan of asses and mules clambered up to meet
+us, along the brinks of steep gulfs. The narrow strip of bottom land
+along the stream was planted with rye, now in head, and rolling in silvery
+waves before the wind.</p>
+
+<p>After our noonday halt, we went over the hills to another stream, which
+came from the north-west. Its valley was broader and greener than that we
+had left, and the hills inclosing it had soft and undulating outlines.
+They were bare of trees, but colored a pale green by their thin clothing
+of grass and herbs. In this valley the season was so late, owing to its
+height above the sea, that the early spring-flowers were yet in bloom.
+Poppies flamed among the wheat, and the banks of the stream were brilliant
+with patches of a creeping plant, with a bright purple blossom. The
+asphodel grew in great profusion, and an ivy-leaved shrub, covered with
+flakes of white bloom, made the air faint with its fragrance. Still
+further up, we came to orchards of walnut and plum trees, and vineyards
+There were no houses, but the innabitants, who were mostly Turcomans, live
+in villages during the winter, and in summer pitch their tents on the
+mountains where they pasture their flocks. Directly over this quiet
+pastoral, vale towered the Taurus, and I looked at once on its secluded
+loveliness and on the wintry heights, whose bleak and sublime heads were
+mantled in clouds. From no point is there a more imposing view of the
+whole snowy range. Near the head of the valley we passed a large Turcoman
+encampment, surrounded with herds of sheep and cattle.</p>
+
+<p>We halted for the evening at a place called Kol&uuml;-Kushla---an immense
+fortress-village, resembling Ba&iuml;as, and like it, wholly deserted. Near it
+there is a small town of very neat houses, which is also deserted, the
+inhabitants having gone into the mountains with their flocks. I walked
+through the fortress, which is a massive building of stone, about 500
+feet square, erected by Sultan Murad as a resting-place for the caravans
+to Mecca. It has two spacious portals, in which the iron doors are still
+hanging, connected by a vaulted passage, twenty feet high and forty wide,
+with bazaars on each side. Side gateways open into large courts,
+surrounded with arched chambers. There is a mosque entire, with its pulpit
+and galleries, and the gilded crescent still glittering over its dome.
+Behind it is a bath, containing an entrance hall and half a dozen
+chambers, in which the water-pipes and stone tanks still remain. With a
+little alteration, the building would make a capital Phalanstery, where
+the Fourierites might try their experiment without contact with Society.
+There is no field for them equal to Asia Minor--a glorious region,
+abounding in natural wealth, almost depopulated, and containing a great
+number of Phalansteries ready built.</p>
+
+<p>We succeeded in getting some eggs, fowls, and milk from an old Turcoman
+who had charge of the village. A man who rode by on a donkey sold us a bag
+of <i>yaourt</i> (sour milk-curds), which was delicious, notwithstanding the
+suspicious appearance of the bag. It was made before the cream had been
+removed, and was very rich and nourishing. The old Turcoman sat down and
+watched us while we ate, but would not join us, as these wandering tribes
+are very strict in keeping Ramazan. When we had reached our dessert--a
+plate of fine cherries--another white-bearded and dignified gentleman
+visited us. We handed him the cherries, expecting that he would take a few
+and politely return the dish: but no such thing. He coolly produced his
+handkerchief, emptied everything into it, and marched off. He also did not
+venture to eat, although we pointed to the Taurus, on whose upper snows
+the last gleam of daylight was just melting away.</p>
+
+<p>We arose this morning in a dark, cloudy dawn. There was a heavy black
+storm hanging low in the west, and another was gathering its forces along
+the mountains behind us. A cold wind blew down the valley, and long peals
+of thunder rolled grandly among the gorges of Taurus. An isolated hill,
+crowned with a shattered crag which bore a striking resemblance to a
+ruined fortress, stood out black and sharp against the far, misty, sunlit
+peaks. As far as the springs were yet undried, the land was covered with
+flowers. In one place I saw a large square plot of the most brilliant
+crimson hue, burning amid the green wheat-fields, as if some Tyrian mantle
+had been flung there. The long, harmonious slopes and rounded summits of
+the hills were covered with drifts of a beautiful purple clover, and a
+diminutive variety of the <i>achillea</i>, or yarrow, with glowing yellow
+blossoms. The leaves had a pleasant aromatic odor, and filled the air with
+their refreshing breath, as they were crushed under the hoofs of our
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>We had now reached the highest ridge of the hilly country along the
+northern base of Taurus, and saw, far and wide before us, the great
+central plain of Karamania. Two isolated mountains, at forty or fifty
+miles distance, broke the monotony of the desert-like level: Kara Dagh in
+the west, and the snow-capped summits of Hassan Dagh in the north-east.
+Beyond the latter, we tried to catch a glimpse of the famous Mons Argseus,
+at the base of which is Kaisariyeh, the ancient C&aelig;sarea of Cappadocia.
+This mountain, which is 13,000 feet high, is the loftiest peak of Asia
+Minor. The clouds hung low on the horizon, and the rains were falling,
+veiling it from our sight.</p>
+
+<p>Our road, for the remainder of the day, was over barren hills, covered
+with scanty herbage. The sun shone out intensely hot, and the glare of the
+white soil was exceedingly painful to my eyes. The locality of Eregli was
+betrayed, some time before we reached it, by its dark-green belt of fruit
+trees. It stands in the mouth of a narrow valley which winds down from the
+Taurus, and is watered by a large rapid stream that finally loses itself
+in the lakes and morasses of the plain. There had been a heavy black
+thunder-cloud gathering, and as we reached our camping-ground, under some
+fine walnut-trees near the stream, a sudden blast of cold wind swept over
+the town, filling the air with dust. We pitched the tent in all haste,
+expecting a storm, but the rain finally passed to the northward. We then
+took a walk through the town, which is a forlorn place. A spacious khan,
+built apparently for the Mecca pilgrims, is in ruins, but the mosque has
+an exquisite minaret, eighty feet high, and still bearing traces of the
+devices, in blue tiles, which once covered it. The shops were mostly
+closed, and in those which were still open the owners lay at full length
+on their bellies, their faces gaunt with fasting. They seemed annoyed at
+our troubling them, even with purchases. One would have thought that some
+fearful pestilence had fallen upon the town. The cobblers only, who
+somewhat languidly plied their implements, seemed to retain a little life.
+The few Jews and Armenians smoked their pipes in a tantalizing manner, in
+the very faces of the poor Mussulmans. We bought an oka of excellent
+cherries, which we were cruel enough to taste in the streets, before the
+hungry eyes of the suffering merchants.</p>
+
+<p>This evening the asses belonging to the place were driven in from
+pasture--four or five hundred in all; and such a show of curious asinine
+specimens as I never before beheld. A Dervish, who was with us in
+Quarantine, at Adana, has just arrived. He had lost his <i>tesker&eacute;</i>
+(passport), and on issuing forth purified, was cast into prison. Finally
+he found some one who knew him, and procured his release. He had come on
+foot to this place in five days, suffering many privations, having been
+forty-eight hours without food. He is bound to Konia, on a pilgrimage to
+the tomb of Hazret Mevlana, the founder of the sect of dancing Dervishes.
+We gave him food, in return for which he taught me the formula of his
+prayers. He tells me I should always pronounce the name of Allah when my
+horse stumbles, or I see a man in danger of his life, as the word has a
+saving power. Hadji Youssuf, who has just been begging for an advance of
+twenty piastres to buy grain for his horses, swore "by the pardon of God"
+that he would sell the lame horse at Konia and get a better one. We have
+lost all confidence in the old villain's promises, but the poor beasts
+shall not suffer for his delinquencies.</p>
+
+<p>Our tent is in a charming spot, and, from without, makes a picture to be
+remembered. The yellow illumination from within strikes on the under sides
+of the walnut boughs, while the moonlight silvers them from above. Beyond
+gardens where the nightingales are singing, the tall minaret of Eregli
+stands revealed in the vapory glow. The night is too sweet and balmy for
+sleep, and yet I must close my eyes upon it, for the hot plains of
+Karamania await us to-morrow.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch19">
+<h2>Chapter XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Plains of Karamania.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Plains of Karamania--Afternoon Heat--A Well--Volcanic
+  Phenomena--Kara-bounar--A Grand Ruined Khan--Moonlight Picture--A
+  Landscape of the Plains-Mirages--A Short Interview--The Village of
+  Ismil---Third Day on the Plains--Approach to Konia.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "A weary waste, expanding to the skies."--Goldsmith.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Konia, Capital of Karamania, <i>Friday, June</i> 25, 1854.</h4>
+
+<p>Fran&ccedil;ois awoke us at the break of day, at Eregli, as we had a journey of
+twelve hours before us. Passing through the town, we traversed a narrow
+belt of garden and orchard land, and entered the great plain of Karamania.
+Our road led at first northward towards a range called Karadja Dagh, and
+then skirted its base westward. After three hours' travel we passed a
+village of neat, whitewashed houses, which were entirely deserted, all the
+inhabitants having gone off to the mountains. There were some herds
+scattered over the plain, near the village. As the day wore on, the wind,
+which had been chill in the morning, ceased, and the air became hot and
+sultry. The glare from the white soil was so painful that I was obliged to
+close my eyes, and so ran a continual risk of falling asleep and tumbling
+from my horse. Thus, drowsy and half unconscious of my whereabouts, I rode
+on in the heat and arid silence of the plain until noon, when we reached
+a well. It was a shaft, sunk about thirty feet deep, with a long, sloping
+gallery slanting off to the surface. The well was nearly dry, but by
+descending the gallery we obtained a sufficient supply of cold, pure
+water. We breakfasted in the shaded doorway, sharing our provisions with a
+Turcoman boy, who was accompanying his father to Eregli with a load of
+salt.</p>
+
+<p>Our road now crossed a long, barren pass, between two parts of Karadja
+Dagh. Near the northern side there was a salt lake of one hundred yards in
+diameter, sunk in a deep natural basin. The water was intensely saline. On
+the other side of the road, and a quarter of a mile distant, is an extinct
+volcano, the crater of which, near two hundred feet deep, is a salt lake,
+with a trachytic cone three hundred feet high rising from the centre. From
+the slope of the mountain we overlooked another and somewhat deeper plain,
+extending to the north and west. It was bounded by broken peaks, all of
+which betrayed a volcanic origin. Far before us we saw the tower on the
+hill of Kara-bounar, our resting-place for the night. The road thither was
+over a barren plain, cheered here and there by patches of a cushion-like
+plant, which was covered with pink blossoms. Mr. Harrison scared up some
+coveys of the frankolin, a large bird resembling the pheasant, and
+enriched our larder with a dozen starlings.</p>
+
+<p>Kara-bounar is built on the slope of a mound, at the foot of which stands
+a spacious mosque, visible far over the plain. It has a dome, and two
+tall, pencil-like towers, similar to those of the Citadel-mosque of Cairo.
+Near it are the remains of a magnificent khan-fortress, said to have been
+built by the eunuch of one of the former Sultans. As there was no water in
+the wells outside of the town, we entered the khan and pitched the tent
+in its grass-grown court. Six square pillars of hewn stone made an aisle
+to our door, and the lofty, roofless walls of the court, 100 by 150 feet,
+inclosed us. Another court, of similar size, communicated with it by a
+broad portal, and the remains of baths and bazaars lay beyond. A handsome
+stone fountain, with two streams of running water, stood in front of the
+khan. We were royally lodged, but almost starved in our splendor, as only
+two or three Turcomans remained out of two thousand (who had gone off with
+their herds to the mountains), and they were unable to furnish us with
+provisions. But for our frankolins and starlings we should have gone
+fasting.</p>
+
+<p>The mosque was a beautiful structure of white limestone, and the galleries
+of its minarets were adorned with rich arabesque ornaments. While the
+muezzin was crying his sunset-call to prayer, I entered the portico and
+looked into the interior, which was so bare as to appear incomplete. As we
+sat in our palace-court, after dinner, the moon arose, lighting up the
+niches in the walls, the clusters of windows in the immense eastern gable,
+and the rows of massive columns. The large dimensions of the building gave
+it a truly grand effect, and but for the whine of a distant jackal I could
+have believed that we were sitting in the aisles of a roofless Gothic
+cathedral, in the heart of Europe. Fran&ccedil;ois was somewhat fearful of
+thieves, but the peace and repose of the place we've so perfect that I
+would not allow any such apprehensions to disturb me. In two minutes after
+I touched my bed I was insensible, and I did not move a limb until
+sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Kara-bounar, there is a low, barren ridge, climbing which, we
+overlooked an immense plain, uncultivated, apparently unfertile, and
+without a sign of life as far as the eye could reach. Kara Dagh, in the
+south, lifted nearer us its cluster of dark summits; to the north, the
+long ridge of &Uuml;sedjik Dagh (the Pigmy Mountain) stretched like a cape into
+the plain; Hassan Dagh; wrapped in a soft white cloud, receded behind us,
+and the snows of Taurus seemed almost as distant as when we first beheld
+them from the Syrian Gates. We rode for four hours over the dead level,
+the only objects that met our eyes being an occasional herd of camels in
+the distance. About noon, we reached a well, similar to that of the
+previous day, but of recent construction. A long, steep gallery led down
+to the water, which was very cold, but had a villainous taste of lime,
+salt, and sulphur.</p>
+
+<p>After an hour's halt, we started again. The sun was intensely hot, and for
+hours we jogged on over the dead level, the bare white soil blinding our
+eyes with its glare. The distant hills were lifted above the horizon by a
+mirage. Long sheets of blue water were spread along their bases, islanding
+the isolated peaks, and turning into ships and boats the black specks of
+camels far away. But the phenomena were by no means on so grand a scale as
+I had seen in the Nubian Desert. On the south-western horizon, we
+discerned the summits of the Karaman range of Taurus, covered with snow.
+In the middle of the afternoon, we saw a solitary tent upon the plain,
+from which an individual advanced to meet us. As he drew nearer, we
+noticed that he wore white Frank pantaloons, similar to the Turkish
+soldiery, with a jacket of brown cloth, and a heavy sabre. When he was
+within convenient speaking distance, he cried out: "Stop! why are you
+running away from me?" "What do you call running away?" rejoined Fran&ccedil;ois;
+"we are going on our journey." "Where do you come from?" he then asked.
+"From there," said Fran&ccedil;ois, pointing behind us "Where are you going?"
+"There!" and the provoking Greek simply pointed forwards. "You have
+neither faith nor religion!" said the man, indignantly; then, turning upon
+his heel, he strode back across the plain.</p>
+
+<p>About four o'clock, we saw a long line of objects rising before us, but so
+distorted by the mirage that it was impossible to know what they were.
+After a while, however, we decided that they were houses interspersed with
+trees; but the trees proved to be stacks of hay and lentils, heaped on the
+flat roofs. This was Ismil, our halting-place. The houses were miserable
+mud huts; but the village was large, and, unlike most of those we have
+seen this side of Taurus, inhabited. The people are Turcomans, and their
+possessions appear to be almost entirely in their herds. Immense numbers
+of sheep and goats were pasturing on the plain. There were several wells
+in the place, provided with buckets attached to long swing-poles; the
+water was very cold, but brackish. Our tent was pitched on the plain, on a
+hard, gravelly strip of soil. A crowd of wild-haired Turcoman boys
+gathered in front, to stare at us, and the shepherds quarrelled at the
+wells, as to which should take his turn at watering his flocks. In the
+evening a handsome old Turk visited us, and, finding that we were bound to
+Constantinople, requested Fran&ccedil;ois to take a letter to his son, who was
+settled there.</p>
+
+<p>Fran&ccedil;ois aroused us this morning before the dawn, as we had a journey of
+thirty-five miles before us. He was in a bad humor; for a man, whom he had
+requested to keep watch over his tent, while he went into the village, had
+stolen a fork and spoon. The old Turk, who had returned as soon as we
+were stirring, went out to hunt the thief, but did not succeed in finding
+him. The inhabitants of the village were up long before sunrise, and
+driving away in their wooden-wheeled carts to the meadows where they cut
+grass. The old Turk accompanied us some distance, in order to show us a
+nearer way, avoiding a marshy spot. Our road lay over a vast plain,
+seemingly boundless, for the lofty mountain-ranges that surrounded it on
+all sides were so distant and cloud-like, and so lifted from the horizon
+by the deceptive mirage, that the eye did not recognize their connection
+with it. The wind blew strongly from the north-west, and was so cold that
+I dismounted and walked ahead for two or three hours.</p>
+
+<p>Before noon, we passed two villages of mud huts, partly inhabited, and
+with some wheat-fields around them. We breakfasted at another well, which
+furnished us with a drink that tasted like iced sea-water. Thence we rode
+forth again into the heat, for the wind had fallen by this time, and the
+sun shone out with great force. There was ever the same dead level, and we
+rode directly towards the mountains, which, to my eyes, seemed nearly as
+distant as ever. At last, there was a dark glimmer through the mirage, at
+their base, and a half-hour's ride showed it to be a line of trees. In
+another hour, we could distinguish a minaret or two, and finally, walls
+and the stately domes of mosques. This was Konia, the ancient Iconium, one
+of the most renowned cities of Asia Minor.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch20">
+<h2>Chapter XX</h2>
+
+<h3>Scenes in Konia.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Kpproach to Konia---Tomb of Hazret Mevlana--Lodgings in a Khan--An
+  American Luxury--A Night-Scene in Ramazan--Prayers in the
+  Mosque--Remains of the Ancient City--View from the Mosque--The
+  Interior--A Leaning Minaret--The Diverting History of the Muleteers.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "But they shook off the dust on their feet, and came unto
+  Iconium."--Acts, xiii. 51.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Konia (Ancient Iconium), <i>June</i> 27, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>The view of Konia from the plain is not striking until one has approached
+within a mile of the suburbs, when the group of mosques, with their heavy
+central domes lifted on clusters of smaller ones, and their tall, light,
+glittering minarets, rising above the foliage of the gardens, against the
+background of airy hills, has a very pleasing effect. We approached
+through a long line of dirty suburbs, which looked still more forlorn on
+account of the Ramazan. Some Turkish officials, in shabby Frank dresses,
+followed us to satisfy their curiosity by talking with our <i>Katurjees</i>, or
+muleteers. Outside the city walls, we passed some very large barracks for
+cavalry, built by Ibrahim Pasha. On the plain north-east of the city, the
+battle between him and the forces of the Sultan, resulting in the defeat
+of the latter, was fought.</p>
+
+<p>We next came upon two magnificent mosques, built of white limestone, with
+a multitude of leaden domes and lofty minarets, adorned with galleries
+rich in arabesque ornaments. Attached to one of them is the tomb, of
+Hazret Mevlana, the founder of the sect of Mevlevi Dervishes, which is
+reputed one of the most sacred places in the East. The tomb is surmounted
+by a dome, upon which stands a tall cylindrical tower, reeded, with
+channels between each projection, and terminating in a long, tapering
+cone. This tower is made of glazed tiles, of the most brilliant sea-blue
+color, and sparkles in the sun like a vast pillar of icy spar in some
+Polar grotto. It is a most striking and fantastic object, surrounded by a
+cluster of minarets and several cypress-trees, amid which it seems placed
+as the central ornament and crown of the group.</p>
+
+<p>The aspect of the city was so filthy and uninviting that we preferred
+pitching our tent; but it was impossible to find a place without going
+back upon the plain; so we turned into the bazaar, and asked the way to a
+khan. There was a tolerable crowd in the street, although many of the
+shops were shut. The first khan we visited was too filthy to enter; but
+the second, though most unpromising in appearance, turned out to be better
+than it looked. The <i>oda-bashi</i> (master of the rooms) thoroughly swept and
+sprinkled the narrow little chamber he gave us, laid clean mats upon the
+floor, and, when our carpets and beds were placed within, its walls of mud
+looked somewhat comfortable. Its single window, with an iron grating in
+lieu of glass, looked upon an oblong court, on the second story,
+surrounded by the rooms of Armenian merchants. The main court (the gate of
+which is always closed at sunset) is two stories in height, with a rough
+wooden balcony running around it, and a well of muddy water in the centre.</p>
+
+<p>The oda-bashi lent us a Turkish table and supplied us with dinner from
+his own kitchen; kibabs, stewed beans, and cucumber salad. Mr. H. and I,
+forgetting the Ramazan, went out to hunt for an iced sherbet; but all the
+coffee-shops were closed until sunset. The people stared at our Egyptian
+costumes, and a fellow in official dress demanded my <i>tesker&eacute;</i>. Soon after
+we returned, Fran&ccedil;ois appeared with a splendid lump of ice in a basin and
+some lemons. The ice, so the <i>khangee</i> said, is taken from a lake among
+the mountains, which in winter freezes to the thickness of a foot. Behind
+the lake is a natural cavern, which the people fill with ice, and then
+close up. At this season they take it out, day by day, and bring it down
+to the city. It is very pure and thick, and justifies the Turkish proverb
+in regard to Konia, which is celebrated for three excellent things:
+"<i>dooz, booz, k&uuml;z</i>"--salt, ice, and girls.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after sunset, a cannon announced the close of the fast. We waited an
+hour or two longer, to allow the people time to eat, and then sallied out
+into the streets. Every minaret in the city blazed with a crown of lighted
+lamps around its upper gallery, while the long shafts below, and the
+tapering cones above, topped with brazen crescents, shone fair in the
+moonlight. It was a strange, brilliant spectacle. In the square before the
+principal mosque we found a crowd of persons frolicking around the
+fountain, in the light of a number of torches on poles planted in the
+ground. Mats were spread on the stones, and rows of Turks of all classes
+sat thereon, smoking their pipes. Large earthen water-jars stood here and
+there, and the people drank so often and so long that they seemed
+determined to provide against the morrow. The boys were having their
+amusement in wrestling, shouting and firing off squibs, which they threw
+into the crowd. We kicked off our slippers, sat down among the Turks,
+smoked a narghileh, drank a cup of coffee and an iced sherbet of raisin
+juice, and so enjoyed the Ramazan as well as the best of them.</p>
+
+<p>Numbers of True Believers were drinking and washing themselves at the
+picturesque fountain, and just as we rose to depart, the voice of a
+boy-muezzin, on one of the tallest minarets, sent down a musical call to
+prayer. Immediately the boys left off their sports and started on a run
+for the great mosque, and the grave, gray-bearded Turks got up from the
+mats, shoved on their slippers, and marched after them. We followed,
+getting a glimpse of the illuminated interior of the building, as we
+passed; but the oda-bashi conducted us still further, to a smaller though
+more beautiful mosque, surrounded with a garden-court. It was a truly
+magical picture. We entered the gate, and passed on by a marble pavement,
+under trees and arbors of vines that almost shut out the moonlight, to a
+paved space, in the centre whereof was a beautiful fountain, in the purest
+Saracenic style. Its heavy, projecting cornices and tall pyramidal roof
+rested on a circle of elegant arches, surrounding a marble structure,
+whence the water gushed forth in a dozen sparkling streams. On three sides
+it was inclosed by the moonlit trees and arbors; on the fourth by the
+outer corridor of the mosque, the door of entrance being exactly opposite.</p>
+
+<p>Large numbers of persons were washing their hands and feet at the
+fountain, after which they entered and knelt on the floor. We stood
+unobserved in the corridor, and looked in on the splendidly illuminated
+interior and the crowd at prayer, all bending their bodies to the earth at
+regular intervals and murmuring the name of Allah. They resembled a
+plain, of reeds bending before the gusts of wind which precede a storm.
+When all had entered and were united in solemn prayer, we returned,
+passing the grand mosque. I stole up to the door, lifted the heavy carpet
+that hung before it, and looked in. There was a Mevlevi Dervish standing
+in the entrance, but his eyes were lifted in heavenly abstraction, and he
+did not see me. The interior was brilliantly lit by white and colored
+lamps, suspended from the walls and the great central dome. It was an
+imposing structure, simple in form, yet grand from its dimensions. The
+floor was covered with kneeling figures, and a deep voice, coming from the
+other end of the mosque, was uttering pious phrases in a kind of chant. I
+satisfied my curiosity quickly, and we then returned to the khan.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday afternoon I made a more thorough examination of the city.
+Passing through the bazaars, I reached the Serai, or Pasha's Palace, which
+stands on the site of that of the Sultans of Iconium. It is a long, wooden
+building, with no pretensions to architectural beauty. Near it there is a
+large and ancient mosque, with a minaret of singular elegance. It is about
+120 feet high, with two hanging galleries; the whole built of blue and red
+bricks, the latter projecting so as to form quaint patterns or designs.
+Several ancient buildings near this mosque are surmounted with pyramidal
+towers, resembling Pagodas of India. Following the long, crooked lanes
+between mud buildings, we passed these curious structures and reached the
+ancient wall of the city. In one of the streets lay a marble lion, badly
+executed, and apparently of the time of the Lower Empire. In the wall were
+inserted many similar figures, with fragments of friezes and cornices.
+This is the work of the Seljook Kings, who, in building the wall, took
+great pains to exhibit the fragments of the ancient city. The number of
+altars they have preserved is quite remarkable. On the square towers are
+sunken tablets, containing long Arabic inscriptions.</p>
+
+<p>The high walls of a ruined building in the southern part of the city
+attracted us, and on going thither we found it to be an ancient mosque,
+standing on an eminence formed apparently of the debris of other
+buildings. Part of the wall was also ancient, and in some places showed
+the marks of an earthquake. A long flight of steps led up to the door of
+the mosque, and as we ascended we were rewarded by the most charming view
+of the city and the grand plain. Konia lay at our feet--a wide, straggling
+array of low mud dwellings, dotted all over with patches of garden
+verdure, while its three superb mosques, with the many smaller tombs and
+places of worship, appeared like buildings left from some former and more
+magnificent capital. Outside of this circle ran a belt of garden land,
+adorned with groves and long lines of fruit trees; still further, the
+plain, a sea of faded green, flecked with the softest cloud-shadows, and
+beyond all, the beautiful outlines and dreamy tints of the different
+mountain chains. It was in every respect a lovely landscape, and the city
+is unworthy such surroundings. The sky, which in this region is of a pale,
+soft, delicious blue, was dotted with scattered fleeces of white clouds,
+and there was an exquisite play of light and shade over the hills.</p>
+
+<p>There were half a dozen men and boys about the door, amusing themselves
+with bursting percussion caps on the stone. They addressed us as
+"<i>hadji</i>!" (pilgrims), begging for more caps. I told them I was not a
+Turk, but an Arab, which they believed at once, and requested me to enter
+the mosque. The interior had a remarkably fine effect. It was a maze of
+arches, supported by columns of polished black marble, forty in number. In
+form it was nearly square, and covered with a flat, wooden roof. The floor
+was covered with a carpet, whereon several persons were lying at full
+length, while an old man, seated in one of the most remote corners, was
+reading in a loud, solemn voice. It is a peculiar structure, which I
+should be glad to examine more in detail.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from this eminence is a remarkable leaning minaret, more than a
+hundred feet in height, while in diameter it cannot be more than fifteen
+feet. In design it is light and elegant, and the effect is not injured by
+its deviation from the perpendicular, which I should judge to be about six
+feet. From the mosque we walked over the mounds of old Iconium to the
+eastern wall, passing another mosque, wholly in ruin, but which must have
+once been more splendid than any now standing. The portal is the richest
+specimen of Saracenic sculpture I have ever seen: a very labyrinth of
+intricate ornaments. The artist must have seen the great portal of the
+Temple of the Sun at Baalbec. The minarets have tumbled down, the roof has
+fallen in, but the walls are still covered with white and blue tiles, of
+the finest workmanship, resembling a mosaic of ivory and lapis lazuli.
+Some of the chambers seem to be inhabited, for two old men with white
+beards lay in the shade, and were not a little startled by our sudden
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>We returned to the great mosque, which we had visited on the evening of
+our arrival, and listened for some time to the voice of a mollah who was
+preaching an afternoon sermon to a small and hungry congregation. We then
+entered the court before the tomb of Hazret Mevlana. It was apparently
+forbidden ground to Christians, but as the Dervishes did not seem to
+suspect us we walked about boldly, and were about to enter, when an
+indiscretion of my companion frustrated our plans. Forgetting his assumed
+character, he went to the fountain and drank, although it was no later
+than the <i>asser</i>, or afternoon prayer. The Dervishes were shocked and
+scandalized by this violation of the fast, in the very court-yard of their
+holiest mosque, and we judged it best to retire by degrees. We sent this
+morning to request an interview with the Pasha, but he had gone to pass
+the day in a country palace, about three hours distant. It is a still,
+hot, bright afternoon, and the silence of the famished populace disposes
+us to repose. Our view is bounded by the mud walls of the khan, and I
+already long for the freedom of the great Karamanian Plain. Here, in the
+heart of Asia Minor, all life seems to stagnate. There is sleep
+everywhere, and I feel that a wide barrier separates me from the living
+world.</p>
+
+<p>We have been detained here a whole day, through a chain of accidents, all
+resulting from the rascality of our muleteers on leaving Aleppo. The lame
+horse they palmed upon us was unable to go further, so we obliged them to
+buy another animal, which they succeeded in getting for 350 piastres. We
+advanced the money, although they were still in our debt, hoping to work
+our way through with the new horse, and thus avoid the risk of loss or
+delay. But this morning at sunrise Hadji Youssuf comes with a woeful face
+to say that the new horse has been stolen in the night, and we, who are
+ready to start, must sit down and wait till he is recovered. I suspected
+another trick, but when, after the lapse of three hours, Fran&ccedil;ois found
+the hadji sitting on the ground, weeping, and Achmet beating his breast,
+it seemed probable that the story was true. All search for the horse being
+vain, Fran&ccedil;ois went with them to the shekh of the horses, who promised, in
+case it should hereafter be found, to place it in the general pen, where
+they would be sure to get it on their return. The man who sold them the
+horse offered them another for the lame one and 150 piastres, and there
+was no other alternative but to accept it. But <i>we</i> must advance the 150
+piastres, and so, in mid-journey, we have already paid them to the end,
+with the risk of their horses breaking down, or they, horses and all,
+absconding from us. But the knavish varlets are hardly bold enough for
+such a climax of villany.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch21">
+<h2>Chapter XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Heart of Asia Minor.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Scenery of the Hills--Ladik, the Ancient Laodicea--The Plague of
+  Gad-Flies--Camp at Ilg&uuml;n--A Natural Warm Bath--The Gad-Flies Again--A
+  Summer Landscape--Ak-Sheher--The Base of Sultan Dagh--The Fountain of
+  Midas--A Drowsy Journey--The Town of Bolawad&uuml;n.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"By the forests, lakes, and fountains,<br />
+Though the many-folded mountains." Shelley.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Bolawad&uuml;n, <i>July</i> 1, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Our men brought all the beasts into the court-yard of the khan at Konia,
+the evening before our departure, so that no more were stolen during the
+night. The oda-bashi, indefatigable to the last in his attention to us,
+not only helped load the mules, but accompanied us some distance on our
+way. All the merchants in the khan collected in the gallery to see us
+start, and we made our exit in some state. The morning was clear, fresh,
+and delightful. Turning away from the city walls, we soon emerged from the
+lines of fruit-trees and interminable fields of tomb-stones, and came out
+upon the great bare plain of Karamania. A ride of three hours brought us
+to a long, sloping hill, which gave us a view of the whole plain, and its
+circuit of mountains. A dark line in the distance marked the gardens of
+Konia. On the right, near the centre of the plain, the lake, now
+contracted to very narrow limits, glimmered in the sun. Notwithstanding
+the waste and unfertile appearance of the country, the soft, sweet sky
+that hangs over it, the pure, transparent air, the grand sweep of the
+plain, and the varied forms of the different mountain chains that
+encompass it, make our journey an inspiring one. A descent of the hills
+soon shut out the view; and the rest of the day's journey lay among them,
+skirting the eastern base of Allah Dagh.</p>
+
+<p>The country improved in character, as we advanced. The bottoms of the dry
+glens were covered with wheat, and shrubbery began to make its appearance
+on the mountain-sides In the afternoon, we crossed a watershed, dividing
+Karamania from the great central plain of Asia Minor, and descended to a
+village called Ladik, occupying the site of the ancient Laodicea, at the
+foot of Allah Dagh. The plain upon which we came was greener and more
+flourishing than that we had left. Trees were scattered here and there in
+clumps, and the grassy wastes, stretching beyond the grain-fields, were
+dotted with herds of cattle. Emir Dagh stood in the north-west, blue and
+distant, while, towards the north and north-east, the plain extended to
+the horizon--a horizon fifty miles distant--without a break. In that
+direction lay the great salt lake of Y&uuml;zler, and the strings of camels we
+met on the road, laden with salt, were returning from it. Ladik is
+surrounded with poppy-fields, brilliant with white and purple blossoms.
+When the petals have fallen, the natives go carefully over the whole field
+and make incisions in every stalk, whence the opium exudes.</p>
+
+<p>We pitched our tent under a large walnut tree, which we found standing in
+a deserted inclosure. The graveyard of the village is studded with relics
+of the ancient town. There are pillars, cornices, entablatures, jambs,
+altars, mullions and sculptured tablets, all of white marble, and many of
+them in an excellent state of preservation. They appear to date from the
+early time of the Lower Empire, and the cross has not yet been effaced
+from some which serve as head-stones for the True Believers. I was
+particularly struck with the abundance of altars, some of which contained
+entire and legible inscriptions. In the town there is the same abundance
+of ruins. The lid of a sarcophagus, formed of a single block of marble,
+now serves as a water-trough, and the fountain is constructed of ancient
+tablets. The town stands on a mound which appears to be composed entirely
+of the debris of the former place, and near the summit there are many
+holes which the inhabitants have dug in their search for rings, seals and
+other relics.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we made a journey of nine hours over a hilly country lying
+between the ranges of Allah Dagh and Emir Dagh. There were wells of
+excellent water along the road, at intervals of an hour or two. The day
+was excessively hot and sultry during the noon hours, and the flies were
+so bad as to give great inconvenience to our horses. The animal I bestrode
+kicked so incessantly that I could scarcely keep my seat. His belly was
+swollen and covered with clotted blood, from their bites. The hadji's mule
+began to show symptoms of illness, and we had great difficulty in keeping
+it on its legs. Mr. Harrison bled it in the mouth, as a last resource, and
+during the afternoon it partly recovered.</p>
+
+<p>An hour before sunset we reached Ilg&uuml;n, a town on the plain, at the foot
+of one of the spurs of Emir Dagh. To the west of it there is a lake of
+considerable size, which receives the streams that flow through the town
+and water its fertile gardens. We passed through the town and pitched our
+tent upon a beautiful grassy meadow. Our customary pipe of refreshment was
+never more heartily enjoyed than at this place. Behind us was a barren
+hill, at the foot of which was a natural hot bath, wherein a number of
+women and children were amusing themselves. The afternoon heat had passed
+away, the air was calm, sweet, and tempered with the freshness of coming
+evening, and the long shadows of the hills, creeping over the meadows, had
+almost reached the town. Beyond the line of sycamore, poplar and fig-trees
+that shaded the gardens of Ilg&uuml;n, rose the distant chain of Allah Dagh,
+and in the pale-blue sky, not far above it, the dim face of the gibbous
+moon showed like the ghost of a planet. Our horses were feeding on the
+green meadow; an old Turk sat beside us, silent with fasting, and there
+was no sound but the shouts of the children in the bath. Such hours as
+these, after a day's journey made in the drowsy heat of an Eastern summer,
+are indescribably grateful.</p>
+
+<p>After the women had retired from the bath, we were allowed to enter. The
+interior consisted of a single chamber, thirty feet high, vaulted and
+almost dark. In the centre was a large basin of hot water, filled by four
+streams which poured into it. A ledge ran around the sides, and niches in
+the wall supplied places for our clothes. The bath-keeper furnished us
+with towels, and we undressed and plunged in. The water was agreeably warm
+(about 90&deg;), had a sweet taste, and a very slight sulphury smell. The
+vaulted hall redoubled the slightest noise, and a shaven Turk, who kept us
+company, sang in his delight, that he might hear the echo of his own
+voice. When we went back to the tent we found our visitor lying on the
+ground, trying to stay his hunger. It was rather too bad in us to light
+our pipes, make a sherbet and drink and smoke in his face, while we joked
+him about the Ramazan; and he at last got up and walked off, the picture
+of distress.</p>
+
+<p>We made an early start the next morning, and rode on briskly over the
+rolling, grassy hills. A beautiful lake, with an island in it, lay at the
+foot of Emir Dagh. After two hours we reached a guard-house, where our
+<i>tesker&eacute;s</i> were demanded, and the lazy guardsman invited us in to take
+coffee, that he might establish a right to the backsheesh which he could
+not demand. He had seen us afar off, and the coffee was smoking in the
+<i>finjans</i> when we arrived. The sun was already terribly hot, and the
+large, green gad-flies came in such quantities that I seemed to be riding
+in the midst of a swarm of bees. My horse suffered very much, and struck
+out his hind feet so violently, in his endeavors to get rid of them, that
+he racked every joint in my body. They were not content with sucking his
+blood, but settling on the small segment of my calf, exposed between the
+big Tartar boot and the flowing trowsers, bit through my stockings with
+fierce bills. I killed hundreds of them, to no purpose, and at last, to
+relieve my horse, tied a bunch of hawthorn to a string, by which I swung
+it under his belly and against the inner side of his flanks. In this way I
+gave him some relief--a service which he acknowledged by a grateful motion
+of his head.</p>
+
+<p>As we descended towards Ak-Sheher the country became exceedingly rich and
+luxuriant. The range of Sultan Dagh (the Mountain of the Sultan) rose on
+our left, its sides covered with a thick screen of shrubbery, and its
+highest peak dotted with patches of snow; opposite, the lower range of
+Emir Dagh (the Mountain of the Prince) lay blue and bare in the sun
+shine. The base of Sultan Dagh was girdled with groves of fruit-trees,
+stretching out in long lines on the plain, with fields of ripening wheat
+between. In the distance the large lake of Ak-Sheher glittered in the sun.
+Towards the north-west, the plain stretched away for fifty miles before
+reaching the hills. It is evidently on a much lower level than the plain
+of Konia; the heat was not only greater, but the season was further
+advanced. Wheat was nearly ready for cutting, and the poppy-fields where,
+the day previous, the men were making their first incisions for opium,
+here had yielded their harvest and were fast ripening their seed.
+Ak-Sheher is beautifully situated at the entrance of a deep gorge in the
+mountains. It is so buried in its embowered gardens that little, except
+the mosque, is seen as you approach it. It is a large place, and boasts a
+fine mosque, but contains nothing worth seeing. The bazaar, after that of
+Konia, was the largest we had seen since leaving Tarsus. The greater part
+of the shopkeepers lay at full length, dozing, sleeping, or staying their
+appetites till the sunset gun. We found some superb cherries, and plenty
+of snow, which is brought down from the mountain. The natives were very
+friendly and good-humored, but seemed surprised at Mr. Harrison tasting
+the cherries, although I told them we were upon a journey. Our tent was
+pitched under a splendid walnut tree, outside of the town. The green
+mountain rose between us and the fading sunset, and the yellow moon was
+hanging in the east, as we took our dinner at the tent-door. Turks were
+riding homewards on donkeys, with loads of grass which they had been
+cutting in the meadows. The gun was fired, and the shouts of the children
+announced the close of the day's fast, while the sweet, melancholy voice
+of a boy muezzin called us to sunset prayer, from the minaret.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Ak-Sheher this morning, we rode along the base of Sultan Dagh. The
+plain which we overlooked was magnificent. The wilderness of shrubbery
+which fringed the slopes of the mountain gave place to great orchards and
+gardens, interspersed with fields of grain, which extended far out on the
+plain, to the wild thickets and wastes of reeds surrounding the lake. The
+sides of Sultan Dagh were terraced and cultivated wherever it was
+practicable, and I saw some fields of wheat high up on the mountain. There
+were many, people in the road or laboring in the fields; and during the
+forenoon we passed several large villages. The country is more thickly
+inhabited, and has a more thrifty and prosperous air than any part of Asia
+Minor which I have seen. The people are better clad, have more open,
+honest, cheerful and intelligent faces, and exhibit a genuine courtesy and
+good-will in their demeanor towards us. I never felt more perfectly
+secure, or more certain of being among people whom I could trust.</p>
+
+<p>We passed under the summit of Sultan Dagh, which shone out so clear and
+distinct in the morning sun, that I could scarcely realize its actual
+height above the plain. From a tremendous gorge, cleft between the two
+higher peaks, issued a large stream, which, divided into a hundred
+channels, fertilizes a wide extent of plain. About two hours from
+Ak-Sheher we passed a splendid fountain of crystal water, gushing up
+beside the road. I believe it is the same called by some travellers the
+Fountain of Midas, but am ignorant wherefore the name is given it. We rode
+for several hours through a succession of grand, rich landscapes. A
+smaller lake succeeded to that of Ak-Sheher, Emir Dagh rose higher in the
+pale-blue sky, and Sultan Dagh showed other peaks, broken and striped with
+snow; but around us were the same glorious orchards and gardens, the same
+golden-green wheat and rustling phalanxes of poppies--armies of vegetable
+Round-heads, beside the bristling and bearded Cavaliers. The sun was
+intensely hot during the afternoon, as we crossed the plain, and I became
+so drowsed that it required an agony of exertion to keep from tumbling off
+my horse. We here left the great post-road to Constantinople, and took a
+less frequented track. The plain gradually became a meadow, covered with
+shrub cypress, flags, reeds, and wild water-plants. There were vast wastes
+of luxuriant grass, whereon thousands of black buffaloes were feeding. A
+stone causeway, containing many elegant fragments of ancient sculpture,
+extended across this part of the plain, but we took a summer path beside
+it, through beds of iris in bloom--a fragile snowy blossom, with a lip of
+the clearest golden hue. The causeway led to a bare salt plain, beyond
+which we came to the town of Bolawad&uuml;n, and terminated our day's journey
+of forty miles.</p>
+
+<p>Bolawad&uuml;n is a collection of mud houses, about a mile long, situated on an
+eminence at the western base of Emir Dagh. I went into the bazaar, which
+was a small place, and not very well supplied, though, as it was near
+sunset, there was quite a crowd of people, and the bakers were shovelling
+out their fresh bread at a brisk rate. Every one took me for a good
+Egyptian Mohammedan, and I was jostled right and left among the turbans,
+in a manner that certainly would not have happened me had I not also worn
+one. Mr. H., who had fallen behind the caravan, came up after we had
+encamped, and might have wandered a long time without finding us, but for
+the good-natured efforts of the inhabitants to set him aright. This
+evening he knocked over a hedgehog, mistaking it for a cat. The poor
+creature was severely hurt, and its sobs of distress, precisely like those
+of a little child, were to painful to hear, that we were obliged to have
+it removed from the vicinity of the tent.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch22">
+<h2>Chapter XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Forests of Phrygia.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Frontier of Phrygia--Ancient Quarries and Tombs--We Enter the Pine
+  Forests--A Guard-House--Encampments of the Turcomans--Pastoral
+  Scenery--A Summer Village--The Valley of the Tombs--Rock Sepulchres of
+  the Phrygian Kings--The Titan's Camp--The Valley of K&uuml;mbeh--A Land of
+  Flowers--Turcoman Hospitality--The Exiled Effendis--The Old Turcoman--A
+  Glimpse of Arcadia--A Landscape--Interested Friendship--The Valley of
+  the Pursek--Arrival at Kiutahya.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "And round us all the thicket rang
+  To many a flute of Arcady." Tennyson.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Kiutahya, <i>July</i> 5, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>We had now passed through the ancient provinces of Cilicia, Cappadocia,
+and Lycaonia, and reached the confines of Phrygia--a rude mountain region,
+which was never wholly penetrated by the light of Grecian civilization. It
+is still comparatively a wilderness, pierced but by a single high-road,
+and almost unvisited by travellers, yet inclosing in its depths many
+curious relics of antiquity. Leaving Bolawad&uuml;n in the morning, we ascended
+a long, treeless mountain-slope, and in three or four hours reached the
+dividing ridge---the watershed of Asia Minor, dividing the affluents of
+the Mediterranean and the central lakes from the streams that flow to the
+Black Sea. Looking back, Sultan Dagh, along whose base we had travelled
+the previous day, lay high and blue in the background, streaked with
+shining snow, and far away behind it arose a still higher peak, hoary with
+the lingering winter. We descended into a grassy plain, shut in by a range
+of broken mountains, covered to their summits with dark-green shrubbery,
+through which the strata of marble rock gleamed like patches of snow. The
+hills in front were scarred with old quarries, once worked for the
+celebrated Phrygian marble. There was neither a habitation nor a human
+being to be seen, and the landscape had a singularly wild, lonely, and
+picturesque air.</p>
+
+<p>Turning westward, we crossed a high rolling tract, and entered a valley
+entirely covered with dwarf oaks and cedars. In spite of the dusty road,
+the heat, and the multitude of gad-flies, the journey presented an
+agreeable contrast to the great plains over which we had been travelling
+for many days. The opposite side of the glen was crowned with a tall crest
+of shattered rock, in which were many old Phrygian tombs. They were mostly
+simple chambers, with square apertures. There were traces of many more,
+the rock having been blown up or quarried down--the tombs, instead of
+protecting it, only furnishing one facility the more for destruction.
+After an hour's rest at a fountain, we threaded the windings of the glen
+to a lower plain, quite shut in by the hills, whose ribs of marble showed
+through the forests of oak, holly, cedar, and pine, which dotted them. We
+were now fully entered into the hill-country, and our road passed over
+heights and through hollows covered with picturesque clumps of foliage. It
+resembled some of the wild western downs of America, and, but for the
+Phrygian tombs, whose doorways stared at us from every rock, seemed as
+little familiar with the presence of Man.</p>
+
+<p>Hadji Youssuf, in stopping to arrange some of the baggage, lost his hold
+of his mule, and in spite of every effort to secure her, the provoking
+beast kept her liberty for the rest of the day. In vain did we head her
+off, chase her, coax her, set traps for her: she was too cunning to be
+taken in, and marched along at her ease, running into every field of
+grain, stopping to crop the choicest bunches of grass, or walking demurely
+in the caravan, allowing the hadji to come within arm's length before she
+kicked up her heels and dashed away again. We had a long chase through the
+clumps of oak and holly, but all to no purpose. The great green gad-flies
+swarmed around us, biting myself as well as my horse. Hecatombs, crushed
+by my whip, dropped dead in the dust, but the ranks were immediately
+filled from some invisible reserve. The soil was no longer bare, but
+entirely covered with grass and flowers. In one of the valleys I saw a
+large patch of the crimson larkspur, so thick as to resemble a pool of
+blood. While crossing a long, hot hill, we came upon a little arbor of
+stones, covered with pine branches. It inclosed an ancient sarcophagus of
+marble, nearly filled with water. Beside it stood a square cup, with a
+handle, rudely hewn out of a piece of pine wood. This was a charitable
+provision for travellers, and constantly supplied by the Turcomans who
+lived in the vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>The last two hours of our journey that day were through a glorious forest
+of pines. The road lay in a winding glen, green and grassy, and covered to
+the summits on both sides with beautiful pine trees, intermixed with
+cedar. The air had the true northern aroma, and was more grateful than
+wine. Every turn of the glen disclosed a charming woodland view. It was a
+wild valley of the northern hills, filled with the burning lustre of a
+summer sun, and canopied by the brilliant blue of a summer sky. There were
+signs of the woodman's axe, and the charred embers of forest camp-fires. I
+thought of the lovely <i>ca&ntilde;adas</i> in the pine forests behind Monterey, and
+could really have imagined myself there. Towards evening we reached a
+solitary guard-house, on the edge of the forest. The glen here opened a
+little, and a stone fountain of delicious water furnished all that we
+wanted for a camping-place. The house was inhabited by three soldiers;
+sturdy, good-humored fellows, who immediately spread a mat in the shade
+for us and made us some excellent coffee. A Turcoman encampment in the
+neighborhood supplied us with milk and eggs.</p>
+
+<p>The guardsmen were good Mussulmans, and took us for the same. One of them
+asked me to let him know when the sun was down, and I prolonged his fast
+until it was quite dark, when I gave him permission to eat. They all had
+tolerable stallions for their service, and seemed to live pleasantly
+enough, in their wild way. The fat, stumpy corporal, with his enormously
+broad pantaloons and automaton legs, went down to the fountain with his
+musket, and after taking a rest and sighting full five minutes, fired at a
+dove without hitting it. He afterwards joined us in a social pipe, and we
+sat on a carpet at the door of the guard-house, watching the splendid
+moonrise through the pine boughs. When the pipes had burned out I went to
+bed, and slept a long, sweet sleep until dawn.</p>
+
+<p>We knew that the tombs of the Phrygian Kings could not be far off, and, on
+making inquiries of the corporal, found that he knew the place. It was not
+four hours distant, by a by-road and as it would be impossible to reach
+it without a guide, he would give us one of his men, in consideration of a
+fee of twenty piastres. The difficulty was evident, in a hilly, wooded
+country like this, traversed by a labyrinth of valleys and ravines, and so
+we accepted the soldier. As we were about leaving, an old Turcoman, whose
+beard was dyed a bright red, came up, saying that he knew Mr. H. was a
+physician, and could cure him of his deafness. The morning air was sweet
+with the breath of cedar and pine, and we rode on through the woods and
+over the open turfy glades, in high spirits. We were in the heart of a
+mountainous country, clothed with evergreen forests, except some open
+upland tracts, which showed a thick green turf, dotted all over with
+park-like clumps, and single great trees. The pines were noble trunks,
+often sixty to eighty feet high, and with boughs disposed in all possible
+picturesqueness of form. The cedar frequently showed a solid white bole,
+three feet in diameter.</p>
+
+<p>We took a winding footpath, often a mere track, striking across the hills
+in a northern direction. Everywhere we met the Turks of the plain, who are
+now encamped in the mountains, to tend their flocks through the summer
+months. Herds of sheep and goats were scattered over the green
+pasture-slopes, and the idle herd-boys basked in the morning sun, playing
+lively airs on a reed flute, resembling the Arabic <i>zumarra</i>. Here and
+there was a woodman, busy at a recently felled tree, and we met several of
+the creaking carts of the country, hauling logs. All that we saw had a
+pleasant rural air, a smack of primitive and unsophisticated life. From
+the higher ridges over which we passed, we could see, far to the east and
+west, other ranges of pine-covered mountains, and in the distance the
+cloudy lines of loftier chains. The trunks of the pines were nearly all
+charred, and many of the smaller trees dead, from the fires which, later
+in the year, rage in these forests.</p>
+
+<p>After four hours of varied and most inspiring travel, we reached a
+district covered for the most part with oak woods--a more open though
+still mountainous region. There was a summer village of Turks scattered
+over the nearest slope--probably fifty houses in all, almost perfect
+counterparts of Western log-cabins. They were built of pine logs, laid
+crosswise, and covered with rough boards. These, as we were told, were the
+dwellings of the people who inhabit the village of Khosref Pasha Khan
+during the winter. Great numbers of sheep and goats were browsing over the
+hills or lying around the doors of the houses. The latter were beautiful
+creatures, with heavy, curved horns, and long, white, silky hair, that
+entirely hid their eyes. We stopped at a house for water, which the man
+brought out in a little cask. He at first proposed giving us <i>yaourt</i>, and
+his wife suggested <i>ka&iuml;mak</i> (sweet curds), which we agreed to take, but it
+proved to be only boiled milk.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the village, we took a path leading westward, mounted a long hill,
+and again entered the pine forests. Before long, we came to a well-built
+country-house, somewhat resembling a Swiss cottage. It was two stories
+high, and there was an upper balcony, with cushioned divans, overlooking a
+thriving garden-patch and some fruit-trees. Three or four men were weeding
+in the garden, and the owner came up and welcomed us. A fountain of
+ice-cold water gushed into a stone trough at the door, making a tempting
+spot for our breakfast, but we were bent on reaching the tombs. There were
+convenient out-houses for fowls, sheep, and cattle. The herds were out,
+grazing along the edges of the forest, and we heard the shrill, joyous
+melodies of the flutes blown by the herd-boys.</p>
+
+<p>We now reached a ridge, whence we looked down through the forest upon a
+long valley, nearly half a mile wide, and bordered on the opposite side by
+ranges of broken sandstone crags. This was the place we sought--the Valley
+of the Phrygian Tombs. Already we could distinguish the hewn faces of the
+rocks, and the dark apertures to the chambers within. The bottom of the
+valley was a bed of glorious grass, blazoned with flowers, and redolent of
+all vernal smells. Several peasants, finding it too hot to mow, had thrown
+their scythes along the swarths, and were lying in the shade of an oak. We
+rode over the new-cut hay, up the opposite side, and dismounted at the
+face of the crags. As we approached them, the number of chambers hewn in
+the rock, the doors and niches now open to the day, surmounted by
+shattered spires and turrets, gave the whole mass the appearance of a
+grand fortress in ruins. The crags, which are of a very soft, reddish-gray
+sandstone, rise a hundred and fifty feet from their base, and their
+summits are worn by the weather into the most remarkable forms.</p>
+
+<p>The principal monument is a broad, projecting cliff, one side of which has
+been cut so as to resemble the fa&ccedil;ade of a temple. The sculptured part is
+about sixty feet high by sixty in breadth, and represents a solid wall
+with two pilasters at the ends, upholding an architrave and pediment,
+which is surmounted by two large volutes. The whole face of the wall is
+covered with ornaments resembling panel-work, not in regular squares, but
+a labyrinth of intricate designs. In the centre, at the bottom, is a
+shallow square recess, surrounded by an elegant, though plain moulding,
+but there is no appearance of an entrance to the sepulchral chamber, which
+may be hidden in the heart of the rock. There is an inscription in Greek
+running up one side, but it is of a later date than the work itself. On
+one of the tombs there is an inscription: "To King Midas." These relics
+are supposed to date from the period of the Gordian Dynasty, about seven
+centuries before Christ.</p>
+
+<p>A little in front of a headland, formed by the summit walls of two meeting
+valleys, rises a mass of rocks one hundred feet high, cut into sepulchral
+chambers, story above story, with the traces of steps between them,
+leading to others still higher. The whole rock, which may be a hundred and
+fifty feet long by fifty feet broad, has been scooped out, leaving but
+narrow partitions to separate the chambers of the dead. These chambers are
+all plain, but some are of very elegant proportions, with arched or
+pyramidal roofs, and arched recesses at the sides, containing sarcophagi
+hewn in the solid stone. There are also many niches for cinerary urns. The
+principal tomb had a portico, supported by columns, but the front is now
+entirely hurled down, and only the elegant panelling and stone joists of
+the ceiling remain. The entire hill was a succession of tombs. There is
+not a rock which does not bear traces of them. I might have counted
+several hundred within a stone's throw. The position of these curious
+remains in a lonely valley, shut in on all sides by dark, pine-covered
+mountains---two of which are crowned with a natural acropolis of rock,
+resembling a fortress--increases the interest with which they inspire the
+beholder. The valley on the western side, with its bed of ripe wheat in
+the bottom, its tall walls, towers, and pinnacles of rock, and its distant
+vista of mountain and forest, is the most picturesque in Phrygia.</p>
+
+<p>The Turcoman reapers, who came up to see us and talk with us, said that
+there were the remains of walls on the summit of the principal acropolis
+opposite us, and that, further up the valley, there was a chamber with two
+columns in front. Mr. Harrison and I saddled and rode off, passing along a
+wall of fantastic rock-turrets, at the base of which was a natural column,
+about ten feet high, and five in diameter, almost perfectly round, and
+upholding an immense rock, shaped like a cocked hat. In crossing the
+meadow we saw a Turk sitting in the sun beside a spring, and busily
+engaged in knitting a stocking. After a ride of two miles we found the
+chamber, hewn like the fa&ccedil;ade of a temple in an isolated rock, overlooking
+two valleys of wild meadow-land. The pediment and cornice were simple and
+beautiful, but the columns had been broken away. The chambers were
+perfectly plain, but the panel-work on the ceiling of the portico was
+entire.</p>
+
+<p>After passing three hours in examining these tombs, we took the track
+which our guide pointed out as the road to Kiutahya. We rode two hours
+through the forest, and came out upon a wooded height, overlooking a
+grand, open valley, rich in grain-fields and pasture land. While I was
+contemplating this lovely view, the road turned a corner of the ridge, and
+lo! before me there appeared (as I thought), above the tops of the pines,
+high up on the mountain side, a line of enormous tents. Those snow-white
+cones, uprearing their sharp spires, and spreading out their broad
+bases--what could they be but an encampment of monster tents? Yet no; they
+were pinnacles of white rock--perfect cones, from thirty to one hundred
+feet in height, twelve in all, and ranged side by side along the edge of
+the cliff, with the precision of a military camp. They were snow-white,
+perfectly smooth and full, and their bases touched. What made the
+spectacle more singular, there was no other appearance of the same rock on
+the mountain. All around them was the dark-green of the pines, out of
+which they rose like drifted horns of unbroken snow. I named this singular
+phenomenon--which seems to have escaped the notice of travellers--The
+Titan's Camp.</p>
+
+<p>In another hour we reached a fountain near the village of K&uuml;mbeh, and
+pitched our tents for the night. The village, which is half a mile in
+length, is built upon a singular crag, which shoots up abruptly from the
+centre of the valley, rising at one extremity to a height of more than a
+hundred feet. It was entirely deserted, the inhabitants having all gone
+off to the mountains with their herds. The solitary muezzin, who cried the
+<i>mughreb</i> at the close of the fast, and lighted the lamps on his minaret,
+went through with his work in most unclerical haste, now that there was no
+one to notice him. We sent Achmet, the <i>katurgee</i>, to the mountain camp of
+the villagers, to procure a supply of fowls and barley.
+
+We rose very early yesterday morning, shivering in the cold air of the
+mountains, and just as the sun, bursting through the pines, looked down
+the little hollow where our tents were pitched, set the caravan in motion.
+The ride down the valley was charming. The land was naturally rich and
+highly cultivated, which made its desertion the more singular. Leagues of
+wheat, rye and poppies spread around us, left for the summer warmth to do
+its silent work. The dew sparkled on the fields as we rode through them,
+and the splendor of the flowers in blossom was equal to that of the plains
+of Palestine. There were purple, white and scarlet poppies; the rich
+crimson larkspur; the red anemone; the golden daisy; the pink convolvulus;
+and a host of smaller blooms, so intensely bright and dazzling in their
+hues, that the meadows were richer than a pavement of precious jewels. To
+look towards the sun, over a field of scarlet poppies, was like looking on
+a bed of live coals; the light, striking through the petals, made them
+burn as with an inward fire. Out of this wilderness of gorgeous color,
+rose the tall spires of a larger plant, covered with great yellow flowers,
+while here and there the snowy blossoms of a clump of hawthorn sweetened
+the morning air.</p>
+
+<p>A short distance beyond K&uuml;mbeh, we passed another group of ancient tombs,
+one of which was of curious design. An isolated rock, thirty feet in
+height by twenty in diameter, was cut so as to resemble a triangular
+tower, with the apex bevelled. A chamber, containing a sarcophagus, was
+hewn out of the interior. The entrance was ornamented with double columns
+in bas-relief, and a pediment. There was another arched chamber, cut
+directly through the base of the triangle, with a niche on each side,
+hollowed out at the bottom so as to form a sarcophagus.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving these, the last of the Phrygian tombs, we struck across the valley
+and ascended a high range of hills, covered with pine, to an upland,
+wooded region. Here we found a summer village of log cabins, scattered
+over a grassy slope. The people regarded us with some curiosity, and the
+women hastily concealed their faces. Mr. H. rode up to a large new house,
+and peeped in between the logs. There were several women inside, who
+started up in great confusion and threw over their heads whatever article
+was most convenient. An old man, with a long white beard, neatly dressed
+in a green jacket and shawl turban, came out and welcomed us. I asked for
+<i>ka&iuml;mak</i>, which he promised, and immediately brought out a carpet and
+spread it on the ground. Then followed a large basin of ka&iuml;mak, with
+wooden spoons, three loaves of bread, and a plate of cheese. We seated
+ourselves on the carpet, and delved in with the spoons, while the old man
+retired lest his appetite should be provoked. The milk was excellent, nor
+were the bread and cheese to be despised.</p>
+
+<p>While we were eating, the Khowagee, or schoolmaster of the community, a
+genteel little man in a round white turban, came op to inquire of Fran&ccedil;ois
+who we were. "That effendi in the blue dress," said he, "is the Bey, is he
+not?" "Yes," said F. "And the other, with the striped shirt and white
+turban, is a writer?" [Here he was not far wrong.] "But how is it that the
+effendis do not speak Turkish?" he persisted. "Because," said Fran&ccedil;ois,
+"their fathers were exiled by Sultan Mahmoud when they were small
+children. They have grown up in Aleppo like Arabs, and have not yet
+learned Turkish; but God grant that the Sultan may not turn his face away
+from them, and that they may regain the rank their fathers once had in
+Stamboul." "God grant it!" replied the Khowagee, greatly interested in the
+story. By this time we had eaten our full share of the ka&iuml;mak, which was
+finished by Fran&ccedil;ois and the katurgees. The old man now came up, mounted
+on a dun mare, stating that he was bound for Kiutahya, and was delighted
+with the prospect of travelling in such good company, I gave one of his
+young children some money, as the ka&iuml;mak was tendered out of pure
+hospitality, and so we rode off.</p>
+
+<p>Our new companion was armed to the teeth, having a long gun with a heavy
+wooden stock and nondescript lock, and a sword of excellent metal. It was,
+in fact, a weapon of the old Greek empire, and the cross was still
+enamelled in gold at the root of the blade, in spite of all his efforts to
+scratch it out. He was something of a <i>fakeer</i>, having made a pilgrimage
+to Mecca and Jerusalem. He was very inquisitive, plying Fran&ccedil;ois with
+questions about the government. The latter answered that we were not
+connected with the government, but the old fellow shrewdly hinted that he
+knew better--we were persons of rank, travelling incognito. He was very
+attentive to us, offering us water at every fountain, although he believed
+us to be good Mussulmans. We found him of some service as a guide,
+shortening our road by taking by-paths through the woods.</p>
+
+<p>For several hours we traversed a beautifully wooded region of hills.
+Graceful clumps of pine shaded the grassy knolls, where the sheep and
+silky-haired goats were basking at rest, and the air was filled with a
+warm, summer smell, blown from the banks of golden broom. Now and then,
+from the thickets of laurel and arbutus, a shrill shepherd's reed piped
+some joyous woodland melody. Was it a Faun, astray among the hills? Green
+dells, open to the sunshine, and beautiful as dreams of Arcady, divided
+the groves of pine. The sky overhead was pure and cloudless, clasping the
+landscape with its belt of peace and silence. Oh, that delightful region,
+haunted by all the bright spirits of the immortal Grecian Song! Chased
+away from the rest of the earth, here they have found a home--here
+secret altars remain to them from the times that are departed!</p>
+
+<p>Out of these woods, we passed into a lonely plain, inclosed by piny hills
+that brightened in the thin, pure ether. In the distance were some
+shepherds' tents, and musical goat-bells tinkled along the edges of the
+woods. From the crest of a lofty ridge beyond this plain, we looked back
+over the wild solitudes wherein we had been travelling for two days--long
+ranges of dark hills, fading away behind each other, with a perspective
+that hinted of the hidden gulfs between. From the western slope, a still
+more extensive prospect opened before us. Over ridges covered with forests
+of oak and pine, we saw the valley of the Pursek, the ancient Thymbrius,
+stretching far away to the misty line of Keshish Dagh, The mountains
+behind Kintahya loomed up high and grand, making a fine feature in the
+middle distance. We caught but fleeting glimpses of the view through the
+trees; and then, plunging into the forest again, descended to a cultivated
+slope, whereon there was a little village, now deserted. The graveyard
+beside it was shaded with large cedar-trees, and near it there was a
+fountain of excellent water. "Here," said the old man, "you can wash and
+pray, and then rest awhile under the trees." Fran&ccedil;ois excused us by saying
+that, while on a journey, we always bathed before praying; but, not to
+slight his faith entirely, I washed my hands and face before sitting down
+to our scanty breakfast of bread and water.</p>
+
+<p>Our path now led down through long, winding glens, over grown with oaks,
+from which the wild yellow honeysuckles fell in a shower of blossoms. As
+we drew near the valley, the old man began to hint that his presence had
+been of great service to us, and deserved recompense. "God knows," said
+he to Fran&ccedil;ois, "in what corner of the mountains you might now be, if I
+had not accompanied you." "Oh," replied Fran&ccedil;ois, "there are always plenty
+of people among the woods, who would have been equally as kind as yourself
+in showing us the way." He then spoke of the robbers in the neighborhood,
+and pointed out some graves by the road-side, as those of persons who had
+been murdered. "But," he added, "everybody in these parts knows me, and
+whoever is in company with me is always safe." The Greek assured him that
+we always depended on ourselves for our safety. Defeated on these tacks,
+he boldly affirmed that his services were worthy of payment. "But," said
+Fran&ccedil;ois "you told us at the village that you had business in Kiutahya,
+and would be glad to join us for the sake of having company on the road."
+"Well, then," rejoined the old fellow, making a last effort, "I leave the
+matter to your politeness." "Certainly," replied the imperturbable
+dragoman, "we could not be so impolite as to offer money to a man of your
+wealth and station; we could not insult you by giving you alms." The old
+Turcoman thereupon gave a shrug and a grunt, made a sullen good-by
+salutation, and left us.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly six o'clock when we reached the Pursek. There was no sign of
+the city, but we could barely discern an old fortress on the lofty cliff
+which commands the town. A long stone bridge crossed the river, which here
+separates into half a dozen channels. The waters are swift and clear, and
+wind away in devious mazes through the broad green meadows. We hurried on,
+thinking we saw minarets in the distance, but they proved to be poplars.
+The sun sank lower and lower, and finally went down before there was any
+token of our being in the vicinity of the city. Soon, however, a line of
+tiled roofs appeared along the slope of a hill on our left, and turning
+its base, we saw the city before us, filling the mouth of a deep valley or
+gorge, which opened from the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>But the horses are saddled, and Fran&ccedil;ois tells me it is time to put up my
+pen. We are off, over the mountains, to the Greek city of &OElig;zani, in
+the valley of the Rhyndacus.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch23">
+<h2>Chapter XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Kiutahya and the Ruins of &OElig;zani.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Entrance into Kiutahya--The New Khan--An Unpleasant
+  Discovery--Kiutahya--The Citadel--Panorama from the Walls--The Gorge of
+  the Mountains--Camp in a Meadow--The Valley of the
+  Rhyndacus--Chavd&uuml;r--The Ruins of &OElig;zani--The Acropolis and
+  Temple--The Theatre and Stadium--Ride down the Valley--Camp at Daghje
+  K&ouml;i</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "There is a temple in ruin stands,<br />
+Fashioned by long-forgotten hands;<br />
+Two or three columns and many a stone,<br />
+Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown!<br />
+Out upon Time! it will leave no more<br />
+Of the things to come than the things before!"</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Daghje K&ouml;i, on the Rhyndacus, <i>July</i> 6, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>On entering Kiutahya, we passed the barracks, which were the residence of
+Kossuth and his companions in exile. Beyond them, we came to a broad
+street, down which flowed the vilest stream of filth of which even a
+Turkish city could ever boast. The houses on either side were two stories
+high, the upper part of wood, with hanging balconies, over which shot the
+eaves of the tiled roofs. The welcome cannon had just sounded, announcing
+the close of the day's fast. The coffee-shops were already crowded with
+lean and hungry customers, the pipes were filled and lighted, and the
+coffee smoked in the finjans. In half a minute such whiffs arose on all
+sides as it would have cheered the heart of a genuine smoker to behold.
+Out of these cheerful places we passed into other streets which were
+entirely deserted, the inhabitants being at dinner. It had a weird,
+uncomfortable effect to ride through streets where the clatter of our
+horses' hoofs was the only sound of life. At last we reached the entrance
+to a bazaar, and near it a khan--a new khan, very neatly built, and with a
+spare room so much better than we expected, that we congratulated
+ourselves heartily. We unpacked in a hurry, and Fran&ccedil;ois ran off to the
+bazaar, from which he speedily returned with some roast kid, cucumbers,
+and cherries. We lighted two lamps, I borrowed the oda-bashi's narghileh,
+and Fran&ccedil;ois, learning that it was our national anniversary, procured us a
+flask of Greek wine, that we might do it honor. The beverage, however,
+resembled a mixture of vinegar and sealing-wax, and we contented ourselves
+with drinking patriotic toasts, in two finjans of excellent coffee. But in
+the midst of our enjoyment, happening to cast my eye on the walls, I saw a
+sight that turned all our honey into gall. Scores on scores--nay, hundreds
+on hundreds--of enormous bed-bugs swarmed on the plaster, and were already
+descending to our beds and baggage. To sleep there was impossible, but we
+succeeded in getting possession of one of the outside balconies, where we
+made our beds, after searching them thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening a merchant, who spoke a little Arabic, came up to me and
+asked: "Is not your Excellency's friend the <i>hakim pasha</i>" (chief
+physician). I did not venture to assent, but replied: "No; he is a
+<i>sowakh</i>" This was beyond his comprehension, and he went away with the
+impression that Mr. H. was much greater than a <i>hakim pasha</i>. I slept
+soundly on my out-doors bed, but was awakened towards morning by two
+tremendous claps of thunder, echoing in the gorge, and the rattling of
+rain on the roof of the khan.</p>
+
+<p>I spent two or three hours next morning in taking a survey of Kiutahya.
+The town is much larger than I had supposed: I should judge it to contain
+from fifty to sixty thousand inhabitants. The situation is remarkable, and
+gives a picturesque effect to the place when seen from above, which makes
+one forget its internal filth. It is built in the mouth of a gorge, and
+around the bases of the hills on either side. The lofty mountains which
+rise behind it supply it with perpetual springs of pure water. At every
+dozen steps you come upon a fountain, and every large street has a brook
+in the centre. The houses are all two and many of them three stories high,
+with hanging balconies, which remind me much of Switzerland. The bazaars
+are very extensive, covering all the base of the hill on which stands the
+ancient citadel. The goods displayed were mostly European cotton fabrics,
+<i>quincaillerie</i>, boots and slippers, pipe-sticks and silks. In the parts
+devoted to the produce of the country, I saw very fine cherries, cucumbers
+and lettuce, and bundles of magnificent clover, three to four feet high.</p>
+
+<p>We climbed a steep path to the citadel, which covers the summit of an
+abrupt, isolated hill, connected by a shoulder with the great range. The
+walls are nearly a mile in circuit, consisting almost wholly of immense
+circular buttresses, placed so near each other that they almost touch. The
+connecting walls are broken down on the northern side, so that from below
+the buttresses have the appearance of enormous shattered columns. They are
+built of rough stones, with regular layers of flat, burnt bricks. On the
+highest part of the hill stands the fortress, or stronghold, a place which
+must have been almost impregnable before the invention of cannon. The
+structure probably dates from the ninth or tenth century, but is built on
+the foundations of more ancient edifices. The old Greek city of Cotyaeum
+(whence Kiutahya) probably stood upon this hill. Within the citadel is an
+upper town, containing about a hundred houses, the residence, apparently
+of poor families.</p>
+
+<p>From the circuit of the walls, on every side, there are grand views over
+the plain, the city, and the gorges of the mountains behind. The valley of
+the Pursek, freshened by the last night's shower, spread out a sheet of
+vivid green, to the pine-covered mountains which bounded it on all sides.
+Around the city it was adorned with groves and gardens, and, in the
+direction of Brousa, white roads went winding away to other gardens and
+villages in the distance. The mountains of Phrygia, through which we had
+passed, were the loftiest in the circle that inclosed the valley. The city
+at our feet presented a thick array of red-tiled roofs, out of which rose
+here and there the taper shaft of a minaret, or the dome of a mosque or
+bath. From the southern side of the citadel, we looked down into the gorge
+which supplies Kiutahya with water--a wild, desert landscape of white
+crags and shattered peaks of gray rock, hanging over a narrow winding bed
+of the greenest foliage.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of taking the direct road to Brousa, we decided to make a detour
+of two days, in order to visit the ruins of the old Greek city of
+&OElig;zani, which are thirty-six miles south of Kiutahya. Leaving at
+noon, we ascended the gorge behind the city, by delightfully embowered
+paths, at first under the eaves of superb walnut-trees, and then through
+wild thickets of willow, hazel, privet, and other shrubs, tangled
+together with the odorous white honeysuckle. Near the city, the
+mountain-sides were bare white masses of gypsum and other rock, in many
+places with the purest chrome-yellow hue; but as we advanced they were
+clothed to the summit with copsewood. The streams that foamed down these
+perennial heights were led into buried channels, to come to light again in
+sparkling fountains, pouring into ever-full stone basins. The day was cool
+and cloudy, and the heavy shadows which hung on the great sides of the
+mountain gateway, heightened, by contrast, the glory of the sunlit plain
+seen through them.</p>
+
+<p>After passing the summit ridge, probably 5,000 feet above the sea, we came
+upon a wooded, hilly region, stretching away in long misty lines to Murad
+Dagh, whose head was spotted with snow. There were patches of wheat and
+rye in the hollows, and the bells of distant herds tinkled occasionally
+among the trees. There was no village on the road, and we were on the way
+to one which we saw in the distance, when we came upon a meadow of good
+grass, with a small stream running through it. Here we encamped, sending
+Achmet, the katurgee, to the village for milk and eggs. The ewes had just
+been milked for the suppers of their owners, but they went over the flock
+again, stripping their udders, which greatly improved the quality of the
+milk. The night was so cold that I could scarcely sleep during the morning
+hours. There was a chill, heavy dew on the meadow; but when Fran&ccedil;ois awoke
+me at sunrise, the sky was splendidly clear and pure, and the early beams
+had a little warmth in them. Our coffee, before starting, made with
+sheep's milk, was the richest I ever drank.</p>
+
+<p>After riding for two hours across broad, wild ridges, covered with cedar,
+we reached a height overlooking the valley of the Rhyndacus, or rather the
+plain whence he draws his sources--a circular level, ten or twelve miles
+in diameter, and contracting towards the west into a narrow dell, through
+which his waters find outlet; several villages, each embowered in gardens,
+were scattered along the bases of the hills that inclose it. We took the
+wrong road, but were set aright by a herdsman, and after threading a lane
+between thriving grain-fields, were cheered by the sight of the Temple of
+&OElig;zani, lifted on its acropolis above the orchards of Chavd&uuml;r, and
+standing out sharp and clear against the purple of the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Our approach to the city was marked by the blocks of sculptured marble
+that lined the way: elegant mouldings, cornices, and entablatures, thrown
+together with common stone to make walls between the fields. The village
+is built on both sides of the Rhyndacus; it is an ordinary Turkish hamlet,
+with tiled roofs and chimneys, and exhibits very few of the remains of the
+old city in its composition. This, I suspect, is owing to the great size
+of the hewn blocks, especially of the pillars, cornices, and entablatures,
+nearly all of which are from twelve to fifteen feet long. It is from the
+size and number of these scattered blocks, rather than from the buildings
+which still partially exist, that one obtains an idea of the size and
+splendor of the ancient &OElig;zani. The place is filled with fragments,
+especially of columns, of which there are several hundred, nearly all
+finely fluted. The Rhyndacus is still spanned by an ancient bridge of
+three arches, and both banks are lined with piers of hewn stone. Tall
+poplars and massy walnuts of the richest green shade the clear waters, and
+there are many picturesque combinations of foliage and ruin--death and
+life--which would charm a painter's eye. Near the bridge we stopped to
+examine a pile of immense fragments which have been thrown together by the
+Turks--pillars, cornices, altars, pieces of a frieze, with bulls' heads
+bound together by hanging garlands, and a large square block, with a
+legible tablet. It resembled an altar in form, and, from the word
+"<i>Artemidoron</i>" appeared to have belonged to some temple to Diana.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through the village we came to a grand artificial platform on its
+western side, called the Acropolis. It is of solid masonry, five hundred
+feet square, and averaging ten feet in height. On the eastern side it is
+supported on rude though massive arches, resembling Etruscan workmanship.
+On the top and around the edges of this platform lie great numbers of
+fluted columns, and immense fragments of cornice and architrave. In the
+centre, on a foundation platform about eight feet high, stands a beautiful
+Ionic temple, one hundred feet in length. On approaching, it appeared
+nearly perfect, except the roof, and so many of the columns remain
+standing that its ruined condition scarcely injures the effect. There are
+seventeen columns on the side and eight at the end, Ionic in style,
+fluted, and fifty feet in height. About half the cella remains, with an
+elegant frieze and cornice along the top, and a series of tablets, set in
+panels of ornamental sculpture, running along the sides. The front of the
+cella includes a small open peristyle, with two composite Corinthian
+columns at the entrance, making, with those of the outer colonnade,
+eighteen columns standing. The tablets contain Greek inscriptions,
+perfectly legible, where the stone has not been shattered. Under the
+temple there are large vaults, which we found filled up with young kids,
+who had gone in there to escape the heat of the sun. The portico was
+occupied by sheep, which at first refused to make room for us, and gave
+strong olfactory evidence of their partiality for the temple as a
+resting-place.</p>
+
+<p>On the side of a hill, about three hundred yards to the north, are the
+remains of a theatre. Crossing some patches of barley and lentils, we
+entered a stadium, forming an extension of the theatre---that is, it took
+the same breadth and direction, so that the two might be considered as one
+grand work, more than one thousand feet long by nearly four hundred wide.
+The walls of the stadium are hurled down, except an entrance of five
+arches of massive masonry, on the western side. We rode up the artificial
+valley, between high, grassy hills, completely covered with what at a
+distance resembled loose boards, but which were actually the long marble
+seats of the stadium. Urging our horses over piles of loose blocks, we
+reached the base of the theatre, climbed the fragments that cumber the
+main entrance, and looked on the spacious arena and galleries within.
+Although greatly ruined, the materials of the whole structure remain, and
+might be put together again. It is a grand wreck; the colossal fragments
+which have tumbled from the arched proscenium fill the arena, and the rows
+of seats, though broken and disjointed, still retain their original order.
+It is somewhat more than a semicircle, the radius being about one hundred
+and eighty feet. The original height was upwards of fifty feet, and there
+were fifty rows of seats in all, each row capable of seating two hundred
+persons, so that the number of spectators who could be accommodated was
+eight thousand.</p>
+
+<p>The fragments cumbering the arena were enormous, and highly interesting
+from their character. There were rich blocks of cornice, ten feet long;
+fluted and reeded pillars; great arcs of heavily-carved sculpture, which
+appeared to have served as architraves from pillar to pillar, along the
+face of the proscenium, where there was every trace of having been a
+colonnade; and other blocks sculptured with figures of animals in
+alto-relievo. There were generally two figures on each block, and among
+those which could be recognized were the dog and the lion. Doors opened
+from the proscenium into the retiring-rooms of the actors, under which
+were the vaults where the beasts were kept. A young fox or jackal started
+from his siesta as we entered the theatre, and took refuge under the loose
+blocks. Looking backwards through the stadium from the seats of the
+theatre, we had a lovely view of the temple, standing out clear and bright
+in the midst of the summer plain, with the snow-streaked summits of Murad
+Dagh in the distance. It was a picture which I shall long remember. The
+desolation of the magnificent ruins was made all the more impressive by
+the silent, solitary air of the region around them.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Chavd&uuml;r in the afternoon, we struck northward, down the valley of
+the Rhyndacus, over tracts of rolling land, interspersed with groves of
+cedar and pine. There were so many branch roads and crossings that we
+could not fail to go wrong; and after two or three hours found ourselves
+in the midst of a forest, on the broad top of a mountain, without any road
+at all. There were some herdsmen tending their flocks near at hand, but
+they could give us no satisfactory direction. We thereupon, took our own
+course, and soon brought up on the brink of a precipice, overhanging a
+deep valley. Away to the eastward we caught a glimpse of the Rhyndacus,
+and the wooden minaret of a little village on his banks. Following the
+edge of the precipice, we came at last to a glen, down which ran a rough
+footpath that finally conducted us, by a long road through the forests, to
+the village of Daghje K&ouml;i, where we are now encamped.</p>
+
+<p>The place seems to be devoted to the making of flints, and the streets are
+filled with piles of the chipped fragments. Our tent is pitched on the
+bank of the river, in a barren meadow. The people tell us that the whole
+region round about has just been visited by a plague of grasshoppers,
+which have destroyed their crops. Our beasts have wandered off to the
+hills, in search for grass, and the disconsolate Hadji is hunting them.
+Achmet, the katurgee, lies near the fire, sick; Mr. Harrison complains of
+fever, and Fran&ccedil;ois moves about languidly, with a dismal countenance. So
+here we are in the solitudes of Bithynia, but there is no God but God, and
+that which is destined comes to pass.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch24">
+<h2>Chapter XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mysian Olympus.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
+  of Taushanl&uuml;--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
+  Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
+  Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
+  of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghi&ouml;l--A Showery Ride--The
+  Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
+  Furled.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "I looked yet farther and higher, and saw in the heavens a silvery cloud
+  that stood fast, and still against the breeze; * * * * and so it was as
+  a sign and a testimony--almost as a call from the neglected gods, that I
+  now saw and acknowledged the snowy crown of the Mysian Olympus!"
+  Kinglake.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Brousa, <i>July</i> 9, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>From Daghje K&uuml;i, there were two roads to Taushanl&uuml;, but the people
+informed us that the one which led across the mountains was difficult to
+find, and almost impracticable. We therefore took the river road, which we
+found picturesque in the highest degree. The narrow dell of the Rhyndacus
+wound through a labyrinth of mountains, sometimes turning at sharp angles
+between craggy buttresses, covered with forests, and sometimes broadening
+out into a sweep of valley, where the villagers were working in companies
+among the grain and poppy fields. The banks of the stream were lined with
+oak, willow and sycamore, and forests of pine, descending from the
+mountains, frequently overhung the road. We met numbers of peasants,
+going to and from the fields, and once a company of some twenty women,
+who, on seeing us, clustered together like a flock of frightened sheep,
+and threw their mantles over their heads. They had curiosity enough,
+however, to peep at us as we went by, and I made them a salutation, which
+they returned, and then burst into a chorus of hearty laughter. All this
+region was ravaged by a plague of grasshoppers. The earth was black with
+them in many places, and our horses ploughed up a living spray, as they
+drove forward through the meadows. Every spear of grass was destroyed, and
+the wheat and rye fields were terribly cut up. We passed a large crag
+where myriads of starlings had built their nests, and every starling had a
+grasshopper in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the river, in order to pass a narrow defile, by which it forces
+its way through the rocky heights of Dumanidj Dagh. Soon after passing the
+ridge, a broad and beautiful valley expanded before us. It was about ten
+miles in breadth, nearly level, and surrounded by picturesque ranges of
+wooded mountains. It was well cultivated, principally in rye and poppies,
+and more thickly populated than almost any part of Europe. The tinned tops
+of the minarets of Taushanl&uuml; shone over the top of a hill in front, and
+there was a large town nearly opposite, on the other bank of the
+Rhyndacus, and seven small villages scattered about in various directions.
+Most of the latter, however, were merely the winter habitations of the
+herdsmen, who are now living in tents on the mountain tops. All over the
+valley, the peasants were at work in the harvest-fields, cutting and
+binding grain, gathering opium from the poppies, or weeding the young
+tobacco. In the south, over the rim of the hills that shut in this
+pastoral solitude, rose the long blue summits of Urus Dagh. We rode into
+Taushanl&uuml;, which is a long town, filling up a hollow between two stony
+hills. The houses are all of stone, two stories high, with tiled roofs and
+chimneys, so that, but for the clapboarded and shingled minarets, it would
+answer for a North-German village.</p>
+
+<p>The streets were nearly deserted, and even in the bazaars, which are of
+some extent, we found but few persons. Those few, however, showed a
+laudable curiosity with regard to us, clustering about us whenever we
+stopped, and staring at us with provoking pertinacity. We had some
+difficulty in procuring information concerning the road, the directions
+being so contradictory that we were as much in the dark as ever. We lost
+half an hour in wandering among the hills; and, after travelling four
+hours over piny uplands, without finding the village of Kara K&ouml;i, encamped
+on a dry plain, on the western bank of the river. There was not a spear of
+grass for the beasts, everything being eaten up by the grasshoppers, and
+there were no Turcomans near who could supply us with food. So we dined on
+hard bread and black coffee, and our forlorn beasts walked languidly
+about, cropping the dry stalks of weeds and the juiceless roots of the
+dead grass.</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the river next morning, and took a road following its course,
+and shaded with willows and sycamores. The lofty, wooded ranges of the
+Mysian Olympus lay before us, and our day's work was to pass them. After
+passing the village of Kara K&ouml;i, we left the valley of the Rhyndacus, and
+commenced ascending one of the long, projecting spurs thrust out from the
+main chain of Olympus. At first we rode through thickets of scrubby cedar,
+but soon came to magnificent pine forests, that grew taller and sturdier
+the higher we clomb. A superb mountain landscape opened behind us. The
+valleys sank deeper and deeper, and at last disappeared behind the great
+ridges that heaved themselves out of the wilderness of smaller hills. All
+these ridges were covered with forests; and as we looked backwards out of
+the tremendous gulf up the sides of which we were climbing, the scenery
+was wholly wild and uncultivated. Our path hung on the imminent side of a
+chasm so steep that one slip might have been destruction to both horse and
+rider. Far below us, at the bottom of the chasm, roared an invisible
+torrent. The opposite side, vapory from its depth, rose like an immense
+wall against Heaven. The pines were even grander than those in the woods
+of Phrygia. Here they grew taller and more dense, hanging their cloudy
+boughs over the giddy depths, and clutching with desperate roots to the
+almost perpendicular sides of the gorges. In many places they were the
+primeval forests of Olympus, and the Hamadryads were not yet frightened
+from their haunts.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, slowly toiling up through the sublime wilderness, breathing the
+cold, pure air of those lofty regions, we came at last to a little stream,
+slowly trickling down the bed of the gorge. It was shaded, not by the
+pine, but by the Northern beech, with its white trunk and close,
+confidential boughs, made for the talks of lovers and the meditations of
+poets. Here we stopped to breakfast, but there was nothing for the poor
+beasts to eat, and they waited for us droopingly, with their heads thrust
+together. While we sat there three camels descended to the stream, and
+after them a guard with a long gun. He was a well-made man, with a brown
+face, keen, black eye, and piratical air, and would have made a good hero
+of modern romance. Higher up we came to a guard house, on a little cleared
+space, surrounded by beech forests. It was a rough stone hut, with a white
+flag planted on a pole before it, and a miniature water-wheel, running a
+miniature saw at a most destructive rate, beside the door.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing our way, we entered on a region such as I had no idea could be
+found in Asia. The mountains, from the bottoms of the gorges to their
+topmost summits, were covered with the most superb forests of beech I ever
+saw--masses of impenetrable foliage, of the most brilliant green, touched
+here and there by the darker top of a pine. Our road was through a deep,
+dark shade, and on either side, up and down, we saw but a cool, shadowy
+solitude, sprinkled with dots of emerald light, and redolent with the odor
+of damp earth, moss, and dead leaves. It was a forest, the counterpart of
+which could only be found in America--such primeval magnitude of growth,
+such wild luxuriance, such complete solitude and silence! Through the
+shafts of the pines we had caught glorious glimpses of the blue mountain
+world below us; but now the beech folded us in its arms, and whispered in
+our ears the legends of our Northern home. There, on the ridges of the
+Mysian Olympus, sacred to the bright gods of Grecian song, I found the
+inspiration of our darker and colder clime and age. "<i>O gloriosi spiriti
+degli boschi!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>I could scarcely contain myself, from surprise and joy. Fran&ccedil;ois failed to
+find French adjectives sufficient for his admiration, and even our
+cheating katurgees were touched by the spirit of the scene. On either
+side, whenever a glimpse could be had through the boughs, we looked upon
+leaning walls of trees, whose tall, rounded tops basked in the sunshine,
+while their bases were wrapped in the shadows cast by themselves. Thus,
+folded over each other like scales, or feathers on a falcon's wing, they
+clad the mountain. The trees were taller, and had a darker and more glossy
+leaf than the American beech. By and by patches of blue shone between the
+boughs before us, a sign that the summit was near, and before one o'clock
+we stood upon the narrow ridge forming the crest of the mountain. Here,
+although we were between five and six thousand feet above the sea, the
+woods of beech were a hundred feet in height, and shut out all view. On
+the northern side the forest scenery is even grander than on the southern.
+The beeches are magnificent trees, straight as an arrow, and from a
+hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in height. Only now and then could we
+get any view beyond the shadowy depths sinking below us, and then it was
+only to see similar mountain ranges, buried in foliage, and rolling far
+behind each other into the distance. Twice, in the depth of the gorge, we
+saw a saw-mill, turned by the snow-cold torrents. Piles of pine and
+beechen boards were heaped around them, and the sawyers were busily plying
+their lonely business. The axe of the woodman echoed but rarely through
+the gulfs, though many large trees lay felled by the roadside. The rock,
+which occasionally cropped out of the soil, was white marble, and there
+was a shining precipice of it, three hundred feet high, on the opposite
+side of the gorge.</p>
+
+<p>After four hours of steady descent, during the last hour of which we
+passed into a forest entirely of oaks, we reached the first terrace at the
+base of the mountain. Here, as I was riding in advance of the caravan, I
+met a company of Turkish officers, who saluted me with an inclination of
+the most profound reverence. I replied with due Oriental gravity, which
+seemed to justify their respect, for when they met Fran&ccedil;ois, who is
+everywhere looked upon as a Turkish janissary, they asked: "Is not your
+master a <i>Shekh el-Isl&agrave;m</i>?" "You are right: he is," answered the
+unscrupulous Greek. A Shekh el-Isl&agrave;m is a sort of high-priest,
+corresponding in dignity to a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. It is
+rather singular that I am generally taken for a Secretary of some kind, or
+a Moslem priest, while my companion, who, by this time, has assumed the
+Oriental expression, is supposed to be either medical or military.</p>
+
+<p>We had no sooner left the forests and entered the copsewood which
+followed, than the blue bulk, of Olympus suddenly appeared in the west,
+towering far into the sky. It is a magnificent mountain, with a broad
+though broken summit, streaked with snow. Before us, stretching away
+almost to his base, lay a grand mountain slope, covered with orchards and
+golden harvest-fields. Through lanes of hawthorn and chestnut trees in
+blossom, which were overgrown with snowy clematis and made a shady roof
+above our heads, we reached the little village of Orta K&ouml;i, and encamped
+in a grove of pear-trees. There was grass for our beasts, who were on the
+brink of starvation, and fowls and cucumbers for ourselves, who had been
+limited to bread and coffee for two days. But as one necessity was
+restored, another disappeared. We had smoked the last of our delicious
+Aleppo tobacco, and that which the villagers gave us was of very inferior
+quality. Nevertheless, the pipe which we smoked with them in the twilight,
+beside the marble fountain, promoted that peace of mind which is the
+sweetest preparative of slumber.</p>
+
+<p>Fran&ccedil;ois was determined to finish our journey to-day. He had a
+presentiment that we should reach Brousa, although I expected nothing of
+the kind. He called us long before the lovely pastoral valley in which we
+lay had a suspicion of the sun, but just in time to see the first rays
+strike the high head of Olympus. The long lines of snow blushed with an
+opaline radiance against the dark-blue of the morning sky, and all the
+forests and fields below lay still, and cool, and dewy, lapped in dreams
+yet unrecalled by the fading moon. I bathed my face in the cold well that
+perpetually poured over its full brim, drank the coffee which Fran&ccedil;ois had
+already prepared, sprang into the saddle, and began the last day of our
+long pilgrimage. The tent was folded, alas! for the last time; and now
+farewell to the freedom of our wandering life! Shall I ever feel it again?</p>
+
+<p>The dew glistened on the chestnuts and the walnuts, on the wild
+grape-vines and wild roses, that shaded our road, as we followed the
+course of an Olympian stream through a charming dell, into the great plain
+below. Everywhere the same bountiful soil, the same superb orchards, the
+same ripe fields of wheat and barley, and silver rye. The peasants were at
+work, men and women, cutting the grain with rude scythes, binding it into
+sheaves, and stacking it in the fields. As we rode over the plain, the
+boys came running out to us with handfuls of grain, saluting us from afar,
+bidding us welcome as pilgrims, wishing us as many years of prosperity as
+there were kernels in their sheaves, and kissing the hands that gave them
+the harvest-toll. The whole landscape had an air of plenty, peace, and
+contentment. The people all greeted us cordially; and once a Mevlevi
+Dervish and a stately Turk, riding in company, saluted me so
+respectfully, stopping to speak with me, that I quite regretted being
+obliged to assume an air of dignified reserve, and ride away from them.</p>
+
+<p>Ere long, we saw the two white minarets of Aineghi&ouml;l, above the line of
+orchards in front of us, and, in three hours after starting, reached the
+place. It is a small town, not particularly clean, but with brisk-looking
+bazaars. In one of the houses, I saw half-a-dozen pairs of superb antlers,
+the spoils of Olympian stags. The bazaar is covered with a trellised roof,
+overgrown with grape-vines, which hang enormous bunches of young grapes
+over the shop-boards. We were cheered by the news that Brousa was only
+eight hours distant, and I now began to hope that we might reach it. We
+jogged on as fast as we could urge our weary horses, passed another belt
+of orchard land, paid more harvest-tolls to the reapers, and commenced
+ascending a chain of low hills which divides the plain of Aineghi&ouml;l from
+that of Brousa.</p>
+
+<p>At a fountain called the "mid-day <i>konn&agrave;k</i>" we met some travellers coming
+from Brousa, who informed us that we could get there by the time of
+<i>asser</i> prayer. Rounding the north-eastern base of Olympus, we now saw
+before us the long headland which forms his south-western extremity. A
+storm was arising from the sea of Marmora, and heavy white clouds settled
+on the topmost summits of the mountain. The wind began to blow fresh and
+cool, and when we had reached a height overlooking the deep valley, in the
+bottom of which lies the picturesque village of Ak-su, there were long
+showery lines coming up from the sea, and a filmy sheet of gray rain
+descended between us and Olympus, throwing his vast bulk far into the
+background. At Ak-su, the first shower met us, pouring so fast and thick
+that we were obliged to put on our capotes, and halt under a walnut-tree
+for shelter. But it soon passed over, laying the dust, for the time, and
+making the air sweet and cool.</p>
+
+<p>We pushed forward over heights covered with young forests of oak, which
+are protected by the government, in order that they may furnish
+ship-timber. On the right, we looked down into magnificent valleys,
+opening towards the west into the the plain of Brousa; but when, in the
+middle of the afternoon, we reached the last height, and saw the great
+plain itself, the climax was attained. It was the crown of all that we had
+yet seen. This superb plain or valley, thirty miles long, by five in
+breadth, spread away to the westward, between the mighty mass of Olympus
+on the one side, and a range of lofty mountains on the other, the sides of
+which presented a charming mixture of forest and cultivated land. Olympus,
+covered with woods of beech and oak, towered to the clouds that concealed
+his snowy head; and far in advance, under the last cape he threw out
+towards the sea, the hundred minarets of Brousa stretched in a white and
+glittering line, like the masts of a navy, whose hulls were buried in the
+leafy sea. No words can describe the beauty of the valley, the blending of
+the richest cultivation with the wildest natural luxuriance. Here were
+gardens and orchards; there groves of superb chestnut-trees in blossom;
+here, fields of golden grain or green pasture-land; there, Arcadian
+thickets overgrown with clematis and wild rose; here, lofty poplars
+growing beside the streams; there, spiry cypresses looking down from the
+slopes: and all blended in one whole, so rich, so grand, so gorgeous, that
+I scarcely breathed when it first burst upon me.</p>
+
+<p>And now we descended to its level, and rode westward along the base of
+Olympus, grandest of Asian mountains. This after-storm view, although his
+head was shrouded, was sublime. His base is a vast sloping terrace,
+leagues in length, resembling the nights of steps by which the ancient
+temples were approached. From this foundation rise four mighty pyramids,
+two thousand feet in height, and completely mantled with forests. They are
+very nearly regular in their form and size, and are flanked to the east
+and west by headlands, or abutments, the slopes of which are longer and
+more gradual, as if to strengthen the great structure. Piled upon the four
+pyramids are others nearly as large, above whose green pinnacles appear
+still other and higher ones, bare and bleak, and clustering thickly
+together, to uphold the great central dome of snow. Between the bases of
+the lowest, the streams which drain the gorges of the mountain issue
+forth, cutting their way through the foundation terrace, and widening
+their beds downwards to the plain, like the throats of bugles, where, in
+winter rains, they pour forth the hoarse, grand monotone of their Olympian
+music. These broad beds are now dry and stony tracts, dotted all over with
+clumps of dwarfed sycamores and threaded by the summer streams, shrunken
+in bulk, but still swift, cold, and clear as ever.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the city before night, and Fran&ccedil;ois is glad to find his
+presentiment fulfilled. We have safely passed through the untravelled
+heart of Asia Minor, and are now almost in sight of Europe. The camp-fire
+is extinguished; the tent is furled. We are no longer happy nomads,
+masquerading in Moslem garb. We shall soon become prosaic Christians, and
+meekly hold out our wrists for the handcuffs of Civilization. Ah, prate
+as we will of the progress of the race, we are but forging additional
+fetters, unless we preserve that healthy physical development, those pure
+pleasures of mere animal existence, which are now only to be found among
+our semi-barbaric brethren. Our progress is nervous, when it should be
+muscular.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch25">
+<h2>Chapter XXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.</h3>
+
+
+<p class='abs'>  The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
+  Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
+  Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
+  the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
+  Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Ca&iuml;que--Breakfast with
+  the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
+  View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "And we glode fast o'er a pellucid plain<br />
+Of waters, azure with the noontide ray.<br />
+Ethereal mountains shone around--a fane<br />
+Stood in the midst, beyond green isles which lay<br />
+On the blue, sunny deep, resplendent far away."</p>
+
+<p>  Shelley.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Constantinople, <i>Monday, July</i> 12, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Before entering Brousa, we passed the whole length of the town, which is
+built on the side of Olympus, and on three bluffs or spurs which project
+from it. The situation is more picturesque than that of Damascus, and from
+the remarkable number of its white domes and minarets, shooting upward
+from the groves of chestnut, walnut, and cypress-trees, the city is even
+more beautiful. There are large mosques on all the most prominent points,
+and, near the centre of the city, the ruins of an ancient castle, built
+upon a crag. The place, as we rode along, presented a shifting diorama of
+delightful views. The hotel is at the extreme western end of the city, not
+far from its celebrated hot baths. It is a new building, in European
+style, and being built high on the slope, commands one of the most
+glorious prospects I ever enjoyed from windows made with hands. What a
+comfort it was to go up stairs into a clean, bright, cheerful room; to
+drop at full length on a broad divan; to eat a Christian meal; to smoke a
+narghileh of the softest Persian tobacco; and finally, most exquisite of
+all luxuries, to creep between cool, clean sheets, on a curtained bed, and
+find it impossible to sleep on account of the delicious novelty of the
+sensation!</p>
+
+<p>At night, another storm came up from the Sea of Marmora. Tremendous peals
+of thunder echoed in the gorges of Olympus and sharp, broad flashes of
+lightning gave us blinding glimpses of the glorious plain below. The rain
+fell in heavy showers, but our tent-life was just closed, and we sat
+securely at our windows and enjoyed the sublime scene.</p>
+
+<p>The sun, rising over the distant mountains of Isnik, shone full in my
+face, awaking me to a morning view of the valley, which, freshened by the
+night's thunder-storm, shone wonderfully bright and clear. After coffee,
+we went to see the baths, which are on the side of the mountain, a mile
+from the hotel. The finest one, called the Kalputcha Hammam, is at the
+base of the hill. The entrance hall is very large, and covered by two
+lofty domes. In the centre is a large marble urn-shaped fountain, pouring
+out an abundant flood of cold water. Out of this, we passed into an
+immense rotunda, filled with steam and traversed by long pencils of light,
+falling from holes in the roof. A small but very beautiful marble fountain
+cast up a jet of cold water in the centre. Beyond this was still another
+hall, of the same size, but with a circular basin, twenty-five feet in
+diameter, in the centre. The floor was marble mosaic, and the basin was
+lined with brilliantly-colored tiles. It was kept constantly full by the
+natural hot streams of the mountain. There were a number of persons in the
+pool, but the atmosphere was so hot that we did not long disturb them by
+our curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>We then ascended to the Armenian bath, which is the neatest of all, but it
+was given up to the women, and we were therefore obliged to go to a
+Turkish one adjoining. The room into which we were taken was so hot that a
+violent perspiration immediately broke out all over my body, and by the
+time the <i>dell&egrave;ks</i> were ready to rasp me, I was as limp as a wet towel,
+and as plastic as a piece of putty. The man who took me was sweated away
+almost to nothing; his very bones appeared to have become soft and
+pliable. The water was slightly sulphureous, and the pailfuls which he
+dashed over my head were so hot that they produced the effect of a
+chill--a violent nervous shudder. The temperature of the springs is 180&deg;
+Fahrenheit, and I suppose the tank into which he afterwards plunged me
+must have been nearly up to the mark. When, at last, I was laid on the
+couch, my body was so parboiled that I perspired at all pores for full an
+hour--a feeling too warm and unpleasant at first, but presently merging
+into a mood which was wholly rapturous and heavenly. I was like a soft
+white cloud, that rests all of a summer afternoon on the peak of a distant
+mountain. I felt the couch on which I lay no more than the cloud might
+feel the cliffs on which it lingers so airily. I saw nothing but peaceful,
+glorious sights; spaces of clear blue sky; stretches of quiet lawns;
+lovely valleys threaded by the gentlest of streams; azure lakes, unruffled
+by a breath; calms far out on mid-ocean, and Alpine peaks bathed in the
+flush of an autumnal sunset. My mind retraced all our journey from
+Aleppo, and there was a halo over every spot I had visited. I dwelt with
+rapture on the piny hills of Phrygia, on the gorges of Taurus, on the
+beechen solitudes of Olympus. Would to heaven that I might describe those
+scenes as I then felt them! All was revealed to me: the heart of Nature
+lay bare, and I read the meaning and knew the inspiration of her every
+mood. Then, as my frame grew cooler, and the fragrant clouds of the
+narghileh, which had helped my dreams, diminished, I was like that same
+summer cloud, when it feels a gentle breeze and is lifted above the hills,
+floating along independent of Earth, but for its shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Brousa is a very long, straggling place, extending for three or four miles
+along the side of the mountain, but presenting a very picturesque
+appearance from every point. The houses are nearly all three stories high,
+built of wood and unburnt bricks, and each story projects over the other,
+after the manner of German towns of the Middle Ages. They have not the
+hanging balconies which I have found so quaint and pleasing in Kiutahya.
+But, especially in the Greek quarter, many of them are plastered and
+painted of some bright color, which gives a gay, cheerful appearance to
+the streets. Besides, Brousa is the cleanest Turkish town I have seen. The
+mountain streams traverse most of the streets, and every heavy rain washes
+them out thoroughly. The whole city has a brisk, active air, and the
+workmen appear both more skilful and more industrious than in the other
+parts of Asia Minor. I noticed a great many workers in copper, iron, and
+wood, and an extensive manufactory of shoes and saddles. Brousa, however,
+is principally noted for its silks, which are produced in this valley,
+and others to the South and East. The manufactories are near the city. I
+looked over some of the fabrics in the bazaars, but found them nearly all
+imitations of European stuffs, woven in mixed silk and cotton, and even
+more costly than the silks of Damascus.</p>
+
+<p>We passed the whole length of the bazaars, and then, turning up one of the
+side streets on our right, crossed a deep ravine by a high stone bridge.
+Above and below us there were other bridges, under which a stream flowed
+down from the mountains. Thence we ascended the height, whereon stands the
+largest and one of the oldest mosques in Brousa. The position is
+remarkably fine, commanding a view of nearly the whole city and the plain
+below it. We entered the court-yard boldly, Fran&ccedil;ois taking the precaution
+to speak to me only in Arabic, as there was a Turk within. Mr. H. went to
+the fountain, washed his hands and face, but did not dare to swallow a
+drop, putting on a most dolorous expression of countenance, as if
+perishing with thirst. The mosque was a plain, square building, with a
+large dome and two minarets. The door was a rich and curious specimen of
+the <i>stalactitic</i> style, so frequent in Saracenic buildings. We peeped
+into the windows, and, although the mosque, which does not appear to be in
+common use, was darkened, saw enough to show that the interior was quite
+plain.</p>
+
+<p>Just above this edifice stands a large octagonal tomb, surmounted by a
+dome, and richly adorned with arabesque cornices and coatings of green and
+blue tiles. It stood in a small garden inclosure, and there was a sort of
+porter's lodge at the entrance. As we approached, an old gray-bearded man
+in a green turban came out, and, on Fran&ccedil;ois requesting entrance for us,
+took a key and conducted us to the building. He had not the slightest idea
+of our being Christians. We took off our slippers before touching the
+lintel of the door, as the place was particularly holy. Then, throwing
+open the door, the old man lingered a few moments after we entered, so as
+not to disturb our prayers--a mark of great respect. We advanced to the
+edge of the parapet, turned our faces towards Mecca, and imitated the
+usual Mohammedan prayer on entering a mosque, by holding both arms
+outspread for a few moments, then bringing the hands together and bowing
+the face upon them. This done, we leisurely examined the building, and the
+old man was ready enough to satisfy our curiosity. It was a rich and
+elegant structure, lighted from the dome. The walls were lined with
+brilliant tiles, and had an elaborate cornice, with Arabic inscriptions in
+gold. The floor was covered with a carpet, whereon stood eight or ten
+ancient coffins, surrounding a larger one which occupied a raised platform
+in the centre. They were all of wood, heavily carved, and many of them
+entirely covered with gilded inscriptions. These, according to the old
+man, were the coffins of the Ottoman Sultans, who had reigned at Brousa
+previous to the taking of Constantinople, with some members of their
+families. There were four Sultans, among whom were Mahomet I., and a
+certain Achmet. Orchan, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty, is buried
+somewhere in Brousa, and the great central coffin may have been his.
+Fran&ccedil;ois and I talked entirely in Arabic, and the old man asked: "Who are
+these Hadjis?" whereupon F. immediately answered: "They are Effendis from
+Baghdad."</p>
+
+<p>We had intended making the ascent of Olympus, but the summit was too
+thickly covered with clouds. On the morning of the second day, therefore,
+we determined to take up the line of march for Constantinople. The last
+scene of our strange, eventful history with the katurgees had just
+transpired, by their deserting us, being two hundred piastres in our debt.
+They left their khan on the afternoon after our arrival, ostensibly for
+the purpose of taking their beasts out to pasture, and were never heard of
+more. We let them go, thankful that they had not played the trick sooner.
+We engaged fresh horses for Moudania, on the Sea of Marmora, and
+dispatched Fran&ccedil;ois in advance, to procure a ca&iuml;que for Constantinople,
+while we waited to have our passports signed. But after waiting an hour,
+as there was no appearance of the precious documents, we started the
+baggage also, under the charge of a <i>surroudjee</i>, and remained alone.
+Another hour passed by, and yet another, and the Bey was still occupied in
+sleeping off his hunger. Mr. Harrison, in desperation, went to the office,
+and after some delay, received the passports with a vis&egrave;, but not, as we
+afterwards discovered, the necessary one.</p>
+
+<p>It was four o'clock by the time we left Brousa. Our horses were stiff,
+clumsy pack-beasts; but, by dint of whips and the sharp shovel-stirrups,
+we forced them into a trot and made them keep it. The road was well
+travelled, and by asking everybody we met: "<i>Bou y&ocirc;l Moudania yedermi</i>?"
+("Is this the way to Moudania?"), we had no difficulty in finding it. The
+plain in many places is marshy, and traversed by several streams. A low
+range of hills stretches across, and nearly closes it, the united waters
+finding their outlet by a narrow valley to the north. From the top of the
+hill we had a grand view, looking back over the plain, with the long line
+of Brousa's minarets glittering through the interminable groves at the
+foot of the mountain Olympus now showed a superb outline; the clouds hung
+about his shoulders, but his snowy head was bare. Before us lay a broad,
+rich valley, extending in front to the mountains of Moudania. The country
+was well cultivated, with large farming establishments here and there.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was setting as we reached the summit ridge, where stood a little
+guard-house. As we rode over the crest, Olympus disappeared, and the Sea
+of Marmora lay before us, spreading out from the Gulf of Moudania, which
+was deep and blue among the hills, to an open line against the sunset.
+Beyond that misty line lay Europe, which I had not seen for nearly nine
+months, and the gulf below me was the bound of my tent and saddle life.
+But one hour more, old horse! Have patience with my Ethiopian thong, and
+the sharp corners of my Turkish stirrups: but one hour more, and I promise
+never to molest you again! Our path was downward, and I marvel that the
+poor brute did not sometimes tumble headlong with me. He had been too long
+used to the pack, however, and his habits were as settled as a Turk's. We
+passed a beautiful village in a valley on the right, and came into olive
+groves and vineyards, as the dusk was creeping on. It was a lovely country
+of orchards and gardens, with fountains spouting by the wayside, and
+country houses perched on the steeps. In another hour, we reached the
+sea-shore. It was now nearly dark, but we could see the tower of Moudania
+some distance to the west.</p>
+
+<p>Still in a continual trot, we rode on; and as we drew near, Mr. H. fired
+his gun to announce our approach. At the entrance of the town, we found
+the sourrudjee waiting to conduct us. We clattered through the rough
+streets for what seemed an endless length of time. The Ramazan gun had
+just fired, the minarets were illuminated, and the coffee-houses were
+filled with people. Finally, Fran&ccedil;ois, who had been almost in despair at
+our non-appearance, hailed us with the welcome news that he had engaged a
+ca&iuml;que, and that our baggage was already embarked. We only needed the
+vis&egrave;s of the authorities, in order to leave. He took our tesker&eacute;s to get
+them, and we went upon the balcony of a coffee-house overhanging the sea,
+and smoked a narghileh.</p>
+
+<p>But here there was another history. The tesker&eacute;s had not been properly
+vis&egrave;d at Brousa, and the Governor at first decided to send us back. Taking
+Fran&ccedil;ois, however, for a Turk, and finding that we had regularly passed
+quarantine, he signed them after a delay of an hour and a half, and we
+left the shore, weary, impatient, and wolfish with twelve hours' fasting.
+A cup of Brousan beer and a piece of bread brought us into a better mood,
+and I, who began to feel sick from the rolling of the ca&iuml;que, lay down on
+my bed, which was spread at the bottom, and found a kind of uneasy sleep.
+The sail was hoisted at first, to get us across the mouth of the Gulf, but
+soon the Greeks took to their oars. They were silent, however, and though
+I only slept by fits, the night wore away rapidly. As the dawn was
+deepening, we ran into a little bight in the northern side of a
+promontory, where a picturesque Greek village stood at the foot of the
+mountains. The houses were of wood, with balconies overgrown with
+grape-vines, and there was a fountain of cold, excellent water on the very
+beach. Some Greek boatmen were smoking in the portico of a caf&eacute; on shore,
+and two fishermen, who had been out before dawn to catch sardines, were
+emptying their nets of the spoil. Our men kindled a fire on the sand, and
+roasted us a dish of the fish. Some of the last night's hunger remained,
+and the meal had enough of that seasoning to be delicious.</p>
+
+<p>After giving our men an hour's rest, we set off for the Princes' Islands,
+which now appeared to the north, over the glassy plain of the sea. The
+Gulf of Iskmid, or Nicomedia, opened away to the east, between two
+mountain headlands. The morning was intensely hot and sultry, and but for
+the protection of an umbrella, we should have suffered greatly. There was
+a fiery blue vapor on the sea, and a thunder-cloud hid the shores of
+Thrace. Now and then came a light puff of wind, whereupon the men would
+ship the little mast, and crowd on an enormous quantity of sail. So,
+sailing and rowing, we neared the islands with the storm, but it advanced
+slowly enough to allow a sight of the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed, gleaming far and white, like icebergs astray on a torrid sea.
+Another cloud was pouring its rain over the Asian shore, and we made haste
+to get to the landing at Prinkipo before it could reach us. From the
+south, the group of islands is not remarkable for beauty. Only four of
+them--Prinkipo, Chalki, Prote, and Antigone--are inhabited, the other five
+being merely barren rocks.</p>
+
+<p>There is an ancient convent on the summit of Prinkipo, where the Empress
+Irene--the contemporary of Charlemagne--is buried. The town is on the
+northern side of the island, and consists mostly of the summer residences
+of Greek and Armenian merchants. Many of these are large and stately
+houses, surrounded with handsome gardens. The streets are shaded with
+sycamores, and the number of coffee-houses shows that the place is much
+frequented on festal days. A company of drunken Greeks were singing in
+violation of all metre and harmony--a discord the more remarkable, since
+nothing could be more affectionate than their conduct towards each other.
+Nearly everybody was in Frank costume, and our Oriental habits, especially
+the red Tartar boots, attracted much observation. I began to feel awkward
+and absurd, and longed to show myself a Christian once more.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Prinkipo, we made for Constantinople, whose long array of marble
+domes and gilded spires gleamed like a far mirage over the waveless sea.
+It was too faint and distant and dazzling to be substantial. It was like
+one of those imaginary cities which we build in a cloud fused in the light
+of the setting sun. But as we neared the point of Chalcedon, running along
+the Asian shore, those airy piles gathered form and substance. The
+pinnacles of the Seraglio shot up from the midst of cypress groves;
+fantastic kiosks lined the shore; the minarets of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed rose more clearly against the sky; and a fleet of steamers and
+men-of-war, gay with flags, marked the entrance of the Golden Horn. We
+passed the little bay where St. Chrysostom was buried, the point of
+Chalcedon, and now, looking up the renowned Bosphorus, saw the Maiden's
+Tower, opposite Scutari. An enormous pile, the barracks of the Anatolian
+soldiery, hangs over the high bank, and, as we row abreast of it, a fresh
+breeze comes up from the Sea of Marmora. The prow of the ca&iuml;que is turned
+across the stream, the sail is set, and we glide rapidly and noiselessly
+over the Bosphorus and into the Golden Horn, between the banks of the
+Frank and Moslem--Pera and Stamboul. Where on the earth shall we find a
+panorama more magnificent?</p>
+
+<p>The air was filled with the shouts and noises of the great Oriental
+metropolis; the water was alive with ca&iuml;ques and little steamers; and all
+the world of work and trade, which had grown almost to be a fable,
+welcomed us back to its restless heart. We threaded our rather perilous
+way over the populous waves, and landed in a throng of Custom-House
+officers and porters, on the wharf at Galata.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch26">
+<h2>Chapter XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Night of Predestination.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Constantinople in Ramazan--The Origin of the Fast--Nightly
+  Illuminations--The Night of Predestination--The Golden Horn at
+  Night--Illumination of the Shores--The Cannon of Constantinople--A Fiery
+  Panorama--The Sultan's Ca&iuml;que--Close of the Celebration--A Turkish
+  Mob--The Dancing Dervishes.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Skies full of splendid moons and shooting stars,<br />
+And spouting exhalations, diamond fires." Keats.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Constantinople, <i>Wednesday, July</i> 14, 1862.</h4>
+
+<p>Constantinople, during the month of Ramazan, presents a very different
+aspect from Constantinople at other times. The city, it is true, is much
+more stern and serious during the day; there is none of that gay, careless
+life of the Orient which you see in Smyrna, Cairo, and Damascus; but when
+once the sunset gun has fired, and the painful fast is at an end, the
+picture changes as if by magic. In all the outward symbols of their
+religion, the Mussulmans show their joy at being relieved from what they
+consider a sacred duty. During the day, it is quite a science to keep the
+appetite dormant, and the people not only abstain from eating and
+drinking, but as much as possible from the sight of food. In the bazaars,
+you see the famished merchants either sitting, propped back against their
+cushions, with the shawl about their stomachs, tightened so as to prevent
+the void under it from being so sensibly felt, or lying at full length in
+the vain attempt to sleep. It is whispered here that many of the Turks
+will both eat and smoke, when there is no chance of detection, but no one
+would dare infringe the fast in public. Most of the mechanics and porters
+are Armenians, and the boatmen are Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>I have endeavored to ascertain the origin of this fast month. The Syrian
+Christians say that it is a mere imitation of an incident which happened
+to Mahomet. The Prophet, having lost his camels, went day after day
+seeking them in the Desert, taking no nourishment from the time of his
+departure in the morning until his return at sunset. After having sought
+them thus daily, for the period of one entire moon, he found them, and in
+token of joy, gave a three days' feast to the tribe, now imitated in the
+festival of Bairam, which lasts for three days after the close of Ramazan.
+This reason, however, seems too trifling for such a rigid fast, and the
+Turkish tradition, that the Koran was sent down from heaven during this
+month, offers a more probable explanation. During the fast, the
+Mussulmans, as is quite natural, are much more fanatical than at other
+times. They are obliged to attend prayers at the mosque every night, or to
+have a <i>mollah</i> read the Koran to them at their own houses. All the
+prominent features of their religion are kept constantly before their
+eyes, and their natural aversion to the Giaour, or Infidel, is increased
+tenfold. I have heard of several recent instances in which strangers have
+been exposed to insults and indignities.</p>
+
+<p>At dusk the minarets are illuminated; a peal of cannon from the Arsenal,
+echoed by others from the forts along the Bosphorus, relieves the
+suffering followers of the Prophet, and after an hour of silence, during
+which they are all at home, feasting, the streets are filled with noisy
+crowds, and every coffee-shop is thronged. Every night there are
+illuminations along the water, which, added to the crowns of light
+sparkling on the hundred minarets and domes, give a magical effect to the
+night view of the city. Towards midnight there is again a season of
+comparative quiet, most of the inhabitants having retired to rest; but,
+about two hours afterwards a watchman comes along with a big drum, which
+he beats lustily before the doors of the Faithful, in order to arouse them
+in time to eat again before the daylight-gun, which announces the
+commencement of another day's fast.</p>
+
+<p>Last night was the holiest night of Islam, being the twenty-fifth of the
+fast. It is called the <i>Leilet-el-Kadr,</i> or Night of the Predestination,
+the anniversary of that on which the Koran was miraculously communicated
+to the Prophet. On this night the Sultan, accompanied by his whole suite,
+attends service at the mosque, and on his return to the Seraglio, the
+Sultana Valide, or Sultana-Mother, presents him with a virgin from one of
+the noble families of Constantinople. Formerly, St. Sophia was the theatre
+of this celebration, but this year the Sultan chose the Mosque of
+Tophaneh, which stands on the shore--probably as being nearer to his
+imperial palace at Beshiktashe, on the Bosphorus. I consider myself
+fortunate in having reached Constantinople in season to witness this
+ceremony, and the illumination of the Golden Horn, which accompanies it.</p>
+
+<p>After sunset the mosques crowning the hills of Stamboul, the mosque of
+Tophaneh, on this side of the water, and the Turkish men-of-war and
+steamers afloat at the mouth of the Golden Horn, began to blaze with more
+than their usual brilliance. The outlines of the minarets and domes were
+drawn in light on the deepening gloom, and the masts and yards of the
+vessel were hung with colored lanterns. From the battery in front of the
+mosque and arsenal of Tophaneh a blaze of intense light streamed out over
+the water, illuminating the gliding forms of a thousand ca&iuml;ques, and the
+dark hulls of the vessels lying at anchor. The water is the best place
+from which to view the illumination, and a party of us descended to the
+landing-place. The streets of Tophaneh were crowded with swarms of Turks,
+Greeks and Armenians. The square around the fountain was brilliantly
+lighted, and venders of sherbet and ka&iuml;mak were ranged along the
+sidewalks. In the neighborhood of the mosque the crowd was so dense that
+we could with difficulty make our way through. All the open space next the
+water was filled up with the clumsy <i>arabas</i>, or carriages of the Turks,
+in which sat the wives of the Pashas and other dignitaries.</p>
+
+<p>We took a ca&iuml;que, and were soon pulled out into the midst of a multitude
+of other ca&iuml;ques, swarming all over the surface of the Golden Horn. The
+view from this point was strange, fantastic, yet inconceivably gorgeous.
+In front, three or four large Turkish frigates lay in the Bosphorus, their
+hulls and spars outlined in fire against the dark hills and distant
+twinkling lights of Asia. Looking to the west, the shores of the Golden
+Horn were equally traced by the multitude of lamps that covered them, and
+on either side, the hills on which the city is built rose from the
+water--masses of dark buildings, dotted all over with shafts and domes of
+the most brilliant light. The gateway on Seraglio Point was illuminated,
+as well as the quay in front of the mosque of Tophaneh, all the cannons of
+the battery being covered with lamps. The commonest objects shared in the
+splendor, even a large lever used for hoisting goods being hung with
+lanterns from top to bottom. The mosque was a mass of light, and between
+the tall minarets flanking it, burned the inscription, in Arabic
+characters, "Long life to you, O our Sovereign!"</p>
+
+<p>The discharge of a cannon announced the Sultan's departure from his
+palace, and immediately the guns on the frigates and the batteries on both
+shores took up the salute, till the grand echoes, filling the hollow
+throat of the Golden Horn, crashed from side to side, striking the hills
+of Scutari and the point of Chalcedon, and finally dying away among the
+summits of the Princes' Islands, out on the Sea of Marmora. The hulls of
+the frigates were now lighted up with intense chemical fires, and an
+abundance of rockets were spouted from their decks. A large Drummond light
+on Seraglio Point, and another at the Battery of Tophaneh, poured their
+rival streams across the Golden Horn, revealing the thousands of ca&iuml;ques
+jostling each other from shore to shore, and the endless variety of gay
+costumes with which they were filled. The smoke of the cannon hanging in
+the air, increased the effect of this illumination, and became a screen of
+auroral brightness, through which the superb spectacle loomed with large
+and unreal features. It was a picture of air--a phantasmagoric spectacle,
+built of luminous vapor and meteoric fires, and hanging in the dark round
+of space. In spite of ourselves, we became eager and excited, half fearing
+that the whole pageant would dissolve the next moment, and leave no trace
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the cannon thundered from a dozen batteries, and the rockets
+burst into glittering rain over our heads. Grander discharges I never
+heard; the earth shook and trembled under the mighty bursts of sound, and
+the reverberation which rattled along the hill of Galata, broken by the
+scattered buildings into innumerable fragments of sound, resembled the
+crash of a thousand falling houses. The distant echoes from Asia and the
+islands in the sea filled up the pauses between the nearer peals, and we
+seemed to be in the midst of some great naval engagement. But now the
+ca&iuml;que of the Sultan is discerned, approaching from the Bosphorus. A
+signal is given, and a sunrise of intense rosy and golden radiance
+suddenly lights up the long arsenal and stately mosque of Tophaneh, plays
+over the tall buildings on the hill of Pera, and falls with a fainter
+lustre on the Genoese watch-tower that overlooks Galata. It is impossible
+to describe the effect of this magical illumination. The mosque, with its
+taper minarets, its airy galleries, and its great central dome, is built
+of compact, transparent flame, and in the shifting of the red and yellow
+fires, seems to flicker and waver in the air. It is as lofty, and
+gorgeous, and unsubstantial as the cloudy palace in Cole's picture of
+"Youth." The long white front of the arsenal is fused in crimson heat, and
+burns against the dark as if it were one mass of living coal. And over all
+hangs the luminous canopy of smoke, redoubling its lustre on the waters of
+the Golden Horn, and mingling with the phosphorescent gleams that play
+around the oars of the ca&iuml;ques.</p>
+
+<p>A long barge, propelled by sixteen oars, glides around the dark corner of
+Tophaneh, and shoots into the clear, brilliant space in front of the
+mosque. It is not lighted, and passes with great swiftness towards the
+brilliant landing-place. There are several persons seated under a canopy
+in the stern, and we are trying to decide which is the Sultan, when a
+second boat, driven by twenty-four oarsmen, comes in sight. The men rise
+up at each stroke, and the long, sharp craft flies over the surface of
+the water, rather than forces its way through it. A gilded crown surmounts
+the long, curved prow, and a light though superb canopy covers the stern.
+Under this, we catch a glimpse of the Sultan and Grand Vizier, as they
+appear for an instant like black silhouettes against the burst of light on
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>After the Sultan had entered the mosque, the fires diminished and the
+cannon ceased, though the illuminated masts, minarets and gateways still
+threw a brilliant gleam over the scene. After more than an hour spent in
+devotion, he again entered his ca&iuml;que and sped away to greet his new wife,
+amid a fresh discharge from the frigates and the batteries on both shores,
+and a new dawn of auroral splendor. We made haste to reach the
+landing-place, in order to avoid the crowd of ca&iuml;ques; but, although we
+were among the first, we came near being precipitated into the water, in
+the struggle to get ashore. The market-place at Tophaneh was so crowded
+that nothing but main force brought us through, and some of our party had
+their pockets picked. A number of Turkish soldiers and police-men were
+mixed up in the melee, and they were not sparing of blows when they came
+in contact with a Giaour. In making my way through, I found that a
+collision with one of the soldiers was inevitable, but I managed to plump
+against him with such force as to take the breath out of his body, and was
+out of his reach before he had recovered himself. I saw several Turkish
+women striking right and left in their endeavors to escape, and place
+their hands against the faces of those who opposed them, pushing them
+aside. This crowd was contrived by thieves, for the purpose of plunder,
+and, from what I have since learned, must have been very successful.</p>
+
+<p>I visited to-day the College of the Mevlevi Dervishes at Pera, and
+witnessed their peculiar ceremonies. They assemble in a large hall, where
+they take their seats in a semi-circle, facing the shekh. After going
+through several times with the usual Moslem prayer, they move in slow
+march around the room, while a choir in the gallery chants Arabic phrases
+in a manner very similar to the mass in Catholic churches. I could
+distinguish the sentences "God is great," "Praise be to God," and other
+similar ejaculations. The chant was accompanied with a drum and flute, and
+had not lasted long before the Dervishes set themselves in a rotary
+motion, spinning slowly around the shekh, who stood in the centre. They
+stretched both arms out, dropped their heads on one side, and glided
+around with a steady, regular motion, their long white gowns spread out
+and floating on the air. Their steps were very similar to those of the
+modern waltz, which, it is possible, may have been derived from the dance
+of the Mevlevis. Baron Von Hammer finds in this ceremony an imitation of
+the dance of the spheres, in the ancient Samothracian Mysteries; but I see
+no reason to go so far back for its origin. The dance lasted for about
+twenty minutes, and the Dervishes appeared very much exhausted at the
+close, as they are obliged to observe the fast very strictly.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch27">
+<h2>Chapter XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Solemnities of Bairam.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Appearance of the New Moon--The Festival of Bairam--The Interior of
+  the Seraglio--The Pomp of the Sultan's Court--Rescind Pasha--The
+  Sultan's Dwarf--Arabian Stallions--The Imperial Guard--Appearance of the
+  Sultan--The Inner Court--Return of the Procession--The Sultan on his
+  Throne--The Homage of the Pashas--An Oriental Picture--Kissing the
+  Scarf--The Shekh el-Isl&agrave;m--The Descendant of the Caliphs--Bairam
+  Commences.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Constantinople, <i>Monday</i>, <i>July</i> 19, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Saturday was the last day of the fast-month of Ramazan, and yesterday the
+celebration of the solemn festival of Bairam took place. The moon changed
+on Friday morning at 11 o'clock, but as the Turks have no faith in
+astronomy, and do not believe the moon has actually changed until they see
+it, all good Mussulmen were obliged to fast an additional day. Had
+Saturday been cloudy, and the new moon invisible, I am not sure but the
+fast would have been still further prolonged. A good look-out was kept,
+however, and about four o'clock on Saturday afternoon some sharp eyes saw
+the young crescent above the sun. There is a hill near Gemlik, on the Gulf
+of Moudania, about fifty miles from here, whence the Turks believe the new
+moon can be first seen. The families who live on this hill are exempted
+from taxation, in consideration of their keeping a watch for the moon, at
+the close of Ramazan. A series of signals, from hill to hill, is in
+readiness, and the news is transmitted to Constantinople in a very short
+time Then, when the muezzin proclaims the <i>asser</i>, or prayer two hours
+before sunset, he proclaims also the close of Ramazan. All the batteries
+fire a salute, and the big guns along the water announce the joyful news
+to all parts of the city. The forts on the Bosphorus take up the tale, and
+both shores, from the Black Sea to the Propontis, shake with the burden of
+their rejoicing. At night the mosques are illuminated for the last time,
+for it is only during Ramazan that they are lighted, or open for night
+service.</p>
+
+<p>After Ramazan, comes the festival of Bairam, which lasts three days, and
+is a season of unbounded rejoicing. The bazaars are closed, no Turk does
+any work, but all, clothed in their best dresses, or in an entire new suit
+if they can afford it, pass the time in feasting, in paying visits, or in
+making excursions to the shores of the Bosphorus, or other favorite spots
+around Constantinople. The festival is inaugurated by a solemn state
+ceremony, at the Seraglio and the mosque of Sultan Achmed, whither the
+Sultan goes in procession, accompanied by all the officers of the
+Government. This is the last remaining pageant which has been spared to
+the Ottoman monarchs by the rigorous reforming measures of Sultan Mahmoud,
+and shorn as it is of much of its former splendor, it probably surpasses
+in brilliant effect any spectacle which any other European Court can
+present. The ceremonies which take place inside of the Seraglio were,
+until within three or four years, prohibited to Frank eyes, and travellers
+were obliged to content themselves with a view of the procession, as it
+passed to the mosque. Through the kindness of Mr. Brown, of the American
+Embassy, I was enabled to witness the entire solemnity, in all its
+details.</p>
+
+<p>As the procession leaves the Seraglio at sunrise, we rose with the first
+streak of dawn, descended to Tophaneh, and crossed to Seraglio Point,
+where the cavass of the Embassy was in waiting for us. He conducted us
+through the guards, into the garden of the Seraglio, and up the hill to
+the Palace. The Capudan Pasha, or Lord High Admiral, had just arrived in a
+splendid ca&iuml;que, and pranced up the hill before us on a magnificent
+stallion, whose trappings blazed with jewels and gold lace. The rich
+uniforms of the different officers of the army and marine glittered far
+and near under the dense shadows of the cypress trees, and down the dark
+alleys where the morning twilight had not penetrated. We were ushered into
+the great outer court-yard of the Seraglio, leading to the Sublime Porte.
+A double row of marines, in scarlet jackets and white trowsers, extended
+from one gate to the other, and a very excellent brass band played "<i>Suoni
+la tromba</i>" with much spirit. The groups of Pashas and other officers of
+high rank, with their attendants, gave the scene a brilliant character of
+festivity. The costumes, except those of the secretaries and servants,
+were after the European model, but covered with a lavish profusion of gold
+lace. The horses were all of the choicest Eastern breeds, and the broad
+housings of their saddles of blue, green, purple, and crimson cloth, were
+enriched with gold lace, rubies, emeralds and turquoises.</p>
+
+<p>The cavass took us into a chamber near the gate, and commanding a view of
+the whole court. There we found Mr. Brown and his lady, with several
+officers from the U.S. steamer San Jacinto. At this moment the sun,
+appearing above the hill of Bulgaria, behind Scutari, threw his earliest
+rays upon the gilded pinnacles of the Seraglio. The commotion in the long
+court-yard below increased. The marines were formed into exact line, the
+horses of the officers clattered on the rough pavement as they dashed
+about to expedite the arrangements, the crowd pressed closer to the line
+of the procession, and in five minutes the grand pageant was set in
+motion. As the first Pasha made his appearance under the dark archway of
+the interior gate, the band struck up the <i>Marseillaise</i> (which is a
+favorite air among the Turks), and the soldiers presented arms. The
+court-yard was near two hundred yards long, and the line of Pashas, each
+surrounded with the officers of his staff, made a most dazzling show. The
+lowest in rank came first. I cannot recollect the precise order, nor the
+names of all of them, which, in fact, are of little consequence, while
+power and place are such uncertain matters in Turkey.</p>
+
+<p>Each Pasha wore the red fez on his head, a frock-coat of blue cloth, the
+breast of which was entirely covered with gold lace, while a broad band of
+the same decorated the skirts, and white pantaloons. One of the Ministers,
+Mehemet Ali Pasha, the brother-in-law of the Sultan, was formerly a
+cooper's apprentice, but taken, when a boy, by the late Sultan Mahmoud, to
+be a playmate for his son, on account of his extraordinary beauty. Rescind
+Pasha, the Grand Vizier, is a man of about sixty years of age. He is
+frequently called Giaour, or Infidel, by the Turks, on account of his
+liberal policy, which has made him many enemies. The expression of his
+face denotes intelligence, but lacks the energy necessary to accomplish
+great reforms. His son, a boy of about seventeen, already possesses the
+rank of Pasha, and is affianced to the Sultan's daughter, a child of ten,
+or twelve years old. He is a fat, handsome youth, with a sprightly face,
+and acted his part in the ceremonies with a nonchalance which made him
+appear graceful beside his stiff, dignified elders.</p>
+
+<p>After the Pashas came the entire household of the Sultan, including even
+his eunuchs, cooks, and constables. The Kislar Aga, or Chief Eunuch, a
+tall African in resplendent costume, is one of the most important
+personages connected with the Court. The Sultan's favorite dwarf, a little
+man about forty years old and three feet high, bestrode his horse with as
+consequential an air as any of them. A few years ago, this man took a
+notion to marry, and applied to the Sultan for a wife. The latter gave him
+permission to go into his harem and take the one whom he could kiss. The
+dwarf, like all short men, was ambitious to have a long wife. While the
+Sultan's five hundred women, who knew the terms according to which the
+dwarf was permitted to choose, were laughing at the amorous mannikin, he
+went up to one of the tallest and handsomest of them, and struck her a
+sudden blow on the stomach. She collapsed with the pain, and before she
+could recover he caught her by the neck and gave her the dreaded kiss. The
+Sultan kept his word, and the tall beauty is now the mother of the dwarfs
+children.</p>
+
+<p>The procession grows more brilliant as it advances, and the profound
+inclination made by the soldiers at the further end of the court,
+announces the approach of the Sultan himself. First come three led horses,
+of the noblest Arabian blood--glorious creatures, worthy to represent</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven,<br />
+And snort the morning from their nostrils,<br />
+Making their fiery gait above the glades."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Their eyes were more keen and lustrous than the diamonds which studded
+their head-stalls, and the wealth of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires that
+gleamed on their trappings would have bought the possessions of a German
+Prince. After them came the Sultan's body-guard, a company of tall, strong
+men, in crimson tunics and white trousers, with lofty plumes of peacock
+feathers in their hats. Some of them carried crests of green feathers,
+fastened upon long staves. These superb horses and showy guards are the
+only relics of that barbaric pomp which characterized all State
+processions during the time of the Janissaries. In the centre of a hollow
+square of plume-bearing guards rode Abdul-Medjid himself, on a snow-white
+steed. Every one bowed profoundly as he passed along, but he neither
+looked to the right or left, nor made the slightest acknowledgment of the
+salutations. Turkish etiquette exacts the most rigid indifference on the
+part of the Sovereign, who, on all public occasions, never makes a
+greeting. Formerly, before the change of costume, the Sultan's turbans
+were carried before him in the processions, and the servants who bore them
+inclined them to one side and the other, in answer to the salutations of
+the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Sultan Abdul-Medjid is a man of about thirty, though he looks older. He
+has a mild, amiable, weak face, dark eyes, a prominent nose, and short,
+dark brown mustaches and beard. His face is thin, and wrinkles are already
+making their appearance about the corners of his mouth and eyes. But for a
+certain vacancy of expression, he would be called a handsome man. He sits
+on his horse with much ease and grace, though there is a slight stoop in
+his shoulders. His legs are crooked, owing to which cause he appears
+awkward when on his feet, though he wears a long cloak to conceal the
+deformity. Sensual indulgence has weakened a constitution not naturally
+strong, and increased that mildness which has now become a defect in his
+character. He is not stern enough to be just, and his subjects are less
+fortunate under his easy rule than under the rod of his savage father,
+Mahmoud. He was dressed in a style of the utmost richness and elegance. He
+wore a red Turkish fez, with an immense rosette of brilliants, and a long,
+floating plume of bird-of-paradise feathers. The diamond in the centre of
+the rosette is of unusual size; it was picked up some years ago in the
+Hippodrome, and probably belonged to the treasury of the Greek Emperors.
+The breast and collar of his coat were one mass of diamonds, and sparkled
+in the early sun with a thousand rainbow gleams. His mantle of dark-blue
+cloth hung to his knees, concealing the deformity of his legs. He wore
+white pantaloons, white kid gloves, and patent leather boots, thrust into
+his golden stirrups.</p>
+
+<p>A few officers of the Imperial household followed behind the Sultan, and
+the procession then terminated. Including the soldiers, it contained from
+two to three thousand persons. The marines lined the way to the mosque of
+Sultan Achmed, and a great crowd of spectators filled up the streets and
+the square of the Hippodrome. Coffee was served to us, after which we were
+all conducted into the inner court of the Seraglio, to await the return of
+the cort&egrave;ge. This court is not more than half the size of the outer one,
+but is shaded with large sycamores, embellished with fountains, and
+surrounded with light and elegant galleries, in pure Saracenic style. The
+picture which it presented was therefore far richer and more
+characteristic of the Orient than the outer court, where the architecture
+is almost wholly after Italian models. The portals at either end rested
+on slender pillars, over which projected broad eaves, decorated with
+elaborate carved and gilded work, and above all rose a dome, surmounted by
+the Crescent. On the right, the tall chimneys of the Imperial kitchens
+towered above the walls. The sycamores threw their broad, cool shadows
+over the court, and groups of servants, in gala dresses, loitered about
+the corridors.</p>
+
+<p>After waiting nearly half an hour, the sound of music and the appearance
+of the Sultan's body-guard proclaimed the return of the procession. It
+came in reversed order, headed by the Sultan, after whom followed the
+Grand Vizier and other Ministers of the Imperial Council, and the Pashas,
+each surrounded by his staff of officers. The Sultan dismounted at the
+entrance to the Seraglio, and disappeared through the door. He was absent
+for more than half an hour, during which time he received the
+congratulations of his family, his wives, and the principal personages of
+his household, all of whom came to kiss his feet. Meanwhile, the Pashas
+ranged themselves in a semicircle around the arched and gilded portico.
+The servants of the Seraglio brought out a large Persian carpet, which
+they spread on the marble pavement. The throne, a large square seat,
+richly carved and covered with gilding, was placed in the centre, and a
+dazzling piece of cloth-of-gold thrown over the back of it. When the
+Sultan re-appeared, he took his seat thereon, placing his feet on a small
+footstool. The ceremony of kissing his feet now commenced. The first who
+had this honor was the Chief of the Emirs, an old man in a green robe,
+embroidered with pearls. He advanced to the throne, knelt, kissed the
+Sultan's patent-leather boot, and retired backward from the presence.</p>
+
+<p>The Ministers and Pashas followed in single file, and, after they had
+made the salutation, took their stations on the right hand of the throne.
+Most of them were fat, and their glittering frock-coats were buttoned so
+tightly that they seemed ready to burst. It required a great effort for
+them to rise from their knees. During all this time, the band was playing
+operatic airs, and as each Pasha knelt, a marshal, or master of
+ceremonies, with a silver wand, gave the signal to the Imperial Guard, who
+shouted at the top of their voices: "Prosperity to our Sovereign! May he
+live a thousand years!" This part of the ceremony was really grand and
+imposing. All the adjuncts were in keeping: the portico, wrought in rich
+arabesque designs; the swelling domes and sunlit crescents above; the
+sycamores and cypresses shading the court; the red tunics and peacock
+plumes of the guard; the monarch himself, radiant with jewels, as he sat
+in his chair of gold--all these features combined to form a stately
+picture of the lost Orient, and for the time Abdul-Medjid seemed the true
+representative of Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid.</p>
+
+<p>After the Pashas had finished, the inferior officers of the Army, Navy,
+and Civil Service followed, to the number of at least a thousand. They
+were not considered worthy to touch the Sultan's person, but kissed his
+golden scarf, which was held out to them by a Pasha, who stood on the left
+of the throne. The Grand Vizier had his place on the right, and the Chief
+of the Eunuchs stood behind him. The kissing of the scarf occupied an
+hour. The Sultan sat quietly during all this time, his face expressing a
+total indifference to all that was going on. The most skilful
+physiognomist could not have found in it the shadow of an expression. If
+this was the etiquette prescribed for him, he certainly acted it with
+marvellous skill and success.</p>
+
+<p>The long line of officers at length came to an end, and I fancied that the
+solemnities were now over; but after a pause appeared the <i>Shekh
+el-Isl&agrave;m,</i> or High Priest of the Mahometan religion. His authority in
+religious matters transcends that of the Sultan, and is final and
+irrevocable. He was a very venerable man, of perhaps seventy-five years of
+age, and his tottering steps were supported by two mollahs. He was dressed
+in a long green robe, embroidered with gold and pearls, over which his
+white beard flowed below his waist. In his turban of white cambric was
+twisted a scarf of cloth-of-gold. He kissed the border of the Sultan's
+mantle, which salutation was also made by a long line of the chief priests
+of the mosques of Constantinople, who followed him. These priests were
+dressed in long robes of white, green, blue, and violet, many of them with
+collars of pearls and golden scarfs wound about their turbans, the rich
+fringes falling on their shoulders. They were grave, stately men, with
+long gray beards, and the wisdom of age and study in their deep-set eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Among the last who came was the most important personage of all. This was
+the Governor of Mecca (as I believe he is called), the nearest descendant
+of the Prophet, and the successor to the Caliphate, in case the family of
+Othman becomes extinct. Sultan Mahmoud, on his accession to the throne,
+was the last descendant of Orchan, the founder of the Ottoman Dynasty, the
+throne being inherited only by the male heirs. He left two sons, who are
+both living, Abdul-Medjid having departed from the practice of his
+predecessors, each of whom slew his brothers, in order to make his own
+sovereignty secure. He has one son, Muzad, who is about ten years old, so
+that there are now three males of the family of Orchan. In case of their
+death, the Governor of Mecca would become Caliph, and the sovereignty
+would be established in his family. He is a swarthy Arab, of about fifty,
+with a bold, fierce face. He wore a superb dress of green, the sacred
+color, and was followed by his two sons, young men of twenty and
+twenty-two. As he advanced to the throne, and was about to kneel and kiss
+the Sultan's robe, the latter prevented him, and asked politely after his
+health--the highest mark of respect in his power to show. The old Arab's
+face gleamed with such a sudden gush of pride and satisfaction, that no
+flash of lightning could have illumined it more vividly.</p>
+
+<p>The sacred writers, or transcribers of the Koran, closed the procession,
+after which the Sultan rose and entered the Seraglio. The crowd slowly
+dispersed, and in a few minutes the grand reports of the cannon on
+Seraglio Point announced the departure of the Sultan for his palace on the
+Bosphorus. The festival of Bairam was now fairly inaugurated, and all
+Stamboul was given up to festivity. There was no Turk so poor that he did
+not in some sort share in the rejoicing. Our Fourth could scarcely show
+more flags, let off more big guns or send forth greater crowds of
+excursionists than this Moslem holiday.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch28">
+<h2>Chapter XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mosques of Constantinople.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Sojourn at Constantinople--Semi-European Character of the City--The
+  Mosque--Procuring a Firman--The Seraglio--The Library--The Ancient
+  Throne-Room--Admittance to St. Sophia--Magnificence of the Interior--The
+  Marvellous Dome--The Mosque of Sultan Achmed--The Sulemanye--Great
+  Conflagrations--Political Meaning of the Fires--Turkish Progress--Decay
+  of the Ottoman Power.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>"Is that indeed Sophia's far-famed dome,<br />
+Where first the Faith was led in triumph home,<br />
+Like some high bride, with banner and bright sign,<br />
+And melody, and flowers?" Audrey de Vere.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Constantinople, <i>Tuesday, August</i> 8, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>The length of my stay in Constantinople has enabled me to visit many
+interesting spots in its vicinity, as well as to familiarize myself with
+the peculiar features of the great capital. I have seen the beautiful
+Bosphorus from steamers and ca&iuml;ques; ridden up the valley of Buyukdere,
+and through the chestnut woods of Belgrade; bathed in the Black Sea, under
+the lee of the Symplegades, where the marble altar to Apollo still invites
+an oblation from passing mariners; walked over the flowery meadows beside
+the "Heavenly Waters of Asia;" galloped around the ivy-grown walls where
+Dandolo and Mahomet II. conquered, and the last of the Pal&aelig;ologi fell; and
+dreamed away many an afternoon-hour under the funereal cypresses of Pera,
+and beside the Delphian tripod in the Hippodrome. The historic interest
+of these spots is familiar to all, nor; with one exception, have their
+natural beauties been exaggerated by travellers. This exception is the
+village of Belgrade, over which Mary Montague went into raptures, and set
+the fashion for tourists ever since. I must confess to having been wofully
+disappointed. The village is a miserable cluster of rickety houses, on an
+open piece of barren land, surrounded by the forests, or rather thickets,
+which keep alive the springs that supply Constantinople with water. We
+reached there with appetites sharpened by our morning's ride, expecting to
+find at least a vender of <i>kibabs</i> (bits of fried meat) in so renowned a
+place; but the only things to be had were raw salt mackerel, and bread
+which belonged to the primitive geological formation.</p>
+
+<p>The general features of Constantinople and the Bosphorus are so well
+known, that I am spared the dangerous task of painting scenes which have
+been colored by abler pencils. Von Hammer, Lamartine, Willis, Miss Pardoe,
+Albert Smith, and thou, most inimitable Thackeray! have made Pera and
+Scutari, the Bazaars and Baths, the Seraglio and the Golden Horn, as
+familiar to our ears as Cornhill and Wall street. Besides, Constantinople
+is not the true Orient, which is to be found rather in Cairo, in Aleppo,
+and brightest and most vital, in Damascus. Here, we tread European soil;
+the Franks are fast crowding out the followers of the Prophet, and
+Stamboul itself, were its mosques and Seraglio removed, would differ
+little in outward appearance from a third-rate Italian town. The Sultan
+lives in a palace with a Grecian portico; the pointed Saracenic arch, the
+arabesque sculptures, the latticed balconies, give place to clumsy
+imitations of Palladio, and every fire that sweeps away a recollection of
+the palmy times of Ottoman rule, sweeps it away forever.</p>
+
+<p>But the Mosque--that blossom of Oriental architecture, with its crowning
+domes, like the inverted bells of the lotus, and its reed-like minarets,
+its fountains and marble courts--can only perish with the faith it
+typifies. I, for one, rejoice that, so long as the religion of Islam
+exists (and yet, may its time be short!), no Christian model can shape its
+houses of worship. The minaret must still lift its airy tower for the
+muezzin; the dome must rise like a gilded heaven above the prayers of the
+Faithful, with its starry lamps and emblazoned phrases; the fountain must
+continue to pour its waters of purification. A reformation of the Moslem
+faith is impossible. When it begins to give way, the whole fabric must
+fall. Its ceremonies, as well as its creed, rest entirely on the
+recognition of Mahomet as the Prophet of God. However the Turks may change
+in other respects, in all that concerns their religion they must continue
+the same.</p>
+
+<p>Until within a few years, a visit to the mosques, especially the more
+sacred ones of St. Sophia and Sultan Achmed, was attended with much
+difficulty. Miss Pardoe, according to her own account, risked her life in
+order to see the interior of St. Sophia, which she effected in the
+disguise of a Turkish Effendi. I accomplished the same thing, a few days
+since, but without recourse to any such romantic expedient. Mr. Brown, the
+interpreter of the Legation, procured a firman from the Grand Vizier, on
+behalf of the officers of the San Jacinto, and kindly invited me, with
+several other American and English travellers, to join the party. During
+the month of Ramazan, no firmans are given, and as at this time there are
+few travellers in Constantinople, we should otherwise have been subjected
+to a heavy expense. The cost of a firman, including backsheesh to the
+priests and doorkeepers, is 700 piastres (about $33).</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the Golden Horn in ca&iuml;ques, and first visited the gardens and
+palaces on Seraglio Point. The Sultan at present resides in his summer
+palace of Beshiktashe, on the Bosphorus, and only occupies the Serai
+Bornou, as it is called, during the winter months. The Seraglio covers the
+extremity of the promontory on which Constantinople is built, and is
+nearly three miles in circuit. The scattered buildings erected by
+different Sultans form in themselves a small city, whose domes and pointed
+turrets rise from amid groves of cypress and pine. The sea-wall is lined
+with kiosks, from whose cushioned windows there are the loveliest views of
+the European and Asian shores. The newer portion of the palace, where the
+Sultan now receives the ambassadors of foreign nations, shows the
+influence of European taste in its plan and decorations. It is by no means
+remarkable for splendor, and suffers by contrast with many of the private
+houses in Damascus and Aleppo. The building is of wood, the walls
+ornamented with detestable frescoes by modern Greek artists, and except a
+small but splendid collection of arms, and some wonderful specimens of
+Arabic chirography, there is nothing to interest the visitor.</p>
+
+<p>In ascending to the ancient Seraglio, which was founded by Mahomet II., on
+the site of the palace of the Pal&aelig;ologi, we passed the Column of
+Theodosius, a plain Corinthian shaft, about fifty feet high. The Seraglio
+is now occupied entirely by the servants and guards, and the greater part
+of it shows a neglect amounting almost to dilapidation. The Saracenic
+corridors surrounding its courts are supported by pillars of marble,
+granite, and porphyry, the spoils of the Christian capital. We were
+allowed to walk about at leisure, and inspect the different compartments,
+except the library, which unfortunately was locked. This library was for a
+long time supposed to contain many lost treasures of ancient
+literature--among other things, the missing books of Livy--but the recent
+researches of Logothetos, the Prince of Samos, prove that there is little
+of value, among its manuscripts. Before the door hangs a wooden globe,
+which is supposed to be efficacious in neutralizing the influence of the
+Evil Eye. There are many ancient altars and fragments of pillars scattered
+about the courts, and the Turks have even commenced making a collection of
+antiquities, which, with the exception of two immense sarcophagi of red
+porphyry, contains nothing of value. They show, however, one of the brazen
+heads of the Delphian tripod in the Hippodrome, which, they say, Mahomet
+the Conqueror struck off with a single blow of his sword, on entering
+Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>The most interesting portion of the Seraglio is the ancient throne-room,
+now no longer used, but still guarded by a company of white eunuchs. The
+throne is an immense, heavy bedstead, the posts of which are thickly
+incrusted with rubies, turquoises, emeralds, and sapphires. There is a
+funnel-shaped chimney-piece in the room, a master-work of Benevenuto
+Cellini. There, half a century ago, the foreign ambassadors were
+presented, after having been bathed, fed, and clothed with a rich mantle
+in the outer apartments. They were ushered into the imperial presence,
+supported by a Turkish official on either side, in order that they might
+show no signs of breaking down under the load of awe and reverence they
+were supposed to feel. In the outer Court, adjoining the Sublime Porte, is
+the Chapel of the Empress Irene, now converted into an armory, which, for
+its size, is the most tasteful and picturesque collection of weapons I
+have ever seen. It is especially rich in Saracenic armor, and contains
+many superb casques of inlaid gold. In a large glass case in the chancel,
+one sees the keys of some thirty or forty cities, with the date of their
+capture. It is not likely that another will ever be added to the list.</p>
+
+<p>We now passed out through the Sublime Porte, and directed our steps to the
+famous <i>Aya Sophia</i>--the temple dedicated by Justinian to the Divine
+Wisdom. The repairs made to the outer walls by the Turks, and the addition
+of the four minarets, have entirely changed the character of the building,
+without injuring its effect. As a Christian Church, it must have been less
+imposing than in its present form. A priest met us at the entrance, and
+after reading the firman with a very discontented face, informed us that
+we could not enter until the mid-day prayers were concluded. After taking
+off our shoes, however, we were allowed to ascend to the galleries, whence
+we looked down on the bowing worshippers. Here the majesty of the renowned
+edifice, despoiled as it now is, bursts at once upon the eye. The
+wonderful flat dome, glittering with its golden mosaics, and the sacred
+phrase from the Koran: "<i>God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth</i>,"
+swims in the air, one hundred and eighty feet above the marble pavement.
+On the eastern and western sides, it rests on two half domes; which again
+rise from or rest upon a group of three small half-domes, so that the
+entire roof of the mosque, unsupported by a pillar, seems to have been
+dropped from above on the walls, rather than to have been built up from
+them. Around the edifice run an upper and a lower gallery, which alone
+preserve the peculiarities of the Byzantine style. These galleries are
+supported by the most precious columns which ancient art could afford:
+among them eight shafts of green marble, from the Temple of Diana, at
+Ephesus; eight of porphyry, from the Temple of the Sun, at Baalbek;
+besides Egyptian granite from the shrines of Isis and Osiris, and
+Pentelican marble from the sanctuary of Pallas Athena. Almost the whole of
+the interior has been covered with gilding, but time has softened its
+brilliancy, and the rich, subdued gleam of the walls is in perfect harmony
+with the varied coloring of the ancient marbles.</p>
+
+<p>Under the dome, four Christian seraphim, executed in mosaic, have been
+allowed to remain, but the names of the four archangels of the Moslem
+faith are inscribed underneath. The bronze doors are still the same, the
+Turks having taken great pains to obliterate the crosses with which they
+were adorned. Around the centre of the dome, as on that of Sultan Achmed,
+may be read, in golden letters, and in all the intricacy of Arabic
+penmanship, the beautiful verse:--"God is the Light of the Heavens and the
+Earth. His wisdom is a light on the wall, in which burns a lamp covered
+with glass. The glass shines like a star, the lamp is lit with the oil of
+a blessed tree. No Eastern, no Western oil, it shines for whoever wills."
+After the prayers were over, and we had descended to the floor of the
+mosque, I spent the rest of my time under the dome, fascinated by its
+marvellous lightness and beauty. The worshippers present looked at us with
+curiosity, but without ill-will; and before we left, one of the priests
+came slyly with some fragments of the ancient gilded mosaic, which, he was
+heathen enough to sell, and we to buy.</p>
+
+<p>From St. Sophia we went to Sultan Achmed, which faces the Hippodrome, and
+is one of the stateliest piles of Constantinople. It is avowedly an
+imitation of St. Sophia, and the Turks consider it a more wonderful work,
+because the dome is seven feet higher. It has six minarets, exceeding in
+this respect all the mosques of Asia. The dome rests on four immense
+pillars, the bulk of which quite oppresses the light galleries running
+around the walls. This, and the uniform white color of the interior,
+impairs the effect which its bold style and imposing dimensions would
+otherwise produce. The outside view, with the group of domes swelling
+grandly above the rows of broad-armed sycamores, is much more
+satisfactory. In the tomb of Sultan Achmed, in one corner of the court, we
+saw his coffin, turban, sword, and jewelled harness. I had just been
+reading old Sandys' account of his visit to Constantinople, in 1610,
+during this Sultan's reign, and could only think of him as Sandys
+represents him, in the title-page to his book, as a fat man, with bloated
+cheeks, in a long gown and big turban, and the words underneath:--
+"<i>Achmed, sive Tyrannus.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The other noted mosques of Constantinople are the <i>Yeni Djami,</i> or Mosque
+of the Sultana Valide, on the shore of the Golden Horn, at the end of the
+bridge to Galata; that of Sultan Bajazet; of Mahomet II., the Conqueror,
+and of his son, Suleyman the Magnificent, whose superb mosque well
+deserves this title. I regret exceedingly that our time did not allow us
+to view the interior, for outwardly it not only surpasses St. Sophia, and
+all other mosques in the city, but is undoubtedly one of the purest
+specimens of Oriental architecture extant. It stands on a broad terrace,
+on one of the seven hills of Stamboul, and its exquisitely proportioned
+domes and minarets shine as if crystalized in the blue of the air. It is a
+type of Oriental, as the Parthenon is of Grecian, and the Cologne
+Cathedral of Gothic art. As I saw it the other night, lit by the flames of
+a conflagration, standing out red and clear against the darkness, I felt
+inclined to place it on a level with either of those renowned structures.
+It is a product of the rich fancy of the East, splendidly ornate, and not
+without a high degree of symmetry--yet here the symmetry is that of
+ornament alone, and not the pure, absolute proportion of forms, which we
+find in Grecian Art. It requires a certain degree of enthusiasm--nay, a
+slight inebriation of the imaginative faculties--in order to feel the
+sentiment of this Oriental Architecture. If I rightly express all that it
+says to me, I touch the verge of rapsody. The East, in almost all its
+aspects, is so essentially poetic, that a true picture of it must be
+poetic in spirit, if not in form.</p>
+
+<p>Constantinople has been terribly ravaged by fires, no less than fifteen
+having occurred during the past two weeks. Almost every night the sky has
+been reddened by burning houses, and the minarets of the seven hills
+lighted with an illumination brighter than that of the Bairam. All the
+space from the Hippodrome to the Sea of Marmora has been swept away; the
+lard, honey, and oil magazines on the Golden Horn, with the bazaars
+adjoining; several large blocks on the hill of Galata, with the College of
+the Dancing Dervishes; a part of Scutari, and the College of the Howling
+Dervishes, all have disappeared; and to-day, the ruins of 3,700 houses,
+which were destroyed last night, stand smoking in the Greek quarter,
+behind the aqueduct of Valens. The entire amount of buildings consumed in
+these two weeks is estimated at between <i>five and six thousand</i>! The fire
+on the hill of Galata threatened to destroy a great part of the suburb of
+Pera. It came, sweeping over the brow of the hill, towards my hotel,
+turning the tall cypresses in the burial ground into shafts of angry
+flame, and eating away the crackling dwellings of hordes of hapless Turks.
+I was in bed; from a sudden attack of fever, but seeing the other guests
+packing up their effects and preparing to leave, I was obliged to do the
+same; and this, in my weak state, brought on such a perspiration that the
+ailment left me, The officers of the United States steamer <i>San Jacinto</i>,
+and the French frigate <i>Charlemagne</i>, came to the rescue with their men
+and fire-engines, and the flames were finally quelled. The proceedings of
+the Americans, who cut holes in the roofs and played through them upon the
+fires within, were watched by the Turks with stupid amazement.
+"M&aacute;shallah!" said a fat Bimbashi, as he stood sweltering in the heat; "The
+Franks are a wonderful people."</p>
+
+<p>To those initiated into the mysteries of Turkish politics, these fires are
+more than accidental; they have a most weighty significance. They indicate
+either a general discontent with the existing state of affairs, or else a
+powerful plot against the Sultan and his Ministry. Setting fire to houses
+is, in fact, the Turkish method of holding an "indignation meeting," and
+from the rate with which they are increasing, the political crisis must be
+near at hand. The Sultan, with his usual kindness of heart, has sent large
+quantities of tents and other supplies to the guiltless sufferers; but no
+amount of kindness can soften the rancor of these Turkish intrigues.
+Reschid Pasha, the present Grand Vizier, and the leader of the party of
+Progress, is the person against whom this storm of opposition is now
+gathering.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all efforts, the Ottoman Power is rapidly wasting away. The
+life of the Orient is nerveless and effete; the native strength of the
+race has died out, and all attempts to resuscitate it by the adoption of
+European institutions produce mere galvanic spasms, which leave it more
+exhausted than before. The rosy-colored accounts we have had of Turkish
+Progress are for the most part mere delusions. The Sultan is a
+well-meaning but weak man, and tyrannical through his very weakness. Had
+he strength enough to break through the meshes of falsehood and venality
+which are woven so close about him, he might accomplish some solid good.
+But Turkish rule, from his ministers down to the lowest <i>cadi</i>, is a
+monstrous system of deceit and corruption. These people have not the most
+remote conception of the true aims of government; they only seek to enrich
+themselves and their parasites, at the expense of the people and the
+national treasury. When we add to this the conscript system, which is
+draining the provinces of their best Moslem subjects, to the advantage of
+the Christians and Jews, and the blindness of the Revenue Laws, which
+impose on domestic manufactures double the duty levied on foreign
+products, it will easily be foreseen that the next half-century, or less,
+will completely drain the Turkish Empire of its last lingering energies.</p>
+
+<p>Already, in effect, Turkey exists only through the jealousy of the
+European nations. The treaty of Unkiar-iskelessi, in 1833, threw her into
+the hands of Russia, although the influence of England has of late years
+reigned almost exclusively in her councils. These are the two powers who
+are lowering at each other with sleepless eyes, in the Dardanelles and the
+Bosphorus. The people, and most probably the government, is strongly
+preposessed in favor of the English; but the Russian Bear has a heavy paw,
+and when he puts it into the scale, all other weights kick the beam. It
+will be a long and wary struggle, and no man can prophecy the result. The
+Turks are a people easy to govern, were even the imperfect laws, now in
+existence, fairly administered. They would thrive and improve under a
+better state of things; but I cannot avoid the conviction that the
+regeneration of the East will never be effected at their hands.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch29">
+<h2>Chapter XXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>Farewell to the Orient--Malta.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Embarcation--Farewell to the Orient--Leaving Constantinople--A
+  Wreck--The Dardanelles--Homeric Scenery--Smyrna Revisited--The Grecian
+  Isles--Voyage to Malta--Detention--La Valetta--The Maltese--The
+  Climate--A Boat for Sicily.</p>
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Farewell, ye mountains,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;By glory crowned<br />
+Ye sacred fountains<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Of Gods renowned;<br />
+Ye woods and highlands,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Where heroes dwell;<br />
+Ye seas and islands,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Farewell! Farewell!"</p>
+
+<p>  Frithiof's Saga.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>In The Dardanelles, <i>Saturday, August</i> 7, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>At last, behold me fairly embarked for Christian Europe, to which I bade
+adieu in October last, eager for the unknown wonders of the Orient. Since
+then, nearly ten months have passed away, and those wonders are now
+familiar as every-day experiences. I set out, determined to be satisfied
+with no slight taste of Eastern life, but to drain to the bottom its
+beaker of mingled sunshine and sleep. All this has been accomplished; and
+if I have not wandered so far, nor enriched myself with such varied
+knowledge of the relics of ancient history, as I might have purposed or
+wished, I have at least learned to know the Turk and the Arab, been
+soothed by the patience inspired by their fatalism, and warmed by the
+gorgeous gleams of fancy that animate their poetry and religion. These
+ten months of my life form an episode which seems to belong to a separate
+existence. Just refined enough to be poetic, and just barbaric enough to
+be freed from all conventional fetters, it is as grateful to brain and
+soul, as an Eastern bath to the body. While I look forward, not without
+pleasure, to the luxuries and conveniences of Europe, I relinquish with a
+sigh the refreshing indolence of Asia.</p>
+
+<p>We have passed between the Castles of the two Continents, guarding the
+mouth of the Dardanelles, and are now entering the Grecian Sea. To-morrow,
+we shall touch, for a few hours, at Smyrna, and then turn westward, on the
+track of Ulysses and St. Paul. Farewell, then, perhaps forever, to the
+bright Orient! Farewell to the gay gardens, the spicy bazaars, to the
+plash of fountains and the gleam of golden-tipped minarets! Farewell to
+the perfect morn's, the balmy twilights, the still heat of the blue noons,
+the splendor of moon and stars! Farewell to the glare of the white crags,
+the tawny wastes of dead sand, the valleys of oleander, the hills of
+myrtle and spices! Farewell to the bath, agent of purity and peace, and
+parent of delicious dreams--to the shebook, whose fragrant fumes are
+breathed from the lips of patience and contentment--to the narghileh,
+crowned with that blessed plant which grows in the gardens of Shiraz,
+while a fountain more delightful than those of Samarcand bubbles in its
+crystal bosom I Farewell to the red cap and slippers, to the big turban,
+the flowing trousers, and the gaudy shawl--to squatting on broad divans,
+to sipping black coffee in acorn cups, to grave faces and <i>salaam
+aleikooms</i>, and to aching of the lips and forehead! Farewell to the
+evening meal in the tent door, to the couch on the friendly earth, to the
+yells of the muleteers, to the deliberate marches of the plodding horse,
+and the endless rocking of the dromedary that knoweth his master!
+Farewell, finally, to annoyance without anger, delay without vexation,
+indolence without ennui, endurance without fatigue, appetite without
+intemperance, enjoyment without pall!</p>
+
+
+<h4>La Valetta, Malta, <i>Saturday, August</i> 14, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>My last view of Stamboul was that of the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed, shining faintly in the moonlight, as we steamed down the Sea of
+Marmora. The <i>Caire</i> left at nine o'clock, freighted with the news of
+Reschid Pasha's deposition, and there were no signs of conflagration in
+all the long miles of the city that lay behind us. So we speculated no
+more on the exciting topics of the day, but went below and took a vapor
+bath in our berths; for I need not assure you that the nights on the
+Mediterranean at this season are anything but chilly. And here I must note
+the fact, that the French steamers, while dearer than the Austrian, are
+more cramped in their accommodations, and filled with a set of most
+uncivil servants. The table is good, and this is the only thing to be
+commended. In all other respects, I prefer the Lloyd vessels.</p>
+
+<p>Early next morning, we passed the promontory of Cyzicus, and the Island of
+Marmora, the marble quarries of which give name to the sea. As we were
+approaching the entrance to the Dardanelles, we noticed an Austrian brig
+drifting in the current, the whiff of her flag indicating distress. Her
+rudder was entirely gone, and she was floating helplessly towards the
+Thracian coast. A boat was immediately lowered and a hawser carried to her
+bows, by which we towed her a short distance; but our steam engine did
+not like this drudgery, and snapped the rope repeatedly, so that at last
+we were obliged to leave her to her fate. The lift we gave, however, had
+its effect, and by dexterous maneuvering with the sails, the captain
+brought her safely into the harbor of Gallipoli, where she dropped anchor
+beside us.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Gallipoli, the Dardanelles contract, and the opposing continents
+rise into lofty and barren hills. In point of natural beauty, this strait
+is greatly inferior to the Bosphorus. It lacks the streams and wooded
+valleys which open upon the latter. The country is but partially
+cultivated, except around the town of Dardanelles, near the mouth of the
+strait. The site of the bridge of Xerxes is easily recognized, the
+conformation of the different shores seconding the decision of
+antiquarians. Here, too, are Sestos and Abydos, of passionate and poetic
+memory. But as the sun dipped towards the sea, we passed out of the narrow
+gateway. On our left lay the plain of Troy, backed by the blue range of
+Mount Ida. The tamulus of Patroclus crowned a low bluff looking on the
+sea. On the right appeared the long, irregular island of Imbros, and the
+peaks of misty Samothrace over and beyond it. Tenedos was before us. The
+red flush of sunset tinged the grand Homeric landscape, and lingered and
+lingered on the summit of Ida, as if loth to depart. I paced the deck
+until long after it was too dark to distinguish it any more.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning we dropped anchor in the harbor of Smyrna, where we
+remained five hours. I engaged a donkey, and rode out to the Caravan
+Bridge, where the Greek driver and I smoked narghilehs and drank coffee in
+the shade of the acacias. I contrasted my impressions with those of my
+first visit to Smyrna last October--my first glimpse of Oriental ground.
+Then, every dog barked at me, and all the horde of human creatures who
+prey upon innocent travellers ran at my heels, but now, with my brown face
+and Turkish aspect of grave indifference, I was suffered to pass as
+quietly as my donkey-driver himself. Nor did the latter, nor the ready
+<i>cafidji</i>, who filled our pipes on the banks of the Meles, attempt to
+overcharge me--a sure sign that the Orient had left its seal on my face.
+Returning through the city, the same mishap befel me which travellers
+usually experience on their first arrival. My donkey, while dashing at
+full speed through a crowd of Smyrniotes in their Sunday dresses, slipped
+up in a little pool of black mud, and came down with a crash. I flew over
+his head and alighted firmly on my feet, but the spruce young Greeks,
+whose snowy fustanelles were terribly bespattered, came off much worse.
+The donkey shied back, levelled his ears and twisted his head on one side,
+awaiting a beating, but his bleeding legs saved him.</p>
+
+<p>We left at two o'clock, touched at Scio in the evening, and the next
+morning at sunrise lay-to in the harbor of Syra. The Pir&aelig;us was only
+twelve hours distant; but after my visitation of fever in Constantinople,
+I feared to encounter the pestilential summer heats of Athens. Besides, I
+had reasons for hastening with all speed to Italy and Germany. At ten
+o'clock we weighed anchor again and steered southwards, between the groups
+of the Cyclades, under a cloudless sky and over a sea of the brightest
+blue. The days were endurable under the canvas awning of our quarter-deck,
+but the nights in our berths were sweat-baths, which left us so limp and
+exhausted that we were almost fit to vanish, like ghosts, at daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>Our last glimpse of the Morea--Cape Matapan--faded away in the moonlight,
+and for <i>two</i> days we travelled westward over the burning sea. On the
+evening of the 11th, the long, low outline of Malta rose gradually against
+the last flush of sunset, and in two hours thereafter, we came to anchor
+in Quarantine Harbor. The quarantine for travellers returning from the
+East, which formerly varied from fourteen to twenty-one days, is now
+reduced to one day for those arriving from Greece or Turkey, and three
+days for those from Egypt and Syria. In our case, it was reduced to
+sixteen hours, by an official courtesy. I had intended proceeding directly
+to Naples; but by the contemptible trickery of the agents of the French
+steamers--a long history, which it is unnecessary to recapitulate--am left
+here to wait ten days for another steamer. It is enough to say that there
+are six other travellers at the same hotel, some coming from
+Constantinople, and some from Alexandria, in the same predicament. Because
+a single ticket to Naples costs some thirty or forty francs less than by
+dividing the trip into two parts, the agents in those cities refuse to
+give tickets further than Malta to those who are not keen enough to see
+through the deception. I made every effort to obtain a second ticket in
+time to leave by the branch steamer for Italy, but in vain.</p>
+
+<p>La Valetta is, to my eyes, the most beautiful small city in the world. It
+is a jewel of a place; not a street but is full of picturesque effects,
+and all the look-outs, which you catch at every turn, let your eyes rest
+either upon one of the beautiful harbors on each side, or the distant
+horizon of the sea. The streets are so clean that you might eat your
+dinner off the pavement; the white balconies and cornices of the houses,
+all cleanly cut in the soft Maltese stone, stand out in intense relief
+against the sky, and from the manifold reflections and counter
+reflections, the shadows (where there are any) become a sort of milder
+light. The steep sides of the promontory, on which the city is built, are
+turned into staircases, and it is an inexhaustible pastime to watch the
+groups, composed of all nations who inhabit the shores of the
+Mediterranean, ascending and descending. The Auberges of the old Knights,
+the Palace of the Grand Master, the Church of St. John, and other relics
+of past time, but more especially the fortifications, invest the place
+with a romantic interest, and I suspect that, after Venice and Granada,
+there are few cities where the Middle Ages have left more impressive
+traces of their history.</p>
+
+<p>The Maltese are contented, and appear to thrive under the English
+administration. They are a peculiar people, reminding me of the Arab even
+more than the Italian, while a certain rudeness in their build and motions
+suggests their Punic ancestry. Their language is a curious compound of
+Arabic and Italian, the former being the basis. I find that I can
+understand more than half that is said, the Arabic terminations being
+applied to Italian words. I believe it has never been successfully reduced
+to writing, and the restoration of pure Arabic has been proposed, with
+much reason, as preferable to an attempt to improve or refine it. Italian
+is the language used in the courts of justice and polite society, and is
+spoken here with much more purity than either in Naples or Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>The heat has been so great since I landed that I have not ventured outside
+of the city, except last evening to an amateur theatre, got up by the
+non-commissioned officers and privates in the garrison. The performances
+were quite tolerable, except a love-sick young damsel who spoke with a
+rough masculine voice, and made long strides across the stage when she
+rushed into her lover's arms. I am at a loss to account for the exhausting
+character of the heat. The thermometer shows 90&deg; by day, and 80&deg; to 85&deg; by
+night--a much lower temperature than I have found quite comfortable in
+Africa and Syria. In the Desert 100&deg; in the shade is rather bracing than
+otherwise; here, 90&deg; renders all exercise, more severe than smoking a
+pipe, impossible. Even in a state of complete inertia, a shirt-collar will
+fall starchless in five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Rather than waste eight more days in this glimmering half-existence, I
+have taken passage in a Maltese <i>speronara</i>, which sails this evening for
+Catania, in Sicily, where the grand festival of St. Agatha, which takes
+place once in a hundred years, will be celebrated next week. The trip
+promises a new experience, and I shall get a taste, slight though it be,
+of the golden Trinacria of the ancients. Perhaps, after all, this delay
+which so vexes me (bear in mind, I am no longer in the Orient!) may be
+meant solely for my good. At least, Mr. Winthrop, our Consul here, who has
+been exceedingly kind and courteous to me, thinks it a rare good fortune
+that I shall see the Catanian festa.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch30">
+<h2>Chapter XXX.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Festival of St. Agatha.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Departure from Malta--The Speronara--Our Fellow-Passengers--The First
+  Night on Board--Sicily--Scarcity of Provisions--Beating in the Calabrian
+  Channel--The Fourth Morning--The Gulf of Catania--A Sicilian
+  Landscape--The Anchorage--The Suspected List--The Streets of
+  Catania--Biography of St. Agatha--The Illuminations--The Procession of
+  the Veil--The Biscari Palace--The Antiquities of Catania--The Convent of
+  St. Nicola.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "The morn is full of holiday, loud bells<br />
+With rival clamors ring from every spire;<br />
+Cunningly-stationed music dies and swells<br />
+In echoing places; when the winds respire,<br />
+Light flags stream out like gauzy tongues of fire."--Keats.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Catania, Sicily, <i>Friday</i>, <i>August</i> 20, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>I went on board the <i>speronara</i> in the harbor of La Valetta at the
+appointed hour (5 P.M.), and found the remaining sixteen passengers
+already embarked. The captain made his appearance an hour later, with our
+bill of health and passports, and as the sun went down behind the brown
+hills of the island, we passed the wave-worn rocks of the promontory,
+dividing the two harbors, and slowly moved off towards Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>The Maltese <i>speronara</i> resembles the ancient Roman galley more than any
+modern craft. It has the same high, curved poop and stern, the same short
+masts and broad, square sails. The hull is too broad for speed, but this
+adds to the security of the vessel in a gale. With a fair wind, it rarely
+makes more than eight knots an hour, and in a calm, the sailors (if not
+too lazy) propel it forward with six long oars. The hull is painted in a
+fanciful style, generally blue, red, green and white, with bright red
+masts. The bulwarks are low, and the deck of such a convexity that it is
+quite impossible to walk it in a heavy sea. Such was the vessel to which I
+found myself consigned. It was not more than fifty feet long, and of less
+capacity than a Nile <i>dahabiyeh</i>. There was a sort of deck cabin, or crib,
+with two berths, but most of the passengers slept in the hold. For a
+passage to Catania I was obliged to pay forty francs, the owner swearing
+that this was the regular price; but, as I afterwards discovered, the
+Maltese only paid thirty-six francs for the whole trip. However, the
+Captain tried to make up the money's worth in civilities, and was
+incessant in his attentions to "your Lordships," as he styled myself and
+my companion, C&aelig;sar di Cagnola, a young Milanese.</p>
+
+<p>The Maltese were tailors and clerks, who were taking a holiday trip to
+witness the great festival of St. Agatha. With two exceptions, they were a
+wild and senseless, though good-natured set, and in spite of sea-sickness,
+which exercised them terribly for the first two days, kept up a constant
+jabber in their bastard Arabic from morning till night. As is usual in
+such a company, one of them was obliged to serve as a butt for the rest,
+and "Maestro Paolo," as they termed him, wore such a profoundly serious
+face all the while, from his sea-sickness, that the fun never came to an
+end. As they were going to a religious festival, some of them had brought
+their breviaries along with them; but I am obliged to testify that, after
+the first day, prayers were totally forgotten. The sailors, however, wore
+linen bags, printed with a figure of the Madonna, around their necks.</p>
+
+<p>The sea was rather rough, but C&aelig;sar and I fortified our stomachs with a
+bottle of English ale, and as it was dark by this time, sought our
+resting-places for the night. As we had paid double, <i>places</i> were assured
+us in the coop on deck, but beds were not included in the bargain. The
+Maltese, who had brought mattresses and spread a large Phalansteriau bed
+in the hold, fared much better. I took one of my carpet bags for a pillow
+and lay down on the planks, where I succeeded in getting a little sleep
+between the groans of the helpless land-lubbers. We had the <i>ponente</i>, or
+west-wind, all night, but the speronara moved sluggishly, and in the
+morning it changed to the <i>greco-levante,</i> or north-east. No land was in
+sight; but towards noon, the sky became clearer, and we saw the southern
+coast of Sicily--a bold mountain-shore, looming phantom-like in the
+distance. Cape Passaro was to the east, and the rest of the day was spent
+in beating up to it. At sunset, we were near enough to see the villages
+and olive-groves of the beautiful shore, and, far behind the nearer
+mountains, ninety miles distant, the solitary cone of Etna.</p>
+
+<p>The second night passed like the first, except that our bruised limbs were
+rather more sensitive to the texture of the planks. We crawled out of our
+coop at dawn, expecting to behold Catania in the distance; but there was
+Cape Passaro still staring us in the face. The Maltese were patient, and
+we did not complain, though C&aelig;sar and I began to make nice calculations as
+to the probable duration of our two cold fowls and three loaves of bread.
+The promontory of Syracuse was barely visible forty miles ahead; but the
+wind was against us, and so another day passed in beating up the eastern
+coast. At dusk, we overtook another speronara which had left Malta two
+hours before us, and this was quite a triumph to our captain, All the oars
+were shipped, the sailors and some of the more courageous passengers took
+hold, and we shot ahead, scudding rapidly along the dark shores, to the
+sound of the wild Maltese songs. At length, the promontory was gained, and
+the restless current, rolling down from Scylla and Charybdis, tossed our
+little bark from wave to wave with a recklessness that would have made any
+one nervous but an old sailor like myself.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow morning," said the Captain, "we shall sail into Catania;" but
+after a third night on the planks, which were now a little softer, we rose
+to find ourselves abreast of Syracuse, with Etna as distant as ever. The
+wind was light, and what little we made by tacking was swept away by the
+current, so that, after wasting the whole forenoon, we kept a straight
+course across the mouth of the channel, and at sunset saw the Calabrian
+Mountains. This move only lost us more ground, as it happened. C&aelig;sar and I
+mournfully and silently consumed our last fragment of beef, with the
+remaining dry crusts of bread, and then sat down doggedly to smoke and see
+whether the captain would discover our situation. But no; while we were
+supplied, the whole vessel was at our Lordships' command, and now that we
+were destitute, he took care to make no rash offers. C&aelig;sar, at last, with
+an imperial dignity becoming his name, commanded dinner. It came, and the
+pork and maccaroni, moistened with red Sicilian wine, gave us patience for
+another day.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth morning dawned, and--Great Neptune be praised!--we were
+actually within the Gulf of Catania. Etna loomed up in all his sublime
+bulk, unobscured by cloud or mist, while a slender jet of smoke, rising
+from his crater, was slowly curling its wreaths in the clear air, as if
+happy to receive the first beam of the sun. The towers of Syracuse, which
+had mocked us all the preceding day, were no longer visible; the
+land-locked little port of Augusta lay behind us; and, as the wind
+continued favorable, ere long we saw a faint white mark at the foot of the
+mountain. This was Catania. The shores of the bay were enlivened with
+olive-groves and the gleam of the villages, while here and there a single
+palm dreamed of its brothers across the sea. Etna, of course, had the
+monarch's place in the landscape, but even his large, magnificent outlines
+could not usurp all my feeling. The purple peaks to the westward and
+farther inland, had a beauty of their own, and in the gentle curves with
+which they leaned towards each other, there was a promise of the flowery
+meadows of Enna. The smooth blue water was speckled with fishing-boats. We
+hailed one, inquiring when the <i>festa</i> was to commence; but, mistaking our
+question, they answered: "Anchovies." Thereupon, a waggish Maltese
+informed them that Maestro Paolo thanked them heartily. All the other
+boats were hailed in the name of Maestro Paolo, who, having recovered from
+his sea-sickness, took his bantering good-humoredly.</p>
+
+<p>Catania presented a lovely picture, as we drew near the harbor. Planted at
+the very foot of Etna, it has a background such as neither Naples nor
+Genoa can boast. The hills next the sea are covered with gardens and
+orchards, sprinkled with little villages and the country palaces of the
+nobles--a rich, cultured landscape, which gradually merges into the
+forests of oak and chestnut that girdle the waist of the great volcano.
+But all the wealth of southern vegetation cannot hide the footsteps of
+that Ruin, which from time to time visits the soil. Half-way up, the
+mountain-side is dotted with cones of ashes and cinders, some covered with
+the scanty shrubbery which centuries have called forth, some barren and
+recent; while two dark, winding streams of sterile lava descend to the
+very shore, where they stand congealed in ragged needles and pyramids.
+Part of one of these black floods has swept the town, and, tumbling into
+the sea, walls one side of the port.</p>
+
+<p>We glided slowly past the mole, and dropped anchor a few yards from the
+shore. There was a sort of open promenade planted with trees, in front of
+us, surrounded with high white houses, above which rose the dome of the
+Cathedral and the spires of other churches. The magnificent palace of
+Prince Biscari was on our right, and at its foot the Customs and Revenue
+offices. Every roof, portico, and window was lined with lamps, a triumphal
+arch spanned the street before the palace, and the landing-place at the
+offices was festooned with crimson and white drapery, spangled with gold.
+While we were waiting permission to land, a scene presented itself which
+recalled the pagan days of Sicily to my mind. A procession came in sight
+from under the trees, and passed along the shore. In the centre was borne
+a stately shrine, hung with garlands, and containing an image of St.
+Agatha. The sound of flutes and cymbals accompanied it, and a band of
+children, bearing orange and palm branches, danced riotously before. Had
+the image been Pan instead of St. Agatha, the ceremonies would have been
+quite as appropriate.</p>
+
+<p>The speronara's boat at last took us to the gorgeous landing place, where
+we were carefully counted by a fat Sicilian official, and declared free
+from quarantine. We were then called into the Passport Office where the
+Maltese underwent a searching examination. One of the officers sat with
+the Black Book, or list of suspected persons of all nations, open before
+him, and looked for each name as it was called out. Another scanned the
+faces of the frightened tailors, as if comparing them with certain
+revolutionary visages in his mind. Terrible was the keen, detective glance
+of his eye, and it went straight through the poor Maltese, who vanished
+with great rapidity when they were declared free to enter the city. At
+last, they all passed the ordeal, but C&aelig;sar and I remained, looking in at
+the door. "There are still these two Frenchmen," said the captain. "I am
+no Frenchman," I protested; "I am an American." "And I," said C&aelig;sar, "am
+an Austrian subject." Thereupon we received a polite invitation to enter;
+the terrible glance softened into a benign, respectful smile; he of the
+Black Book ran lightly over the C's and T's, and said, with a courteous
+inclination: "There is nothing against the signori." I felt quite relieved
+by this; for, in the Mediterranean, one is never safe from spies, and no
+person is too insignificant to escape the ban, if once suspected.</p>
+
+<p>Calabria was filled to overflowing with strangers from all parts of the
+Two Sicilies, and we had some difficulty in finding very bad and dear
+lodgings. It was the first day of the <i>festa, </i> and the streets were
+filled with peasants, the men in black velvet jackets and breeches, with
+stockings, and long white cotton caps hanging on the shoulders, and the
+women with gay silk shawls on their heads, after the manner of the Mexican
+<i>reboza</i>. In all the public squares, the market scene in Masaniello was
+acted to the life. The Sicilian dialect is harsh and barbarous, and the
+original Italian is so disguised by the admixture of Arabic, Spanish,
+French, and Greek words, that even my imperial friend, who was a born
+Italian, had great difficulty in understanding the people.</p>
+
+<p>I purchased a guide to the festa, which, among other things, contained a
+biography of St. Agatha. It is a beautiful specimen of pious writing, and
+I regret that I have not space to translate the whole of it. Agatha was a
+beautiful Catanian virgin, who secretly embraced Christianity during the
+reign of Nero. Catania was then governed by a pr&aelig;tor named Quintianus,
+who, becoming enamored of Agatha, used the most brutal means to compel her
+to submit to his desires, but without effect. At last, driven to the
+cruelest extremes, he cut off her breasts, and threw her into prison. But
+at midnight, St. Peter, accompanied by an angel, appeared to her, restored
+the maimed parts, and left her more beautiful than ever. Quintianus then
+ordered a furnace to be heated, and cast her therein. A terrible
+earthquake shook the city; the sun was eclipsed; the sea rolled backwards,
+and left its bottom dry; the pr&aelig;tor's palace fell in ruins, and he,
+pursued by the vengeance of the populace, fled till he reached the river
+Simeto, where he was drowned in attempting to cross. "The thunders of the
+vengeance of God," says the biography, "struck him down into the
+profoundest Hell." This was in the year 252.</p>
+
+<p>The body was carried to Constantinople in 1040, "although the Catanians
+wept incessantly at their loss;" but in 1126, two French knights, named
+Gilisbert and Goselin, were moved by angelic influences to restore it to
+its native town, which they accomplished, "and the eyes of the Catanians
+again burned with joy." The miracles effected by the saint are numberless,
+and her power is especially efficacious in preventing earthquakes and
+eruptions of Mount Etna. Nevertheless, Catania has suffered more from
+these causes than any other town in Sicily. But I would that all saints
+had as good a claim to canonization as St. Agatha. The honors of such a
+festival as this are not out of place, when paid to such youth, beauty,
+and "heavenly chastity," as she typifies.</p>
+
+<p>The guide, which I have already consulted, gives a full account of the
+festa, in advance, with a description of Catania. The author says: "If thy
+heart is not inspired by gazing on this lovely city, it is a fatal
+sign--thou wert not born to feel the sweet impulses of the Beautiful!"
+Then, in announcing the illuminations and pyrotechnic displays, he
+exclaims: "Oh, the amazing spectacle! Oh, how happy art thou, that thou
+beholdest it! I What pyramids of lamps! What myriads of rockets! What
+wonderful temples of flame! The Mountain himself is astonished at such a
+display." And truly, except the illumination of the Golden Horn on the
+Night of Predestination, I have seen nothing equal to the spectacle
+presented by Catania, during the past three nights. The city, which has
+been built up from her ruins more stately than ever, was in a blaze of
+light--all her domes, towers, and the long lines of her beautiful palaces
+revealed in the varying red and golden flames of a hundred thousand lamps
+and torches. Pyramids of fire, transparencies, and illuminated triumphal
+arches filled the four principal streets, and the fountain in the
+Cathedral square gleamed like a jet of molten silver, spinning up from one
+of the pores of Etna. At ten o'clock, a gorgeous display of fireworks
+closed the day's festivities, but the lamps remained burning nearly all
+night.</p>
+
+<p>On the second night, the grand Procession of the Veil took place. I
+witnessed this imposing spectacle from the balcony of Prince Gessina's
+palace. Long lines of waxen torches led the way, followed by a military
+band, and then a company of the highest prelates, in their most brilliant
+costumes, surrounding the Bishop, who walked under a canopy of silk and
+gold, bearing the miraculous veil of St. Agatha. I was blessed with a
+distant view of it, but could see no traces of the rosy hue left upon it
+by the flames of the Saint's martyrdom. Behind the priests came the
+<i>Intendente</i> of Sicily, Gen. Filangieri, the same who, three years ago,
+gave up Catania to sack and slaughter. He was followed by the Senate of
+the City, who have just had the cringing cowardice to offer him a ball on
+next Sunday night. If ever a man deserved the vengeance of an outraged
+people, it is this Filangieri, who was first a Liberal, when the cause
+promised success, and then made himself the scourge of the vilest of
+kings. As he passed me last night in his carriage of State, while the
+music pealed in rich rejoicing strains, that solemn chant with which the
+monks break upon the revellers, in "Lucrezia Borgia," came into my mind:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "La gioja del profani<br />
+  'E un fumo passagier'--"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>[the rejoicing of the profane is a transitory mist.] I heard, under the
+din of all these festivities, the voice of that Retribution which even now
+lies in wait, and will not long be delayed.</p>
+
+<p>To-night Signor Scavo, the American Vice-Consul, took me to the palace of
+Prince Biscari, overlooking the harbor, in order to behold the grand
+display of fireworks from the end of the mole. The showers of rockets and
+colored stars, and the temples of blue and silver fire, were repeated in
+the dark, quiet bosom of the sea, producing the most dazzling and
+startling effects. There was a large number of the Catanese nobility
+present, and among them a Marchesa Gioveni, the descendant of the bloody
+house of Anjou. Prince Biscari is a benign, courtly old man, and greatly
+esteemed here. His son is at present in exile, on account of the part he
+took in the late revolution. During the sack of the city under Filangieri,
+the palace was plundered of property to the amount of ten thousand
+dollars. The museum of Greek and Roman antiquities attached to it, and
+which the house of Biscari has been collecting for many years, is probably
+the finest in Sicily. The state apartments were thrown open this evening,
+and when I left, an hour ago, the greater portion of the guests were going
+through mazy quadrilles on the mosaic pavements.</p>
+
+<p>Among the antiquities of Catania which I have visited, are the
+Amphitheatre, capable of holding 15,000 persons, the old Greek Theatre,
+the same in which Alcibiades made his noted harangue to the Catanians, the
+Odeon, and the ancient Baths. The theatre, which is in tolerable
+preservation, is built of lava, like many of the modern edifices in the
+city. The Baths proved to me, what I had supposed, that the Oriental Bath
+of the present day is identical with that of the Ancients. Why so
+admirable an institution has never been introduced into Europe (except in
+the <i>Bains Chinois</i> of Paris) is more than I can tell. From the pavement
+of these baths, which is nearly twenty feet below the surface of the
+earth, the lava of later eruptions has burst up, in places, in hard black
+jets. The most wonderful token of that flood which whelmed Catania two
+hundred years ago, is to be seen at the Grand Benedictine Convent of San
+Nicola, in the upper part of the city. Here the stream of lava divides
+itself just before the Convent, and flows past on both sides, leaving the
+building and gardens untouched. The marble courts, the fountains, the
+splendid galleries, and the gardens of richest southern bloom and
+fragrance, stand like an epicurean island in the midst of the terrible
+stony waves, whose edges bristle with the thorny aloe and cactus. The
+monks of San Nicola are all chosen from the Sicilian nobility, and live a
+comfortable life of luxury and vice. Each one has his own carriage,
+horses, and servants, and each his private chambers outside of the convent
+walls and his kept concubines. These facts are known and acknowledged by
+the Catanians, to whom they are a lasting scandal.</p>
+
+<p>It is past midnight, and I must close. C&aelig;sar started this afternoon,
+alone, for the ascent of Etna. I would have accompanied him, but my only
+chance of reaching Messina in time for the next steamer to Naples is the
+diligence which leaves here to-morrow. The mountain has been covered with
+clouds for the last two days, and I have had no view at all comparable to
+that of the morning of my arrival. To-morrow the grand procession of the
+Body of St. Agatha takes place, but I am quite satisfied with three days
+of processions and horse races, and three nights of illuminations.</p>
+
+<p>I leave in the morning, with a Sicilian passport, my own availing me
+nothing, after landing.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch31">
+<h2>Chapter XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Eruption of Mount Etna.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  The Mountain Threatens--The Signs Increase--We Leave Catania--Gardens
+  Among the Lava--Etna Labors--Aci Reale--The Groans of Etna--The
+  Eruption--Gigantic Tree of Smoke--Formation of the New Crater--We Lose
+  Sight of the Mountain--Arrival at Messina--Etna is Obscured--Departure.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  -------"the shattered side<br />
+Of thundering &AElig;tna, whose combustible<br />
+And fuel'd entrails thence conceiving fire,<br />
+Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,<br />
+And leave a singed bottom." Milton.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Messina, Sicily, <i>Monday, August</i> 23, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>The noises of the festival had not ceased when I closed my letter at
+midnight, on Friday last. I slept soundly through the night, but was
+awakened before sunrise by my Sicilian landlord. "O, Excellenza! have you
+heard the Mountain? He is going to break out again; may the holy Santa
+Agatha protect us!" It is rather ill-timed on the part of the Mountain,
+was my involuntary first thought, that he should choose for a new eruption
+precisely the centennial festival of the only Saint who is supposed to
+have any power over him. It shows a disregard of female influence not at
+all suited to the present day, and I scarcely believe that he seriously
+means it. Next came along the jabbering landlady: "I don't like his looks.
+It was just so the last time. Come, Excellenza, you can see him from the
+back terrace." The sun was not yet risen, but the east was bright with
+his coming, and there was not a cloud in the sky. All the features of Etna
+were sharply sculptured in the clear air. From the topmost cone, a thick
+stream of white smoke was slowly puffed out at short intervals, and rolled
+lazily down the eastern side. It had a heavy, languid character, and I
+should have thought nothing of the appearance but for the alarm of my
+hosts. It was like the slow fire of Earth's incense, burning on that grand
+mountain altar.</p>
+
+<p>I hurried off to the Post Office, to await the arrival of the diligence
+from Palermo. The office is in the Strada Etnea, the main street of
+Catania, which runs straight through the city, from the sea to the base of
+the mountain, whose peak closes the long vista. The diligence was an hour
+later than usual, and I passed the time in watching the smoke which
+continued to increase in volume, and was mingled, from time to time, with
+jets of inky blackness. The postilion said he had seen fires and heard
+loud noises during the night. According to his account, the disturbances
+commenced about midnight. I could not but envy my friend C&aelig;sar, who was
+probably at that moment on the summit, looking down into the seething
+fires of the crater.</p>
+
+<p>At last, we rolled out of Catania. There were in the diligence, besides
+myself, two men and a woman, Sicilians of the secondary class. The road
+followed the shore, over rugged tracts of lava, the different epochs of
+which could be distinctly traced in the character of the vegetation. The
+last great flow (of 1679) stood piled in long ridges of terrible
+sterility, barely allowing the aloe and cactus to take root in the hollows
+between. The older deposits were sufficiently decomposed to nourish the
+olive and vine; but even here, the orchards were studded with pyramids of
+the harder fragments, which are laboriously collected by the husbandmen.
+In the few favored spots which have been untouched for so many ages that a
+tolerable depth of soil has accumulated, the vegetation has all the
+richness and brilliancy of tropical lands. The palm, orange, and
+pomegranate thrive luxuriantly, and the vines almost break under their
+heavy clusters. The villages are frequent and well built, and the hills
+are studded, far and near, with the villas of rich proprietors, mostly
+buildings of one story, with verandahs extending their whole length.
+Looking up towards Etna, whose base the road encircles, the views are
+gloriously rich and beautiful. On the other hand is the blue Mediterranean
+and the irregular outline of the shore, here and there sending forth
+promontories of lava, cooled by the waves into the most fantastic forms.</p>
+
+<p>We had sot proceeded far before a new sign called my attention to the
+mountain. Not only was there a perceptible jar or vibration in the earth,
+but a dull, groaning sound, like the muttering of distant thunder, began
+to be heard. The smoke increased in volume, and, as we advanced further to
+the eastward, and much nearer to the great cone, I perceived that it
+consisted of two jets, issuing from different mouths. A broad stream of
+very dense white smoke still flowed over the lip of the topmost crater and
+down the eastern side. As its breadth did not vary, and the edges were
+distinctly defined, it was no doubt the sulphureous vapor rising from a
+river of molten lava. Perhaps a thousand yards below, a much stronger
+column of mingled black and white smoke gushed up, in regular beats or
+pants, from a depression in the mountain side, between two small, extinct
+cones. All this part of Etna was scarred with deep chasms, and in the
+bottoms of those nearest the opening, I could see the red gleam of fire.
+The air was perfectly still, and as yet there was no cloud in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>When we stopped to change horses at the town of Aci Reale, I first felt
+the violence of the tremor and the awful sternness of the sound. The smoke
+by this time seemed to be gathering on the side towards Catania, and hung
+in a dark mass about half-way down the mountain. Groups of the villagers
+were gathered in the streets which looked upwards to Etna, and discussing
+the chances of an eruption. "Ah," said an old peasant, "the Mountain knows
+how to make himself respected. When he talks, everybody listens." The
+sound was the most awful that ever met my ears. It was a hard, painful
+moan, now and then fluttering like a suppressed sob, and had, at the same
+time, an expression of threatening and of agony. It did not come from Etna
+alone. It had no fixed location; it pervaded all space. It was in the air,
+in the depths of the sea, in the earth under my feet--everywhere, in fact;
+and as it continued to increase in violence, I experienced a sensation of
+positive pain. The people looked anxious and alarmed, although they said
+it was a good thing for all Sicily; that last year they had been in
+constant fear from earthquakes, and that an eruption invariably left the
+island quiet for several years. It is true that, during the past year,
+parts of Sicily and Calabria have been visited with severe shocks,
+occasioning much damage to property. A merchant of this city informed me
+yesterday that his whole family had slept for two months in the vaults of
+his warehouse, fearing that their residence might be shaken down in the
+night.</p>
+
+<p>As we rode along from Aci Reale to Taormina, all the rattling of the
+diligence over the rough road could not drown the awful noise. There was a
+strong smell of sulphur in the air, and the thick pants of smoke from the
+lower crater continued to increase in strength. The sun was fierce and
+hot, and the edges of the sulphureous clouds shone with a dazzling
+whiteness. A mounted soldier overtook us, and rode beside the diligence,
+talking with the postillion. He had been up to the mountain, and was
+taking his report to the Governor of the district. The heat of the day and
+the continued tremor of the air lulled me into a sort of doze, when I was
+suddenly aroused by a cry from the soldier and the stopping of the
+diligence. At the same time, there was a terrific peal of sound, followed
+by a jar which must have shaken the whole island. We looked up to Etna,
+which was fortunately in full view before us. An immense mass of
+snow-white smoke had burst up from the crater and was rising
+perpendicularly into the air, its rounded volumes rapidly whirling one
+over the other, yet urged with such impetus that they only rolled outwards
+after they had ascended to an immense height. It might have been one
+minute or five--for I was so entranced by this wonderful spectacle that I
+lost the sense of time--but it seemed instantaneous (so rapid and violent
+were the effects of the explosion), when there stood in the air, based on
+the summit of the mountain, a mass of smoke four or five miles high, and
+shaped precisely like the Italian pine tree.</p>
+
+<p>Words cannot paint the grandeur of this mighty tree. Its trunk of columned
+smoke, one side of which was silvered by the sun, while the other, in
+shadow, was lurid with red flame, rose for more than a mile before it sent
+out its cloudy boughs. Then parting into a thousand streams, each of
+which again threw out its branching tufts of smoke, rolling and waving in
+the air, it stood in intense relief against the dark blue of the sky. Its
+rounded masses of foliage were dazzlingly white on one side, while, in the
+shadowy depths of the branches, there was a constant play of brown,
+yellow, and crimson tints, revealing the central shaft of fire. It was
+like the tree celebrated in the Scandinavian sagas, as seen by the mother
+of Harold Hardrada--that tree, whose roots pierced through the earth,
+whose trunk was of the color of blood, and whose branches filled the
+uttermost corners of the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>This outburst seemed to have relieved the mountain, for the tremors were
+now less violent, though the terrible noise still droned in the air, and
+earth, and sea. And now, from the base of the tree, three white streams
+slowly crept into as many separate chasms, against the walls of which
+played the flickering glow of the burning lava. The column of smoke and
+flame was still hurled upwards, and the tree, after standing about ten
+minutes--a new and awful revelation of the active forces of
+Nature--gradually rose and spread, lost its form, and, slowly moved by a
+light wind (the first that disturbed the dead calm of the day), bent over
+to the eastward. We resumed our course. The vast belt of smoke at last
+arched over the strait, here about twenty miles wide, and sank towards the
+distant Calabrian shore. As we drove under it, for some miles of our way,
+the sun was totally obscured, and the sky presented the singular spectacle
+of two hemispheres of clear blue, with a broad belt of darkness drawn
+between them. There was a hot, sulphureous vapor in the air, and showers
+of white ashes fell, from time to time. We were distant about twelve
+miles, in a straight line, from the crater; but the air was so clear,
+even under the shadow of the smoke, that I could distinctly trace the
+downward movement of the rivers of lava.</p>
+
+<p>This was the eruption, at last, to which all the phenomena of the morning
+had been only preparatory. For the first time in ten years the depths of
+Etna had been stirred, and I thanked God for my detention at Malta, and
+the singular hazard of travel which had brought me here, to his very base,
+to witness a scene, the impression of which I shall never lose, to my
+dying day. Although the eruption may continue and the mountain pour forth
+fiercer fires and broader tides of lava, I cannot but think that the first
+upheaval, which lets out the long-imprisoned forces, will not be equalled
+in grandeur by any later spectacle.
+
+After passing Taormina, our road led us under the hills of the coast, and
+although I occasionally caught glimpses of Etna, and saw the reflection of
+fires from the lava which was filling up his savage ravines, the smoke at
+last encircled his waist, and he was then shut out of sight by the
+intervening mountains. We lost a bolt in a deep valley opening on the sea,
+and during our stoppage I could still hear the groans of the Mountain,
+though farther off and less painful to the ear. As evening came on, the
+beautiful hills of Calabria, with white towns and villages on their sides,
+gleamed in the purple light of the setting sun. We drove around headland
+after headland, till the strait opened, and we looked over the harbor of
+Messina to Capo Faro, and the distant islands of the Tyrrhene Sea.</p>
+
+<hr width="80%" />
+
+<p>I leave this afternoon for Naples and Leghorn. I have lost already so much
+time between Constantinople and this place, that I cannot give up ten
+days more to Etna. Besides, I am so thoroughly satisfied with what I have
+seen, that I fear no second view of the eruption could equal it. Etna
+cannot be seen from here, nor from a nearer point than a mountain six or
+eight miles distant. I tried last evening to get a horse and ride out to
+it, in order to see the appearance of the eruption by night; but every
+horse, mule and donkey in the place was engaged, except a miserable lame
+mule, for which five dollars was demanded. However, the night happened to
+be cloudy so that I could have seen nothing.</p>
+
+<p>My passport is finally <i>en r&egrave;gle</i>. It has cost the labors of myself and an
+able-bodied valet-de-place since yesterday morning, and the expenditure of
+five dollars and a half, to accomplish this great work. I have just been
+righteously abusing the Neapolitan Government to a native merchant whom,
+from his name, I took to be a Frenchman, but as I am off in an hour or
+two, hope to escape arrest. Perdition to all Tyranny!</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch32">
+<h2>Chapter XXXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Gibraltar.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
+  Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
+  Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
+  Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  ------"to the north-west, Cape St. Vincent died away,<br />
+Sunset ran, a burning blood-red, blushing into Cadiz Bay.<br />
+In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray."</p>
+
+<p>  Browning.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Gibraltar, <i>Saturday, November</i> 6, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>I leave unrecorded the links of travel which connected Messina and
+Gibraltar. They were over the well-trodden fields of Europe, where little
+ground is left that is not familiar. In leaving Sicily I lost the
+Saracenic trail, which I had been following through the East, and first
+find it again here, on the rock of Calpe, whose name, <i>Djebel el-Tarik</i>
+(the Mountain of Tarik), still speaks of the fiery race whose rule
+extended from the unknown ocean of the West to "Ganges and Hydaspes,
+Indian streams." In Malta and Sicily, I saw their decaying watch-towers,
+and recognized their sign-manual in the deep, guttural, masculine words
+and expressions which they have left behind them. I now design following
+their footsteps through the beautiful <i>Bel&agrave;d-el-Andaluz</i>, which, to the
+eye of the Melek Abd-er-rahm&agrave;n, was only less lovely than the plains of
+Damascus.</p>
+
+<p>While in Constantinople, I received letters which opened to me wider and
+richer fields of travel than I had already traversed. I saw a possibility
+of exploring the far Indian realms, the shores of farthest Cathay and the
+famed Zipango of Marco Polo. Before entering on this new sphere of
+experiences, however, it was necessary for me to visit Italy, Germany, and
+England. I sailed from Messina to Leghorn, and travelled thence, by way of
+Florence, Venice, and the Tyrol, to Munich. After three happy weeks at
+Gotha, and among the valleys of she Th&uuml;ringian Forest, I went to London,
+where business and the preparation for my new journeys detained me two or
+three weeks longer. Although the comforts of European civilization were
+pleasant, as a change, after the wild life of the Orient, the autumnal
+rains of England soon made me homesick for the sunshine I had left. The
+weather was cold, dark, and dreary, and the oppressive, sticky atmosphere
+of the bituminous metropolis weighed upon me like a nightmare. Heartily
+tired of looking at a sun that could show nothing brighter than a red
+copper disk, and of breathing an air that peppered my face with particles
+of soot, I left on the 28th of October. It was one of the dismalest days
+of autumn; the meadows of Berkshire were flooded with broad, muddy
+streams, and the woods on the hills of Hampshire looked brown and sodden,
+as if slowly rotting away. I reached Southampton at dusk, but there the
+sky was neither warmer nor clearer, so I spent the evening over a coal
+fire, all impatience for the bright beloved South, towards which my face
+was turned once more.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Madras</i> left on the next day, at 2 P.M., in the midst of a cheerless
+rain, which half blotted out the pleasant shores of Southampton Water, and
+the Isle of Wight. The <i>Madras</i> was a singularly appropriate vessel for
+one bound on such a journey as mine. The surgeon was Dr. Mungo Park, and
+one of my room-mates was Mr. R. Crusoe. It was a Friday, which boded no
+good for the voyage; but then my journey commenced with my leaving London
+the day previous, and Thursday is a lucky day among the Arabs. I caught a
+watery view of the gray cliffs of the Needles, when dinner was announced,
+but many were those (and I among them) who commenced that meal, and did
+not stay to finish it.</p>
+
+<p>Is there any piece of water more unreasonably, distressingly, disgustingly
+rough and perverse than the British Channel? Yes: there is one, and but
+one--the Bay of Biscay. And as the latter succeeds the former, without a
+pause between, and the head-winds never ceased, and the rain continually
+poured, I leave you to draw the climax of my misery. Four days and four
+nights in a berth, lying on your back, now dozing dull hour after hour,
+now making faint endeavors to eat, or reading the feeblest novel ever
+written, because the mind cannot digest stronger aliment--can there be a
+greater contrast to the wide-awake life, the fiery inspiration, of the
+Orient? My blood became so sluggish and my mind so cloudy and befogged,
+that I despaired of ever thinking clearly or feeling vividly again. "The
+winds are rude" in Biscay, Byron says. They are, indeed: very rude. They
+must have been raised in some most disorderly quarter of the globe. They
+pitched the waves right over our bulwarks, and now and then dashed a
+bucketful of water down the cabin skylight, swamping the ladies' cabin,
+and setting scores of bandboxes afloat. Not that there was the least
+actual danger; but Mrs. ---- would not be persuaded that we were not on
+the brink of destruction, and wrote to friends at home a voluminous
+account of her feelings. There was an Irishman on board, bound to Italy,
+with his sister. It was his first tour, and when asked why he did not go
+direct, through France, he replied, with brotherly concern, that he was
+anxious his sister should see the Bay of Biscay.</p>
+
+<p>This youth's perceptions were of such an emerald hue, that a lot of wicked
+Englishmen had their own fun out of him. The other day, he was trying to
+shave, to the great danger of slicing off his nose, as the vessel was
+rolling fearfully. "Why don't you have the ship headed to the wind?" said
+one of the Englishmen, who heard his complaints; "she will then lie
+steady, and you can shave beautifully." Thereupon the Irishman sent one of
+the stewards upon deck with a polite message to the captain, begging him
+to put the vessel about for five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Towards noon of the fifth day, we saw the dark, rugged mountains that
+guard the north-western corner of the Spanish Peninsula. We passed the Bay
+of Corunna, and rounding the bold headland of Finisterre, left the
+Biscayan billows behind us. But the sea was still rough and the sky
+clouded, although the next morning the mildness of the air showed the
+change in our latitude. About noon that day, we made the Burlings, a
+cluster of rocks forty miles north of Lisbon, and just before sunset, a
+transient lifting of the clouds revealed the Rock of Cintra, at the mouth
+of the Tagus. The tall, perpendicular cliffs, and the mountain slopes
+behind, covered with gardens, orchards, and scattered villas and hamlets,
+made a grand though dim picture, which was soon hidden from our view.</p>
+
+<p>On the 4th, we were nearly all day crossing the mouth of the Bay of
+Cadiz, and only at sunset saw Cape Trafalgar afar off, glimmering through
+the reddish haze. I remained on deck, as there were patches of starlight
+in the sky. After passing the light-house at Tarifa, the Spanish shore
+continued to be visible. In another hour, there was a dim, cloudy outline
+high above the horizon, on our right. This was the Lesser Atlas, in
+Morocco. And now, right ahead, distinctly visible, though fifteen miles
+distant, lay a colossal lion, with his head on his outstretched paws,
+looking towards Africa. If I had been brought to the spot blindfolded, I
+should have known what it was. The resemblance is certainly very striking,
+and the light-house on Europa Point seemed to be a lamp held in his paws.
+The lights of the city and fortifications rose one by one, glittering
+along the base, and at midnight we dropped anchor before them on the
+western side.</p>
+
+<p>I landed yesterday morning. The mists, which had followed me from England,
+had collected behind the Rock, and the sun, still hidden by its huge bulk,
+shone upwards through them, making a luminous background, against which
+the lofty walls and jagged ramparts of this tremendous natural
+fortification were clearly defined. I announced my name, and the length of
+time I designed remaining, at a little office on the quay, and was then
+allowed to pass into the city. A number of familiar white turbans met me
+on entering, and I could not resist the temptation of cordially saluting
+the owners in their own language. The town is long and narrow, lying
+steeply against the Rock. The houses are white, yellow and pink, as in
+Spanish towns, but the streets are clean and well paved. There is a
+square, about the size of an ordinary building-lot, where a sort of
+market of dry goods and small articles is held The "Club-House Hotel"
+occupies one side of it; and, as I look out of my window upon it, I see
+the topmost cliffs of the Rock above me, threatening to topple down from a
+height of 1,500 feet.</p>
+
+<p>My first walk in Gibraltar was in search of a palm-tree. After threading
+the whole length of the town, I found two small ones in a garden, in the
+bottom of the old moat. The sun was shining, and his rays seemed to fall
+with double warmth on their feathery crests. Three brown Spaniards,
+bare-armed, were drawing water with a pole and bucket, and filling the
+little channels which conveyed it to the distant vegetables. The sea
+glittered blue below; an Indian fig-tree shaded me; but, on the rock
+behind, an aloe lifted its blossoming stem, some twenty feet high, into
+the sunshine. To describe what a weight was lifted from my heart would
+seem foolish to those who do not know on what little things the whole tone
+of our spirits sometimes depends.</p>
+
+<p>But if an even balance was restored yesterday, the opposite scale kicked
+the beam this morning. Not a speck of vapor blurred the spotless crystal
+of the sky, as I walked along the hanging paths of the Alameda. The sea
+was dazzling ultra-marine, with a purple lustre; every crag and notch of
+the mountains across the bay, every shade of brown or gray, or the green
+of grassy patches, was drawn and tinted with a pencil so exquisitely
+delicate as almost to destroy the perspective. The white houses of
+Algeciras, five miles off, appeared close at hand: a little toy-town,
+backed by miniature hills. Apes' Hill, the ancient Abyla, in Africa,
+advanced to meet Calpe, its opposing pillar, and Atlas swept away to the
+east ward, its blue becoming paler and paler, till the powers of vision
+finally failed. From the top of the southern point of the Rock, I saw the
+mountain-shore of Spain, as far as Malaga, and the snowy top of one of the
+Sierra Nevada. Looking eastward to the horizon line of the Mediterranean,
+my sight extended so far, in the wonderful clearness of the air, that the
+convexity of the earth's surface was plainly to be seen. The sea, instead
+of being a plane, was slightly convex, and the sky, instead of resting
+upon it at the horizon, curved down beyond it, as the upper side of a horn
+curves over the lower, when one looks into the mouth. There is none of the
+many aspects of Nature more grand than this, which is so rarely seen, that
+I believe the only person who has ever described it is Humboldt, who saw
+it, looking from the Silla de Caraccas over the Caribbean Sea. It gives
+you the impression of standing on the edge of the earth, and looking off
+into space. From the mast-head, the ocean appears either flat or slightly
+concave, and &aelig;ronauts declare that this apparent concavity becomes more
+marked, the higher they ascend. It is only at those rare periods when the
+air is so miraculously clear as to produce the effect of <i>no
+air</i>--rendering impossible the slightest optical illusion--that our eyes
+can see things as they really are. So pure was the atmosphere to-day,
+that, at meridian, the moon, although a thin sickle, three days distant
+from the sun, shone perfectly white and clear.</p>
+
+<p>As I loitered in the Alameda, between thick hedges of ever-blooming
+geraniums, clumps of heliotrope three feet high, and luxuriant masses of
+ivy, around whose warm flowers the bees clustered and hummed, I could only
+think of the voyage as a hideous dream. The fog and gloom had been in my
+own eyes and in my own brain, and now the blessed sun, shining full in my
+face, awoke me. I am a worshipper of the Sun. I took off my hat to him, as
+I stood there, in a wilderness of white, crimson, and purple flowers, and
+let him blaze away in my face for a quarter of an hour. And as I walked
+home with my back to him, I often turned my face from side to side that I
+might feel his touch on my cheek. How a man can live, who is sentenced to
+a year's imprisonment, is more than I can understand.</p>
+
+<p>But all this (you will say) gives you no picture of Gibraltar. The Rock is
+so familiar to all the world, in prints and descriptions, that I find
+nothing new to say of it, except that it is by no means so barren a rock
+as the island of Malta, being clothed, in many places, with beautiful
+groves and the greenest turf; besides, I have not yet seen the
+rock-galleries, having taken passage for Cadiz this afternoon. When I
+return--as I hope to do in twenty days, after visiting Seville and
+Granada--I shall procure permission to view all the fortifications, and
+likewise to ascend to the summit.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch33">
+<h2>Chapter XXXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Cadiz And Seville.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
+  Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
+  House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
+  Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar-Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
+  House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
+  Evening in Seville.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "The walls of Cadiz front the shore,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And shimmer o'er the sea."</p>
+
+<p>  R. H. Stoddard.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Beautiful Seville!<br />
+Of which I've dreamed, until I saw its towers<br />
+In every cloud that hid the setting sun."</p>
+
+<p>  George H. Boker.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Seville, <i>November</i> 10, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>I left Gibraltar on the evening of the 6th, in the steamer Iberia. The
+passage to Cadiz was made in nine hours, and we came to anchor in the
+harbor before day-break. It was a cheerful picture that the rising sun
+presented to us. The long white front of the city, facing the East, glowed
+with a bright rosy lustre, on a ground of the clearest blue. The tongue of
+land on which Cadiz stands is low, but the houses are lifted by the heavy
+sea-wall which encompasses them. The main-land consists of a range of low
+but graceful hills, while in the south-east the mountains of Ronda rise at
+some distance. I went immediately on shore, where my carpet-bag was seized
+upon by a boy, with the rich brown complexion of one Murillo's beggars,
+who trudged off with it to the gate. After some little detention there, I
+was conducted to a long, deserted, barn-like building, where I waited half
+an hour before the proper officer came. When the latter had taken his
+private toll of my contraband cigars, the brown imp conducted me to
+Blanco's English Hotel, a neat and comfortable house on the Alameda.</p>
+
+<p>Cadiz is soon seen. Notwithstanding its venerable age of three thousand
+years--having been founded by Hercules, who figures on its
+coat-of-arms--it is purely a commercial city, and has neither antiquities,
+nor historic associations that interest any but Englishmen. It is
+compactly built, and covers a smaller space than accords with my ideas of
+its former splendor. I first walked around the sea-ramparts, enjoying the
+glorious look-off over the blue waters. The city is almost insulated, the
+triple line of fortifications on the land side being of but trifling
+length. A rocky ledge stretches out into the sea from the northern point,
+and at its extremity rises the massive light-house tower, 170 feet high.
+The walls toward the sea were covered with companies of idle anglers,
+fishing with cane rods of enormous length. On the open, waste spaces
+between the bastions, boys had spread their limed cords to catch singing
+birds, with chirping decoys placed here and there in wicker cages. Numbers
+of boatmen and peasants, in their brown jackets, studded with tags and
+bugles, and those round black caps which resemble smashed bandboxes,
+loitered about the walls or lounged on the grass in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Except along the Alameda, which fronts the bay, the exterior of the city
+has an aspect of neglect and desertion. The interior, however, atones for
+this in the gay and lively air of its streets, which, though narrow, are
+regular and charmingly clean. The small plazas are neatness itself, and
+one is too content with this to ask for striking architectural effects.
+The houses are tall and stately, of the most dazzling whiteness, and
+though you could point out no one as a pattern of style, the general
+effect is chaste and harmonious. In fact, there are two or three streets
+which you would almost pronounce faultless. The numbers of hanging
+balconies and of court-yards paved with marble and surrounded with elegant
+corridors, show the influence of Moorish taste. There is not a
+mean-looking house to be seen, and I have no doubt that Cadiz is the best
+built city of its size in the world. It lies, white as new-fallen snow,
+like a cluster of ivory palaces, between sea and sky. Blue and silver are
+its colors, and, as everybody knows, there can be no more charming
+contrast.</p>
+
+<p>I visited both the old and new cathedrals, neither of which is
+particularly interesting. The latter is unfinished, and might have been a
+fine edifice had the labor and money expended on its construction been
+directed by taste. The interior, rich as it is in marbles and sculpture,
+has a heavy, confused effect. The pillars dividing the nave from the
+side-aisles are enormous composite masses, each one consisting of six
+Corinthian columns, stuck around and against a central shaft. More
+satisfactory to me was the Opera-House, which I visited in the evening,
+and where the dazzling array of dark-eyed Gaditanas put a stop to
+architectural criticism. The women of Cadiz are noted for their beauty and
+their graceful gait. Some of them are very beautiful, it is true; but
+beauty is not the rule among them. Their gait, however, is the most
+graceful possible, because it is perfectly free and natural. The
+commonest serving-maid who walks the streets of Cadiz would put to shame a
+whole score of our mincing and wriggling belles.</p>
+
+<p>Honest old Blanco prepared me a cup of chocolate by sunrise next morning,
+and accompanied me down to the quay, to embark for Seville. A furious wind
+was blowing from the south-east, and the large green waves raced and
+chased one another incessantly over the surface of the bay. I took a heavy
+craft, which the boatmen pushed along under cover of the pier, until they
+reached the end, when the sail was dropped in the face of the wind, and
+away we shot into the watery tumult. The boat rocked and bounced over the
+agitated surface, running with one gunwale on the waves, and sheets of
+briny spray broke over me. I felt considerably relieved when I reached the
+deck of the steamer, but it was then diversion enough to watch those who
+followed. The crowd of boats pitching tumultuously around the steamer,
+jostling against each other, their hulls gleaming with wet, as they rose
+on the beryl-colored waves, striped with long, curded lines of wind-blown
+foam, would have made a fine subject for the pencil of Achenbach.</p>
+
+<p>At last we pushed off, with a crowd of passengers fore and aft, and a
+pyramid of luggage piled around the smoke-pipe. There was a party of four
+Englishmen on board, and, on making their acquaintance, I found one of
+them to be a friend to some of my friends--Sir John Potter, the
+progressive ex-Mayor of Manchester. The wind being astern, we ran rapidly
+along the coast, and in two hours entered the mouth of the Guadalquivir.
+[This name comes from the Arabic <i>wadi el-kebeer</i>--literally, the Great
+Valley.] The shores are a dead flat. The right bank is a dreary forest of
+stunted pines, abounding with deer and other game; on the left is the
+dilapidated town of San Lucar, whence Magellan set sail on his first
+voyage around the world. A mile further is Bonanza, the port of Xeres,
+where we touched and took on board a fresh lot of passengers. Thenceforth,
+for four hours, the scenery of the Guadalquivir had a most distressing
+sameness. The banks were as flat as a board, with here and there a
+straggling growth of marshy thickets. Now and then we passed a herdsman's
+hut, but there were no human beings to be seen, except the peasants who
+tended the large flocks of sheep and cattle. A sort of breakfast was
+served in the cabin, but so great was the number of guests that I had much
+difficulty in getting anything to eat. The waiters were models of calmness
+and deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>As we approached Seville, some low hills appeared on the left, near the
+river. Dazzling white villages were planted at their foot, and all the
+slopes were covered with olive orchards, while the banks of the stream
+were bordered with silvery birch trees. This gave the landscape, in spite
+of the African warmth and brightness of the day, a gray and almost wintry
+aspect. Soon the graceful Giralda, or famous Tower of Seville, arose in
+the distance; but, from the windings of the river, we were half an hour in
+reaching the landing-place. One sees nothing of the far-famed beauty of
+Seville, on approaching it. The boat stops below the Alameda, where the
+passengers are received by Custom-House officers, who, in my case, did not
+verify the stories told of them in Cadiz. I gave my carpet-bag to a boy,
+who conducted me along the hot and dusty banks to the bridge over the
+Guadalquivir, where he turned into the city. On passing the gate, two
+loafer-like guards stopped my baggage, notwithstanding it had already been
+examined. "What!" said I, "do you examine twice on entering Seville?"
+"Yes," answered one; "twice, and even three times;" but added in a lower
+tone, "it depends entirely on yourself." With that he slipped behind me,
+and let one hand fall beside my pocket. The transfer of a small coin was
+dexterously made, and I passed on without further stoppage to the Fonda de
+Madrid.</p>
+
+<p>Sir John Potter engaged Antonio Bailli, the noted guide of Seville, who
+professes to have been the cicerone of all distinguished travellers, from
+Lord Byron and Washington Irving down to Owen Jones, and I readily
+accepted his invitation to join the party. Bailli is recommended by Ford
+as "fat and good-humored" Fat he certainly is, and very good-humored when
+speaking of himself, but he has been rather spoiled by popularity, and is
+much too profuse in his critical remarks on art and architecture.
+Nevertheless, as my stay in Seville is limited, I have derived no slight
+advantage from his services.</p>
+
+<p>On the first morning I took an early stroll through the streets. The
+houses are glaringly white, like those of Cadiz, but are smaller and have
+not the same stately exteriors. The windows are protected by iron
+gratings, of florid patterns, and, as many of these are painted green, the
+general effect is pleasing. Almost every door opens upon a <i>patio</i>, or
+courtyard, paved with black and white marble and adorned with flowers and
+fountains. Many of these remain from the time of the Moors, and are still
+surrounded by the delicate arches and brilliant tile-work of that period.
+The populace in the streets are entirely Spanish--the jaunty <i>majo</i> in
+his queer black cap, sash, and embroidered jacket, and the nut-brown,
+dark-eyed damsel, swimming along in her mantilla, and armed with the
+irresistible fan.</p>
+
+<p>We went first to the Cathedral, built on the site of the great mosque of
+Abou Youssuf Yakoub. The tall Giralda beckoned to us over the tops of the
+intervening buildings, and finally a turn in the street brought us to the
+ancient Moorish gateway on the northern side. This is an admirable
+specimen of the horse-shoe arch, and is covered with elaborate tracery. It
+originally opened into the court, or <i>h&agrave;ram</i>, of the mosque, which still
+remains, and is shaded by a grove of orange trees. The Giralda, to my eye,
+is a more perfect tower than the Campanile of Florence, or that of San
+Marco, at Venice, which is evidently an idea borrowed from it. The Moorish
+structure, with a base of fifty feet square, rises to the height of two
+hundred and fifty feet. It is of a light pink color, and the sides, which
+are broken here and there by exquisitely proportioned double Saracenic
+arches, are covered from top to bottom with arabesque tracery, cut in
+strong relief. Upon this tower, a Spanish architect has placed a tapering
+spire, one hundred feet high, which fortunately harmonizes with the
+general design, and gives the crowning grace to the work.</p>
+
+<p>The Cathedral of Seville may rank as one of the grandest Gothic piles in
+Europe. The nave lacks but five feet of being as high as that of St.
+Peter's, while the length and breadth of the edifice are on a commensurate
+scale. The ninety-three windows of stained glass fill the interior with a
+soft and richly-tinted light, mellower and more gentle than the sombre
+twilight of the Gothic Cathedrals of Europe. The wealth lavished on the
+smaller chapels and shrines is prodigious, and the high altar, inclosed
+within a gilded railing fifty feet high, is probably the most enormous
+mass of wood-carving in existence. The Cathedral, in fact, is encumbered
+with its riches. While they bewilder you as monuments of human labor and
+patience, they detract from the grand simplicity of the building. The
+great nave, on each side of the transept, is quite blocked up, so that the
+choir and magnificent royal chapel behind it have almost the effect of
+detached edifices.</p>
+
+<p>We returned again this morning, remaining two hours, and succeeded in
+making a thorough survey, including a number of trashy pictures and
+barbarously rich shrines. Murillo's "Guardian Angel" and the "Vision of
+St. Antonio" are the only gems. The treasury contains a number of sacred
+vessels of silver, gold and jewels--among other things, the keys of
+Moorish Seville, a cross made of the first gold brought from the New-World
+by Columbus, and another from that robbed in Mexico by Cortez. The
+Cathedral won my admiration more and more. The placing of the numerous
+windows, and their rich coloring, produce the most glorious effects of
+light in the lofty aisles, and one is constantly finding new vistas, new
+combinations of pillar, arch and shrine. The building is in itself a
+treasury of the grandest Gothic pictures.</p>
+
+<p>From the Cathedral we went to the Alcazar <i>(El-Kasr),</i> or Palace of the
+Moorish Kings. We entered by a long passage, with round arches on either
+side, resting on twin pillars, placed at right angles to the line of the
+arch, as one sees both in Saracenic and Byzantine structures. Finally, old
+Bailli brought us into a dull, deserted court-yard, where we were
+surprised by the sight of an entire Moorish fa&ccedil;ade, with its pointed
+arches, its projecting roof, its rich sculptured ornaments and its
+illuminations of red, blue, green and gold. It has been lately restored,
+and now rivals in freshness and brilliancy any of the rich houses of
+Damascus. A doorway, entirely too low and mean for the splendor of the
+walls above it, admitted us into the first court. On each side of the
+passage are the rooms of the guard and the Moorish nobles. Within, all is
+pure Saracenic, and absolutely perfect in its grace and richness. It is
+the realization of an Oriental dream; it is the poetry and luxury of the
+East in tangible forms. Where so much depends on the proportion and
+harmony of the different parts--on those correspondences, the union of
+which creates that nameless soul of the work, which cannot be expressed in
+words--it is useless to describe details. From first to last--the chambers
+of state; the fringed arches; the open tracery, light and frail as the
+frost-stars crystallized on a window-pane; the courts, fit to be
+vestibules to Paradise; the audience-hall, with its wondrous sculptures,
+its columns and pavement of marble, and its gilded dome; the garden,
+gorgeous with its palm, banana, and orange-trees--all were in perfect
+keeping, all jewels of equal lustre, forming a diadem which still lends a
+royal dignity to the phantom of Moorish power.</p>
+
+<p>We then passed into the gardens laid out by the Spanish monarchs--trim,
+mathematical designs, in box and myrtle, with concealed fountains
+springing up everywhere unawares in the midst of the paven walks; yet
+still made beautiful by the roses and jessamines that hung in rank
+clusters over the marble balustrades, and by the clumps of tall orange
+trees, bending to earth under the weight of their fruitage. We afterward
+visited Pilate's House, as it is called--a fine Spanish-Moresco palace,
+now belonging to the Duke of Medina Coeli. It is very rich and elegant,
+but stands in the same relation to the Alcazar as a good copy does to the
+original picture. The grand staircase, nevertheless, is a marvel of tile
+work, unlike anything else in Seville, and exhibits a genius in the
+invention of elaborate ornamental patterns, which is truly wonderful. A
+number of workmen were busy in restoring the palace, to fit it for the
+residence of the young Duke. The Moorish sculptures are reproduced in
+plaster, which, at least, has a better effect than the fatal whitewash
+under which the original tints of the Alcazar are hidden. In the courts
+stand a number of Roman busts--Spanish antiquities, and therefore not of
+great merit--singularly out of place in niches surrounded by Arabic
+devices and sentences from the Koran.</p>
+
+<p>This morning, I climbed the Giralda. The sun had just risen, and the clay
+was fresh and crystal-clear. A little door in the Cathedral, near the foot
+of the tower, stood open, and I entered. A rather slovenly Sevilla&ntilde;a had
+just completed her toilet, but two children were still in undress.
+However, she opened a door in the tower, and I went up without hindrance.
+The ascent is by easy ramps, and I walked four hundred yards, or nearly a
+quarter of a mile, before reaching the top of the Moorish part. The
+panoramic view was superb. To the east and west, the Great Valley made a
+level line on a far-distant horizon. There were ranges of hills in the
+north and south, and those rising near the city, clothed in a gray mantle
+of olive-trees, were picturesquely crowned with villages. The
+Guadalquivir, winding in the most sinuous mazes, had no longer a turbid
+hue; he reflected the blue morning sky, and gleamed brightly between his
+borders of birch and willow. Seville sparkled white and fair under my
+feet, her painted towers and tiled domes rising thickly out of the mass of
+buildings. The level sun threw shadows into the numberless courts,
+permitting the mixture of Spanish and Moorish architecture to be plainly
+discerned, even at that height. A thin golden vapor softened the features
+of the landscape, towards the sun, while, on the opposite side, every
+object stood out in the sharpest and clearest outlines.</p>
+
+<p>On our way to the Mus&eacute;o, Bailli took us to the house of a friend of his,
+in order that we might taste real Manzanilla wine. This is a pale,
+straw-colored vintage, produced in the valley of the Guadalquivir. It is
+flavored with camomile blossoms, and is said to be a fine tonic for weak
+stomachs. The master then produced a dark-red wine, which he declared to
+be thirty years old. It was almost a syrup in consistence, and tasted more
+of sarsaparilla than grapes. None of us relished it, except Bailli, who
+was so inspired by the draught, that he sang us two Moorish songs and an
+Andalusian catch, full of fun and drollery.</p>
+
+<p>The Mus&eacute;o contains a great amount of bad pictures, but it also contains
+twenty-three of Murillo's works, many of them of his best period. To those
+who have only seen his tender, spiritual "Conceptions" and "Assumptions,"
+his "Vision of St. Francis" in this gallery reveals a mastery of the
+higher walks of his art, which they would not have anticipated. But it is
+in his "Cherubs" and his "Infant Christs" that he excels. No one ever
+painted infantile grace and beauty with so true a pencil. There is but one
+Velasquez in the collection, and the only thing that interested me, in two
+halls filled with rubbish, was a "Conception" by Murillo's mulatto pupil,
+said by some to have been his slave. Although an imitation of the great
+master, it is a picture of much sweetness and beauty. There is no other
+work of the artist in existence, and this, as the only production of the
+kind by a painter of mixed African blood, ought to belong to the Republic
+of Liberia.</p>
+
+<p>Among the other guests at the Fonda de Madrid is Mr. Thomas Hobhouse,
+brother of Byron's friend. We had a pleasant party in the Court this
+evening, listening to blind P&eacute;p&eacute;, who sang to his guitar a medley of merry
+Andalusian refrains. Singing made the old man courageous, and, at the
+close, he gave us the radical song of Spain, which is now strictly
+prohibited. The air is charming, but too gay; one would sooner dance than
+fight to its measures. It does not bring the hand to the sword, like the
+glorious Marseillaise.</p>
+
+<p><i>Adios</i>, beautiful Seville!</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch34">
+<h2>Chapter XXXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Journey in a Spanish Diligence.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Spanish Diligence Lines--Leaving Seville--An Unlucky Start--Alcal&agrave; of
+  the Bakers--Dinner at Carmona--A Dehesa--The Mayoral and his
+  Team--Ecija--Night Journey--Cordova--The Cathedral-Mosque--Moorish
+  Architecture--The Sierra Morena--A Rainy Journey--A Chapter of
+  Accidents--Baylen--The Fascination of Spain--Jaen--The Vega of Granada.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Granada, <i>November</i> 14, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>It is an enviable sensation to feel for the first time that you are in
+Granada. No amount of travelling can weaken the romantic interest which
+clings about this storied place, or take away aught from the freshness of
+that emotion with which you first behold it, I sit almost at the foot of
+the Alhambra, whose walls I can see from my window, quite satisfied for
+to-day with being here. It has been raining since I arrived, the thunder
+is crashing overhead, and the mountains are covered with clouds, so I am
+kept in-doors, with the luxury of knowing that all the wonders of the
+place are within my reach. And now let me beguile the dull weather by
+giving you a sketch of my journey from Seville hither.</p>
+
+<p>There are three lines of stages from Seville to Madrid, and their
+competition has reduced the fare to $12, which, for a ride of 350 miles,
+is remarkably cheap. The trip is usually made in three days and a half. A
+branch line from Baylen--nearly half-way--strikes southward to Granada,
+and as there is no competition on this part of the road, I was charged $15
+for a through seat in the <i>coup&eacute;</i>. On account of the lateness of the
+season, and the limited time at my command, this was preferable to taking
+horses and riding across the country from Seville to Cordova. Accordingly,
+at an early hour on Thursday morning last, furnished with a travelling
+ticket inscribed: "Don Valtar de Talor" (myself!), I took leave of my
+English friends at the Fonda de Madrid, got into an immense, lumbering
+yellow vehicle, drawn by ten mules, and started, trusting to my good luck
+and bad Spanish to get safely through. The commencement, however, was
+unpropitious, and very often a stumble at starting makes the whole journey
+limp. The near mule in the foremost span was a horse, ridden by our
+postillion, and nothing could prevent that horse from darting into all
+sorts of streets and alleys where we had no desire to go. As all mules
+have implicit faith in horses, of course the rest of the animals followed.
+We were half an hour in getting out of Seville, and when at last we
+reached the open road and dashed off at full gallop, one of the mules in
+the traces fell and was dragged in the dust some twenty or thirty yards
+before we could stop. My companions in the coup&eacute; were a young Spanish
+officer and his pretty Andalusian bride, who was making her first journey
+from home, and after these mishaps was in a state of constant fear and
+anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>The first stage across the valley of the Guadalquivir took us to the town
+of Alcal&agrave;, which lies in the lap of the hills above the beautiful little
+river Guadaira. It is a picturesque spot; the naked cliffs overhanging the
+stream have the rich, red hue of cinnabar, and the trees and shrubbery in
+the meadows, and on the hill-sides are ready grouped to the artist's
+hand. The town is called Alcal&agrave; de los Panadores (of the Bakers) from its
+hundreds of flour mills and bake-ovens, which supply Seville with those
+white, fine, delicious twists, of which Spain may be justly proud. They
+should have been sent to the Exhibition last year, with the Toledo blades
+and the wooden mosaics. We left the place and its mealy-headed population,
+and turned eastward into wide, rolling tracts, scattered here and there
+with gnarled olive trees. The soil was loose and sandy, and hedges of
+aloes lined the road. The country is thinly populated, and very little of
+it under cultivation.</p>
+
+<p>About noon we reached Carmona, which was founded by the Romans, as,
+indeed, were nearly all the towns of Southern Spain. It occupies the crest
+and northern slope of a high hill, whereon the ancient Moorish castle
+still stands. The Alcazar, or palace, and the Moorish walls also remain,
+though in a very ruinous condition. Here we stopped to dinner, for the
+"Nueva Peninsular," in which I was embarked, has its hotels all along the
+route, like that of Zurutuza, in Mexico. We were conducted into a small
+room adjoining the stables, and adorned with colored prints illustrating
+the history of Don John of Austria. The table-cloths, plates and other
+appendages were of very ordinary quality, but indisputably clean; we
+seated ourselves, and presently the dinner appeared. First, a vermicelli
+<i>pilaff</i>, which I found palatable, then the national <i>olla</i>, a dish of
+enormous yellow peas, sprinkled with bits of bacon and flavored with oil;
+then three successive courses of chicken, boiled, stewed and roasted, but
+in every case done to rags, and without a particle of the original
+flavor. This was the usual style of our meals on the road, whether
+breakfast, dinner or supper, except that kid was sometimes substituted for
+fowl, and that the oil employed, being more or less rancid, gave different
+flavors to the dishes, A course of melons, grapes or pomegranates wound up
+the repast, the price of which varied from ten to twelve reals--a real
+being about a half-dime. In Seville, at the Fonda de Madrid, the cooking
+is really excellent; but further in the interior, judging from what I have
+heard, it is even worse than I have described.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing our journey, we passed around the southern brow of the hill,
+under the Moorish battlements. Here a superb view opened to the south and
+east over the wide Vega of Carmona, as far as the mountain chain which
+separates it from the plain of Granada. The city has for a coat of arms a
+silver star in an azure field, with the pompous motto: "As Lucifer shines
+in the morning, so shines Carmona in Andalusia." If it shines at all, it
+is because it is a city set upon a hill; for that is the only splendor I
+could find about the place. The Vega of Carmona is partially cultivated,
+and now wears a sombre brown hue, from its tracts of ploughed land.</p>
+
+<p>Cultivation soon ceased, however, and we entered on a <i>dehesa</i>, a
+boundless plain of waste land, covered with thickets of palmettos. Flocks
+of goats and sheep, guarded by shepherds in brown cloaks, wandered here
+and there, and except their huts and an isolated house, with its group of
+palm-trees, there was no sign of habitation. The road was a deep, red
+sand, and our mules toiled along slowly and painfully, urged by the
+incessant cries of the <i>mayoral</i>, or conductor, and his <i>mozo</i>. As the
+mayoral's whip could only reach the second span, the business of the
+latter was to jump down every ten minutes, run ahead and belabor the
+flanks of the foremost mules, uttering at the same time a series of sharp
+howls, which seemed to strike the poor beasts with quite as much severity
+as his whip. I defy even a Spanish ear to distinguish the import of these
+cries, and the great wonder was how they could all come out of one small
+throat. When it came to a hard pull, they cracked and exploded like
+volleys of musketry, and flew like hail-stones about the ears of the
+<i>machos</i> (he-mules). The postillion, having only the care of the foremost
+span, is a silent man, but he has contracted a habit of sleeping in the
+saddle, which I mention for the benefit of timid travellers, as it adds to
+the interest of a journey by night.</p>
+
+<p>The clouds which had been gathering all day, now settled down upon the
+plain, and night came on with a dull rain. At eight o'clock we reached the
+City of Ecija, where we had two hours' halt and supper. It was so dark and
+rainy that I saw nothing, not even the classic Xenil, the river of
+Granada, which flows through the city on its way to the Guadalquivir, The
+night wore slowly away, and while the <i>mozo</i> drowsed on his post, I caught
+snatches of sleep between his cries. As the landscape began to grow
+distinct in the gray, cloudy dawn, we saw before us Cordova, with the dark
+range of the Sierra Morena rising behind it. This city, once the glory of
+Moorish Spain, the capital of the great Abd-er-Rahman, containing, when in
+its prime, a million of inhabitants, is now a melancholy wreck. It has not
+a shadow of the art, science, and taste which then distinguished it, and
+the only interest it now possesses is from these associations, and the
+despoiled remnant of its renowned Mosque.</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the Guadalquivir on a fine bridge built on Roman foundations,
+and drove slowly down the one long, rough, crooked street. The diligence
+stops for an hour, to allow passengers to breakfast, but my first thought
+was for the Cathedral-mosque, <i>la Mezquita</i>, as it is still called. "It is
+closed," said the ragged crowd that congregated about us; "you cannot get
+in until eight o'clock." But I remembered that a silver key will open
+anything in Spain, and taking a mozo as a guide we hurried off as fast as
+the rough pavements would permit. We had to retrace the whole length of
+the city, but on reaching the Cathedral, found it open. The exterior is
+low, and quite plain, though of great extent. A Moorish gateway admitted
+me into the original court-yard, or <i>h&agrave;ram</i>, of the mosque, which is
+planted with orange trees and contains the fountain, for the ablutions of
+Moslem worshippers, in the centre. The area of the Mosque proper,
+exclusive of the court-yard, is about 400 by 350 feet. It was built on the
+plan of the great Mosque of Damascus, about the end of the eighth century.
+The materials--including twelve hundred columns of marble, jasper and
+porphyry, from the ruins of Carthage, and the temples of Asia
+Minor---belonged to a Christian basilica, of the Gothic domination, which
+was built upon the foundations of a Roman temple of Janus; so that the
+three great creeds of the world have here at different times had their
+seat. The Moors considered this mosque as second in holiness to the Kaaba
+of Mecca, and made pilgrimages to it from all parts of Moslem Spain and
+Barbary. Even now, although shorn of much of its glory, it surpasses any
+Oriental mosque into which I have penetrated, except St. Sophia, which is
+a Christian edifice.</p>
+
+<p>All the nineteen original entrances--beautiful horse-shoe arches--are
+closed, except the central one. I entered by a low door, in one corner of
+the corridor. A wilderness of columns connected by double arches (one
+springing above the other, with an opening between), spread their dusky
+aisles before me in the morning twilight. The eight hundred and fifty
+shafts of this marble forest formed labyrinths and mazes, which at that
+early hour appeared boundless, for their long vistas disappeared in the
+shadows. Lamps were burning before distant shrines, and a few worshippers
+were kneeling silently here and there. The sound of my own footsteps, as I
+wandered through the ranks of pillars, was all that I heard. In the centre
+of the wood (for such it seemed) rises the choir, a gaudy and tasteless
+excrescence added by the Christians. Even Charles V., who laid a merciless
+hand on the Alhambra, reproved the Bishop of Cordova for this barbarous
+and unnecessary disfigurement.</p>
+
+<p>The sacristan lighted lamps in order to show me the Moorish chapels.
+Nothing but the precious materials of which these exquisite structures are
+composed could have saved them from the holy hands of the Inquisition,
+which intentionally destroyed all the Roman antiquities of Cordova. Here
+the fringed arches, the lace-like filigrees, the wreathed inscriptions,
+and the domes of pendent stalactites which enchant you in the Alcazar of
+Seville, are repeated, not in stucco, but in purest marble, while the
+entrance to the "holy of holies" is probably the most glorious piece of
+mosaic in the world. The pavement of the interior is deeply worn by the
+knees of the Moslem pilgrims, who compassed it seven times, kneeling, as
+they now do in the Kaaba, at Mecca. The sides are embroidered with
+sentences from the Koran, in Cufic characters, and the roof is in the
+form of a fluted shell, of a single piece of pure white marble, fifteen
+feet in diameter. The roof of the vestibule is a wonderful piece of
+workmanship, formed of pointed arches, wreathed and twined through each
+other, like basket-work. No people ever wrought poetry into stone so
+perfectly as the Saracens. In looking on these precious relics of an
+elegant and refined race, I cannot help feeling a strong regret that their
+kingdom ever passed into other hands.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Cordova, our road followed the Guadalquivir, along the foot of the
+Sierra Morena, which rose dark and stern, a barrier to the central
+table-lands of La Mancha. At Alcolea, we crossed the river on a noble
+bridge of black marble, out of all keeping with the miserable road. It
+rained incessantly, and the scenery through which we passed had a wild and
+gloomy character. The only tree to be seen was the olive, which covered
+the hills far and near, the profusion of its fruit showing the natural
+richness of the soil. This part of the road is sometimes infested with
+robbers, and once, when I saw two individuals waiting for us in a lonely
+defile, with gun-barrels thrust out from under their black cloaks, I
+anticipated a recurrence of a former unpleasant experience. But they
+proved to be members of the <i>guardia civil</i>, and therefore our protectors.</p>
+
+<p>The ruts and quagmires, made by the rain, retarded our progress, and it
+was dark when we reached Andujar, fourteen leagues from Cordova. To
+Baylen, where I was to quit the diligence, and take another coming down
+from Madrid to Granada, was four leagues further. We journeyed on in the
+dark, in a pouring rain, up and down hill for some hours, when all at
+once the cries of the mozo ceased, and the diligence came to a dead stop.
+There was some talk between our conductors, and then the mayoral opened
+the door and invited us to get out. The postillion had fallen asleep, and
+the mules had taken us into a wrong road. An attempt was made to turn the
+diligence, but failed, leaving it standing plump against a high bank of
+mud. We stood, meanwhile, shivering in the cold and wet, and the fair
+Andalusian shed abundance of tears. Fortunately, Baylen was close at hand,
+and, after some delay, two men came with lanterns and escorted us to the
+<i>posada</i>, or inn, where we arrived at midnight. The diligence from Madrid,
+which was due six hours before, had not made its appearance, and we passed
+the rest of the night in a cold room, fasting, for the meal was only to be
+served when the other passengers came. At day-break, finally, a single
+dish of oily meat was vouchsafed to us, and, as it was now certain that
+some accident had happened, the passengers to Madrid requested the
+<i>Administrador</i> to send them on in an extra conveyance. This he refused,
+and they began to talk about getting up a pronunciamento, when a messenger
+arrived with the news that the diligence had broken down at midnight,
+about two leagues off. Tools were thereupon dispatched, nine hours after
+the accident happened, and we might hope to be released from our
+imprisonment in four or five more.</p>
+
+<p>Baylen is a wretched place, celebrated for having the first palm-tree
+which those see who come from Madrid, and for the victory gained by
+Casta&ntilde;os over the French forces under Dupont, which occasioned the flight
+of Joseph Buonaparte from Madrid, and the temporary liberation of Spain
+from the French yoke. Casta&ntilde;os, who received the title of Duke de Baylen,
+and is compared by the Spaniards to Wellington, died about three months
+ago. The battle-field I passed in the night; the palm-tree I found, but it
+is now a mere stump, the leaves having been stripped off to protect the
+houses of the inhabitants from lightning. Our posada had one of them hung
+at the window. At last, the diligence came, and at three P.M., when I
+ought to have been in sight of Granada, I left the forlorn walls of
+Baylen. My fellow-passengers were a young sprig of the Spanish nobility
+and three chubby-faced nuns.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the journey that afternoon was through a wide, hilly region,
+entirely bare of trees and habitations, and but partially cultivated.
+There was something sublime in its very nakedness and loneliness, and I
+felt attracted to it as I do towards the Desert. In fact, although I have
+seen little fine scenery since leaving Seville, have had the worst of
+weather, and no very pleasant travelling experiences, the country has
+exercised a fascination over me, which I do not quite understand. I find
+myself constantly on the point of making a vow to return again. Much to my
+regret, night set in before we reached Jaen, the capital of the Moorish
+kingdom of that name. We halted for a short time in the large plaza of the
+town, where the dash of fountains mingled with the sound of the rain, and
+the black, jagged outline of a mountain overhanging the place was visible
+through the storm.</p>
+
+<p>All night we journeyed on through the mountains, sometimes splashing
+through swollen streams, sometimes coming almost to a halt in beds of deep
+mud. When this morning dawned, we were ascending through wild, stony
+hills, overgrown with shrubbery, and the driver said we were six leagues
+from Granada. Still on, through a lonely country, with now and then a
+large <i>venta</i>, or country inn, by the road-side, and about nine o'clock,
+as the sky became more clear, I saw in front of us, high up under the
+clouds, the snow-fields of the Sierra Nevada. An hour afterwards we were
+riding between gardens, vineyards, and olive orchards, with the
+magnificent Vega of Granada stretching far away on the right, and the
+Vermilion Towers of the Alhambra crowning the heights before us.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch35">
+<h2>Chapter XXXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Granada And The Alhambra.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish
+  Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs
+  of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The
+  Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la
+  Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the
+  Fish-pond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the
+  Architecture--Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The
+  Moorish Dynasty in Spain.</p>
+
+
+<blockquote class="epi"><p>  "Who has not in Granada been,<br />
+Verily, he has nothing seen."</p>
+
+<p>  <i>Andalusian Proverb</i>.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Granada, <i>Wednesday, Nov.</i> 17, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>Immediately on reaching here, I was set upon by an old gentleman who
+wanted to act as guide, but the mozo of the hotel put into my hand a card
+inscribed "Don Mateo Ximenez, Guide to the celebrated Washington Irving,"
+and I dismissed the other applicant. The next morning, as the mozo brought
+me my chocolate, he said; "Se&ntilde;or, <i>el chico</i> is waiting for you." The
+"little one" turned out to be the son of old Mateo, "honest Mateo," who
+still lives up in the Alhambra, but is now rather too old to continue his
+business, except on great occasions. I accepted the young Mateo, who spoke
+with the greatest enthusiasm of Mr. Irving, avowing that the whole family
+was devoted to him, in life and death. It was still raining furiously,
+and the golden Darro, which roars in front of the hotel, was a swollen
+brown flood. I don't wonder that he sometimes threatens, as the old
+couplet says, to burst up the Zacatin, and bear it down to his bride, the
+Xenil.</p>
+
+<p>Towards noon, the clouds broke away a little, and we sallied out. Passing
+through the gate and square of Vivarrambla (may not this name come from
+the Arabic <i>bob er-raml,</i> the "gate of the sand?"), we soon reached the
+Cathedral. This massive structure, which makes a good feature in the
+distant view of Granada, is not at all imposing, near at hand. The
+interior is a mixture of Gothic and Roman, glaring with whitewash, and
+broken, like that of Seville, by a wooden choir and two grand organs,
+blocking up the nave. Some of the side chapels, nevertheless, are splendid
+masses of carving and gilding. In one of them, there are two full-length
+portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, supposed to be by Alonzo Cano. The
+Cathedral contains some other good pictures by the same master, but all
+its former treasures were carried off by the French.</p>
+
+<p>We next went to the Picture Gallery, which is in the Franciscan Convent.
+There are two small Murillos, much damaged, some tolerable Alonzo Canos, a
+few common-place pictures by Juan de Sevilla, and a hundred or more by
+authors whose names I did not inquire, for a more hideous collection of
+trash never met my eye. One of them represents a miracle performed by two
+saints, who cut off the diseased leg of a sick white man, and replace it
+by the sound leg of a dead negro, whose body is seen lying beside the bed.
+Judging from the ghastly face of the patient, the operation is rather
+painful, though the story goes that the black leg grew fast, and the man
+recovered. The picture at least illustrates the absence of "prejudice of
+color" among the Saints.</p>
+
+<p>We went into the adjoining Church of Santo Domingo, which has several very
+rich shrines of marble and gold. A sort of priestly sacristan opened the
+Church of the Madonna del Rosario---a glittering mixture of marble, gold,
+and looking-glasses, which has rather a rich effect. The beautiful yellow
+and red veined marbles are from the Sierra Nevada. The sacred Madonna--a
+big doll with staring eyes and pink cheeks--has a dress of silver, shaped
+like an extinguisher, and encrusted with rubies and other precious stones.
+The utter absence of taste in most Catholic shrines is an extraordinary
+thing. It seems remarkable that a Church which has produced so many
+glorious artists should so constantly and grossly violate the simplest
+rules of art. The only shrine which I have seen, which was in keeping with
+the object adored, is that of the Virgin, at Nazareth, where there is
+neither picture nor image, but only vases of fragrant flowers, and
+perfumed oil in golden lamps, burning before a tablet of spotless marble.</p>
+
+<p>Among the decorations of the chapel, there are a host of cherubs frescoed
+on the ceiling, and one of them is represented in the act of firing off a
+blunderbuss. "Is it true that the angels carry blunderbusses?" I asked the
+priest. He shrugged his shoulders with a sort of half-smile, and said
+nothing. In the Cathedral, on the plinths of the columns in the outer
+aisles, are several notices to the effect that "whoever speaks to women,
+either in the nave or the aisles, thereby puts himself in danger of
+excommunication." I could not help laughing, as I read this monkish and
+yet most <i>un</i>monk-like statute. "Oh," said Mateo, "all that was in the
+despotic times; it is not so now."</p>
+
+<p>A deluge of rain put a stop to my sight-seeing until the next morning,
+when I set out with Mateo to visit the Royal Chapel. A murder had been
+committed in the night, near the entrance of the Zacatin, and the
+paving-stones were still red with the blood of the victim. A <i>funcion</i> of
+some sort was going on in the Chapel, and we went into the sacristy to
+wait. The priests and choristers were there, changing their robes; they
+saluted me good-humoredly, though there was an expression in their faces
+that plainly said: "a heretic!" When the service was concluded, I went
+into the chapel and examined the high altar, with its rude wood-carvings,
+representing the surrender of Granada. The portraits of Ferdinand and
+Isabella, Cardinal Ximenez, Gonzalvo of Cordova, and King Boabdil, are
+very curious. Another tablet represents the baptism of the conquered
+Moors.</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of the chapel stand the monuments erected to Ferdinand and
+Isabella, and their successors Philip L, and Maria, by Charles V. They are
+tall catafalques of white marble, superbly sculptured, with the full
+length effigies of the monarchs upon them. The figures are admirable; that
+of Isabella, especially, though the features are settled in the repose of
+death, expresses all the grand and noble traits which belonged to her
+character. The sacristan removed the matting from a part of the floor,
+disclosing an iron grating underneath, A damp, mouldly smell, significant
+of death and decay, came up through the opening. He lighted two long waxen
+tapers, lifted the grating, and I followed him down the narrow steps into
+the vault where lie the coffins of the Catholic Sovereigns. They were
+brought here from the Alhambra, in 1525. The leaden sarcophagi, containing
+the bodies of Ferdinand and Isabella, lie, side by side, on stone slabs;
+and as I stood between the two, resting a hand on each, the sacristan
+placed the tapers in apertures in the stone, at the head and foot. They
+sleep, as they wished, in their beloved Granada, and no profane hand has
+ever disturbed the repose of their ashes.</p>
+
+<p>After visiting the Church of San Jeronimo, founded by Gonzalvo of Cordova,
+I went to the adjoining Church and Hospital of San Juan de Dios. A fat
+priest, washing his hands in the sacristy, sent a boy to show me the
+Chapel of San Juan, and the relics. The remains of the Saint rest in a
+silver chest, standing in the centre of a richly-adorned chapel. Among the
+relics is a thorn from the crown of Christ, which, as any botanist may
+see, must have grown on a different plant from the other thorn they show
+at Seville; and neither kind is found in Palestine. The true <i>spina
+christi</i>, the nebbuk, has very small thorns; but nothing could be more
+cruel, as I found when riding through patches of it near Jericho. The boy
+also showed me a tooth of San Lorenzo, a crooked brown <i>bicuspis</i>, from
+which I should infer that the saint was rather an ill-favored man. The
+gilded chapel of San Juan is in singular contrast with one of the garments
+which he wore when living--a cowl of plaited reeds, looking like an old
+fish basket--which is kept in a glass case. His portrait is also to be
+seen--a mild and beautiful face, truly that of one who went about doing
+good. He was a sort of Spanish John Howard, and deserved canonization, if
+anybody ever did.</p>
+
+<p>I ascended the street of the Darro to the Albaycin, which we entered by
+one of the ancient gates. This suburb is still surrounded by the original
+fortifications, and undermined by the capacious cisterns of the Moors. It
+looks down on Granada; and from the crumbling parapets there are superb
+views over the city, the Vega, and its inclosing mountains. The Alhambra
+rose opposite, against the dark-red and purple background of the Sierra
+Nevada, and a canopy of heavy rain-clouds rested on all the heights. A
+fitful gleam of sunshine now and then broke through and wandered over the
+plain, touching up white towers and olive groves and reaches of the
+winding Xenil, with a brilliancy which suggested the splendor of the whole
+picture, if once thus restored to its proper light. I could see Santa F&eacute;
+in the distance, toward Loxa; nearer, and more eastward, the Sierra de
+Elvira, of a deep violet color, with the woods of the Soto de Roma, the
+Duke of Wellington's estate, at its base; and beyond it the Mountain of
+Parapanda, the weather-guage of Granada, still covered with clouds. There
+is an old Granadian proverb which says:--"When Parapanda wears his bonnet,
+it will rain whether God wills it or no." From the chapel of San Miguel,
+above the Albaycin, there is a very striking view of the deep gorge of the
+Darro, at one's feet, with the gardens and white walls of the Generalife
+rising beyond, and the Silla del Moro and the Mountain of the Sun towering
+above it. The long, irregular lines of the Alhambra, with the huge red
+towers rising here and there, reminded me somewhat of a distant view of
+Karnak; and, like Karnak, the Alhambra is picturesque from whatever point
+it is viewed.</p>
+
+<p>We descended through wastes of cactus to the Darro, in whose turbid stream
+a group of men were washing for gold. I watched one of them, as he
+twirled his bowl in precisely the California style, but got nothing for
+his pains. Mateo says that they often make a dollar a day, each. Passing
+under the Tower of Comares and along the battlements of the Alhambra, we
+climbed up to the Generalife. This charming villa is still in good
+preservation, though its exquisite filigree and scroll-work have been
+greatly injured by whitewash. The elegant colonnades surround gardens rich
+in roses, myrtles and cypresses, and the fountains that lulled the Moorish
+Kings in their summer idleness still pour their fertilizing streams. In
+one of the rooms is a small and bad portrait gallery, containing a
+supposed portrait of Boabdil. It is a mild, amiable face, but wholly lacks
+strength of character.</p>
+
+<p>To-day I devoted to the Alhambra. The storm, which, as the people say, has
+not been equalled for several years, showed no signs of breaking up, and
+in the midst of a driving shower I ascended to the Vermilion Towers, which
+are supposed to be of Phoenician origin. They stand on the extremity of a
+long, narrow ledge, which stretches out like an arm from the hill of the
+Alhambra. The <i>pas&eacute;o</i> lies between, and is shaded by beautiful elms, which
+the Moors planted.</p>
+
+<p>I entered the Alhambra by the Gate of Justice, which is a fine specimen of
+Moorish architecture, though of common red brick and mortar. It is
+singular what a grace the horse-shoe arch gives to the most heavy and
+lumbering mass of masonry. The round arches of the Christian edifices of
+Granada seem tame and inelegant, in comparison. Over the arch of the
+vestibule of this gate is the colossal hand, and over the inner entrance
+the key, celebrated in the tales of Washington Irving and the
+superstitions of the people. I first ascended the Torre de la Vela, where
+the Christian flag was first planted on the 2d of January, 1492. The view
+of the Vega and City of Granada was even grander than from the Albaycin.
+Parapanda was still bonneted in clouds, but patches of blue sky began to
+open above the mountains of Loxa. A little boy accompanied us, to see that
+I did not pull the bell, the sound of which would call together all the
+troops in the city. While we stood there, the funeral procession of the
+man murdered two nights before came up the street of Gomerez, and passed
+around the hill under the Vermilion Towers.</p>
+
+<p>I made the circuit of the walls before entering the Palace. In the Place
+of the Cisterns, I stopped to take a drink of the cool water of the Darro,
+which is brought thither by subterranean channels from the hills. Then,
+passing the ostentatious pile commenced by Charles V., but which was never
+finished, and never will be, nor ought to be, we walked along the southern
+ramparts to the Tower of the Seven Floors, amid the ruins of winch I
+discerned the top of the arch by which the unfortunate Boabdil quitted
+Granada, and which was thenceforth closed for ever. In the Tower of the
+Infantas, a number of workmen were busy restoring the interior, which has
+been cruelly damaged. The brilliant <i>azulejo</i>, or tile-work, the delicate
+arches and filigree sculpture of the walls, still attest its former
+elegance, and give some color to the tradition that it was the residence
+of the Moorish Princesses.</p>
+
+<p>As we passed through the little village which still exists among the ruins
+of the fortress, Mateo invited me to step in and see his father, the
+genuine "honest Mateo," immortalized in the "Tales of the Alhambra." The
+old man has taken up the trade of silk-weaving, and had a number of
+gay-colored ribbons on his loom. He is more than sixty years old and now
+quite gray-headed, but has the same simple manners, the same honest face
+that attracted his temporary master. He spoke with great enthusiasm of Mr.
+Irving, and brought out from a place of safety the "Alhambra" and the
+"Chronicles of the Conquest," which he has carefully preserved. He then
+produced an Andalusian sash, the work of his own hands, which he insisted
+on binding around my waist, to see how it would look. I must next take off
+my coat and hat, and put on his Sunday jacket and jaunty sombrero. "<i>Por
+Dios</i>!" he exclaimed: "<i>que buen mozo</i>! Senor, you are a legitimate
+Andalusian!" After this, of course, I could do no less than buy the sash.
+"You must show it to Washington Irving," said he, "and tell him it was
+made by Mateo's own hands;" which I promised. I must then go into the
+kitchen, and eat a pomegranate from his garden--a glorious pomegranate,
+with kernels of crimson, and so full of blood that you could not touch
+them but it trickled through your fingers. El Marques, a sprightly dog,
+and a great slate-colored cat, took possession of my legs, and begged for
+a share of every mouthful I took, while old Mateo sat beside me, rejoicing
+in the flavor of a Gibraltar cigar which I gave him. But my time was
+precious, and so I let the "Son of the Alhambra" go back to his loom, and
+set out for the Palace of the Moorish Kings.</p>
+
+<p>This palace is so hidden behind the ambitious shell of that of Charles V.
+that I was at a loss where it could be. I thought I had compassed the
+hill, and yet had seen no indications of the renowned magnificence of the
+Alhambra. But a little door in a blank wall ushered me into a true Moorish
+realm, the Court of the Fishpond, or of the Myrtles, as it is sometimes
+called. Here I saw again the slender pillars, the fringed and embroidered
+arches, and the perforated, lace-like tracery of the fairy corridors.
+Here, hedges of roses and myrtles still bloomed around the ancient tank,
+wherein hundreds of gold-fish disported. The noises of the hill do not
+penetrate here, and the solitary porter who admitted me went back to his
+post, and suffered me to wander at will through the enchanted halls.</p>
+
+<p>I passed out of this court by an opposite door, and saw, through the
+vistas of marble pillars and the wonderful fret-work which seems a thing
+of air rather than of earth, the Fountain of the Lions. Thence I entered
+in succession the Hall of the Abencerrages, the Hall of the Two Sisters,
+the apartments of the Sultanas, the Mosque, and the Hall of the
+Ambassadors. These places--all that is left of the renowned palace--are
+now well kept, and carefully guarded. Restorations are going on, here and
+there, and the place is scrupulously watched, that no foreign Vandal, may
+further injure what the native Goths have done their best to destroy. The
+rubbish has been cleared away; the rents in the walls have been filled up,
+and, for the first time since it passed into Spanish hands, there seems a
+hope that the Alhambra will be allowed to stand. What has been already
+destroyed we can only partially conjecture; but no one sees what remains
+without completing the picture in his own imagination, and placing it
+among the most perfect and marvellous creations of human genius.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can exceed the richness of invention which, in this series of
+halls, corridors, and courts, never repeats the same ornaments, but, from
+the simplest primitive forms and colors, produces a thousand
+combinations, not one of which is in discord with the grand design. It is
+useless to attempt a detailed description of this architecture; and it is
+so unlike anything else in the world, that, like Karnak and Baalbec, those
+only know the Alhambra who see it. When you can weave stone, and hang your
+halls with marble tapestry, you may rival it. It is nothing to me that
+these ornaments are stucco; to sculpture them in marble is only the work
+of the hands. Their great excellence is in the design, which, like all
+great things, suggests even more than it gives. If I could create all that
+the Court of Lions suggested to me for its completion, it would fulfil the
+dream of King Sheddad, and surpass the palaces of the Moslem Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>The pavilions of the Court of Lions, and the halls which open into it, on
+either side, approach the nearest to their original perfection. The floors
+are marble, the wainscoting of painted tiles, the walls of embroidery,
+still gleaming with the softened lustre of their original tints, and the
+lofty conical domes seem to be huge sparry crystalizations, hung with
+dropping stalactites, rather than any work of the human hand. Each of
+these domes is composed of five thousand separate pieces, and the pendent
+prismatic blocks, colored and gilded, gradually resolve themselves, as you
+gaze, into the most intricate and elegant designs. But you must study long
+ere you have won all the secret of their beauty. To comprehend them, one
+should spend a whole day, lying on his back, under each one. Mateo spread
+his cloak for me in the fountain in the Hall of the Abencerrages, over the
+blood-stains made by the decapitation of those gallant chiefs, and I lay
+half an hour looking upward: and this is what I made out of the dome. From
+its central pinnacle hung the chalice of a flower with feathery petals,
+like the "crape myrtle" of our Southern States Outside of this, branched
+downward the eight rays of a large star, whose points touched the base of
+the dome; yet the star was itself composed of flowers, while between its
+rays and around its points fell a shower of blossoms, shells, and sparry
+drops. From the base of the dome hung a gorgeous pattern of lace, with a
+fringe of bugles, projecting into eight points so as to form a star of
+drapery, hanging from the points of the flowery star in the dome. The
+spaces between the angles were filled with masses of stalactites, dropping
+one below the other, till they tapered into the plain square sides of the
+hall.</p>
+
+<p>In the Hall of the Two Sisters, I lay likewise for a considerable time,
+resolving its misty glories into shape. The dome was still more suggestive
+of flowers. The highest and central piece was a deep trumpet-flower, whose
+mouth was cleft into eight petals. It hung in the centre of a superb
+lotus-cup, the leaves of which were exquisitely veined and chased. Still
+further below swung a mass of mimosa blossoms, intermixed with pods and
+lance-like leaves, and around the base of the dome opened the bells of
+sixteen gorgeous tulips. These pictures may not be very intelligible, but
+I know not how else to paint the effect of this fairy architecture.</p>
+
+<p>In Granada, as in Seville and Cordova, one's sympathies are wholly with
+the Moors. The few mutilated traces which still remain of their power,
+taste, and refinement, surpass any of the monuments erected by the race
+which conquered them. The Moorish Dynasty in Spain was truly, as Irving
+observes, a splendid exotic, doomed never to take a lasting root in the
+soil It was choked to death by the native weeds; and, in place of lands
+richly cultivated and teeming with plenty, we now have barren and-almost
+depopulated wastes--in place of education, industry, and the cultivation
+of the arts and sciences, an enslaved, ignorant and degenerate race.
+Andalusia would be far more prosperous at this day, had she remained in
+Moslem hands. True, she would not have received that Faith which is yet
+destined to be the redemption of the world, but the doctrines of Mahomet
+are more acceptable to God, and more beneficial to Man than those of that
+Inquisition, which, in Spain alone, has shed ten times as much Christian
+blood as all the Moslem races together for the last six centuries. It is
+not from a mere romantic interest that I lament the fate of Boabdil, and
+the extinction of his dynasty. Had he been a king worthy to reign in those
+wonderful halls, he never would have left them. Had he perished there,
+fighting to the last, he would have been freed from forty years of weary
+exile and an obscure death. Well did Charles V. observe, when speaking of
+him: "Better a tomb in the Alhambra than a palace in the Alpujanas!"</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch36">
+<h2>Chapter XXXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Bridle-Roads of Andalusia.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">  Change of Weather--Napoleon and his Horses--Departure from Granada--My
+  Guide, Jos&eacute; Garcia--His Domestic Troubles--The Tragedy of the
+  Umbrella--The Vow against Aguardiente--Crossing the Vega--The Sierra
+  Nevada--The Baths of Alhama--"Woe is Me, Alhama!"--The Valley of the
+  River V&eacute;lez--V&eacute;lez Malaga--The Coast Road--The Fisherman and his
+  Donkey--Malaga--Summer Scenery--The Story of Don Pedro, without Fear and
+  without Care--The Field of Monda--A Lonely Venta.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Venta de Villalon, <i>November</i> 20, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>The clouds broke away before I had been two hours in the Alhambra, and the
+sunshine fell broad and warm into its courts. They must be roofed with
+blue sky, in order to give the full impression of their brightness and
+beauty. Mateo procured me a bottle of <i>vino rancio</i>, and we drank it
+together in the Court of Lions. Six hours had passed away before I knew
+it, and I reluctantly prepared to leave. The clouds by this time had
+disappeared; the Vega slept in brilliant sunshine, and the peaks of the
+Sierra Nevada shone white and cold against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the hotel, I found a little man, nicknamed Napoleon, awaiting
+me. He was desirous to furnish me with horses, and, having a prophetic
+knowledge of the weather, promised me a bright sky as far as Gibraltar. "I
+furnish all the se&ntilde;ors," said he; "they know me, and never complain of me
+or my horses;" but, by way of security, on making the bargain, I
+threatened to put up a card in the hotel at Gibraltar, warning all
+travellers against him, in case I was not satisfied. My contract was for
+two horses and a guide, who were to be ready at sunrise the next morning.
+Napoleon was as good as his word; and before I had finished an early cup
+of chocolate, there was a little black Andalusian stallion awaiting me.
+The <i>alforjas</i>, or saddle-bags, of the guide were strengthened by a stock
+of cold provisions, the leathern bota hanging beside it was filled with
+ripe Granada wine; and now behold me ambling over the Vega, accoutred in a
+gay Andalusian jacket, a sash woven by Mateo Ximenes, and one of those
+bandboxy sombreros, which I at first thought so ungainly, but now consider
+quite picturesque and elegant.</p>
+
+<p>My guide, a short but sinewy and well-knit son of the mountains, named
+Jos&eacute; Garcia, set off at a canter down the banks of the Darro. "Don't ride
+so fast!" cried Napoleon, who watched our setting out, from the door of
+the fonda; but Jos&eacute; was already out of hearing. This guide is a companion
+to my liking. Although he is only twenty-seven, he has been for a number
+of years a <i>correo</i>, or mail-rider, and a guide for travelling parties.
+His olive complexion is made still darker by exposure to the sun and wind,
+and his coal-black eyes shine with Southern heat and fire. He has one of
+those rare mouths which are born with a broad smile in each corner, and
+which seem to laugh even in the midst of grief. We had not been two hours
+together, before I knew his history from beginning to end. He had already
+been married eight years, and his only trouble was a debt of twenty-four
+dollars, which the illness of his wife had caused him. This money was
+owing to the pawnbroker, who kept his best clothes in pledge until he
+could pay it. "Se&ntilde;or," said he, "if I had ten million dollars, I would
+rather give them all away than have a sick wife." He had a brother in
+Puerto Principe, Cuba, who sent over money enough to pay the rent of the
+house, but he found that children were a great expense. "It is most
+astonishing," he said, "how much children can eat. From morning till
+night, the bread is never out of their mouths."</p>
+
+<p>Jos&eacute; has recently been travelling with some Spaniards, one of whom made
+him pay two dollars for an umbrella which was lost on the road. This
+umbrella is a thorn in his side. At every venta where we stop, the story
+is repeated, and he is not sparing of his maledictions. The ghost of that
+umbrella is continually raised, and it will be a long time before he can
+shut it. "One reason why I like to travel with foreign Se&ntilde;ors," said he to
+me, "is, that when I lose anything, they never make me pay for it." "For
+all that," I answered, "take care you don't lose my umbrella: it cost
+three dollars." Since then, nothing can exceed Jos&eacute;'s attention to that
+article. He is at his wit's end how to secure it best. It appears
+sometimes before, sometimes behind him, lashed to the saddle with
+innumerable cords; now he sticks it into the alforja, now carries it in
+his hand, and I verily believe that he sleeps with it in his arms. Every
+evening, as he tells his story to the muleteers, around the kitchen fire,
+he always winds up by triumphantly appealing to me with: "Well, Se&ntilde;or,
+have I lost <i>your</i> umbrella yet?"</p>
+
+<p>Our bargain is that I shall feed him on the way, and as we travel in the
+primitive style of the country, we always sit down together to the same
+dish. To his supervision, the olla is often indebted for an additional
+flavor, and no "thorough-bred" gentleman could behave at table with more
+ease and propriety. He is as moderate as a Bedouin in his wants, and never
+touches the burning aguardiente which the muleteers are accustomed to
+drink. I asked him the reason of this. "I drink wine. Senor," he replied,
+"because that, you know, is like meat and bread; but I have made a vow
+never to drink aguardiente again. Two of us got drunk on it, four or five
+years ago, in Granada, and we quarrelled. My comrade drew his knife and
+stabbed me here, in the left shoulder. I was furious and cut him across
+the breast. We both went to the hospital--I for three months and he for
+six--and he died in a few days after getting out. It cost my poor father
+many a thousand reals; and when I was able to go to work, I vowed before
+the Virgin that I would never touch aguardiente again."</p>
+
+<p>For the first league, our road lay over the rich Vega of Granada, but
+gradually became wilder and more waste. Passing the long, desert ridge,
+known as the "Last Sigh of the Moor," we struck across a region of low
+hills. The road was very deep, from the recent rains, and studded, at
+short intervals, by rude crosses, erected to persons who had been
+murdered. Jos&eacute; took a grim delight in giving me the history of each.
+Beyond the village of Lamala, which lies with its salt-pans in a basin of
+the hills, we ascended the mountain ridge which forms the southern
+boundary of the Vega. Granada, nearly twenty miles distant, was still
+visible. The Alhambra was dwindled to a speck, and I took my last view of
+it and the magnificent landscape which lies spread out before it. The
+Sierra Nevada, rising to the height of 13,000 feet above the sea, was
+perfectly free from clouds, and the whole range was visible at one
+glance. All its chasms were filled with snow, and for nearly half-way down
+its sides there was not a speck of any other color. Its summits were
+almost wholly devoid of shadow, and their notched and jagged outlines
+rested flatly against the sky, like ivory inlaid on a table of
+lapis-lazuli.</p>
+
+<p>From these waste hills, we descended into the valley of Cacia, whose
+poplar-fringed river had been so swollen by the rains that the <i>correo</i>
+from Malaga had only succeeded in passing it that morning. We forded it
+without accident, and, crossing a loftier and bleaker range, came down
+into the valley of the Marchan. High on a cliff over the stream stood
+Alhama, my resting-place for the night. The natural warm baths, on account
+of which this spot was so beloved by the Moors, are still resorted to in
+the summer. They lie in the bosom of a deep and rugged gorge, half a mile
+further down the river. The town occupies the crest of a narrow
+promontory, bounded, on all sides but one, by tremendous precipices. It is
+one of the most picturesque spots imaginable, and reminded me--to continue
+the comparison between Syria and Andalusia, which I find so striking--of
+the gorge of the Barrada, near Damascus. Alhama is now a poor,
+insignificant town, only visited by artists and muleteers. The population
+wear long brown cloaks and slouched hats, like the natives of La Mancha.</p>
+
+<p>I found tolerable quarters in a house on the plaza, and took the remaining
+hour of daylight to view the town. The people looked at me with curiosity,
+and some boys, walking on the edge of the <i>tajo</i>, or precipice, threw over
+stones that I might see how deep it was. The rock, in some places, quite
+overhung the bed of the Marchan, which half-girdles its base. The close
+scrutiny to which I was subjected by the crowd in the plaza called to mind
+all I had heard of Spanish spies and robbers. At the venta, I was well
+treated, but received such an exorbitant bill in the morning that I was
+ready to exclaim, with King Boabdil, "Woe is me, Alhama!" On comparing
+notes with Jos&eacute;, I found that he had been obliged to pay, in addition, for
+what he received--a discovery which so exasperated that worthy that he
+folded his hands, bowed his head, made three kisses in the air, and cried
+out: "I swear before the Virgin that I will never again take a traveller
+to that inn."</p>
+
+<p>We left Alhama an hour before daybreak, for we had a rough journey of more
+than forty miles before us. The bridle-path was barely visible in the
+darkness, but we continued ascending to a height of probably 5,000 feet
+above the sea, and thus met the sunrise half-way. Crossing the <i>llano</i> of
+Ace faraya, we reached a tremendous natural portal in the mountains, from
+whence, as from a door, we looked down on all the country lying between us
+and the sea. The valley of the River V&eacute;lez, winding among the hills,
+pointed out the course of our road. On the left towered over us the barren
+Sierra Tejeda, an isolated group of peaks, about 8,000 feet in height. For
+miles, the road was a rocky ladder, which we scrambled down on foot,
+leading our horses. The vegetation gradually became of a warmer and more
+luxuriant cast; the southern slopes were planted with the vine that
+produces the famous Malaga raisins, and the orange groves in the sunny
+depths of the valleys were as yellow as autumnal beeches, with their
+enormous loads of fruit. As the bells of V&eacute;lez Malaga were ringing noon,
+we emerged from the mountains, near the mouth of the river, and rode into
+the town to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>We halted at a queer old inn, more like a Turkish khan than a Christian
+hostlery. It was kept by a fat landlady, who made us an olla of kid and
+garlic, which, with some coarse bread and the red Malaga wine, soon took
+off the sharp edge of our mountain appetites. While I was washing my hands
+at a well in the court-yard, the <i>mozo</i> noticed the pilgrim-seal of
+Jerusalem, which is stamped indelibly on my left arm. His admiration and
+reverence were so great that he called the fat landlady, who, on learning
+that it had been made in Jerusalem, and that I had visited the Holy
+Sepulchre, summoned her children to see it. "Here, my children!" she said;
+"cross yourselves, kneel down, and kiss this holy seal; for, as long as
+you live, you may never see the like of it again." Thus I, a Protestant
+heretic, became a Catholic shrine. The children knelt and kissed my arm
+with touching simplicity; and the seal will henceforth be more sacred to
+me than ever.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining twenty miles or more of the road to Malaga follow the line
+of the coast, passing headlands crowned by the <i>atalayas</i>, or
+watch-towers, of the Moors. It is a new road, and practicable for
+carriages, so that, for Spain, it may be considered an important
+achievement. The late rains have, however, already undermined it in a
+number of places. Here, as among the mountains, we met crowds of
+muleteers, all of whom greeted me with: "<i>Vaya usted con Dios,
+caballero</i>!"--("May you go with God, cavalier!") By this time, all my
+forgotten Spanish had come back again, and a little experience of the
+simple ways of the people made me quite at home among them. In almost
+every instance, I was treated precisely as a Spaniard would have been,
+and less annoyed by the curiosity of the natives than I have been in
+Germany, and even America.</p>
+
+<p>We were still two leagues from Malaga, at sunset, The fishermen along the
+coast were hauling in their nets, and we soon began to overtake companies
+of them, carrying their fish to the city on donkeys. One stout, strapping
+fellow, with flesh as hard and yellow as a sturgeon's, was seated sideways
+on a very small donkey, between two immense panniers of fish, As he
+trotted before us, shouting, and slapping the flanks of the sturdy little
+beast, Jos&eacute; and I began to laugh, whereupon the fellow broke out into the
+following monologue, addressed to the donkey: "Who laughs at this
+<i>burrico</i>? Who says he's not fine gold from head to foot? What is it that
+he can't do? If there was a mountain ever so high, he would gallop over
+it. If there was a river ever so deep, he would swim through it If he
+could but speak, I might send him to market alone with the fish, and not a
+<i>chavo</i> of the money would he spend on the way home. Who says he can't go
+as far as that limping horse? Arrrre, burrico! punate--ar-r-r-r-r-e-e!"</p>
+
+<p>We reached Malaga, at last, our horses sorely fagged. At the Fonda de la
+Alameda, a new and very elegant hotel, I found a bath and a good dinner,
+both welcome things to a tired traveller. The winter of Malaga is like
+spring in other lands and on that account it is much visited by invalids,
+especially English. It is a lively commercial town of about 80,000
+inhabitants, and, if the present scheme of railroad communication with
+Madrid is carried out, must continue to increase in size and importance. A
+number of manufacturing establishments have lately been started, and in
+this department it bids fair to rival Barcelona. The harbor is small, but
+good, and the country around rich in all the productions of temperate and
+even tropical climates. The city contains little to interest the tourist.
+I visited the Cathedral, an immense unfinished mass, without a particle of
+architectural taste outwardly, though the interior has a fine effect from
+its large dimensions.</p>
+
+<p>At noon to-day we were again in the saddle, and took the road to the Baths
+of Caratraca. The tall factory chimneys of Malaga, vomiting forth streams
+of black smoke, marred the serenity of the sky; but the distant view of
+the city is very fine. The broad Vega, watered by the Guadaljorce, is rich
+and well cultivated, and now rejoices in the verdure of spring. The
+meadows are clothed with fresh grass, butter-cups and daisies are in
+blossom, and larks sing in the olive-trees. Now and then, we passed a
+<i>casa del campo</i>, with its front half buried in orange-trees, over which
+towered two or three sentinel palms. After two leagues of this delightful
+travel, the country became more hilly, and the groups of mountains which
+inclosed us assumed the most picturesque and enchanting forms. The soft
+haze in which the distant peaks were bathed, the lovely violet shadows
+filling up their chasms and gorges, and the fresh meadows, vineyards, and
+olive groves below, made the landscape one of the most beautiful I have
+seen in Spain.</p>
+
+<p>As we were trotting along through the palmetto thickets, Jos&eacute; asked me if
+I should not like to hear an Andalusian story. "Nothing would please me
+better," I replied. "Ride close beside me, then," said he, "that you may
+understand every word of it." I complied, and he gave me the following,
+just as I repeat it: "There was once a very rich man, who had thousands of
+cattle in the Sierra Nevada, and hundreds of houses in the city. Well:
+this man put a plate, with his name on it, on the door of the great house
+in which he lived, and the name was this: Don Pedro, without Fear and
+without Care. Now, when the King was making his <i>pas&eacute;o</i>, he happened to
+ride by this house in his carriage, and saw the plate on the door. 'Read
+me the name on that plate!' said he to his officer. Then the officer read
+the name: Don Pedro, without Fear and without Care. 'I will see whether
+Don Pedro is without Fear and without Care,' said the King. The next day
+came a messenger to the house, and, when he saw Don Pedro, said he to him;
+'Don Pedro, without Fear and without Care, the King wants you!' 'What does
+the King want with me?' said Don Pedro. 'He sends you four questions which
+you must answer within four days, or he will have you shot; and the
+questions are:--How can the Sierra Nevada be cleared of snow? How can the
+sea be made smaller? How many arrobas does the moon weigh? And: How many
+leagues from here to the Land of Heavenly Glory?' Then Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care began to sweat from fright, and knew not what he
+should do. He called some of his arrieros and loaded twenty mules with
+money, and went up into the Sierra Nevada, where his herdsmen tended his
+flocks; for, as I said, he had many thousand cattle. 'God keep you, my
+master!' said the chief herdsman, who was young, and <i>buen mozo</i>, and had
+as good a head as ever was set on two shoulders. '<i>Anda, hombre!</i> said Don
+Pedro, 'I am a dead man;' and so he told the herdsman all that the King
+had said. 'Oh, is that all?' said the knowing mozo. 'I can get you out of
+the scrape. Let me go and answer the questions in your name, my master!'
+'Ah, you fool! what can you do?' said Don Pedro without Fear and without
+Care, throwing himself upon the earth, and ready to die.</p>
+
+<p>"But, nevertheless, the herdsman dressed himself up as a <i>caballero</i>, went
+down to the city, and, on the fourth day, presented himself at the King's
+palace. 'What do you want?' said the officers. 'I am Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care, come to answer the questions which the King sent to
+me.' 'Well,' said the King, when he was brought before him, 'let me hear
+your answers, or I will have you shot this day.' 'Your Majesty,' said the
+herdsman, 'I think I can do it. If you were to set a million of children
+to playing among the snow of the Sierra Nevada, they would soon clear it
+all away; and if you were to dig a ditch as wide and as deep as all Spain,
+you would make the sea that much smaller,' 'But,' said the King, 'that
+makes only two questions; there are two more yet,' 'I think I can answer
+those, also,' said the herdsman: 'the moon contains four quarters, and
+therefore weighs only one arroba; and as for the last question, it is not
+even a single league to the Land of Heavenly Glory--for, if your Majesty
+were to die after breakfast, you would get there before you had an
+appetite for dinner,' 'Well done! said the King; and he then made him
+Count, and Marquez, and I don't know how many other titles. In the
+meantime, Don Pedro without Fear and without Care had died of his fright;
+and, as he left no family, the herdsman took possession of all his
+estates, and, until the day of his death, was called Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care."</p>
+
+<p>I write, sitting by the grated window of this lonely inn, looking out on
+the meadows of the Guadaljorce. The chain of mountains which rises to the
+west of Malaga is purpled by the light of the setting sun, and the houses
+and Castle of Carlama hang on its side, in full view. Further to the
+right, I see the smoke of Monda, where one of the greatest battles of
+antiquity was fought--that which overthrew the sons of Pompey, and gave
+the Roman Empire to C&aelig;sar. The mozo of the venta is busy, preparing my kid
+and rice, and Jos&eacute; is at his elbow, gently suggesting ingredients which
+may give the dish a richer flavor. The landscape is softened by the hush
+of coming evening; a few birds are still twittering among the bushes, and
+the half-moon grows whiter and clearer in mid-heaven. The people about me
+are humble, but appear honest and peaceful, and nothing indicates that I
+am in the wild <i>Serrania de Ronda</i>, the country of robbers,
+contrabandistas, and assassins.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='chapter' id='ch37'>
+<h2>Chapter XXXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mountains of Ronda.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="abs">
+  Orange Valleys--Climbing the Mountains--Jos&eacute;'s Hospitality--El
+  Burgo--The Gate of the Wind--The Cliff and Cascades of Ronda--The
+  Mountain Region--Traces of the Moors--Haunts of Robbers--A Stormy
+  Ride--The Inn at Gaucin--Bad News--A Boyish Auxiliary--Descent from the
+  Mountains--The Ford of the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
+  Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with Jos&eacute;--Travelling
+  in Spain--Conclusion.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Gibraltar, <i>Thursday, November</i> 25, 1852.</h4>
+
+<p>I passed an uncomfortable night at the Venta de Villalon, lying upon a bag
+stuffed with equal quantities of wool and fleas. Starting before dawn, we
+followed a path which led into the mountains, where herdsmen and boys were
+taking out their sheep and goats to pasture; then it descended into the
+valley of a stream, bordered with rich bottom-lands. I never saw the
+orange in a more flourishing state. We passed several orchards of trees
+thirty feet high, and every bough and twig so completely laden with fruit,
+that the foliage was hardly to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>At the Venta del Vicario, we found a number of soldiers just setting out
+for Ronda. They appeared to be escorting a convoy of goods, for there were
+twenty or thirty laden mules gathered at the door. We now ascended a most
+difficult and stony path, winding through bleak wastes of gray rock, till
+we reached a lofty pass in the mountain range. The wind swept through the
+narrow gateway with a force that almost unhorsed us. From the other side,
+a sublime but most desolate landscape opened to my view. Opposite, at ten
+miles' distance, rose a lofty ridge of naked rock, overhung with clouds.
+The country between was a chaotic jumble of stony hills, separated by deep
+chasms, with just a green patch here and there, to show that it was not
+entirely forsaken by man. Nevertheless as we descended into it, we found
+valleys with vineyards and olive groves, which were invisible from above.
+As we were both getting hungry, Jos&eacute; stopped at a ventorillo and ordered
+two cups of wine, for which he insisted on paying. "If I had as many
+horses as my master, Napoleon," said he, "I would regale the Se&ntilde;ors
+whenever I travelled with them. I would have <i>puros</i>, and sweetmeats, with
+plenty of Malaga or Valdepe&ntilde;as in the bota, and they should never complain
+of their fare." Part of our road was studded with gray cork-trees, at a
+distance hardly to be distinguished from olives, and Jos&eacute; dismounted to
+gather the mast, which was as sweet and palatable as chestnuts, with very
+little of the bitter quercine flavor. At eleven o'clock, we reached El
+Burgo, so called, probably, from its ancient Moorish fortress. It is a
+poor, starved village, built on a barren hill, over a stream which is
+still spanned by a lofty Moorish bridge of a single arch.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining three leagues to Ronda were exceedingly rough and difficult.
+Climbing a barren ascent of nearly a league in length, we reached the
+<i>Puerto del Viento</i>, or Gate of the Wind, through which drove such a
+current that we were obliged to dismount; and even then it required all my
+strength to move against it. The peaks around, far and near, faced with
+precipitous cliffs, wore the most savage and forbidding aspect: in fact,
+this region is almost a counterpart of the wilderness lying between
+Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, Very soon, we touched the skirt of a cloud,
+and were enveloped in masses of chill, whirling vapor, through which we
+travelled for three or four miles to a similar gate on the western side of
+the chain. Descending again, we emerged into a clearer atmosphere, and saw
+below us a wide extent of mountain country, but of a more fertile and
+cheerful character. Olive orchards and wheat-fields now appeared; and, at
+four o'clock, we rode into the streets of Ronda.</p>
+
+<p>No town can surpass this in the grandeur and picturesqueness of its
+position. It is built on the edge of a broad shelf of the mountains, which
+falls away in a sheer precipice of from six to eight hundred feet in
+height, and, from the windows of many of the houses you can look down the
+dizzy abyss. This shelf, again, is divided in the centre by a tremendous
+chasm, three hundred feet wide, and from four to six hundred feet in
+depth, in the bed of which roars the Guadalvin, boiling in foaming
+whirlpools or leaping in sparkling cascades, till it reaches the valley
+below. The town lies on both sides of the chasm, which is spanned by a
+stone bridge of a single arch, with abutments nearly four hundred feet in
+height. The view of this wonderful cleft, either from above or below, is
+one of the finest of its kind in the world. Honda is as far superior to
+Tivoli, as Tivoli is to a Dutch village, on the dead levels of Holland.
+The panorama which it commands is on the grandest scale. The valley below
+is a garden of fruit and vines; bold yet cultivated hills succeed, and in
+the distance rise the lofty summits of another chain of the Serrania de
+Honda. Were these sublime cliffs, these charming cascades of the
+Guadalvin, and this daring bridge, in Italy instead of in Spain, they
+would be sketched and painted every day in the year; but I have yet to
+know where a good picture of Ronda may be found.</p>
+
+<p>In the bottom of the chasm are a number of corn-mills as old as the time
+of the Moors. The water, gushing out from the arches of one, drives the
+wheel of that below, so that a single race supplies them all. I descended
+by a very steep zig-zag path nearly to the bottom. On a little point or
+promontory overhanging the black depths, there is a Moorish gateway still
+standing. The sunset threw a lovely glow over the brown cliffs and the
+airy town above; but they were far grander when the cascades glittered in
+the moonlight, and the gulf out of which they leap was lost in profound
+shadow. The window of my bed-room hung over the chasm.</p>
+
+<p>Honda was wrapped in fog, when Jos&eacute; awoke me on the morning of the 22d. As
+we had but about twenty-four miles to ride that day, we did not leave
+until sunrise. We rode across the bridge, through the old town and down
+the hill, passing the triple lines of the Moorish walls by the original
+gateways. The road, stony and rugged beyond measure, now took to the
+mountains. From the opposite height, there was a fine view of the town,
+perched like an eagle's nest on the verge of its tremendous cliffs; but a
+curtain of rain soon fell before it, and the dense dark clouds settled
+around us, and filled up the gorges on either hand. Hour after hour, we
+toiled along the slippery paths, scaling the high ridges by rocky ladders,
+up which our horses climbed with the greatest difficulty. The scenery,
+whenever I could obtain a misty glimpse of it, was sublime. Lofty mountain
+ridges rose on either hand; bleak jagged summits of naked rock pierced
+the clouds, and the deep chasms which separated them sank far below us,
+dark and indistinct through the rain. Sometimes I caught sight of a little
+hamlet, hanging on some almost inaccessible ledge, the home of the
+lawless, semi-Moorish mountaineers who inhabit this wild region. The faces
+of those we met exhibited marked traces of their Moslem ancestry,
+especially in the almond-shaped eye and the dusky olive complexion. Their
+dialect retains many Oriental forms of expression, and I was not a little
+surprised at finding the Arabic "<i>eiwa</i>" (yes) in general use, instead of
+the Spanish "<i>si</i>."</p>
+
+<p>About eleven o'clock, we reached the rude village of Atajate, where we
+procured a very good breakfast of kid, eggs, and white Ronda wine. The
+wind and rain increased, but I had no time to lose, as every hour swelled
+the mountain floods and made the journey more difficult. This district is
+in the worst repute of any in Spain; it is a very nest of robbers and
+contrabandistas. At the venta in Atajate, they urged us to take a guard,
+but my valiant Jos&eacute; declared that he had never taken one, and yet was
+never robbed; so I trusted to his good luck. The weather, however, was our
+best protection. In such a driving rain, we could bid defiance to the
+flint locks of their escopettes, if, indeed, any could be found, so fond
+of their trade, as to ply it in a storm</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>  "Wherein the cub-drawn bear would crouch,<br />
+The lion and the belly-pinched wolf<br />
+Keep their furs dry."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I noticed that each of the few convoys of laden mules which
+we met, had one or more of the <i>guardia cicia</i> accompanying it. Besides
+these, the only persons abroad were some wild-looking individuals, armed
+to the teeth, and muffled in long cloaks, towards whom, as they passed,
+Jos&eacute; would give his head a slight toss, and whisper to me: "more
+contrabandistas."</p>
+
+<p>We were soon in a condition to defy the weather. The rain beat furiously
+in our faces, especially when threading the wind-blown passes between the
+higher peaks. I raised my umbrella as a defence, but the first blast
+snapped it in twain. The mountain-sides were veined with rills, roaring
+downward into the hollows, and smaller rills soon began to trickle down my
+own sides. During the last part of our way, the path was notched along
+precipitous steeps, where the storm was so thick that we could see nothing
+either above or below. It was like riding along the outer edge of the
+world, When once you are thoroughly wet, it is a great satisfaction to
+know that you can be no wetter; and so Jos&eacute; and I went forward in the best
+possible humor, finding so much diversion in our plight that the dreary
+leagues were considerably shortened.</p>
+
+<p>At the venta of Gaucin, where we stopped, the people received us kindly.
+The house consisted of one room--stable, kitchen, and dining-room all in
+one. There was a small apartment in a windy loft, where a bed (much too
+short) was prepared for me. A fire of dry heather was made in the wide
+fire-place, and the ruddy flames, with a change of clothing and a draught
+of the amber vintage of Estepona, soon thawed out the chill of the
+journey. But I received news which caused me a great deal of anxiety. The
+River Guadiaro was so high that nobody could cross, and two forlorn
+muleteers had been waiting eight days at the inn, for the waters to
+subside. Augmented by the rain which had fallen, and which seemed to
+increase as night came on, how could I hope to cross it on the morrow? In
+two days, the India steamer would be at Gibraltar; my passage was already
+taken, and I <i>must</i> be there. The matter was discussed for some time; it
+was pronounced impossible to travel by the usual road, but the landlord
+knew a path among the hills which led to a ferry on the Guadiaro, where
+there was a boat, and from thence we could make our way to San Roque,
+which is in sight of Gibraltar. He demanded rather a large fee for
+accompanying me, but there was nothing else to be done. Jos&eacute; and I sat
+down in great tribulation to our accustomed olla, but neither of us could
+do justice to it, and the greater part gladdened the landlord's two
+boys--beautiful little imps, with faces like Murillo's cherubs.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I passed rather a merry evening, chatting with some of the
+villagers over a brazier of coals; and one of the aforesaid boys, who,
+although only eight years old, already performed the duties of mozo,
+lighted me to my loft. When he had put down the lamp, he tried' the door,
+and asked me: "Have you the key?" "No," said I, "I don't want one; I am
+not afraid." "But," he rejoined, "perhaps you may get afraid in the night;
+and if you do, strike on this part of the wall (suiting the action to the
+word)--<i>I</i> sleep on that side." I willingly promised to call him to my
+aid, if I should get alarmed. I slept but little, for the wind was howling
+around the tiles over my head, and I was busy with plans for constructing
+rafts and swimming currents with a rope around my waist. Finally, I found
+a little oblivion, but it seemed that I had scarcely closed my eyes, when
+Jos&eacute; pushed open the door. "Thanks be to God, senor!" said he, "it begins
+to dawn, and the sky is clear: we shall certainly get to Gibraltar
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>The landlord was ready, so we took some bread and a basket of olives, and
+set out at once. Leaving Gaucin, we commenced descending the mountain
+staircase by which the Serrania of Ronda is scaled, on the side towards
+Gibraltar. "The road," says Mr. Ford, "seems made by the Evil One in a
+hanging garden of Eden." After four miles of frightfully rugged descent,
+we reached an orange grove on the banks of the Xenar, and then took a wild
+path leading along the hills on the right of the stream. We overtook a few
+muleteers, who were tempted out by the fine weather, and before long the
+<i>correo</i>, or mail-rider from Ronda to San Roque, joined us. After eight
+miles more of toilsome travel we reached the valley of the Guadiaro. The
+river was not more than twenty yards wide, flowing with a deep, strong
+current, between high banks. Two ropes were stretched across, and a large,
+clumsy boat was moored to the shore. We called to the ferrymen, but they
+hesitated, saying that nobody had yet been able to cross. However, we all
+got in, with our horses, and two of the men, with much reluctance, drew us
+over. The current was very powerful, although the river had fallen a
+little during the night, but we reached the opposite bank without
+accident.</p>
+
+<p>We had still another river, the Guargante, to pass, but we were cheered by
+some peasants whom we met, with the news that the ferry-boat had resumed
+operations. After this current lay behind us, and there was now nothing
+but firm land all the way to Gibraltar, Jos&eacute; declared with much
+earnestness that he was quite as glad, for my sake, as if somebody had
+given him a million of dollars. Our horses, too, seemed to feel that
+something had been achieved, and showed such a fresh spirit that we
+loosened the reins and let them gallop to their hearts' content over the
+green meadows. The mountains were now behind us, and the Moorish castle of
+Gaucin crested a peak blue with the distance. Over hills covered with
+broom and heather in blossom, and through hollows grown with oleander,
+arbutus and the mastic shrub, we rode to the cork-wood forests of San
+Roque, the sporting-ground of Gibraltar officers. The barking of dogs, the
+cracking of whips, and now and then a distant halloo, announced that a
+hunt was in progress, and soon we came upon a company of thirty or forty
+horsemen, in caps, white gloves and top-boots, scattered along the crest
+of a hill. I had no desire to stop and witness the sport, for the
+Mediterranean now lay before me, and the huge gray mass of "The Rock"
+loomed in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>At San Roque, which occupies the summit of a conical hill, about half-way
+between Gibraltar and Algeciras, the landlord left us, and immediately
+started on his return. Having now exchanged the rugged bridle-paths of
+Ronda for a smooth carriage-road, Jos&eacute; and I dashed on at full gallop, to
+the end of our journey. We were both bespattered with mud from head to
+foot, and our jackets and sombreros had lost something of their spruce
+air. We met a great many ruddy, cleanly-shaven Englishmen, who reined up
+on one side to let us pass, with a look of wonder at our Andalusian
+impudence. Nothing diverted Jos&eacute; more than to see one of these Englishmen
+rising in his stirrups, as he went by on a trot. "Look, look, Se&ntilde;or!" he
+exclaimed; "did you ever see the like?" and then broke into a fresh
+explosion of laughter. Passing the Spanish Lines, which stretch across the
+neck of the sandy little peninsula, connecting Gibraltar with the main
+land, we rode under the terrible batteries which snarl at Spain from this
+side of the Rock. Row after row of enormous guns bristle the walls, or
+look out from the galleries hewn in the sides of inaccessible cliffs An
+artificial moat is cut along the base of the Rock, and a simple
+bridge-road leads into the fortress and town. After giving up my passport
+I was allowed to enter, Jos&eacute; having already obtained a permit from the
+Spanish authorities.</p>
+
+<p>I clattered up the long street of the town to the Club House, where I
+found a company of English friends. In the evening, Jos&eacute; made his
+appearance, to settle our accounts and take his leave of me. While
+scrambling down the rocky stair-way of Gaucin, Jos&eacute; had said to me: "Look
+you, Se&ntilde;or, I am very fond of English beer, and if I get you to Gibraltar
+to day you must give me a glass of it." When, therefore, he came in the
+evening, his eyes sparkled at the sight of a bottle of Alsop's Ale, and a
+handful of good Gibraltar cigars. "Ah, Se&ntilde;or," said he, after our books
+were squared, and he had pocketed his <i>gratification</i>, "I am sorry we are
+going to part; for we are good friends, are we not, Se&ntilde;or?" "Yes, Jos&eacute;,"
+said I; "if I ever come to Granada again, I shall take no other guide than
+Jos&eacute; Garcia; and I will have you for a longer journey than this. We shall
+go over all Spain together, <i>mi amigo</i>!" "May God grant it!" responded
+Jos&eacute;, crossing himself; "and now, Se&ntilde;or, I must go. I shall travel back to
+Granada, <i>muy triste</i>, Se&ntilde;or, <i>muy triste</i>" The faithful fellows eyes were
+full of tears, and, as he lifted my hand twice to his lips, some warm
+drops fell upon it. God bless his honest heart; wherever he goes!</p>
+
+<p>And now a word as to travelling in Spain, which is not attended with half
+the difficulties and annoyances I had been led to expect. My experience,
+of course, is limited to the provinces of Andalusia, but my route included
+some of the roughest roads and most dangerous robber-districts in the
+Peninsula. The people with whom I came in contact were invariably friendly
+and obliging, and I was dealt with much more honestly than I should have
+been in Italy. With every disposition to serve you, there is nothing like
+servility among the Spaniards. The native dignity which characterizes
+their demeanor prepossesses me very strongly in their favor. There is but
+one dialect of courtesy, and the muleteers and common peasants address
+each other with the same grave respect as the Dons and Grandees. My friend
+Jos&eacute; was a model of good-breeding.</p>
+
+<p>I had little trouble either with passport-officers or custom-houses. My
+passport, in fact, was never once demanded, although I took the precaution
+to have it vis&egrave;d in all the large cities. In Seville and Malaga, it was
+signed by the American Consuls, without the usual fee of two
+dollars--almost the only instances which have come under my observation.
+The regulations of the American Consular System, which gives the Consuls
+no salary, but permits them, instead, to get their pay out of travellers,
+is a disgrace to our government. It amounts, in effect, to <i>a direct tax
+on travel</i>, and falls heavily on the hundreds of young men of limited
+means, who annually visit Europe for the purpose of completing their
+education. Every American citizen who travels in Italy pays a passport tax
+of ten dollars. In all the ports of the Mediterranean, there is an
+American Vice-Consul, who does not even get the postage paid on his
+dispatches, and to whom the advent of a traveller is of course a welcome
+sight. Misled by a false notion of economy, our government is fast
+becoming proverbial for its meanness. If those of our own citizens who
+represent us abroad only worked as they are paid, and if the foreigners
+who act as Vice-Consuls without pay did not derive some petty trading
+advantages from their position, we should be almost without protection.</p>
+
+<hr width="80%" />
+
+<p>With my departure from Spain closes the record of my journey in the Lands
+of the Saracen; for, although I afterwards beheld more perfect types of
+Saracenic Art on the banks of the Jumna and the Ganges, they grew up under
+the great Empire of the descendants of Tamerlane, and were the creations
+of artists foreign to the soil. It would, no doubt, be interesting to
+contrast the remains of Oriental civilization and refinement, as they
+still exist at the extreme eastern and western limits of the Moslem sway,
+and to show how that Art, which had its birth in the capitals of the
+Caliphs--Damascus and Baghdad--attained its most perfect development in
+Spain and India; but my visit to the latter country connects itself
+naturally with my voyage to China, Loo-Choo, and Japan, forming a separate
+and distinct field of travel.</p>
+
+<p>On the 27th of November, the Overland Mail Steamer arrived at Gibraltar,
+and I embarked in her for Alexandria, entering upon another year of even
+more varied, strange, and adventurous experiences, than that which had
+closed. I am almost afraid to ask those patient readers, who have
+accompanied me thus far, to travel with me through another volume; but
+next to the pleasure of seeing the world, comes the pleasure of telling of
+it, and I must needs finish my story.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Lands of the Saracen, by Bayard Taylor
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+</pre>
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lands of the Saracen, by Bayard Taylor
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lands of the Saracen
+       Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain
+
+Author: Bayard Taylor
+
+Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10924]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LANDS OF THE SARACEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distrbibuted Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE LANDS OF THE SARACEN
+
+or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain.
+
+by
+
+Bayard Taylor.
+
+Twentieth Edition.
+
+
+
+1863
+
+
+
+To Washington Irving,
+
+
+This book--the chronicle of my travels through lands once occupied by the
+Saracens--naturally dedicates itself to you, who, more than any other
+American author, have revived the traditions, restored the history, and
+illustrated the character of that brilliant and heroic people. Your
+cordial encouragement confirmed me in my design of visiting the East, and
+making myself familiar with Oriental life; and though I bring you now but
+imperfect returns, I can at least unite with you in admiration of a field
+so rich in romantic interest, and indulge the hope that I may one day
+pluck from it fruit instead of blossoms. In Spain, I came upon your track,
+and I should hesitate to exhibit my own gleanings where you have
+harvested, were it not for the belief that the rapid sketches I have given
+will but enhance, by the contrast, the charm of your finished picture.
+
+Bayard Taylor.
+
+
+
+
+Preface.
+
+
+
+This volume comprises the second portion of a series of travels, of which
+the "Journey to Central Africa," already published, is the first part. I
+left home, intending to spend a winter in Africa, and to return during the
+following summer; but circumstances afterwards occurred, which prolonged
+my wanderings to nearly two years and a half, and led me to visit many
+remote and unexplored portions of the globe. To describe this journey in a
+single work, would embrace too many incongruous elements, to say nothing
+of its great length, and as it falls naturally into three parts, or
+episodes, of very distinct character, I have judged it best to group my
+experiences under three separate heads, merely indicating the links which
+connect them. This work includes my travels in Palestine, Syria, Asia
+Minor, Sicily and Spain, and will be followed by a third and concluding
+volume, containing my adventures in India, China, the Loo-Choo Islands,
+and Japan. Although many of the letters, contained in this volume,
+describe beaten tracks of travel, I have always given my own individual
+impressions, and may claim for them the merit of entire sincerity. The
+journey from Aleppo to Constantinople, through the heart of Asia Minor,
+illustrates regions rarely traversed by tourists, and will, no doubt, be
+new to most of my readers. My aim, throughout the work, has been to give
+correct pictures of Oriental life and scenery, leaving antiquarian
+research and speculation to abler hands. The scholar, or the man of
+science, may complain with reason that I have neglected valuable
+opportunities for adding something to the stock of human knowledge: but if
+a few of the many thousands, who can only travel by their firesides,
+should find my pages answer the purpose of a series of cosmoramic
+views--should in them behold with a clearer inward eye the hills of
+Palestine, the sun-gilded minarets of Damascus, or the lonely pine-forests
+of Phrygia--should feel, by turns, something of the inspiration and the
+indolence of the Orient--I shall have achieved all I designed, and more
+than I can justly hope.
+
+New York, _October_, 1854.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+Life in a Syrian Quarantine.
+
+  Voyage from Alexandria to Beyrout--Landing at Quarantine--The
+  Guardians--Our Quarters--Our Companions--Famine and Feasting--The
+  Morning--The Holy Man of Timbuctoo--Sunday in Quarantine--Islamism--We
+  are Registered--Love through a Grating--Trumpets--The Mystery
+  Explained--Delights of Quarantine--Oriental _vs._ American
+  Exaggeration--A Discussion of Politics--Our
+  Release--Beyrout--Preparations for the Pilgrimage
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+The Coast of Palestine.
+
+  The Pilgrimage Commences--The Muleteers--The Mules--The Donkey--Journey
+  to Sidon--The Foot of Lebanon--Pictures--The Ruins of Tyre--A Wild
+  Morning--The Tyrian Surges--Climbing the Ladder of Tyre--Panorama of the
+  Bay of Acre--The Plain of Esdraelon--Camp in a Garden--Acre--the Shore
+  of the Bay--Haifa--Mount Carmel and its Monastery--A Deserted Coast--The
+  Ruins of Caesarea--The Scenery of Palestine--We become Robbers--El
+  Haram--Wrecks--the Harbor and Town of Jaffa.
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+From Jaffa to Jerusalem.
+
+  The Garden of Jaffa--Breakfast at a Fountain--The Plain of Sharon--The
+  Ruined Mosque of Ramleh--A Judean Landscape--The Streets Ramleh--Am I in
+  Palestine?--A Heavenly Morning--The Land of Milk and Honey--Entering
+  the Hill Country--The Pilgrim's Breakfast--The Father of Lies--A Church
+  of the Crusaders--The Agriculture of the Hills--The Valley of
+  Elah--Day-Dreams--The Wilderness--The Approach--We See the Holy City
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+The Dead Sea and the River Jordan.
+
+  Bargaining for a Guard---Departure from Jerusalem--The Hill of
+  Offence--Bethany--The Grotto of Lazarus--The Valley of Fire--Scenery of
+  the Wilderness--The Hills of Engaddi--The shore of the Dead Sea--A
+  Bituminous Bath--Gallop to the Jordan--A watch for Robbers--The
+  Jordan--Baptism--The Plains of Jericho--The Fountain of Elisha--The
+  Mount of Temptation--Return to Jerusalem
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+The City of Christ.
+
+  Modern Jerusalem--The Site of the City--Mount Zion--Mount Moriah--The
+  Temple--The Valley of Jehosaphat--The Olives of Gethsemane--The Mount
+  of Olives--Moslem Tradition--Panorama from the Summit--The Interior of
+  the City--The Population--Missions and Missionaries--Christianity in
+  Jerusalem--Intolerance--The Jews of Jerusalem--The Face of Christ--The
+  Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Holy of Holies--The Sacred
+  Localities--Visions of Christ--The Mosque of Omar--The Holy Man of
+  Timbuctoo--Preparations for Departure.
+
+
+Chapter VI.
+
+The Hill-Country of Palestine.
+
+  Leaving Jerusalem--The Tombs of the Kings--El Bireh--The
+  Hill-Country--First View of Mount Hermon--The Tomb of Joseph--Ebal and
+  Gerizim--The Gardens of Nablous--The Samaritans--The Sacred Book--A
+  Scene in the Synagogue--Mentor and Telemachus--Ride to Samaria--The
+  Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
+  Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
+  Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
+  the Annunciation--The Holy Places.
+
+
+Chapter VII.
+
+The Country of Galilee.
+
+  Departure from Nazareth--A Christian Guide--Ascent of Mount
+  Tabor--Wallachian Hermits--The Panorama of Tabor--Ride to Tiberias--A
+  Bath in Genesareth--The Flowers of Galilee--The Mount of
+  Beatitude--Magdala--Joseph's Well--Meeting with a Turk--The Fountain of
+  the Salt-Works--The Upper Valley of the Jordan--Summer Scenery--The
+  Rivers of Lebanon--Tell el-Kadi--An Arcadian Region--The Fountains of
+  Banias
+
+
+Chapter VIII.
+
+Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.
+
+  The Harmless Guard--Caesarea Philippi--The Valley of the Druses--The
+  Sides of Mount Hermon--An Alarm--Threading a Defile--Distant view of
+  Djebel Hauaran--Another Alarm--Camp at Katana--We Ride into Damascus
+
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+Pictures of Damascus.
+
+  Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
+  Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
+  Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
+  Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
+  of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra
+
+
+Chapter X.
+
+The Visions of Hasheesh.
+
+
+Chapter XI.
+
+A Dissertation on Bathing and Bodies.
+
+
+Chapter XII.
+
+Baalbec and Lebanon.
+
+  Departure from Damascus--The Fountains of the Pharpar--Pass of the
+  Anti-Lebanon--Adventure with the Druses--The Range of Lebanon--The
+  Demon of Hasheesh departs--Impressions of Baalbec--The Temple of the
+  Sun--Titanic Masonry--The Ruined Mosque--Camp on Lebanon--Rascality of
+  the Guide--The Summit of Lebanon--The Sacred Cedars--The Christians of
+  Lebanon--An Afternoon in Eden--Rugged Travel--We Reach the Coast--Return
+  to Beyrout
+
+
+Chapter XIII.
+
+Pipes and Coffee
+
+
+Chapter XIV.
+
+Journey to Antioch and Aleppo.
+
+  Change of Plans--Routes to Baghdad--Asia Minor--We sail from
+  Beyrout--Yachting on the Syrian Coast--Tartus and Latakiyeh--The Coasts
+  of Syria--The Bay of Suediah--The Mouth of the Orontes--Landing--The
+  Garden of Syria--Ride to Antioch--The Modern City--The Plains of the
+  Orontes--Remains of the Greek Empire--The Ancient Road--The Plain of
+  Keftin--Approach to Aleppo.
+
+
+Chapter XV.
+
+Life in Aleppo.
+
+  Our Entry into Aleppo--We are conducted to a House--Our Unexpected
+  Welcome--The Mystery Explained--Aleppo--Its Name--Its Situation--The
+  Trade of Aleppo--The Christians--The Revolt of 1850--Present Appearance
+  of the City--Visit to Osman Pasha--The Citadel--View from the
+  Battlements--Society in Aleppo--Etiquette and Costume--Jewish Marriage
+  Festivities--A Christian Marriage Procession--Ride around the
+  Town--Nightingales--The Aleppo Button--A Hospital for Cats--Ferhat.
+
+
+Chapter XVI.
+
+Through the Syrian Gates.
+
+  An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
+  Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
+  Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
+  Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
+  Town--A Land of Gardens.
+
+
+Chapter XVII.
+
+Adana and Tarsus.
+
+  The Black Gate--The Plain of Cilicia--A Koord Village--Missis--Cilician
+  Scenery--Arrival at Adana--Three days in Quarantine--We receive
+  Pratique--A Landscape--The Plain of Tarsus--The River Cydnus--A Vision
+  of Cleopatra--Tarsus and its Environs--The _Duniktash_--The Moon of
+  Ramazan.
+
+
+Chapter XVIII.
+
+The Pass of Mount Taurus.
+
+  We enter the Taurus--Turcomans--Forest Scenery--the Palace of Pan--Khan
+  Mezarluk--Morning among the Mountains--The Gorge of the Cydnus--The
+  Crag of the Fortress--The Cilician Grate--Deserted Forts--A Sublime
+  Landscape--The Gorge of the Sihoon--The Second Gate--Camp in the
+  Defile--Sunrise--Journey up the Sihoon--A Change of Scenery--A Pastoral
+  Valley--Kolue Kushla--A Deserted Khan--A Guest in Ramazan--Flowers--The
+  Plain of Karamania--Barren Hills--The Town of Eregli--The Hadji again
+
+
+Chapter XIX.
+
+The Plains of Karamania.
+
+  The Plains of Karamania--Afternoon Heat--A Well--Volcanic
+  Phenomena--Karamania--A Grand Ruined Khan--Moonlight Picture--A
+  Landscape of the Plains--Mirages--A Short Interview--The Village of
+  Ismil--Third Day on the Plains--Approach to Konia
+
+
+Chapter XX.
+
+Scenes in Konia.
+
+  Approach to Konia--Tomb of Hazret Mevlana--Lodgings in a Khan--An
+  American Luxury--A Night-Scene in Ramazan--Prayers in the
+  Mosque--Remains of the Ancient City--View from the Mosque--The
+  Interior--A Leaning Minaret--The Diverting History of the Muleteers
+
+
+Chapter XXI.
+
+The Heart of Asia Minor.
+
+  Scenery of the Hills--Ladik, the Ancient Laodicea--The Plague of
+  Gad-Flies--Camp at Ilguen--A Natural Warm Bath--The Gad-Flies Again--A
+  Summer Landscape--Ak-Sheher--The Base of Sultan Dagh--The Fountain of
+  Midas--A Drowsy Journey--The Town of Bolawaduen
+
+
+Chapter XXII.
+
+The Forests of Phrygia.
+
+  The Frontier of Phrygia--Ancient Quarries and Tombs--We Enter the Pine
+  Forests--A Guard-House--Encampments of the Turcomans--Pastoral
+  Scenery--A Summer Village--The Valley of the Tombs--Rock Sepulchres of
+  the Phrygian Kings--The Titan's Camp--The Valley of Kuembeh--A Land of
+  Flowers--Turcoman Hospitality--The Exiled Effendis--The Old Turcoman--A
+  Glimpse of Arcadia--A Landscape--Interested Friendship--The Valley of
+  the Pursek--Arrival at Kiutahya
+
+
+Chapter XXIII.
+
+Kiutahya, and the Ruins of OEzani.
+
+  Entrance into Kiutahya--The New Khan--An Unpleasant
+  Discovery--Kiutahya--The Citadel--Panorama from the Walls--The Gorge of
+  the Mountains--Camp in a Meadow--The Valley of the
+  Rhyndacus--Chavduer--The Ruins of OEzani--The Acropolis and
+  Temple--The Theatre and Stadium--Ride down the Valley--Camp at Daghjkoei
+
+
+Chapter XXIV.
+
+The Mysian Olympus.
+
+  Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
+  of Taushanlue--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
+  Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
+  Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
+  of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghioel--A Showery Ride--The
+  Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
+  Furled
+
+
+Chapter XXV.
+
+Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.
+
+  The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
+  Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
+  Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
+  the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
+  Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Caique--Breakfast with
+  the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
+  View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn
+
+
+Chapter XXVI.
+
+The Night of Predestination.
+
+  Constantinople in Ramazan--The Origin of the Fast--Nightly
+  Illuminations--The Night of Predestination--The Golden Horn at
+  Night--Illumination of the Shores---The Cannon of Constantinople--A
+  Fiery Panorama--The Sultan's Caique--Close of the Celebration--A Turkish
+  Mob--The Dancing Dervishes
+
+
+Chapter XXVII.
+
+The Solemnities of Bairam.
+
+  The Appearance of the New Moon--The Festival of Bairam--The Interior of
+  the Seraglio--The Pomp of the Sultan's Court--Reschid Pasha--The
+  Sultan's Dwarf--Arabian Stallions--The Imperial Guard--Appearance of the
+  Sultan--The Inner Court--Return of the Procession--The Sultan on his
+  Throne--The Homage of the Pashas--An Oriental Picture--Kissing the
+  Scarf--The Shekh el-Islam--The Descendant of the Caliphs--Bairam
+  Commences
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII.
+
+The Mosques of Constantinople.
+
+  Sojourn at Constantinople--Semi-European Character of the City--The
+  Mosque--Procuring a Firman--The Seraglio--The Library--The Ancient
+  Throne-Room--Admittance to St. Sophia--Magnificence of the Interior--The
+  Marvellous Dome--The Mosque of Sultan Achmed--The Sulemanye--Great
+  Conflagrations--Political Meaning of the Fires--Turkish Progress--Decay
+  of the Ottoman Power
+
+
+Chapter XXIX.
+
+Farewell to the Orient--Malta.
+
+  Embarcation--Farewell to the Orient--Leaving Constantinople--A
+  Wreck--The Dardanelles--Homeric Scenery--Smyrna Revisited--The Grecian
+  Isles--Voyage to Malta--Detention--La Valetta--The Maltese--The
+  Climate--A Boat for Sicily
+
+
+Chapter XXX.
+
+The Festival of St. Agatha.
+
+  Departure from Malta--The Speronara--Our Fellow-Passengers--The First
+  Night on Board--Sicily--Scarcity of Provisions--Beating in the Calabrian
+  Channel--The Fourth Morning--The Gulf of Catania--A Sicilian
+  Landscape--The Anchorage--The Suspected List--The Streets of
+  Catania--Biography of St. Agatha--The Illuminations--The Procession of
+  the Veil--The Biscari Palace--The Antiquities of Catania--The Convent of
+  St. Nicola
+
+
+Chapter XXXI.
+
+The Eruption of Mount Etna.
+
+  The Mountain Threatens--The Signs Increase--We Leave Catania--Gardens
+  Among the Lava--Etna Labors--Aci Reale--The Groans of Etna--The
+  Eruption--Gigantic Tree of Smoke--Formation of the New Crater--We Lose
+  Sight of the Mountain--Arrival at Messina--Etna is Obscured--Departure
+
+
+Chapter XXXII.
+
+Gibraltar.
+
+  Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
+  Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
+  Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
+  Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII.
+
+Cadiz and Seville.
+
+  Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
+  Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
+  House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
+  Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar--Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
+  House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
+  Evening in Seville
+
+
+Chapter XXXIV.
+
+Journey in a Spanish Diligence.
+
+  Spanish Diligence Lines--Leaving Seville--An Unlucky Start--Alcala of
+  the Bakers--Dinner at Carmona--A Dehesa--The Mayoral and his
+  Team--Ecija--Night Journey--Cordova--The Cathedral-Mosque--Moorish
+  Architecture--The Sierra Morena--A Rainy Journey--A Chapter of
+  Accidents--Baylen--The Fascination of Spain--Jaen--The Vega of Granada
+
+
+Chapter XXXV.
+
+Granada and the Alhambra.
+
+  Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish
+  Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs
+  of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The
+  Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la
+  Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the
+  Fishpond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the Architecture--
+  Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The Moorish Dynasty
+  in Spain
+
+
+Chapter XXXVI.
+
+The Bridle-Roads of Andalusia.
+
+  Change of Weather--Napoleon and his Horses--Departure from Granada--My
+  Guide, Jose Garcia--His Domestic Troubles--The Tragedy of the
+  Umbrella--The Vow against Aguardiente--Crossing the Vega--The Sierra
+  Nevada--The Baths of Alhama--"Woe is Me, Alhama!"--The Valley of the
+  River Velez--Velez Malaga--The Coast Road--The Fisherman and his
+  Donkey--Malaga--Summer Scenery--The Story of Don Pedro, without Fear and
+  without Care--The Field of Monda--A Lonely Venta
+
+
+Chapter XXXVII.
+
+The Mountains of Fonda.
+
+  Orange Valleys--Climbing the Mountains--Jose's Hospitality--El
+  Burgo--The Gate of the Wind--The Cliff and Cascades of Ronda--The
+  Mountain Region--Traces of the Moors--Haunts of Robbers--A Stormy
+  Ride--The Inn at Gaucin--Bad News--A Boyish Auxiliary--Descent from the
+  Mountains--The Ford of the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
+  Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with Jose--Travelling
+  in Spain--Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+The Lands of the Saracen
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+Life in a Syrian Quarantine.
+
+  Voyage from Alexandria to Beyrout--Landing at Quarantine--The
+  Guardiano--Our Quarters--Our Companions--Famine and Feasting--The
+  Morning--The Holy Man of Timbuctoo--Sunday in Quarantine--Islamism--We
+  are Registered--Love through a Grating--Trumpets--The Mystery
+  Explained--Delights of Quarantine--Oriental _vs_. American
+  Exaggeration--A Discussion of Politics--Our
+  Release--Beyrout--Preparations for the Pilgrimage.
+
+
+  "The mountains look on Quarantine,
+  And Quarantine looks on the sea."
+
+  Quarantine MS.
+
+
+In Quarantine, Beyrout, _Saturday, April_ 17, 1852.
+
+Everybody has heard of Quarantine, but in our favored country there are
+many untravelled persons who do not precisely know what it is, and who no
+doubt wonder why it should be such a bugbear to travellers in the Orient.
+I confess I am still somewhat in the same predicament myself, although I
+have already been twenty-four hours in Quarantine. But, as a peculiarity
+of the place is, that one can do nothing, however good a will he has, I
+propose to set down my experiences each day, hoping that I and my readers
+may obtain some insight into the nature of Quarantine, before the term of
+my probation is over.
+
+I left Alexandria on the afternoon of the 14th inst., in company with Mr.
+Carter Harrison, a fellow-countryman, who had joined me in Cairo, for the
+tour through Palestine. We had a head wind, and rough sea, and I remained
+in a torpid state during most of the voyage. There was rain the second
+night; but, when the clouds cleared away yesterday morning, we were
+gladdened by the sight of Lebanon, whose summits glittered with streaks of
+snow. The lower slopes of the mountains were green with fields and
+forests, and Beyrout, when we ran up to it, seemed buried almost out of
+sight, in the foliage of its mulberry groves. The town is built along the
+northern side of a peninsula, which projects about two miles from the main
+line of the coast, forming a road for vessels. In half an hour after our
+arrival, several large boats came alongside, and we were told to get our
+baggage in order and embark for Quarantine. The time necessary to purify a
+traveller arriving from Egypt from suspicion of the plague, is five days,
+but the days of arrival and departure are counted, so that the durance
+amounts to but three full days. The captain of the Osiris mustered the
+passengers together, and informed them that each one would be obliged to
+pay six piastres for the transportation of himself and his baggage. Two
+heavy lighters are now drawn up to the foot of the gangway, but as soon as
+the first box tumbles into them, the men tumble out. They attach the craft
+by cables to two smaller boats, in which they sit, to tow the infected
+loads. We are all sent down together, Jews, Turks, and Christians--a
+confused pile of men, women, children, and goods. A little boat from the
+city, in which there are representatives from the two hotels, hovers
+around us, and cards are thrown to us. The zealous agents wish to supply
+us immediately with tables, beds, and all other household appliances; but
+we decline their help until we arrive at the mysterious spot. At last we
+float off--two lighters full of infected, though respectable, material,
+towed by oarsmen of most scurvy appearance, but free from every suspicion
+of taint.
+
+The sea is still rough, the sun is hot, and a fat Jewess becomes sea-sick.
+An Italian Jew rails at the boatmen ahead, in the Neapolitan patois, for
+the distance is long, the Quarantine being on the land-side of Beyrout. We
+see the rows of little yellow houses on the cliff, and with great apparent
+risk of being swept upon the breakers, are tugged into a small cove, where
+there is a landing-place. Nobody is there to receive us; the boatmen jump
+into the water and push the lighters against the stone stairs, while we
+unload our own baggage. A tin cup filled with sea-water is placed before
+us, and we each drop six piastres into it--for money, strange as it may
+seem, is infectious. By this time, the _guardianos_ have had notice of our
+arrival, and we go up with them to choose our habitations. There are
+several rows of one-story houses overlooking the sea, each containing two
+empty rooms, to be had for a hundred piastres; but a square two-story
+dwelling stands apart from them, and the whole of it may be had for thrice
+that sum. There are seven Frank prisoners, and we take it for ourselves.
+But the rooms are bare, the kitchen empty, and we learn the important
+fact, that Quarantine is durance vile, without even the bread and water.
+The guardiano says the agents of the hotel are at the gate, and we can
+order from them whatever we want. Certainly; but at their own price, for
+we are wholly at their mercy. However, we go down stairs, and the chief
+officer, who accompanies us, gets into a corner as we pass, and holds a
+stick before him to keep us off. He is now clean, but if his garments
+brush against ours, he is lost. The people we meet in the grounds step
+aside with great respect to let us pass, but if we offer them our hands,
+no one would dare to touch a finger's tip.
+
+Here is the gate: a double screen of wire, with an interval between, so
+that contact is impossible. There is a crowd of individuals outside, all
+anxious to execute commissions. Among them is the agent of the hotel, who
+proposes to fill our bare rooms with furniture, send us a servant and
+cook, and charge us the same as if we lodged with him. The bargain is
+closed at once, and he hurries off to make the arrangements. It is now
+four o'clock, and the bracing air of the headland gives a terrible
+appetite to those of us who, like me, have been sea-sick and fasting for
+forty-eight hours. But there is no food within the Quarantine except a
+patch of green wheat, and a well in the limestone rock. We two Americans
+join company with our room-mate, an Alexandrian of Italian parentage, who
+has come to Beyrout to be married, and make the tour of our territory.
+There is a path along the cliffs overhanging the sea, with glorious views
+of Lebanon, up to his snowy top, the pine-forests at his base, and the
+long cape whereon the city lies at full length, reposing beside the waves.
+The Mahommedans and Jews, in companies of ten (to save expense), are
+lodged in the smaller dwellings, where they have already aroused millions
+of fleas from their state of torpid expectancy. We return, and take a
+survey of our companions in the pavilion: a French woman, with two ugly
+and peevish children (one at the breast), in the next room, and three
+French gentlemen in the other--a merchant, a young man with hair of
+extraordinary length, and a _filateur_, or silk-manufacturer, middle-aged
+and cynical. The first is a gentleman in every sense of the word, the
+latter endurable, but the young Absalom is my aversion, I am subject to
+involuntary likings and dislikings, for which I can give no reason, and
+though the man may be in every way amiable, his presence is very
+distasteful to me.
+
+We take a pipe of consolation, but it only whets our appetites. We give up
+our promenade, for exercise is still worse; and at last the sun goes down,
+and yet no sign of dinner. Our pavilion becomes a Tower of Famine, and the
+Italian recites Dante. Finally a strange face appears at the door. By
+Apicius! it is a servant from the hotel, with iron bedsteads, camp-tables,
+and some large chests, which breathe an odor of the Commissary Department.
+We go stealthily down to the kitchen, and watch the unpacking. Our dinner
+is there, sure enough, but alas! it is not yet cooked. Patience is no
+more; my companion manages to filch a raw onion and a crust of bread,
+which we share, and roll under our tongues as a sweet morsel, and it gives
+us strength for another hour. The Greek dragoman and cook, who are sent
+into Quarantine for our sakes, take compassion on us; the fires are
+kindled in the cold furnaces; savory steams creep up the stairs; the
+preparations increase, and finally climax in the rapturous announcement:
+"Messieurs, dinner is ready." The soup is liquified bliss; the _cotelettes
+d'agneau_ are _cotelettes de bonheur_; and as for that broad dish of
+Syrian larks--Heaven forgive us the regret, that more songs had not been
+silenced for our sake! The meal is all nectar and ambrosia, and now,
+filled and contented, we subside into sleep on comfortable couches. So
+closes the first day of our incarceration.
+
+This morning dawned clear and beautiful. Lebanon, except his snowy crest,
+was wrapped in the early shadows, but the Mediterranean gleamed like a
+shield of sapphire, and Beyrout, sculptured against the background of its
+mulberry groves, was glorified beyond all other cities. The turf around
+our pavilion fairly blazed with the splendor of the yellow daisies and
+crimson poppies that stud it. I was satisfied with what I saw, and felt no
+wish to leave Quarantine to-day. Our Italian friend, however, is more
+impatient. His betrothed came early to see him, and we were edified by the
+great alacrity with which he hastened to the grate, to renew his vows at
+two yards' distance from her. In the meantime, I went down to the Turkish
+houses, to cultivate the acquaintance of a singular character I met on
+board the steamer. He is a negro of six feet four, dressed in a long
+scarlet robe. His name is Mahommed Senoosee, and he is a _fakeer_, or holy
+man, from Timbuctoo. He has been two years absent from home, on a
+pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and is now on his way to Jerusalem and
+Damascus. He has travelled extensively in all parts of Central Africa,
+from Dar-Fur to Ashantee, and professes to be on good terms with the
+Sultans of Houssa and Bornou. He has even been in the great kingdom of
+Waday, which has never been explored by Europeans, and as far south as
+Iola, the capital of Adamowa. Of the correctness of his narrations I have
+not the least doubt, as they correspond geographically with all that we
+know of the interior of Africa. In answer to my question whether a
+European might safely make the same tour, he replied that there would be
+no difficulty, provided he was accompanied by a native, and he offered to
+take me even to Timbuctoo, if I would return with him. He was very curious
+to obtain information about America, and made notes of all that I told
+him, in the quaint character used by the Mughrebbins, or Arabs of the
+West, which has considerable resemblance to the ancient Cufic. He wishes
+to join company with me for the journey to Jerusalem, and perhaps I shall
+accept him.
+
+
+_Sunday, April_ 18.
+
+As Quarantine is a sort of limbo, without the pale of civilized society,
+we have no church service to-day. We have done the best we could, however,
+in sending one of the outside dragomen to purchase a Bible, in which we
+succeeded. He brought us a very handsome copy, printed by the American
+Bible Society in New York. I tried vainly in Cairo and Alexandria to find
+a missionary who would supply my heathenish destitution of the Sacred
+Writings; for I had reached the East through Austria, where they are
+prohibited, and to travel through Palestine without them, would be like
+sailing without pilot or compass. It gives a most impressive reality to
+Solomon's "house of the forest of Lebanon," when you can look up from the
+page to those very forests and those grand mountains, "excellent with the
+cedars." Seeing the holy man of Timbuctoo praying with his face towards
+Mecca, I went down to him, and we conversed for a long time on religious
+matters. He is tolerably well informed, having read the Books of Moses and
+the Psalms of David, but, like all Mahommedans, his ideas of religion
+consist mainly of forms, and its reward is a sensual paradise. The more
+intelligent of the Moslems give a spiritual interpretation to the nature
+of the Heaven promised by the Prophet, and I have heard several openly
+confess their disbelief in the seventy houries and the palaces of pearl
+and emerald. Shekh Mahommed Senoosee scarcely ever utters a sentence in
+which is not the word "Allah," and "La illah il' Allah" is repeated at
+least every five minutes. Those of his class consider that there is a
+peculiar merit in the repetition of the names and attributes of God. They
+utterly reject the doctrine of the Trinity, which they believe implies a
+sort of partnership, or God-firm (to use their own words), and declare
+that all who accept it are hopelessly damned. To deny Mahomet's
+prophetship would excite a violent antagonism, and I content myself with
+making them acknowledge that God is greater than all Prophets or Apostles,
+and that there is but one God for all the human race. I have never yet
+encountered that bitter spirit of bigotry which is so frequently ascribed
+to them; but on the contrary, fully as great a tolerance as they would
+find exhibited towards them by most of the Christian sects.
+
+This morning a paper was sent to us, on which we were requested to write
+our names, ages, professions, and places of nativity. We conjectured that
+we were subjected to the suspicion of political as well as physical taint,
+but happily this was not the case. I registered myself as a _voyageur_,
+the French as _negocians_ and when it came to the woman's turn, Absalom,
+who is a partisan of female progress, wished to give her the same
+profession as her husband--a machinist. But she declared that her only
+profession was that of a "married woman," and she was so inscribed. Her
+peevish boy rejoiced in the title of "_pleuricheur_," or "weeper," and the
+infant as "_titeuse_," or "sucker." While this was going on, the
+guardiano of our room came in very mysteriously, and beckoned to my
+companion, saying that "Mademoiselle was at the gate." But it was the
+Italian who was wanted, and again, from the little window of our pavilion,
+we watched his hurried progress over the lawn. No sooner had she departed,
+than he took his pocket telescope, slowly sweeping the circuit of the bay
+as she drew nearer and nearer Beyrout. He has succeeded in distinguishing,
+among the mass of buildings, the top of the house in which she lives, but
+alas! it is one story too low, and his patient espial has only been
+rewarded by the sight of some cats promenading on the roof.
+
+I have succeeded in obtaining some further particulars in relation to
+Quarantine. On the night of our arrival, as we were about getting into our
+beds, a sudden and horrible gush of brimstone vapor came up stairs, and we
+all fell to coughing like patients in a pulmonary hospital. The odor
+increased till we were obliged to open the windows and sit beside them in
+order to breathe comfortably. This was the preparatory fumigation, in
+order to remove the ranker seeds of plague, after which the milder
+symptoms will of themselves vanish in the pure air of the place. Several
+times a day we are stunned and overwhelmed with the cracked brays of three
+discordant trumpets, as grating and doleful as the last gasps of a dying
+donkey. At first I supposed the object of this was to give a greater
+agitation to the air, and separate and shake down the noxious exhalations
+we emit; but since I was informed that the soldiers outside would shoot us
+in case we attempted to escape, I have concluded that the sound is meant
+to alarm us, and prevent our approaching too near the walls. On inquiring
+of our guardiano whether the wheat growing within the grounds was subject
+to Quarantine, he informed me that it did not ecovey infection, and that
+three old geese, who walked out past the guard with impunity, were free to
+go and come, as they had never been known to have the plague. Yesterday
+evening the medical attendant, a Polish physician, came in to inspect us,
+but he made a very hasty review, looking down on us from the top of a high
+horse.
+
+
+_Monday, April_ 19.
+
+Eureka! the whole thing is explained. Talking to day with the guardiano,
+he happened to mention that he had been three years in Quarantine, keeping
+watch over infected travellers. "What!" said I, "you have been sick three
+years." "Oh no," he replied; "I have never been sick at all." "But are not
+people sick in Quarantine?" "_Stafferillah!_" he exclaimed; "they are
+always in better health than the people outside." "What is Quarantine for,
+then?" I persisted. "What is it for?" he repeated, with a pause of blank
+amazement at my ignorance, "why, to get money from the travellers!"
+Indiscreet guardiano! It were better to suppose ourselves under suspicion
+of the plague, than to have such an explanation of the mystery. Yet, in
+spite of the unpalatable knowledge, I almost regret that this is our last
+day in the establishment. The air is so pure and bracing, the views from
+our windows so magnificent, the colonized branch of the Beyrout Hotel so
+comfortable, that I am content to enjoy this pleasant idleness--the more
+pleasant since, being involuntary, it is no weight on the conscience. I
+look up to the Maronite villages, perched on the slopes of Lebanon, with
+scarce a wish to climb to them, or turning to the sparkling Mediterranean,
+view
+
+  "The speronara's sail of snowy hue
+  Whitening and brightening on that field of blue,"
+
+and have none of that unrest which the sight of a vessel in motion
+suggests.
+
+To-day my friend from Timbuctoo came up to have another talk. He was
+curious to know the object of my travels, and as he would not have
+comprehended the exact truth, I was obliged to convey it to him through
+the medium of fiction. I informed him that I had been dispatched by the
+Sultan of my country to obtain information of the countries of Africa;
+that I wrote in a book accounts of everything I saw, and on my return,
+would present this book to the Sultan, who would reward me with a high
+rank--perhaps even that of Grand Vizier. The Orientals deal largely in
+hyperbole, and scatter numbers and values with the most reckless
+profusion. The Arabic, like the Hebrew, its sister tongue, and other old
+original tongues of Man, is a language of roots, and abounds with the
+boldest metaphors. Now, exaggeration is but the imperfect form of
+metaphor. The expression is always a splendid amplification of the simple
+fact. Like skilful archers, in order to hit the mark, they aim above it.
+When you have once learned his standard of truth, you can readily gauge an
+Arab's expressions, and regulate your own accordingly. But whenever I have
+attempted to strike the key-note myself, I generally found that it was
+below, rather than above, the Oriental pitch.
+
+The Shekh had already informed me that the King of Ashantee, whom he had
+visited, possessed twenty-four houses full of gold, and that the Sultan of
+Houssa had seventy thousand horses always standing saddled before his
+palace, in order that he might take his choice, when he wished to ride
+out. By this he did not mean that the facts were precisely so, but only
+that the King was very rich, and the Sultan had a great many horses. In
+order to give the Shekh an idea of the great wealth and power of the
+American Nation, I was obliged to adopt the same plan. I told him,
+therefore, that our country was two years' journey in extent, that the
+Treasury consisted of four thousand houses filled to the roof with gold,
+and that two hundred thousand soldiers on horseback kept continual guard
+around Sultan Fillmore's palace. He received these tremendous statements
+with the utmost serenity and satisfaction, carefully writing them in his
+book, together with the name of Sultan Fillmore, whose fame has ere this
+reached the remote regions of Timbuctoo. The Shekh, moreover, had the
+desire of visiting England, and wished me to give him a letter to the
+English Sultan. This rather exceeded my powers, but I wrote a simple
+certificate explaining who he was, and whence he came, which I sealed with
+an immense display of wax, and gave him. In return, he wrote his name in
+my book, in the Mughrebbin character, adding the sentence: "There is no
+God but God."
+
+This evening the forbidden subject of politics crept into our quiet
+community, and the result was an explosive contention which drowned even
+the braying of the agonizing trumpets outside. The gentlemanly Frenchman
+is a sensible and consistent republican, the old _filateur_ a violent
+monarchist, while Absalom, as I might have foreseen, is a Red, of the
+schools of Proudhon and Considerant. The first predicted a Republic in
+France, the second a Monarchy in America, and the last was in favor of a
+general and total demolition of all existing systems. Of course, with such
+elements, anything like a serious discussion was impossible; and, as in
+most French debates, it ended in a bewildering confusion of cries and
+gesticulations. In the midst of it, I was struck by the cordiality with
+which the Monarchist and the Socialist united in their denunciations of
+England and the English laws. As they sat side by side, pouring out
+anathemas against "perfide Albion," I could not help exclaiming: "_Voila,
+comme les extremes se rencontrent_!" This turned the whole current of
+their wrath against me, and I was glad to make a hasty retreat.
+
+The physician again visited us to-night, to promise a release to-morrow
+morning. He looked us all in the faces, to be certain that there were no
+signs of pestilence, and politely regretted that he could not offer us his
+hand. The husband of the "married woman" also came, and relieved the other
+gentlemen from the charge of the "weeper." He was a stout, ruddy
+Provencal, in a white blouse, and I commiserated him sincerely for having
+such a disagreeable wife.
+
+To-day, being the last of our imprisonment, we have received many tokens
+of attention from dragomen, who have sent their papers through the grate
+to us, to be returned to-morrow after our liberation. They are not very
+prepossessing specimens of their class, with the exception of Yusef Badra,
+who brings a recommendation from my friend, Ross Browne. Yusef is a
+handsome, dashing fellow, with something of the dandy in his dress and
+air, but he has a fine, clear, sparkling eye, with just enough of the
+devil in it to make him attractive. I think, however, that, the Greek
+dragoman, who has been our companion in Quarantine, will carry the day. He
+is by birth a Boeotian, but now a citizen of Athens, and calls himself
+Francois Vitalis. He speaks French, German, and Italian, besides Arabic
+and Turkish, and as he has been for twelve or fifteen years vibrating
+between Europe and the East, he must by this time have amassed sufficient
+experience to answer the needs of rough-and-tumble travellers like
+ourselves. He has not asked us for the place, which displays so much
+penetration on his part, that we shall end by offering it to him. Perhaps
+he is content to rest his claims upon the memory of our first Quarantine
+dinner. If so, the odors of the cutlets and larks--even of the raw onion,
+which we remember with tears--shall not plead his cause in vain.
+
+
+Beyrout (out of Quarantine), _Wednesday, May_ 21.
+
+The handsome Greek, Diamanti, one of the proprietors of the "Hotel de
+Belle Vue," was on hand bright and early yesterday morning, to welcome us
+out of Quarantine. The gates were thrown wide, and forth we issued between
+two files of soldiers, rejoicing in our purification. We walked through
+mulberry orchards to the town, and through its steep and crooked streets
+to the hotel, which stands beyond, near the extremity of the Cape, or Ras
+Beyrout. The town is small, but has an active population, and a larger
+commerce than any other port in Syria. The anchorage, however, is an open
+road, and in stormy weather it is impossible for a boat to land. There are
+two picturesque old castles on some rocks near the shore, but they were
+almost destroyed by the English bombardment in 1841. I noticed two or
+three granite columns, now used as the lintels of some of the arched ways
+in the streets, and other fragments of old masonry, the only remains of
+the ancient Berytus.
+
+Our time, since our release, has been occupied by preparations for the
+journey to Jerusalem. We have taken Francois as dragoman, and our
+_mukkairee_, or muleteers, are engaged to be in readiness to-morrow
+morning. I learn that the Druses are in revolt in Djebel Hauaran and parts
+of the Anti-Lebanon, which will prevent my forming any settled plan for
+the tour through Palestine and Syria. Up to this time, the country has
+been considered quite safe, the only robbery this winter having been that
+of the party of Mr. Degen, of New York, which was plundered near Tiberias.
+Dr. Robinson left here two weeks ago for Jerusalem, in company with Dr.
+Eli Smith, of the American Mission at this place.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+The Coast of Palestine.
+
+
+  The Pilgrimage Commences--The Muleteers--The Mules--The Donkey--Journey
+  to Sidon--The Foot of Lebanon--Pictures--The Ruins of Tyre--A Wild
+  Morning--The Tyrian Surges--Climbing the Ladder of Tyre--Panorama of the
+  Bay of Acre--The Plain of Esdraelon--Camp in a Garden--Acre--the Shore
+  of the Bay--Haifa--Mount Carmel and its Monastery--A Deserted Coast--The
+  Ruins of Caesarea--The Scenery of Palestine--We become Robbers--El
+  Haram--Wrecks--the Harbor and Town of Jaffa.
+
+
+  "Along the line of foam, the jewelled chain,
+  The largesse of the ever-giving main."
+
+  R. H. Stoddard.
+
+
+Ramleh, _April_ 27, 1852.
+
+We left Beyrout on the morning of the 22d. Our caravan consisted of three
+horses, three mules, and a donkey, in charge of two men--Dervish, an
+erect, black-bearded, and most impassive Mussulman, and Mustapha, who is
+the very picture of patience and good-nature. He was born with a smile on
+his face, and has never been able to change the expression. They are both
+masters of their art, and can load a mule with a speed and skill which I
+would defy any Santa Fe trader to excel. The animals are not less
+interesting than their masters. Our horses, to be sure, are slow, plodding
+beasts, with considerable endurance, but little spirit; but the two
+baggage mules deserve gold medals from the Society for the Promotion of
+Industry. I can overlook any amount of waywardness in the creatures, in
+consideration of the steady, persevering energy, the cheerfulness and even
+enthusiasm with which they perform their duties. They seem to be conscious
+that they are doing well, and to take a delight in the consciousness. One
+of them has a band of white shells around his neck, fastened with a tassel
+and two large blue beads; and you need but look at him to see that he is
+aware how becoming it is. He thinks it was given to him for good conduct,
+and is doing his best to merit another. The little donkey is a still more
+original animal. He is a practical humorist, full of perverse tricks, but
+all intended for effect, and without a particle of malice. He generally
+walks behind, running off to one side or the other to crop a mouthful of
+grass, but no sooner does Dervish attempt to mount him, than he sets off
+at full gallop, and takes the lead of the caravan. After having performed
+one of his feats, he turns around with a droll glance at us, as much as to
+say: "Did you see that?" If we had not been present, most assuredly he
+would never have done it. I can imagine him, after his return to Beyrout,
+relating his adventures to a company of fellow-donkeys, who every now and
+then burst into tremendous brays at some of his irresistible dry sayings.
+
+I persuaded Mr. Harrison to adopt the Oriental costume, which, from five
+months' wear in Africa, I greatly preferred to the Frank. We therefore
+rode out of Beyrout as a pair of Syrian Beys, while Francois, with his
+belt, sabre, and pistols had much the aspect of a Greek brigand. The road
+crosses the hill behind the city, between the Forest of Pines and a long
+tract of red sand-hills next the sea. It was a lovely morning, not too
+bright and hot, for light, fleecy vapors hung along the sides of Lebanon.
+Beyond the mulberry orchards, we entered on wild, half-cultivated tracts,
+covered with a bewildering maze of blossoms. The hill-side and stony
+shelves of soil overhanging the sea fairly blazed with the brilliant dots
+of color which were rained upon them. The pink, the broom, the poppy, the
+speedwell, the lupin, that beautiful variety of the cyclamen, called by
+the Syrians "_deek e-djebel_" (cock o' the mountain), and a number of
+unknown plants dazzled the eye with their profusion, and loaded the air
+with fragrance as rare as it was unfailing. Here and there, clear, swift
+rivulets came down from Lebanon, coursing their way between thickets of
+blooming oleanders. Just before crossing the little river Damoor, Francois
+pointed out, on one of the distant heights, the residence of the late Lady
+Hester Stanhope. During the afternoon we crossed several offshoots of the
+Lebanon, by paths incredibly steep and stony, and towards evening reached
+Saida, the ancient Sidon, where we obtained permission to pitch our tent
+in a garden. The town is built on a narrow point of land, jutting out from
+the centre of a bay, or curve in the coast, and contains about five
+thousand inhabitants. It is a quiet, sleepy sort of a place, and contains
+nothing of the old Sidon except a few stones and the fragments of a mole,
+extending into the sea. The fortress in the water, and the Citadel, are
+remnants of Venitian sway. The clouds gathered after nightfall, and
+occasionally there was a dash of rain on our tent. But I heard it with the
+same quiet happiness, as when, in boyhood, sleeping beneath the rafters, I
+have heard the rain beating all night upon the roof. I breathed the sweet
+breath of the grasses whereon my carpet was spread, and old Mother Earth,
+welcoming me back to her bosom, cradled me into calm and refreshing
+sleep. There is no rest more grateful than that which we take on the turf
+or the sand, except the rest below it.
+
+We rose in a dark and cloudy morning, and continued our way between fields
+of barley, completely stained with the bloody hue of the poppy, and
+meadows turned into golden mosaic by a brilliant yellow daisy. Until noon
+our road was over a region of alternate meadow land and gentle though
+stony elevations, making out from Lebanon. We met continually with
+indications of ancient power and prosperity. The ground was strewn with
+hewn blocks, and the foundations of buildings remain in many places.
+Broken sarcophagi lie half-buried in grass, and the gray rocks of the
+hills are pierced with tombs. The soil, though stony, appeared to be
+naturally fertile, and the crops of wheat, barley, and lentils were very
+flourishing. After rounding the promontory which forms the southern
+boundary of the Gulf of Sidon, we rode for an hour or two over a plain
+near the sea, and then came down to a valley which ran up among the hills,
+terminating in a natural amphitheatre. An ancient barrow, or tumulus,
+nobody knows of whom, stands near the sea. During the day I noticed two
+charming little pictures. One, a fountain gushing into a broad square
+basin of masonry, shaded by three branching cypresses. Two Turks sat on
+its edge, eating their bread and curdled milk, while their horses drank
+out of the stone trough below. The other, an old Mahommedan, with a green
+turban and white robe, seated at the foot of a majestic sycamore, over the
+high bank of a stream that tumbled down its bed of white marble rock to
+the sea.
+
+The plain back of the narrow, sandy promontory on which the modern Soor
+is built, is a rich black loam, which a little proper culture would turn
+into a very garden. It helped me to account for the wealth of ancient
+Tyre. The approach to the town, along a beach on which the surf broke with
+a continuous roar, with the wreck of a Greek vessel in the foreground, and
+a stormy sky behind, was very striking. It was a wild, bleak picture, the
+white minarets of the town standing out spectrally against the clouds. We
+rode up the sand-hills, back of the town, and selected a good
+camping-place among the ruins of Tyre. Near us there was an ancient square
+building, now used as a cistern, and filled with excellent fresh water.
+The surf roared tremendously on the rocks, on either hand, and the boom of
+the more distant breakers came to my ear like the wind in a pine forest.
+The remains of the ancient sea-wall are still to be traced for the entire
+circuit of the city, and the heavy surf breaks upon piles of shattered
+granite columns. Along a sort of mole, protecting an inner harbor on the
+north side, are great numbers of these columns. I counted fifteen in one
+group, some of them fine red granite, and some of the marble of Lebanon.
+The remains of the pharos and the fortresses strengthening the sea-wall,
+were pointed out by the Syrian who accompanied us as a guide, but his
+faith was a little stronger than mine. He even showed us the ruins of the
+jetty built by Alexander, by means of which the ancient city, then
+insulated by the sea, was taken. The remains of the causeway gradually
+formed the promontory by which the place is now connected with the main
+land. These are the principal indications of Tyre above ground, but the
+guide informed us that the Arabs, in digging among the sand-hills for the
+stones of the old buildings, which they quarry out and ship to Beyrout,
+come upon chambers, pillars, arches, and other objects. The Tyrian purple
+is still furnished by a muscle found upon the coast, but Tyre is now only
+noted for its tobacco and mill-stones. I saw many of the latter lying in
+the streets of the town, and an Arab was selling a quantity at auction in
+the square, as we passed. They are cut out from a species of dark volcanic
+rock, by the Bedouins of the mountains. There were half a dozen small
+coasting vessels lying in the road, but the old harbors are entirely
+destroyed. Isaiah's prophecy is literally fulfilled: "Howl, ye ships of
+Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering
+in."
+
+On returning from our ramble we passed the house of the Governor, Daood
+Agha, who was dispensing justice in regard to a lawsuit then before him.
+He asked us to stop and take coffee, and received us with much grace and
+dignity. As we rose to leave, a slave brought me a large bunch of choice
+flowers from his garden.
+
+We set out from Tyre at an early hour, and rode along the beach around the
+head of the bay to the Ras-el-Abiad, the ancient Promontorium Album. The
+morning was wild and cloudy, with gleams of sunshine that flashed out over
+the dark violet gloom of the sea. The surf was magnificent, rolling up in
+grand billows, which broke and formed again, till the last of the long,
+falling fringes of snow slid seething up the sand. Something of ancient
+power was in their shock and roar, and every great wave that plunged and
+drew back again, called in its solemn bass: "Where are the ships of Tyre?
+where are the ships of Tyre?" I looked back on the city, which stood
+advanced far into the sea, her feet bathed in thunderous spray. By and by
+the clouds cleared away, the sun came out bold and bright, and our road
+left the beach for a meadowy plain, crossed by fresh streams, and sown
+with an inexhaustible wealth of flowers. Through thickets of myrtle and
+mastic, around which the rue and lavender grew in dense clusters, we
+reached the foot of the mountain, and began ascending the celebrated
+Ladder of Tyre. The road is so steep as to resemble a staircase, and
+climbs along the side of the promontory, hanging over precipices of naked
+white rock, in some places three hundred feet in height. The mountain is a
+mass of magnesian limestone, with occasional beds of marble. The surf has
+worn its foot into hollow caverns, into which the sea rushes with a dull,
+heavy boom, like distant thunder. The sides are covered with thickets of
+broom, myrtle, arbutus, ilex, mastic and laurel, overgrown with woodbine,
+and interspersed with patches of sage, lavender, hyssop, wild thyme, and
+rue. The whole mountain is a heap of balm; a bundle of sweet spices.
+
+Our horses' hoofs clattered up and down the rounds of the ladder, and we
+looked our last on Tyre, fading away behind the white hem of the breakers,
+as we turned the point of the promontory. Another cove of the
+mountain-coast followed, terminated by the Cape of Nakhura, the northern
+point of the Bay of Acre. We rode along a stony way between fields of
+wheat and barley, blotted almost out of sight by showers of scarlet
+poppies and yellow chrysanthemums. There were frequent ruins: fragments of
+sarcophagi, foundations of houses, and about half way between the two
+capes, the mounds of Alexandro-Schoenae. We stopped at a khan, and
+breakfasted under a magnificent olive tree, while two boys tended our
+horses to see that they ate only the edges of the wheat field. Below the
+house were two large cypresses, and on a little tongue of land the ruins
+of one of those square towers of the corsairs, which line all this coast.
+The intense blue of the sea, seen close at hand over a broad field of
+goldening wheat, formed a dazzling and superb contrast of color. Early in
+the afternoon we climbed the Ras Nakhura, not so bold and grand, though
+quite as flowery a steep as the Promontorium Album. We had been jogging
+half an hour over its uneven summit, when the side suddenly fell away
+below us, and we saw the whole of the great gulf and plain of Acre, backed
+by the long ridge of Mount Carmel. Behind the sea, which makes a deep
+indentation in the line of the coast, extended the plain, bounded on the
+east, at two leagues' distance, by a range of hills covered with luxuriant
+olive groves, and still higher, by the distant mountains of Galilee. The
+fortifications of Acre were visible on a slight promontory near the middle
+of the Gulf. From our feet the line of foamy surf extended for miles along
+the red sand-beach, till it finally became like a chalk-mark on the edge
+of the field of blue.
+
+We rode down the mountain and continued our journey over the plain of
+Esdraelon--a picture of summer luxuriance and bloom. The waves of wheat
+and barley rolled away from our path to the distant olive orchards; here
+the water gushed from a stone fountain and flowed into a turf-girdled
+pool, around which the Syrian women were washing their garments; there, a
+garden of orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees in blossom, was a
+spring of sweet odors, which overflowed the whole land. We rode into some
+of these forests, for they were no less, and finally pitched our tent in
+one of them, belonging to the palace of the former Abdallah Pasha, within
+a mile of Acre. The old Saracen aqueduct, which still conveys water to
+the town, overhung our tent. For an hour before reaching our destination,
+we had seen it on the left, crossing the hollows on light stone arches. In
+one place I counted fifty-eight, and in another one hundred and three of
+these arches, some of which were fifty feet high. Our camp was a charming
+place: a nest of deep herbage, under two enormous fig-trees, and
+surrounded by a balmy grove of orange and citron. It was doubly beautiful
+when the long line of the aqueduct was lit up by the moon, and the orange
+trees became mounds of ambrosial darkness.
+
+In the morning we rode to Acre, the fortifications of which have been
+restored on the land-side. A ponderous double gateway of stone admitted us
+into the city, through what was once, apparently, the court-yard of a
+fortress. The streets of the town are narrow, terribly rough, and very
+dirty, but the bazaars are extensive and well stocked. The principal
+mosque, whose heavy dome is visible at some distance from the city, is
+surrounded with a garden, enclosed by a pillared corridor, paved with
+marble. All the houses of the city are built in the most massive style, of
+hard gray limestone or marble, and this circumstance alone prevented their
+complete destruction during the English bombardment in 1841. The marks of
+the shells are everywhere seen, and the upper parts of the lofty buildings
+are completely riddled with cannon-balls, some of which remain embedded in
+the stone. We made a rapid tour of the town on horseback, followed by the
+curious glances of the people, who were in doubt whether to consider us
+Turks or Franks. There were a dozen vessels in the harbor, which is
+considered the best in Syria.
+
+The baggage-mules had gone on, so we galloped after them along the hard
+beach, around the head of the bay. It was a brilliant morning; a
+delicious south-eastern breeze came to us over the flowery plain of
+Esdraelon; the sea on our right shone blue, and purple, and violet-green,
+and black, as the shadows or sunshine crossed it, and only the long lines
+of roaring foam, for ever changing in form, did not vary in hue. A
+fisherman stood on the beach in a statuesque attitude, his handsome bare
+legs bathed in the frothy swells, a bag of fish hanging from his shoulder,
+and the large square net, with its sinkers of lead in his right hand,
+ready for a cast. He had good luck, for the waves brought up plenty of
+large fish, and cast them at our feet, leaving them to struggle back into
+the treacherous brine. Between Acre and Haifa we passed six or eight
+wrecks, mostly of small trading vessels. Some were half buried in sand,
+some so old and mossy that they were fast rotting away, while a few had
+been recently hurled there. As we rounded the deep curve of the bay, and
+approached the line of palm-trees girding the foot of Mount Carmel, Haifa,
+with its wall and Saracenic town in ruin on the hill above, grew more
+clear and bright in the sun, while Acre dipped into the blue of the
+Mediterranean. The town of Haifa, the ancient Caiapha, is small, dirty,
+and beggarly looking; but it has some commerce, sharing the trade of Acre
+in the productions of Syria. It was Sunday, and all the Consular flags
+were flying. It was an unexpected delight to find the American colors in
+this little Syrian town, flying from one of the tallest poles. The people
+stared at us as we passed, and I noticed among them many bright Frankish
+faces, with eyes too clear and gray for Syria. O ye kind brothers of the
+monastery of Carmel! forgive me if I look to you for an explanation of
+this phenomenon.
+
+We ascended to Mount Carmel. The path led through a grove of carob trees,
+from which the beans, known in Germany as St. John's bread, are produced.
+After this we came into an olive grove at the foot of the mountain, from
+which long fields of wheat, giving forth a ripe summer smell, flowed down
+to the shore of the bay. The olive trees were of immense size, and I can
+well believe, as Fra Carlo informed us, that they were probably planted by
+the Roman colonists, established there by Titus. The gnarled, veteran
+boles still send forth vigorous and blossoming boughs. There were all
+manner of lovely lights and shades chequered over the turf and the winding
+path we rode. At last we reached the foot of an ascent, steeper than the
+Ladder of Tyre. As our horses slowly climbed to the Convent of St. Elijah,
+whence we already saw the French flag floating over the shoulder of the
+mountain, the view opened grandly to the north and east, revealing the bay
+and plain of Acre, and the coast as far as Ras Nakhura, from which we
+first saw Mount Carmel the day previous. The two views are very similar in
+character, one being the obverse of the other. We reached the
+Convent--Dayr Mar Elias, as the Arabs call it--at noon, just in time to
+partake of a bountiful dinner, to which the monks had treated themselves.
+Fra Carlo, the good Franciscan who receives strangers, showed us the
+building, and the Grotto of Elijah, which is under the altar of the
+Convent Church, a small but very handsome structure of Italian marble. The
+sanctity of the Grotto depends on tradition entirely, as there is no
+mention in the Bible of Elijah having resided on Carmel, though it was
+from this mountain that he saw the cloud, "like a man's hand," rising from
+the sea. The Convent, which is quite new--not yet completed, in fact--is a
+large, massive building, and has the aspect of a fortress.
+
+As we were to sleep at Tantura, five hours distant, we were obliged to
+make a short visit, in spite of the invitation of the hospitable Fra Carlo
+to spend the night there. In the afternoon we passed the ruins of Athlit,
+a town of the Middle Ages, and the Castel Pellegrino of the Crusaders. Our
+road now followed the beach, nearly the whole distance to Jaffa, and was
+in many places, for leagues in extent, a solid layer of white, brown,
+purple and rosy shells, which cracked and rattled under our horses' feet.
+Tantura is a poor Arab village, and we had some difficulty in procuring
+provisions. The people lived in small huts of mud and stones, near the
+sea. The place had a thievish look, and we deemed it best to be careful in
+the disposal of our baggage for the night.
+
+In the morning we took the coast again, riding over millions of shells. A
+line of sandy hills, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, shut off
+the view of the plain and meadows between the sea and the hills of
+Samaria. After three hours' ride we saw the ruins of ancient Caesarea, near
+a small promontory. The road turned away from the sea, and took the wild
+plain behind, which is completely overgrown with camomile, chrysanthemum
+and wild shrubs. The ruins of the town are visible at a considerable
+distance along the coast. The principal remains consist of a massive wall,
+flanked with pyramidal bastions at regular intervals, and with the traces
+of gateways, draw-bridges and towers. It was formerly surrounded by a deep
+moat. Within this space, which may be a quarter of a mile square, are a
+few fragments of buildings, and toward the sea, some high arches and
+masses of masonry. The plain around abounds with traces of houses,
+streets, and court-yards. Caesarea was one of the Roman colonies, but owed
+its prosperity principally to Herod. St. Paul passed through it on his
+way from Macedon to Jerusalem, by the very road we were travelling.
+
+During the day the path struck inland over a vast rolling plain, covered
+with sage, lavender and other sweet-smelling shrubs, and tenanted by herds
+of gazelles and flocks of large storks. As we advanced further, the
+landscape became singularly beautiful. It was a broad, shallow valley,
+swelling away towards the east into low, rolling hills, far back of which
+rose the blue line of the mountains--the hill-country of Judea. The soil,
+where it was ploughed, was the richest vegetable loam. Where it lay fallow
+it was entirely hidden by a bed of grass and camomile. Here and there
+great herds of sheep and goats browsed on the herbage. There was a quiet
+pastoral air about the landscape, a soft serenity in its forms and colors,
+as if the Hebrew patriarchs still made it their abode. The district is
+famous for robbers, and we kept our arms in readiness, never suffering the
+baggage to be out of our sight.
+
+Towards evening, as Mr. H. and myself, with Francois, were riding in
+advance of the baggage mules, the former with his gun in his hand, I with
+a pair of pistols thrust through the folds of my shawl, and Francois with
+his long Turkish sabre, we came suddenly upon a lonely Englishman, whose
+companions were somewhere in the rear. He appeared to be struck with
+terror on seeing us making towards him, and, turning his horse's head,
+made an attempt to fly. The animal, however, was restive, and, after a few
+plunges, refused to move. The traveller gave himself up for lost; his arms
+dropped by his side; he stared wildly at us, with pale face and eyes
+opened wide with a look of helpless fright. Restraining with difficulty a
+shout of laughter, I said to him: "Did you leave Jaffa to-day?" but so
+completely was his ear the fool of his imagination, that he thought I was
+speaking Arabic, and made a faint attempt to get out the only word or two
+of that language which he knew. I then repeated, with as much distinctness
+as I could command: "Did--you--leave--Jaffa--to-day?" He stammered
+mechanically, through his chattering teeth, "Y-y-yes!" and we immediately
+dashed off at a gallop through the bushes. When we last saw him, he was
+standing as we left him, apparently not yet recovered from the shock.
+
+At the little village of El Haram, where we spent the night, I visited the
+tomb of Sultan Ali ebn-Aleym, who is now revered as a saint. It is
+enclosed in a mosque, crowning the top of a hill. I was admitted into the
+court-yard without hesitation, though, from the porter styling me
+"Effendi," he probably took me for a Turk. At the entrance to the inner
+court, I took off my slippers and walked to the tomb of the Sultan--a
+square heap of white marble, in a small marble enclosure. In one of the
+niches in the wall, near the tomb, there is a very old iron box, with a
+slit in the top. The porter informed me that it contained a charm,
+belonging to Sultan Ali, which was of great use in producing rain in times
+of drouth.
+
+In the morning we sent our baggage by a short road across the country to
+this place, and then rode down the beach towards Jaffa. The sun came out
+bright and hot as we paced along the line of spray, our horses' feet
+sinking above the fetlocks in pink and purple shells, while the droll
+sea-crabs scampered away from our path, and the blue gelatinous
+sea-nettles were tossed before us by the surge. Our view was confined to
+the sand-hills--sometimes covered with a flood of scarlet poppies--on one
+hand; and to the blue, surf-fringed sea on the other. The terrible coast
+was still lined with wrecks, and just before reaching the town, we passed
+a vessel of some two hundred tons, recently cast ashore, with her strong
+hull still unbroken. We forded the rapid stream of El Anjeh, which comes
+down from the Plain of Sharon, the water rising to our saddles. The low
+promontory in front now broke into towers and white domes, and great
+masses of heavy walls. The aspect of Jaffa is exceedingly picturesque. It
+is built on a hill, and the land for many miles around it being low and
+flat, its topmost houses overlook all the fields of Sharon. The old
+harbor, protected by a reef of rocks, is on the north side of the town,
+but is now so sanded up that large vessels cannot enter. A number of small
+craft were lying close to the shore. The port presented a different scene
+when the ships of Hiram, King of Tyre, came in with the materials for the
+Temple of Solomon. There is but one gate on the land side, which is rather
+strongly fortified. Outside of this there is an open space, which we found
+filled with venders of oranges and vegetables, camel-men and the like,
+some vociferating in loud dispute, some given up to silence and smoke,
+under the shade of the sycamores.
+
+We rode under the heavily arched and towered gateway, and entered the
+bazaar. The street was crowded, and there was such a confusion of camels,
+donkeys, and men, that we made our way with difficulty along the only
+practicable street in the city, to the sea-side, where Francois pointed
+out a hole in the wall as the veritable spot where Jonah was cast ashore
+by the whale. This part of the harbor is the receptacle of all the offal
+of the town; and I do not wonder that the whale's stomach should have
+turned on approaching it. The sea-street was filled with merchants and
+traders, and we were obliged to pick our way between bars of iron, skins
+of oil, heaps of oranges, and piles of building timber. At last we reached
+the end, and, as there was no other thoroughfare, returned the same way we
+went, passed out the gate, and took the road to Ramleh and Jerusalem.
+
+But I hear the voice of Francois, announcing, "_Messieurs, le diner est
+pret._" We are encamped just beside the pool of Ramleh, and the mongrel
+children of the town are making a great noise in the meadow below it. Our
+horses are enjoying their barley; and Mustapha stands at the tent-door
+tying up his sacks. Dogs are barking and donkeys braying all along the
+borders of the town, whose filth and dilapidation are happily concealed by
+the fig and olive gardens which surround it. I have not curiosity enough
+to visit the Greek and Latin Convents embedded in its foul purlieus, but
+content myself with gazing from my door upon the blue hills of Palestine,
+which we must cross to-morrow, on our way to Jerusalem.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+From Jaffa to Jerusalem.
+
+
+  The Garden of Jaffa--Breakfast at a Fountain--The Plain of Sharon--The
+  Ruined Mosque of Ramleh--A Judean Landscape--The Streets of Ramleh--Am I
+  in Palestine?--A Heavenly Morning--The Land of Milk and Honey--Entering
+  the Hill-Country--The Pilgrim's Breakfast--The Father of Lies--A Church
+  of the Crusaders--The Agriculture of the Hills--The Valley of
+  Elah--Day-Dreams--The Wilderness--The Approach--We see the Holy City.
+
+
+         --"Through the air sublime,
+  Over the wilderness and o'er the plain;
+  Till underneath them fair Jerusalem,
+  The Holy City, lifted high her towers."
+
+  Paradise Regained.
+
+
+Jerusalem, _Thursday, April_ 29, 1852.
+
+Leaving the gate of Jaffa, we rode eastward between delightful gardens of
+fig, citron, orange, pomegranate and palm. The country for several miles
+around the city is a complete level--part of the great plain of
+Sharon--and the gray mass of building crowning the little promontory, is
+the only landmark seen above the green garden-land, on looking towards the
+sea. The road was lined with hedges of giant cactus, now in blossom, and
+shaded occasionally with broad-armed sycamores. The orange trees were in
+bloom, and at the same time laden down with ripe fruit. The oranges of
+Jaffa are the finest in Syria, and great numbers of them are sent to
+Beyrout and other ports further north. The dark foliage of the
+pomegranate fairly blazed with its heavy scarlet blossoms, and here and
+there a cluster of roses made good the Scriptural renown of those of
+Sharon. The road was filled with people, passing to and fro, and several
+families of Jaffa Jews were having a sort of pic-nic in the choice shady
+spots.
+
+Ere long we came to a fountain, at a point where two roads met. It was a
+large square structure of limestone and marble, with a stone trough in
+front, and a delightful open chamber at the side. The space in front was
+shaded with immense sycamore trees, to which we tied our horses, and then
+took our seats in the window above the fountain, where the Greek brought
+us our breakfast. The water was cool and delicious, as were our Jaffa
+oranges. It was a charming spot, for as we sat we could look under the
+boughs of the great trees, and down between the gardens to Jaffa and the
+Mediterranean. After leaving the gardens, we came upon the great plain of
+Sharon, on which we could see the husbandmen at work far and near,
+ploughing and sowing their grain. In some instances, the two operations
+were made simultaneously, by having a sort of funnel attached to the
+plough-handle, running into a tube which entered the earth just behind the
+share. The man held the plough with one hand, while with the other he
+dropped the requisite quantity of seed through the tube into the furrow.
+The people are ploughing now for their summer crops, and the wheat and
+barley which they sowed last winter are already in full head. On other
+parts of the plain, there were large flocks of sheep and goats, with their
+attendant shepherds. So ran the rich landscape, broken only by belts of
+olive trees, to the far hills of Judea.
+
+Riding on over the long, low swells, fragrant with wild thyme and
+camomile, we saw at last the tower of Ramleh, and down the valley, an
+hour's ride to the north-east, the minaret of Ludd, the ancient Lydda.
+Still further, I could see the houses of the village of Sharon, embowered
+in olives. Ramleh is built along the crest and on the eastern slope of a
+low hill, and at a distance appears like a stately place, but this
+impression is immediately dissipated on entering it. West of the town is a
+large square tower, between eighty and ninety feet in height. We rode up
+to it through an orchard of ancient olive trees, and over a field of
+beans. The tower is evidently a minaret, as it is built in the purest
+Saracenic style, and is surrounded by the ruins of a mosque. I have rarely
+seen anything more graceful than the ornamental arches of the upper
+portions. Over the door is a lintel of white marble, with an Arabic
+inscription. The mosque to which the tower is attached is almost entirely
+destroyed, and only part of the arches of a corridor around three sides of
+a court-yard, with the fountain in the centre, still remain. The
+subterranean cisterns, under the court-yard, amazed me with their extent
+and magnitude. They are no less than twenty-four feet deep, and covered by
+twenty-four vaulted ceilings, each twelve feet square, and resting on
+massive pillars. The mosque, when entire, must have been one of the finest
+in Syria.
+
+We clambered over the broken stones cumbering the entrance, and mounted
+the steps to the very summit. The view reached from Jaffa and the sea to
+the mountains near Jerusalem, and southward to the plain of Ascalon--a
+great expanse of grain and grazing land, all blossoming as the rose, and
+dotted, especially near the mountains, with dark, luxuriant olive-groves.
+The landscape had something of the green, pastoral beauty of England,
+except the mountains, which were wholly of Palestine. The shadows of
+fleecy clouds, drifting slowly from east to west, moved across the
+landscape, which became every moment softer and fairer in the light of the
+declining sun.
+
+I did not tarry in Ramleh. The streets are narrow, crooked, and filthy as
+only an Oriental town can be. The houses have either flat roofs or domes,
+out of the crevices in which springs a plentiful crop of weeds. Some
+yellow dogs barked at us as we passed, children in tattered garments
+stared, and old turbaned heads were raised from the pipe, to guess who the
+two brown individuals might be, and why they were attended by such a
+fierce _cawass_. Passing through the eastern gate, we were gladdened by
+the sight of our tents, already pitched in the meadow beside the cistern.
+Dervish had arrived an hour before us, and had everything ready for the
+sweet lounge of an hour, to which we treat ourselves after a day's ride. I
+watched the evening fade away over the blue hills before us, and tried to
+convince myself that I should reach Jerusalem on the morrow. Reason said:
+"You certainly will!"---but to Faith the Holy City was as far off as ever.
+Was it possible that I was in Judea? Was this the Holy Land of the
+Crusades, the soil hallowed by the feet of Christ and his Apostles? I must
+believe it. Yet it seemed once that if I ever trod that earth, then
+beneath my feet, there would be thenceforth a consecration in my life, a
+holy essence, a purer inspiration on the lips, a surer faith in the heart.
+And because I was not other than I had been, I half doubted whether it was
+the Palestine of my dreams.
+
+A number of Arab cameleers, who had come with travellers across the
+Desert from Egypt, were encamped near us. Francois was suspicious of some
+of them, and therefore divided the night into three watches, which were
+kept by himself and our two men. Mustapha was the last, and kept not only
+himself, but myself, wide awake by his dolorous chants of love and
+religion. I fell sound asleep at dawn, but was roused before sunrise by
+Francois, who wished to start betimes, on account of the rugged road we
+had to travel. The morning was mild, clear, and balmy, and we were soon
+packed and in motion. Leaving the baggage to follow, we rode ahead over
+the fertile fields. The wheat and poppies were glistening with dew, birds
+sang among the fig-trees, a cool breeze came down from the hollows of the
+hills, and my blood leaped as nimbly and joyously as a young hart on the
+mountains of Bether.
+
+Between Ramleh and the hill-country, a distance of about eight miles, is
+the rolling plain of Arimathea, and this, as well as the greater part of
+the plain of Sharon, is one of the richest districts in the world. The
+soil is a dark-brown loam, and, without manure, produces annually superb
+crops of wheat and barley. We rode for miles through a sea of wheat,
+waving far and wide over the swells of land. The tobacco in the fields
+about Ramleh was the most luxuriant I ever saw, and the olive and fig
+attain a size and lusty strength wholly unknown in Italy. Judea cursed of
+God! what a misconception, not only of God's mercy and beneficence, but of
+the actual fact! Give Palestine into Christian hands, and it will again
+flow with milk and honey. Except some parts of Asia Minor, no portion of
+the Levant is capable of yielding such a harvest of grain, silk, wool,
+fruits, oil, and wine. The great disadvantage under which the country
+labors, is its frequent drouths, but were the soil more generally
+cultivated, and the old orchards replanted, these would neither be so
+frequent nor so severe.
+
+We gradually ascended the hills, passing one or two villages, imbedded in
+groves of olives. In the little valleys, slanting down to the plains, the
+Arabs were still ploughing and sowing, singing the while an old love-song,
+with its chorus of "_ya, ghazalee! ya, ghazalee!_" (oh, gazelle! oh,
+gazelle!) The valley narrowed, the lowlands behind us spread out broader,
+and in half an hour more we were threading a narrow pass, between stony
+hills, overgrown with ilex, myrtle, and dwarf oak. The wild purple rose of
+Palestine blossomed on all sides, and a fragrant white honeysuckle in some
+places hung from the rocks. The path was terribly rough, and barely wide
+enough for two persons on horseback to pass each other. We met a few
+pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, and a straggling company of armed
+Turks, who had such a piratical air, that without the solemn asseveration
+of Francois that the road was quite safe, I should have felt uneasy about
+our baggage. Most of the persons we passed were Mussulmen, few of whom
+gave the customary "Peace be with you!" but once a Syrian Christian
+saluted me with, "God go with you, O Pilgrim!" For two hours after
+entering the mountains, there was scarcely a sign of cultivation. The rock
+was limestone, or marble, lying in horizontal strata, the broken edges of
+which rose like terraces to the summits. These shelves were so covered
+with wild shrubs--in some places even with rows of olive trees---that to
+me they had not the least appearance of that desolation so generally
+ascribed to them.
+
+In a little dell among the hills there is a small ruined mosque, or
+chapel (I could not decide which), shaded by a group of magnificent
+terebinth trees. Several Arabs were resting in its shade, and we hoped to
+find there the water we were looking for, in order to make breakfast. But
+it was not to be found, and we climbed nearly to the summit of the first
+chain of hills, where in a small olive orchard, there was a cistern,
+filled by the late rains. It belonged to two ragged boys, who brought us
+an earthen vessel of the water, and then asked, "Shall we bring you milk,
+O Pilgrims!" I assented, and received a small jug of thick buttermilk, not
+remarkably clean, but very refreshing. My companion, who had not recovered
+from his horror at finding that the inhabitants of Ramleh washed
+themselves in the pool which supplied us and them, refused to touch it. We
+made but a short rest, for it was now nearly noon, and there were yet many
+rough miles between us and Jerusalem. We crossed the first chain of
+mountains, rode a short distance over a stony upland, and then descended
+into a long cultivated valley, running to the eastward. At the end nearest
+us appeared the village of Aboo 'l Ghosh (the Father of Lies), which takes
+its name from a noted Bedouin shekh, who distinguished himself a few years
+ago by levying contributions on travellers. He obtained a large sum of
+money in this way, but as he added murder to robbery, and fell upon Turks
+as well as Christians, he was finally captured, and is now expiating his
+offences in some mine on the coast of the Black Sea.
+
+Near the bottom of the village there is a large ruined building, now used
+as a stable by the inhabitants. The interior is divided into a nave and
+two side-aisles by rows of square pillars, from which spring pointed
+arches. The door-way is at the side, and is Gothic, with a dash of
+Saracenic in the ornamental mouldings above it. The large window at the
+extremity of the nave is remarkable for having round arches, which
+circumstance, together with the traces of arabesque painted ornaments on
+the columns, led me to think it might have been a mosque; but Dr.
+Robinson, who is now here, considers it a Christian church, of the time of
+the Crusaders. The village of Aboo 'l Ghosh is said to be the site of the
+birth-place of the Prophet Jeremiah, and I can well imagine it to have
+been the case. The aspect of the mountain-country to the east and
+north-east would explain the savage dreariness of his lamentations. The
+whole valley in which the village stands, as well as another which joins
+it on the east, is most assiduously cultivated. The stony mountain sides
+are wrought into terraces, where, in spite of soil which resembles an
+American turnpike, patches of wheat are growing luxuriantly, and olive
+trees, centuries old, hold on to the rocks with a clutch as hard and bony
+as the hand of Death. In the bed of the valley the fig tree thrives, and
+sometimes the vine and fig grow together, forming the patriarchal arbor of
+shade familiar to us all. The shoots of the tree are still young and
+green, but the blossoms of the grape do not yet give forth their goodly
+savor. I did not hear the voice of the turtle, but a nightingale sang in
+the briery thickets by the brook side, as we passed along.
+
+Climbing out of this valley, we descended by a stony staircase, as rugged
+as the Ladder of Tyre, into the Wady Beit-Hanineh. Here were gardens of
+oranges in blossom, with orchards of quince and apple, overgrown with
+vines, and the fragrant hawthorn tree, snowy with its bloom. A stone
+bridge, the only one on the road, crosses the dry bed of a winter stream,
+and, looking up the glen, I saw the Arab village of Kulonieh, at the
+entrance of the valley of Elah, glorious with the memories of the
+shepherd-boy, David. Our road turned off to the right, and commenced
+ascending a long, dry glen between mountains which grew more sterile the
+further we went. It was nearly two hours past noon, the sun fiercely hot,
+and our horses were nigh jaded out with the rough road and our impatient
+spurring. I began to fancy we could see Jerusalem from the top of the
+pass, and tried to think of the ancient days of Judea. But it was in vain.
+A newer picture shut them out, and banished even the diviner images of Our
+Saviour and His Disciples. Heathen that I was, I could only think of
+Godfrey and the Crusaders, toiling up the same path, and the ringing lines
+of Tasso vibrated constantly in my ear:
+
+  "Ecco apparir Gierusalemm' si vede;
+  Ecco additar Gierusalemm' si scorge;
+  Ecco da mille voci unitamente,
+  Gierusalemme salutar si sente!"
+
+The Palestine of the Bible--the Land of Promise to the Israelites, the
+land of Miracle and Sacrifice to the Apostles and their followers--still
+slept in the unattainable distance, under a sky of bluer and more tranquil
+loveliness than that to whose cloudless vault I looked up. It lay as far
+and beautiful as it once seemed to the eye of childhood, and the swords of
+Seraphim kept profane feet from its sacred hills. But these rough rocks
+around me, these dry, fiery hollows, these thickets of ancient oak and
+ilex, had heard the trumpets of the Middle Ages, and the clang and
+clatter of European armor--I could feel and believe that. I entered the
+ranks; I followed the trumpets and the holy hymns, and waited breathlessly
+for the moment when every mailed knee should drop in the dust, and every
+bearded and sunburned cheek be wet with devotional tears.
+
+But when I climbed the last ridge, and looked ahead with a sort of painful
+suspense, Jerusalem did not appear. We were two thousand feet above the
+Mediterranean, whose blue we could dimly see far to the west, through
+notches in the chain of hills. To the north, the mountains were gray,
+desolate, and awful. Not a shrub or a tree relieved their frightful
+barrenness. An upland tract, covered with white volcanic rock, lay before
+us. We met peasants with asses, who looked (to my eyes) as if they had
+just left Jerusalem. Still forward we urged our horses, and reached a
+ruined garden, surrounded with hedges of cactus, over which I saw domes
+and walls in the distance. I drew a long breath and looked at Francois. He
+was jogging along without turning his head; he could not have been so
+indifferent if that was really the city. Presently, we reached another
+slight rise in the rocky plain. He began to urge his panting horse, and at
+the same instant we both lashed the spirit into ours, dashed on at a
+break-neck gallop, round the corner of an old wall on the top of the hill,
+and lo! the Holy City! Our Greek jerked both pistols from his holsters,
+and fired them into the air, as we reined up on the steep.
+
+From the descriptions of travellers, I had expected to see in Jerusalem an
+ordinary modern Turkish town; but that before me, with its walls,
+fortresses, and domes, was it not still the City of David? I saw the
+Jerusalem of the New Testament, as I had imagined it. Long lines of walls
+crowned with a notched parapet and strengthened by towers; a few domes and
+spires above them; clusters of cypress here and there; this was all that
+was visible of the city. On either side the hill sloped down to the two
+deep valleys over which it hangs. On the east, the Mount of Olives,
+crowned with a chapel and mosque, rose high and steep, but in front, the
+eye passed directly over the city, to rest far away upon the lofty
+mountains of Moab, beyond the Dead Sea. The scene was grand in its
+simplicity. The prominent colors were the purple of those distant
+mountains, and the hoary gray of the nearer hills. The walls were of the
+dull yellow of weather-stained marble, and the only trees, the dark
+cypress and moonlit olive. Now, indeed, for one brief moment, I knew that
+I was in Palestine; that I saw Mount Olivet and Mount Zion; and--I know
+not how it was--my sight grew weak, and all objects trembled and wavered
+in a watery film. Since we arrived, I have looked down upon the city from
+the Mount of Olives, and up to it from the Valley of Jehosaphat; but I
+cannot restore the illusion of that first view.
+
+We allowed our horses to walk slowly down the remaining half-mile to the
+Jaffa gate. An Englishman, with a red silk shawl over his head, was
+sketching the city, while an Arab held an umbrella over him. Inside the
+gate we stumbled upon an Italian shop with an Italian sign, and after
+threading a number of intricate passages under dark archways, and being
+turned off from one hotel, which was full of travellers, reached another,
+kept by a converted German Jew, where we found Dr. Robinson and Dr. Ely
+Smith, who both arrived yesterday. It sounds strange to talk of a hotel
+in Jerusalem, but the world is progressing, and there are already three. I
+leave to-morrow for Jericho, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea, and shall have
+more to say of Jerusalem on my return.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+The Dead Sea and the Jordan River.
+
+
+  Bargaining for a Guard--Departure from Jerusalem--The Hill of
+  Offence--Bethany--The Grotto of Lazarus--The Valley of Fire--Scenery of
+  the Wilderness--The Hills of Engaddi--The shore of the Dead Sea--A
+  Bituminous Bath--Gallop to the Jordan--A watch for Robbers--The
+  Jordan--Baptism--The Plains of Jericho--The Fountain of Elisha--The
+  Mount of Temptation--Return to Jerusalem.
+
+
+  "And the spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape;
+  the valley also shall perish and the plain shall be destroyed, as the
+  Lord hath spoken."
+
+  --Jeremiah, xlviii. 8.
+
+
+Jerusalem, _May_ 1, 1852.
+
+I returned this after noon from an excursion to the Dead Sea, the River
+Jordan, and the site of Jericho. Owing to the approaching heats, an early
+visit was deemed desirable, and the shekhs, who have charge of the road,
+were summoned to meet us on the day after we arrived. There are two of
+these gentlemen, the Shekh el-Arab (of the Bedouins), and the Shekh
+el-Fellaheen (of the peasants, or husbandmen), to whom each traveller is
+obliged to pay one hundred piastres for an escort. It is, in fact, a sort
+of compromise, by which the shekhs agree not to rob the traveller, and to
+protect him against other shekhs. If the road is not actually safe, the
+Turkish garrison here is a mere farce, but the arrangement is winked at by
+the Pasha, who, of course, gets his share of the 100,000 piastres which
+the two scamps yearly levy upon travellers. The shekhs came to our rooms,
+and after trying to postpone our departure, in order to attach other
+tourists to the same escort, and thus save a little expense, took half the
+pay and agreed to be ready the next morning. Unfortunately for my original
+plan, the Convent of San Saba has been closed within two or three weeks,
+and no stranger is now admitted. This unusual step was caused by the
+disorderly conduct of some Frenchmen who visited San Saba. We sent to the
+Bishop of the Greek Church, asking a simple permission to view the
+interior of the Convent; but without effect.
+
+We left the city yesterday morning by St. Stephen's Gate, descended to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat, rode under the stone wall which encloses the
+supposed Gethsemane, and took a path leading along the Mount of Olives,
+towards the Hill of Offence, which stands over against the southern end of
+the city, opposite the mouth of the Vale of Hinnon. Neither of the shekhs
+made his appearance, but sent in their stead three Arabs, two of whom were
+mounted and armed with sabres and long guns. Our man, Mustapha, had charge
+of the baggage-mule, carrying our tent and the provisions for the trip. It
+was a dull, sultry morning; a dark, leaden haze hung over Jerusalem, and
+the _khamseen_, or sirocco-wind, came from the south-west, out of the
+Arabian Desert. We had again resumed the Oriental costume, but in spite of
+an ample turban, my face soon began to scorch in the dry heat. From the
+crest of the Hill of Offence there is a wide view over the heights on both
+sides of the valley of the Brook Kedron. Their sides are worked into
+terraces, now green with springing grain, and near the bottom planted with
+olive and fig trees. The upland ridge or watershed of Palestine is
+cultivated for a considerable distance around Jerusalem. The soil is light
+and stony, yet appears to yield a good return for the little labor
+bestowed upon it.
+
+Crossing the southern flank of Mount Olivet, in half an hour we reached
+the village of Bethany, hanging on the side of the hill. It is a miserable
+cluster of Arab huts, with not a building which appears to be more than a
+century old. The Grotto of Lazarus is here shown, and, of course, we
+stopped to see it. It belongs to an old Mussulman, who came out of his
+house with a piece of waxed rope, to light us down. An aperture opens from
+the roadside into the hill, and there is barely room enough for a person
+to enter. Descending about twenty steps at a sharp angle, we landed in a
+small, damp vault, with an opening in the floor, communicating with a
+short passage below. The vault was undoubtedly excavated for sepulchral
+purposes, and the bodies were probably deposited (as in many Egyptian
+tombs) in the pit under it. Our guide, however, pointed to a square mass
+of masonry in one corner as the tomb of Lazarus, whose body, he informed
+us, was still walled up there. There was an arch in the side of the vault,
+once leading to other chambers, but now closed up, and the guide stated
+that seventy-four Prophets were interred therein. There seems to be no
+doubt that the present Arab village occupies the site of Bethany; and if
+it could be proved that this pit existed at the beginning of the Christian
+Era, and there never had been any other, we might accept it as the tomb of
+Lazarus. On the crest of a high hill, over against Bethany, is an Arab
+village on the site of Bethpage.
+
+We descended into the valley of a winter stream, now filled with patches
+of sparse wheat, just beginning to ripen. The mountains grew more bleak
+and desolate as we advanced, and as there is a regular descent in the
+several ranges over which one must pass, the distant hills of the lands of
+Moab and Ammon were always in sight, rising like a high, blue wall against
+the sky. The Dead Sea is 4,000 feet below Jerusalem, but the general slope
+of the intervening district is so regular that from the spires of the
+city, and the Mount of Olives, one can look down directly upon its waters.
+This deceived me as to the actual distance, and I could scarcely credit
+the assertion of our Arab escort, that it would require six hours to reach
+it. After we had ridden nearly two hours, we left the Jericho road,
+sending Mustapha and a staunch old Arab direct to our resting-place for
+the night, in the Valley of the Jordan. The two mounted Bedouins
+accompanied us across the rugged mountains lying between us and the Dead
+Sea.
+
+At first, we took the way to the Convent of Mar Saba, following the course
+of the Brook Kedron down the Wady en-Nar (Valley of Fire). In half an hour
+more we reached two large tanks, hewn out under the base of a limestone
+cliff, and nearly filled with rain. The surface was covered with a
+greenish vegetable scum, and three wild and dirty Arabs of the hills were
+washing themselves in the principal one. Our Bedouins immediately
+dismounted and followed their example, and after we had taken some
+refreshment, we had the satisfaction of filling our water-jug from the
+same sweet pool. After this, we left the San Saba road, and mounted the
+height east of the valley. From that point, all signs of cultivation and
+habitation disappeared. The mountains were grim, bare, and frightfully
+rugged. The scanty grass, coaxed into life by the winter rains, was
+already scorched out of all greenness; some bunches of wild sage,
+gnaphalium, and other hardy aromatic herbs spotted the yellow soil, and in
+sheltered places the scarlet poppies burned like coals of fire among the
+rifts of the gray limestone rock. Our track kept along the higher ridges
+and crests of the hills, between the glens and gorges which sank on either
+hand to a dizzy depth below, and were so steep as to be almost
+inaccessible. The region is so scarred, gashed and torn, that no work of
+man's hand can save it from perpetual desolation. It is a wilderness more
+hopeless than the Desert. If I were left alone in the midst of it, I
+should lie down and await death, without thought or hope of rescue.
+
+The character of the day was peculiarly suited to enhance the impression
+of such scenery. Though there were no clouds, the sun was invisible: as
+far as we could see, beyond the Jordan, and away southward to the
+mountains of Moab and the cliffs of Engaddi, the whole country was covered
+as with the smoke of a furnace; and the furious sirocco, that threatened
+to topple us down the gulfs yawning on either hand, had no coolness on its
+wings. The horses were sure-footed, but now and then a gust would come
+that made them and us strain against it, to avoid being dashed against the
+rock on one side, or hurled off the brink on the other. The atmosphere was
+painfully oppressive, and by and by a dogged silence took possession of
+our party. After passing a lofty peak which Francois called Djebel Nuttar,
+the Mountain of Rain, we came to a large Moslem building, situated on a
+bleak eminence, overlooking part of the valley of the Jordan. This is the
+tomb called Nebbee Moussa by the Arabs, and believed by them to stand
+upon the spot where Moses died. We halted at the gate, but no one came to
+admit us, though my companion thought he saw a man's head at one of the
+apertures in the wall. Arab tradition here is as much at fault as
+Christian tradition in many other places. The true Nebo is somewhere in
+the chain of Pisgah; and though, probably, I saw it, and all see it who go
+down to the Jordan, yet "no man knoweth its place unto this day."
+
+Beyond Nebbee Moussa, we came out upon the last heights overlooking the
+Dead Sea, though several miles of low hills remained to be passed. The
+head of the sea was visible as far as the Ras-el-Feshka on the west; and
+the hot fountains of Callirhoe on the eastern shore. Farther than this,
+all was vapor and darkness. The water was a soft, deep purple hue,
+brightening into blue. Our road led down what seemed a vast sloping
+causeway from the mountains, between two ravines, walled by cliffs several
+hundred feet in height. It gradually flattened into a plain, covered with
+a white, saline incrustation, and grown with clumps of sour willow,
+tamarisk, and other shrubs, among which I looked in vain for the osher, or
+Dead Sea apple. The plants appeared as if smitten with leprosy; but there
+were some flowers growing almost to the margin of the sea. We reached the
+shore about 2 P.M. The heat by this time was most severe, and the air so
+dense as to occasion pains in my ears. The Dead Sea is 1,300 feet below
+the Mediterranean, and without doubt the lowest part of the earth's
+surface. I attribute the oppression I felt to this fact and to the
+sultriness of the day, rather than to any exhalation from the sea itself.
+Francois remarked, however, that had the wind--which by this time was
+veering round to the north-east--blown from the south, we could scarcely
+have endured it. The sea resembles a great cauldron, sunk between
+mountains from three to four thousand feet in height; and probably we did
+not experience more than a tithe of the summer heat.
+
+I proposed a bath, for the sake of experiment, but Francois endeavored to
+dissuade us. He had tried it, and nothing could be more disagreeable; we
+risked getting a fever, and, besides, there were four hours of dangerous
+travel yet before us. But by this time we were half undressed, and soon
+were floating on the clear bituminous waves. The beach was fine gravel and
+shelved gradually down. I kept my turban on my head, and was careful to
+avoid touching the water with my face. The sea was moderately warm and
+gratefully soft and soothing to the skin. It was impossible to sink; and
+even while swimming, the body rose half out of the water. I should think
+it possible to dive for a short distance, but prefer that some one else
+would try the experiment. With a log of wood for a pillow, one might sleep
+as on one of the patent mattresses. The taste of the water is salty and
+pungent, and stings the tongue like saltpetre. We were obliged to dress in
+all haste, without even wiping off the detestable liquid; yet I
+experienced very little of that discomfort which most travellers have
+remarked. Where the skin had been previously bruised, there was a slight
+smarting sensation, and my body felt clammy and glutinous, but the bath
+was rather refreshing than otherwise.
+
+We turned our horses' heads towards the Jordan, and rode on over a dry,
+barren plain. The two Bedouins at first dashed ahead at full gallop,
+uttering cries, and whirling their long guns in the air. The dust they
+raised was blown in our faces, and contained so much salt that my eyes
+began to smart painfully. Thereupon I followed them at an equal rate of
+speed, and we left a long cloud of the accursed soil whirling behind us.
+Presently, however, they fell to the rear, and continued to keep at some
+distance from us. The reason of this was soon explained. The path turned
+eastward, and we already saw a line of dusky green winding through the
+wilderness. This was the Jordan, and the mountains beyond, the home of
+robber Arabs, were close at hand. Those robbers frequently cross the river
+and conceal themselves behind the sand-hills on this side. Our brave
+escort was, therefore, inclined to put us forward as a forlorn-hope, and
+secure their own retreat in case of an attack. But as we were all well
+armed, and had never considered their attendance as anything more than a
+genteel way of buying them off from robbing us, we allowed them to lag as
+much as they chose. Finally, as we approached the Pilgrims' Ford, one of
+them took his station at some distance from the river, on the top of a
+mound, while the other got behind some trees near at hand; in order, as
+they said, to watch the opposite hills, and alarm us whenever they should
+see any of the Beni Sukrs, or the Beni Adwams, or the Tyakh, coming down
+upon us.
+
+The Jordan at this point will not average more than ten yards in breadth.
+It flows at the bottom of a gully about fifteen feet deep, which traverses
+the broad valley in a most tortuous course. The water has a white, clayey
+hue, and is very swift. The changes of the current have formed islands and
+beds of soil here and there, which are covered with a dense growth of ash,
+poplar, willow, and tamarisk trees. The banks of the river are bordered
+with thickets, now overgrown with wild vines, and fragrant with flowering
+plants. Birds sing continually in the cool, dark coverts of the trees. I
+found a singular charm in the wild, lonely, luxuriant banks, the tangled
+undergrowth, and the rapid, brawling course of the sacred stream, as it
+slipped in sight and out of sight among the trees. It is almost impossible
+to reach the water at any other point than the Ford of the Pilgrims, the
+supposed locality of the passage of the Israelites and the baptism of
+Christ. The plain near it is still blackened by the camp-fires of the ten
+thousand pilgrims who went down from Jerusalem three weeks ago, to bathe.
+We tied our horses to the trees, and prepared to follow their example,
+which was necessary, if only to wash off the iniquitous slime of the Dead
+Sea. Francois, in the meantime, filled two tin flasks from the stream and
+stowed them in the saddle-bags. The current was so swift, that one could
+not venture far without the risk of being carried away; but I succeeded in
+obtaining a complete and most refreshing immersion. The taint of Gomorrah
+was not entirely washed away, but I rode off with as great a sense of
+relief as if the baptism had been a moral one, as well, and had purified
+me from sin.
+
+We rode for nearly two hours, in a north-west direction, to the Bedouin
+village of Rihah, near the site of ancient Jericho. Before reaching it,
+the gray salt waste vanishes, and the soil is covered with grass and
+herbs. The barren character of the first region is evidently owing to
+deposits from the vapors of the Dead Sea, as they are blown over the plain
+by the south wind. The channels of streams around Jericho are filled with
+nebbuk trees, the fruit of which is just ripening. It is apparently
+indigenous, and grows more luxuriantly than on the White Nile. It is a
+variety of the _rhamnus_, and is set down by botanists as the Spina
+Christi, of which the Saviour's mock crown of thorns was made. I see no
+reason to doubt this, as the twigs are long and pliant, and armed with
+small, though most cruel, thorns. I had to pay for gathering some of the
+fruit, with a torn dress and bleeding fingers. The little apples which it
+bears are slightly acid and excellent for alleviating thirst. I also
+noticed on the plain a variety of the nightshade with large berries of a
+golden color. The spring flowers, so plentiful now in all other parts of
+Palestine, have already disappeared from the Valley of the Jordan.
+
+Rihah is a vile little village of tents and mud-huts, and the only relic
+of antiquity near it is a square tower, which may possibly be of the time
+of Herod. There are a few gardens in the place, and a grove of superb
+fig-trees. We found our tent already pitched beside a rill which issues
+from the Fountain of Elisha. The evening was very sultry, and the
+musquitoes gave us no rest. We purchased some milk from an old man who
+came to the tent, but such was his mistrust of us that he refused to let
+us keep the earthen vessel containing it until morning. As we had already
+paid the money to his son, we would not let him take the milk away until
+he had brought the money back. He then took a dagger from his waist and
+threw it before us as security, while he carried off the vessel and
+returned the price. I have frequently seen the same mistrustful spirit
+exhibited in Egypt. Our two Bedouins, to whom I gave some tobacco in the
+evening, manifested their gratitude by stealing the remainder of our stock
+during the night.
+
+This morning we followed the stream to its source, the Fountain of
+Elisha, so called as being probably that healed by the Prophet. If so, the
+healing was scarcely complete. The water, which gushes up strong and free
+at the foot of a rocky mound, is warm and slightly brackish. It spreads
+into a shallow pool, shaded by a fine sycamore tree. Just below, there are
+some remains of old walls on both sides, and the stream goes roaring away
+through a rank jungle of canes fifteen feet in height. The precise site of
+Jericho, I believe, has not been fixed, but "the city of the palm trees,"
+as it was called, was probably on the plain, near some mounds which rise
+behind the Fountain. Here there are occasional traces of foundation walls,
+but so ruined as to give no clue to the date of their erection. Further
+towards the mountain there are some arches, which appear to be Saracenic.
+As we ascended again into the hill-country, I observed several traces of
+cisterns in the bottoms of ravines, which collect the rains. Herod, as is
+well known, built many such cisterns near Jericho, where he had a palace.
+On the first crest, to which we climbed, there is part of a Roman tower
+yet standing. The view, looking back over the valley of Jordan, is
+magnificent, extending from the Dead Sea to the mountains of Gilead,
+beyond the country of Ammon. I thought I could trace the point where the
+River Yabbok comes down from Mizpeh of Gilead to join the Jordan.
+
+The wilderness we now entered was fully as barren, but less rugged than
+that through which we passed yesterday. The path ascended along the brink
+of a deep gorge, at the bottom of which a little stream foamed over the
+rocks. The high, bleak summits towards which we were climbing, are
+considered by some Biblical geographers to be Mount Quarantana, the scene
+of Christ's fasting and temptation. After two hours we reached the ruins
+of a large khan or hostlery, under one of the peaks, which Francois stated
+to be the veritable "high mountain" whence the Devil pointed out all the
+kingdoms of the earth. There is a cave in the rock beside the road, which
+the superstitious look upon as the orifice out of which his Satanic
+Majesty issued. We met large numbers of Arab families, with their flocks,
+descending from the mountains to take up their summer residence near the
+Jordan. They were all on foot, except the young children and goats, which
+were stowed together on the backs of donkeys. The men were armed, and
+appeared to be of the same tribe as our escort, with whom they had a good
+understanding.
+
+The morning was cold and cloudy, and we hurried on over the hills to a
+fountain in the valley of the Brook Kedron, where we breakfasted. Before
+we had reached Bethany a rain came down, and the sky hung dark and
+lowering over Jerusalem, as we passed the crest of Mount Olivet. It still
+rains, and the filthy condition of the city exceeds anything I have seen,
+even in the Orient.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+The City of Christ.
+
+
+  Modern Jerusalem--The Site of the City--Mount Zion--Mount Moriah--The
+  Temple--the Valley of Jehosaphat--The Olives of Gethsemane--The Mount of
+  Olives--Moslem Tradition--Panorama from the Summit--The Interior of the
+  City--The Population--Missions and Missionaries--Christianity in
+  Jerusalem--Intolerance--The Jews of Jerusalem--The Face of Christ--The
+  Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Holy of Holies--The Sacred
+  Localities--Visions of Christ--The Mosque of Omar--The Holy Man of
+  Timbuctoo--Preparations for Departure.
+
+
+  "Cut off thy hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a
+  lamentation in high places; for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the
+  generation of his wrath."--Jeremiah vii. 29.
+
+
+  "Here pilgrims roam, that strayed so far to seek
+  In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heaven."
+
+  Milton.
+
+
+Jerusalem, _Monday, May_ 3, 1852.
+
+Since travel is becoming a necessary part of education, and a journey
+through the East is no longer attended with personal risk, Jerusalem will
+soon be as familiar a station on the grand tour as Paris or Naples. The
+task of describing it is already next to superfluous, so thoroughly has
+the topography of the city been laid down by the surveys of Robinson and
+the drawings of Roberts. There is little more left for Biblical research.
+The few places which can be authenticated are now generally accepted, and
+the many doubtful ones must always be the subjects of speculation and
+conjecture. There is no new light which can remove the cloud of
+uncertainties wherein one continually wanders. Yet, even rejecting all
+these with the most skeptical spirit, there still remains enough to make
+the place sacred in the eyes of every follower of Christ. The city stands
+on the ancient site; the Mount of Olives looks down upon it; the
+foundations of the Temple of Solomon are on Mount Moriah; the Pool of
+Siloam has still a cup of water for those who at noontide go down to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat; the ancient gate yet looketh towards Damascus, and
+of the Palace of Herod, there is a tower which Time and Turk and Crusader
+have spared.
+
+Jerusalem is built on the summit ridge of the hill-country of Palestine,
+just where it begins to slope eastward. Not half a mile from the Jaffa
+Gate, the waters run towards the Mediterranean. It is about 2,700 feet
+above the latter, and 4,000 feet above the Dead Sea, to which the descent
+is much more abrupt. The hill, or rather group of small mounts, on which
+Jerusalem stands, slants eastward to the brink of the Valley of
+Jehosaphat, and the Mount of Olives rises opposite, from the sides and
+summit of which, one sees the entire city spread out like a map before
+him. The Valley of Hinnon, the bed of which is on a much higher level than
+that of Jehosaphat, skirts the south-western and southern part of the
+walls, and drops into the latter valley at the foot of Mount Zion, the
+most southern of the mounts. The steep slope at the junction of the two
+valleys is the site of the city of the Jebusites, the most ancient part of
+Jerusalem. It is now covered with garden-terraces, the present wall
+crossing from Mount Zion on the south to Mount Moriah on the east. A
+little glen, anciently called the Tyropeon, divides the mounts, and winds
+through to the Damascus Gate, on the north, though from the height of the
+walls and the position of the city, the depression which it causes in the
+mass of buildings is not very perceptible, except from the latter point,
+Moriah is the lowest of the mounts, and hangs directly over the Valley of
+Jehosaphat. Its summit was built up by Solomon so as to form a
+quadrangular terrace, five hundred by three hundred yards in dimension.
+The lower courses of the grand wall, composed of huge blocks of gray
+conglomerate limestone, still remain, and there seems to be no doubt that
+they are of the time of Solomon. Some of the stones are of enormous size;
+I noticed several which were fifteen, and one twenty-two feet in length.
+The upper part of the wall was restored by Sultan Selim, the conqueror of
+Egypt, and the level of the terrace now supports the great Mosque of Omar,
+which stands on the very site of the temple. Except these foundation
+walls, the Damascus Gate and the Tower of Hippicus, there is nothing left
+of the ancient city. The length of the present wall of circumference is
+about two miles, but the circuit of Jerusalem, in the time of Herod, was
+probably double that distance.
+
+The best views of the city are from the Mount of Olives, and the hill
+north of it, whence Titus directed the siege which resulted in its total
+destruction. The Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon encamped on the same
+hill. My first walk after reaching here, was to the summit of the Mount of
+Olives. Not far from the hotel we came upon the Via Dolorosa, up which,
+according to Catholic tradition, Christ toiled with the cross upon his
+shoulders. I found it utterly impossible to imagine that I was walking in
+the same path, and preferred doubting the tradition. An arch is built
+across the street at the spot where they say he was shown to the populace.
+(_Ecce Homo_.) The passage is steep and rough, descending to St. Stephen's
+Gate by the Governor's Palace, which stands on the site of the house of
+Pontius Pilate. Here, in the wall forming the northern part of the
+foundation of the temple, there are some very fine remains of ancient
+workmanship. From the city wall, the ground descends abruptly to the
+Valley of Jehosaphat. The Turkish residents have their tombs on the city
+side, just under the terrace of the mosque, while thousands of Jews find a
+peculiar beatitude in having themselves interred on the opposite slope of
+the Mount of Olives, which is in some places quite covered with their
+crumbling tombstones. The bed of the Brook Kedron is now dry and stony. A
+sort of chapel, built in the bottom of the valley, is supposed by the
+Greeks to cover the tomb of the Virgin--a claim which the Latins consider
+absurd. Near this, at the very foot of the Mount of Olives, the latter
+sect have lately built a high stone wall around the Garden of Gethsemane,
+for the purpose, apparently, of protecting the five aged olives. I am
+ignorant of the grounds wherefore Gethsemane is placed here. Most
+travellers have given their faith to the spot, but Dr. Robinson, who is
+more reliable than any amount of mere tradition, does not coincide with
+them. The trees do not appear as ancient as some of those at the foot of
+Mount Carmel, which are supposed to date from the Roman colony established
+by Titus. Moreover, it is well known that at the time of the taking of
+Jerusalem by that Emperor, all the trees, for many miles around, were
+destroyed. The olive-trees, therefore, cannot be those under which Christ
+rested, even supposing this to be the true site of Gethseniane.
+
+The Mount of Olives is a steep and rugged hill, dominating over the city
+and the surrounding heights. It is still covered with olive orchards, and
+planted with patches of grain, which do not thrive well on the stony soil.
+On the summit is a mosque, with a minaret attached, which affords a grand
+panoramic view. As we reached it, the Chief of the College of Dervishes,
+in the court of the Mosque of Omar, came out with a number of attendants.
+He saluted us courteously, which would not have been the case had he been
+the Superior of the Latin Convent, and we Greek Monks. There were some
+Turkish ladies in the interior of the mosque, so that we could not gain
+admittance, and therefore did not see the rock containing the foot-prints
+of Christ, who, according to Moslem tradition, ascended to heaven from
+this spot. The Mohammedans, it may not be generally known, accept the
+history of Christ, except his crucifixion, believing that he passed to
+heaven without death, another person being crucified in his stead. They
+call him the _Roh-Allah,_ or Spirit of God, and consider him, after
+Mahomet, as the holiest of the Prophets.
+
+We ascended to the gallery of the minaret. The city lay opposite, so
+fairly spread out to our view that almost every house might be separately
+distinguished. It is a mass of gray buildings, with dome-roofs, and but
+for the mosques of Omar and El Aksa, with the courts and galleries around
+them, would be exceedingly tame in appearance. The only other prominent
+points are the towers of the Holy Sepulchre, the citadel, enclosing
+Herod's Tower, and the mosque on mount Zion. The Turkish wall, with its
+sharp angles, its square bastions, and the long, embrasured lines of its
+parapet, is the most striking feature of the view. Stony hills stretch
+away from the city on all sides, at present cheered with tracts of
+springing wheat, but later in the season, brown and desolate. In the
+south, the convent of St. Elias is visible, and part of the little town of
+Bethlehem. I passed to the eastern side of the gallery, and looking
+thence, deep down among the sterile mountains, beheld a long sheet of blue
+water, its southern extremity vanishing in a hot, sulphury haze. The
+mountains of Ammon and Moab, which formed the background of my first view
+of Jerusalem, leaned like a vast wall against the sky, beyond the
+mysterious sea and the broad valley of the Jordan. The great depression of
+this valley below the level of the Mediterranean gives it a most
+remarkable character. It appears even deeper than is actually the case,
+and resembles an enormous chasm or moat, separating two different regions
+of the earth. The _khamseen_ was blowing from the south, from out the
+deserts of Edom, and threw its veil of fiery vapor over the landscape. The
+muezzin pointed out to me the location of Jericho, of Kerak in Moab, and
+Es-Salt in the country of Ammon. Ere long the shadow of the minaret
+denoted noon, and, placing his hands on both sides of his mouth, he cried
+out, first on the South side, towards Mecca, and then to the West, and
+North, and East: "God is great: there is no God but God, and Mohammed is
+His Prophet! Let us prostrate ourselves before Him: and to Him alone be
+the glory!"
+
+Jerusalem, internally, gives no impression but that of filth, ruin,
+poverty, and degradation. There are two or three streets in the western or
+higher portion of the city which are tolerably clean, but all the others,
+to the very gates of the Holy Sepulchre, are channels of pestilence. The
+Jewish Quarter, which is the largest, so sickened and disgusted me, that I
+should rather go the whole round of the city walls than pass through it a
+second time. The bazaars are poor, compared with those of other Oriental
+cities of the same size, and the principal trade seems to be in rosaries,
+both Turkish and Christian, crosses, seals, amulets, and pieces of the
+Holy Sepulchre. The population, which may possibly reach 20,000, is
+apparently Jewish, for the most part; at least, I have been principally
+struck with the Hebrew face, in my walks. The number of Jews has increased
+considerably within a few years, and there is also quite a number who,
+having been converted to Protestantism, were brought hither at the expense
+of English missionary societies for the purpose of forming a Protestant
+community. Two of the hotels are kept by families of this class. It is
+estimated that each member of the community has cost the Mission about
+L4,500: a sum which would have Christianized tenfold the number of English
+heathen. The Mission, however, is kept up by its patrons, as a sort of
+religious luxury. The English have lately built a very handsome church
+within the walls, and the Rev. Dr. Gobat, well known by his missionary
+labors in Abyssinia, now has the title of Bishop of Jerusalem. A friend of
+his in Central Africa gave me a letter of introduction for him, and I am
+quite disappointed in finding him absent. Dr. Barclay, of Virginia, a most
+worthy man in every respect, is at the head of the American Mission here.
+There is, besides, what is called the "American Colony," at the village of
+Artos, near Bethlehem: a little community of religious enthusiasts, whose
+experiments in cultivation have met with remarkable success, and are much
+spoken of at present.
+
+Whatever good the various missions here may, in time, accomplish (at
+present, it does not amount to much), Jerusalem is the last place in the
+world where an intelligent heathen would be converted to Christianity.
+Were I cast here, ignorant of any religion, and were I to compare the
+lives and practices of the different sects as the means of making my
+choice--in short, to judge of each faith by the conduct of its
+professors--I should at once turn Mussulman. When you consider that in the
+Holy Sepulchre there are _nineteen_ chapels, each belonging to a different
+sect, calling itself Christian, and that a Turkish police is always
+stationed there to prevent the bloody quarrels which often ensue between
+them, you may judge how those who call themselves followers of the Prince
+of Peace practice the pure faith he sought to establish. Between the Greek
+and Latin churches, especially, there is a deadly feud, and their
+contentions are a scandal, not only to the few Christians here, but to the
+Moslems themselves. I believe there is a sort of truce at present, owing
+to the settlement of some of the disputes--as, for instance, the
+restoration of the silver star, which the Greeks stole from the shrine of
+the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The Latins, however, not long since,
+demolished, _vi et armis_, a chapel which the Greeks commenced building on
+Mount Zion. But, if the employment of material weapons has been abandoned
+for the time, there is none the less a war of words and of sounds still
+going on. Go into the Holy Sepulchre, when mass is being celebrated, and
+you can scarcely endure the din. No sooner does the Greek choir begin its
+shrill chant, than the Latins fly to the assault. They have an organ, and
+terribly does that organ strain its bellows and labor its pipes to drown
+the rival singing. You think the Latins will carry the day, when suddenly
+the cymbals of the Abyssinians strike in with harsh brazen clang, and, for
+the moment, triumph. Then there are Copts, and Maronites, and Armenians,
+and I know not how many other sects, who must have their share; and the
+service that should be a many-toned harmony pervaded by one grand spirit
+of devotion, becomes a discordant orgie, befitting the rites of Belial.
+
+A long time ago--I do not know the precise number of years--the Sultan
+granted a firman, in answer to the application of both Jews and
+Christians, allowing the members of each sect to put to death any person
+belonging to the other sect, who should be found inside of their churches
+or synagogues. The firman has never been recalled, though in every place
+but Jerusalem it remains a dead letter. Here, although the Jews freely
+permit Christians to enter their synagogue, a Jew who should enter the
+Holy Sepulchre would be lucky if he escaped with his life. Not long since,
+an English gentleman, who was taken by the monks for a Jew, was so
+severely beaten that he was confined to his bed for two months. What worse
+than scandal, what abomination, that the spot looked upon by so many
+Christians as the most awfully sacred on earth, should be the scene of
+such brutish intolerance! I never pass the group of Turkish officers,
+quietly smoking their long pipes and sipping their coffee within the
+vestibule of the Church, without a feeling of humiliation. Worse than the
+money-changers whom Christ scourged out of the Temple, the guardians of
+this edifice make use of His crucifixion and resurrection as a means of
+gain. You may buy a piece of the stone covering the Holy Sepulchre, duly
+certified by the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, for about $7. At Bethlehem,
+which I visited this morning, the Latin monk who showed us the manger, the
+pit where 12,000 innocents were buried, and other things, had much less to
+say of the sacredness or authenticity of the place, than of the injustice
+of allowing the Greeks a share in its possession.
+
+The native Jewish families in Jerusalem, as well as those in other parts
+of Palestine, present a marked difference to the Jews of Europe and
+America. They possess the same physical characteristics--the dark, oblong
+eye, the prominent nose, the strongly-marked cheek and jaw--but in the
+latter, these traits have become harsh and coarse. Centuries devoted to
+the lowest and most debasing forms of traffic, with the endurance of
+persecution and contumely, have greatly changed and vulgarized the
+appearance of the race. But the Jews of the Holy City still retain a noble
+beauty, which proved to my mind their descent from the ancient princely
+houses of Israel The forehead is loftier, the eye larger and more frank in
+its expression, the nose more delicate in its prominence, and the face a
+purer oval. I have remarked the same distinction in the countenances of
+those Jewish families of Europe, whose members have devoted themselves to
+Art or Literature. Mendelssohn's was a face that might have belonged to
+the House of David.
+
+On the evening of my arrival in the city, as I set out to walk through the
+bazaars, I encountered a native Jew, whose face will haunt me for the rest
+of my life. I was sauntering slowly along, asking myself "Is this
+Jerusalem?" when, lifting my eyes, they met those of Christ! It was the
+very face which Raphael has painted--the traditional features of the
+Saviour, as they are recognised and accepted by all Christendom. The
+waving brown hair, partly hidden by a Jewish cap, fell clustering about
+the ears; the face was the most perfect oval, and almost feminine in the
+purity of its outline; the serene, child-like mouth was shaded with a
+light moustache, and a silky brown beard clothed the chin; but the
+eyes--shall I ever look into such orbs again? Large, dark, unfathomable,
+they beamed with an expression of divine love and divine sorrow, such as I
+never before saw in human face. The man had just emerged from a dark
+archway, and the golden glow of the sunset, reflected from a white wall
+above, fell upon his face. Perhaps it was this transfiguration which made
+his beauty so unearthly; but, during the moment that I saw him, he was to
+me a revelation of the Saviour. There are still miracles in the Land of
+Judah. As the dusk gathered in the deep streets, I could see nothing but
+the ineffable sweetness and benignity of that countenance, and my friend
+was not a little astonished, if not shocked, when I said to him, with the
+earnestness of belief, on my return: "I have just seen Christ."
+
+I made the round of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday, while the monks were
+celebrating the festival of the Invention of the Cross, in the chapel of
+the Empress Helena. As the finding of the cross by the Empress is almost
+the only authority for the places inclosed within the Holy Sepulchre, I
+went there inclined to doubt their authenticity, and came away with my
+doubt vastly strengthened. The building is a confused labyrinth of
+chapels, choirs, shrines, staircases, and vaults--without any definite
+plan or any architectural beauty, though very rich in parts and full of
+picturesque effects. Golden lamps continually burn before the sacred
+places, and you rarely visit the church without seeing some procession of
+monks, with crosses, censers, and tapers, threading the shadowy passages,
+from shrine to shrine It is astonishing how many localities are assembled
+under one roof. At first, you are shown, the stone on which Christ rested
+from the burden of the cross; then, the place where the soldiers cast lots
+for His garments, both of them adjoining the Sepulchre. After seeing this,
+you are taken to the Pillar of Flagellation; the stocks; the place of
+crowning with thorns; the spot where He met His mother; the cave where the
+Empress Helena found the cross; and, lastly, the summit of Mount Calvary.
+The Sepulchre is a small marble building in the centre of the church. We
+removed our shoes at the entrance, and were taken by a Greek monk, first
+into a sort of ante-chamber, lighted with golden lamps, and having in the
+centre, inclosed in a case of marble, the stone on which the angel sat.
+Stooping through a low door, we entered the Sepulchre itself. Forty lamps
+of gold burn unceasingly above the white marble slab, which, as the monks
+say, protects the stone whereon the body of Christ was laid. As we again
+emerged, our guide led us up a flight of steps to a second story, in which
+stood a shrine, literally blazing with gold. Kneeling on the marble floor,
+he removed a golden shield, and showed us the hole in the rock of Calvary,
+where the cross was planted. Close beside it was the fissure produced by
+the earthquake which followed the Crucifixion. But, to my eyes, aided by
+the light of the dim wax taper, it was no violent rupture, such as an
+earthquake would produce, and the rock did not appear to be the same as
+that of which Jerusalem is built. As we turned to leave, a monk appeared
+with a bowl of sacred rose-water, which he sprinkled on our hands,
+bestowing a double portion on a rosary of sandal-wood which I carried But
+it was a Mohammedan rosary, brought from Mecca, and containing the sacred
+number of ninety-nine beads.
+
+I have not space here to state all the arguments for and against the
+localities in the Holy Sepulchre, I came to the conclusion that none of
+them were authentic, and am glad to have the concurrence of such
+distinguished authority as Dr. Robinson. So far from this being a matter
+of regret, I, for one, rejoice that those sacred spots are lost to the
+world. Christianity does not need them, and they are spared a daily
+profanation in the name of religion. We know that Christ has walked on the
+Mount of Olives, and gone down to the Pool of Siloam, and tarried in
+Bethany; we know that here, within the circuit of our vision, He has
+suffered agony and death, and that from this little point went out all the
+light that has made the world greater and happier and better in its later
+than in its earlier days.
+
+Yet, I must frankly confess, in wandering through this city--revered
+alike by Christians, Jews and Turks as one of the holiest in the world--I
+have been reminded of Christ, the Man, rather, than of Christ, the God. In
+the glory which overhangs Palestine afar off, we imagine emotions which
+never come, when we tread the soil and walk over the hallowed sites. As I
+toiled up the Mount of Olives, in the very footsteps of Christ, panting
+with the heat and the difficult ascent, I found it utterly impossible to
+conceive that the Deity, in human form, had walked there before me. And
+even at night, as I walk on the terraced roof, while the moon, "the balmy
+moon of blessed Israel," restores the Jerusalem of olden days to my
+imagination, the Saviour who then haunts my thoughts is the Man Jesus, in
+those moments of trial when He felt the weaknesses of our common humanity;
+in that agony of struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, in that still more
+bitter cry of human doubt and human appeal from the cross: "My God, my
+God, why hast Thou forsaken me!" Yet there is no reproach for this
+conception of the character of Christ. Better the divinely-inspired Man,
+the purest and most perfect of His race, the pattern and type of all that
+is good and holy in Humanity, than the Deity for whose intercession we
+pray, while we trample His teachings under our feet. It would be well for
+many Christian sects, did they keep more constantly before their eyes the
+sublime humanity of Christ. How much bitter intolerance and persecution
+might be spared the world, if, instead of simply adoring Him as a Divine
+Mediator, they would strive to walk the ways He trod on earth. But
+Christianity is still undeveloped, and there is yet no sect which
+represents its fall and perfect spirit.
+
+It is my misfortune if I give offence by these remarks. I cannot assume
+emotions I do not feel, and must describe Jerusalem as I found it. Since
+being here, I have read the accounts of several travellers, and in many
+cases the devotional rhapsodies--the ecstacies of awe and reverence--in
+which they indulge, strike me as forced and affected. The pious writers
+have described what was expected of them, not what they found. It was
+partly from reading such accounts that my anticipations were raised too
+high, for the view of the city from the Jaffa road and the panorama from
+the Mount of Olives are the only things wherein I have been pleasantly
+disappointed.
+
+By far the most interesting relic left to the city is the foundation wall
+of Solomon's Temple. The Mosque of Omar, according to the accounts of the
+Turks, and Mr. Gather wood's examination, rests on immense vaults, which
+are believed to be the substructions of the Temple itself. Under the dome
+of the mosque there is a large mass of natural rock, revered by the
+Moslems as that from which Mahomet mounted the beast Borak when he visited
+the Seven Heavens, and believed by Mr. Catherwood to have served as part
+of the foundation of the Holy of Holies. No Christian is allowed to enter
+the mosque, or even its enclosure, on penalty of death, and even the
+firman of the Sultan has failed to obtain admission for a Frank. I have
+been strongly tempted to make the attempt in my Egyptian dress, which
+happens to resemble that of a mollah or Moslem priest, but the Dervishes
+in the adjoining college have sharp eyes, and my pronunciation of Arabic
+would betray me in case I was accosted. I even went so far as to buy a
+string of the large beads usually carried by a mollah, but unluckily I do
+not know the Moslem form of prayer, or I might carry out the plan under
+the guise of religious abstraction. This morning we succeeded in getting a
+nearer view of the mosque from the roof of the Governor's palace.
+Francois, by assuming the character of a Turkish _cawass,_ gained us
+admission. The roof overlooks the entire enclosure of the Haram, and gives
+a complete view of the exterior of the mosque and the paved court
+surrounding it. There is no regularity in the style of the buildings in
+the enclosure, but the general effect is highly picturesque. The great
+dome of the mosque is the grandest in all the Orient, but the body of the
+edifice, made to resemble an octagonal tent, and covered with blue and
+white tiles, is not high enough to do it justice. The first court is paved
+with marble, and has four porticoes, each of five light Saracenic arches,
+opening into the green park, which occupies the rest of the terrace. This
+park is studded with cypress and fig trees, and dotted all over with the
+tombs of shekhs. As we were looking down on the spacious area, behold! who
+should come along but Shekh Mohammed Senoosee, the holy man of Timbuctoo,
+who had laid off his scarlet robe and donned a green one. I called down to
+him, whereupon he looked up and recognised us. For this reason I regret
+our departure from Jerusalem, as I am sure a little persuasion would
+induce the holy man to accompany me within the mosque.
+
+We leave to-morrow for Damascus, by way of Nazareth and Tiberius. My
+original plan was to have gone to Djerash, the ancient Geraza, in the land
+of Gilead, and thence to Bozrah, in Djebel Hauaran. But Djebel Adjeloun,
+as the country about Djerash is called, is under a powerful Bedouin shekh,
+named Abd-el Azeez, and without an escort from him, which involves
+considerable delay and a fee of $150, it would be impossible to make the
+journey. We are therefore restricted to the ordinary route, and in case we
+should meet with any difficulty by the way, Mr. Smith, the American
+Consul, who is now here, has kindly procured us a firman from the Pasha of
+Jerusalem. All the travellers here are making preparations to leave, but
+there are still two parties in the Desert.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI.
+
+The Hill-Country of Palestine.
+
+
+  Leaving Jerusalem--The Tombs of the Kings--El Bireh--The
+  Hill-Country--First View of Mount Hermon--The Tomb of Joseph--Ebal and
+  Gerizim--The Gardens of Nablous--The Samaritans--The Sacred Book--A
+  Scene in the Synagogue--Mentoi and Telemachus--Ride to Samaria--The
+  Ruins of Sebaste--Scriptural Landscapes--Halt at Genin--The Plain of
+  Esdraelon--Palestine and California--The Hills of
+  Nazareth--Accident--Fra Joachim--The Church of the Virgin--The Shrine of
+  the Annunciation--The Holy Places.
+
+
+  "Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song,
+  Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng:
+  In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,
+  On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee!"
+
+  J. G. Whittier.
+
+
+Latin Convent, Nazareth, _Friday May_ 7, 1852.
+
+We left Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate, because within a few months neither
+travellers nor baggage are allowed to pass the Damascus Gate, on account
+of smuggling operations having been carried on there. Not far from the
+city wall there is a superb terebinth tree, now in the full glory of its
+shining green leaves. It appears to be bathed in a perpetual dew; the
+rounded masses of foliage sparkle and glitter in the light, and the great
+spreading boughs flood the turf below with a deluge of delicious shade. A
+number of persons were reclining on the grass under it, and one of them, a
+very handsome Christian boy, spoke to us in Italian and English. I
+scarcely remember a brighter and purer day than that of our departure.
+The sky was a sheet of spotless blue; every rift and scar of the distant
+hills was retouched with a firmer pencil, and all the outlines, blurred
+away by the haze of the previous few days, were restored with wonderful
+distinctness. The temperature was hot, but not sultry, and the air we
+breathed was an elixir of immortality.
+
+Through a luxuriant olive grove we reached the Tombs of the Kings,
+situated in a small valley to the north of the city. Part of the valley,
+if not the whole of it, has been formed by quarrying away the crags of
+marble and conglomerate limestone for building the city. Near the edge of
+the low cliffs overhanging it, there are some illustrations of the ancient
+mode of cutting stone, which, as well as the custom of excavating tombs in
+the rock, was evidently borrowed from Egypt. The upper surface of the
+rocks, was first made smooth, after which the blocks were mapped out and
+cut apart by grooves chiselled between them. I visited four or five tombs,
+each of which had a sort of vestibule or open portico in front. The door
+was low, and the chambers which I entered, small and black, without
+sculptures of any kind. The tombs bear some resemblance in their general
+plan to those of Thebes, except that they are without ornaments, either
+sculptured or painted. There are fragments of sarcophagi in some of them.
+On the southern side of the valley is a large quarry, evidently worked for
+marble, as the blocks have been cut out from below, leaving a large
+overhanging mass, part of which has broken off and fallen down. Some
+pieces which I picked up were of a very fine white marble, somewhat
+resembling that of Carrara. The opening of the quarry made a striking
+picture, the soft pink hue of the weather-stained rock contrasting
+exquisitely with the vivid green of the vines festooning the entrance.
+
+From the long hill beyond the Tombs, we took our last view of Jerusalem,
+far beyond whose walls I saw the Church of the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The
+Jewish synagogue on the top of the mountain called Nebbee Samwil, the
+highest peak in Palestine, was visible at some distance to the west.
+Notwithstanding its sanctity, I felt little regret at leaving Jerusalem,
+and cheerfully took the rough road northward, over the stony hills. There
+were few habitations in sight, yet the hill-sides were cultivated,
+wherever it was possible for anything to grow. The wheat was just coming
+into head, and the people were at work, planting maize. After four hours'
+ride, we reached El Bireh, a little village on a hill, with the ruins of a
+convent and a large khan. The place takes its name from a fountain of
+excellent water, beside which we found our tents already pitched. In the
+evening, two Englishmen, an ancient Mentor, with a wild young Telemachus
+in charge, arrived, and camped near us. The night was calm and cool, and
+the full moon poured a flood of light over the bare and silent hills.
+
+We rose long before sunrise, and rode off in the brilliant morning--the
+sky unstained by a speck of vapor. In the valley, beyond El Bireh, the
+husbandmen were already at their ploughs, and the village boys were on
+their way to the uncultured parts of the hills, with their flocks of sheep
+and goats. The valley terminated in a deep gorge, with perpendicular walls
+of rock on either side. Our road mounted the hill on the eastern side, and
+followed the brink of the precipice through the pass, where an enchanting
+landscape opened upon us. The village of Yebrood crowned a hill which rose
+opposite, and the mountain slopes leaning towards it on all sides were
+covered with orchards of fig trees; and either rustling with wheat or
+cleanly ploughed for maize. The soil was a dark brown loam, and very rich.
+The stones have been laboriously built into terraces; and, even where
+heavy rocky boulders almost hid the soil, young fig and olive trees were
+planted in the crevices between them. I have never seen more thorough and
+patient cultivation. In the crystal of the morning air, the very hills
+laughed with plenty, and the whole landscape beamed with the signs of
+gladness on its countenance.
+
+The site of ancient Bethel was not far to the right of our road. Over
+hills laden with the olive, fig, and vine, we passed to Ain el-Haramiyeh,
+or the Fountain of the Bobbers. Here there are tombs cut in the rock on
+both sides of the valley. Over another ridge, we descended to a large,
+bowl-shaped valley, entirely covered with wheat, and opening eastward
+towards the Jordan. Thence to Nablous (the Shechem of the Old and Sychar
+of the New Testament) is four hours through a winding dell of the richest
+harvest land; On the way, we first caught sight of the snowy top of Mount
+Hermon, distant at least eighty miles in a straight line. Before reaching
+Nablous, I stopped to drink at a fountain of clear and sweet water, beside
+a square pile of masonry, upon which sat two Moslem dervishes. This, we
+were told, was the Tomb of Joseph, whose body, after having accompanied
+the Israelites in all their wanderings, was at last deposited near
+Shechem. There is less reason to doubt this spot than most of the sacred
+places of Palestine, for the reason that it rests, not on Christian, but
+on Jewish tradition. The wonderful tenacity with which the Jews cling to
+every record or memento of their early history, and the fact that from
+the time of Joseph a portion of them have always lingered near the spot,
+render it highly probable that the locality of a spot so sacred should
+have been preserved from generation to generation to the present time. It
+has been recently proposed to open this tomb, by digging under it from the
+side. If the body of Joseph was actually deposited here, there are, no
+doubt, some traces of it remaining. It must have been embalmed, according
+to the Egyptian custom, and placed in a coffin of the Indian sycamore, the
+wood of which is so nearly incorruptible, that thirty-five centuries would
+not suffice for its decomposition. The singular interest of such a
+discovery would certainly justify the experiment. Not far from the tomb is
+Jacob's Well, where Christ met the Woman of Samaria. This place is also
+considered as authentic, for the same reasons. If not wholly convincing to
+all, there is, at least, so much probability in them that one is freed
+from that painful coldness and incredulity with which he beholds the
+sacred shows of Jerusalem.
+
+Leaving the Tomb of Joseph, the road turned to the west, and entered the
+narrow pass between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. The former is a steep, barren
+peak, clothed with terraces of cactus, standing on the northern side of
+the pass. Mount Gerizim is cultivated nearly to the top, and is truly a
+mountain of blessing, compared with its neighbor. Through an orchard of
+grand old olive-trees, we reached Nablous, which presented a charming
+picture, with its long mass of white, dome-topped stone houses, stretching
+along the foot of Gerizim through a sea of bowery orchards. The bottom of
+the valley resembles some old garden run to waste. Abundant streams,
+poured from the generous heart of the Mount of Blessing, leap and gurgle
+with pleasant noises through thickets of orange, fig, and pomegranate,
+through bowers of roses and tangled masses of briars and wild vines. We
+halted in a grove of olives, and, after our tent was pitched, walked
+upward through the orchards to the Ras-el-Ain (Promontory of the
+Fountain), on the side of Mount Gerizim. A multitude of beggars sat at the
+city gate; and, as they continued to clamor after I had given sufficient
+alms, I paid them with "_Allah deelek_!"--(God give it to you!)--the
+Moslem's reply to such importunity--and they ceased in an instant. This
+exclamation, it seems, takes away from them the power of demanding a
+second time.
+
+From under the Ras-el-Ain gushes forth the Fountain of Honey, so called
+from the sweetness and purity of the water. We drank of it, and I found
+the taste very agreeable, but my companion declared that it had an
+unpleasant woolly flavor. When we climbed a little higher, we found that
+the true source from which the fountain is supplied was above, and that an
+Arab was washing a flock of sheep in it! We continued our walk along the
+side of the mountain to the other end of the city, through gardens of
+almond, apricot, prune, and walnut-trees, bound each to each by great
+vines, whose heavy arms they seemed barely able to support. The interior
+of the town is dark and filthy; but it has a long, busy bazaar extending
+its whole length, and a cafe, where we procured the best coffee in Syria.
+
+Nablous is noted for the existence of a small remnant of the ancient
+Samaritans. The stock has gradually dwindled away, and amounts to only
+forty families, containing little more than a hundred and fifty
+individuals. They live in a particular quarter of the city, and are
+easily distinguished from the other inhabitants by the cast of their
+features. After our guide, a native of Nablous, had pointed out three or
+four, I had no difficulty in recognising all the others we met. They have
+long, but not prominent noses, like the Jews; small, oblong eyes, narrow
+lips, and fair complexions, most of them having brown hair. They appear to
+be held in considerable obloquy by the Moslems. Our attendant, who was of
+the low class of Arabs, took the boys we met very unceremoniously by the
+head, calling out: "Here is another Samaritan!" He then conducted us to
+their synagogue, to see the celebrated Pentateuch, which is there
+preserved. We were taken to a small, open court, shaded by an
+apricot-tree, where the priest, an old man in a green robe and white
+turban, was seated in meditation. He had a long grey beard, and black
+eyes, that lighted up with a sudden expression of eager greed when we
+promised him backsheesh for a sight of the sacred book. He arose and took
+us into a sort of chapel, followed by a number of Samaritan boys. Kneeling
+down at a niche in the wall, he produced from behind a wooden case a piece
+of ragged parchment, written with Hebrew characters. But the guide was
+familiar with this deception, and rated him so soundly that, after a
+little hesitation, he laid the fragment away, and produced a large tin
+cylinder, covered with a piece of green satin embroidered in gold. The
+boys stooped down and reverently kissed the blazoned cover, before it was
+removed. The cylinder, sliding open by two rows of hinges, opened at the
+same time the parchment scroll, which was rolled at both ends. It was,
+indeed, a very ancient manuscript, and in remarkable preservation. The
+rents have been carefully repaired and the scroll neatly stitched upon
+another piece of parchment, covered on the outside with violet satin. The
+priest informed me that it was written by the son of Aaron; but this does
+not coincide with the fact that the Samaritan Pentateuch is different from
+that of the Jews. It is, however, no doubt one of the oldest parchment
+records in the world, and the Samaritans look upon it with unbounded faith
+and reverence. The Pentateuch, according to their version, contains their
+only form of religion. They reject everything else which the Old Testament
+contains. Three or four days ago was their grand feast of sacrifice, when
+they made a burnt offering of a lamb, on the top of Mount Gerizim. Within
+a short time, it is said they have shown some curiosity to become
+acquainted with the New Testament, and the High Priest sent to Jerusalem
+to procure Arabic copies.
+
+I asked one of the wild-eyed boys whether he could read the sacred book.
+"Oh, yes," said the priest, "all these boys can read it;" and the one I
+addressed immediately pulled a volume from his breast, and commenced
+reading in fluent Hebrew. It appeared to be a part of their church
+service, for both the priest and _boab_, or door-keeper, kept up a running
+series of responses, and occasionally the whole crowd shouted out some
+deep-mouthed word in chorus. The old man leaned forward with an expression
+as fixed and intense as if the text had become incarnate in him, following
+with his lips the sound of the boy's voice. It was a strange picture of
+religious enthusiasm, and was of itself sufficient to convince me of the
+legitimacy of the Samaritan's descent. When I rose to leave I gave him the
+promised fee, and a smaller one to the boy who read the service. This was
+the signal for a general attack from the door-keeper and all the boys who
+were present. They surrounded me with eyes sparkling with the desire of
+gain, kissed the border of my jacket, stroked my beard coaxingly with
+their hands, which they then kissed, and, crowding up with a boisterous
+show of affection, were about to fall on my neck in a heap, after the old
+Hebrew fashion. The priest, clamorous for more, followed with glowing
+face, and the whole group had a riotous and bacchanalian character, which
+I should never have imagined could spring from such a passion as avarice.
+
+On returning to our camp, we found Mentor and Telemachus arrived, but not
+on such friendly terms as their Greek prototypes. We were kept awake for a
+long time that night by their high words, and the first sound I heard the
+next morning came from their tent. Telemachus, I suspect, had found some
+island of Calypso, and did not relish the cold shock of the plunge into
+the sea, by which Mentor had forced him away. He insisted on returning to
+Jerusalem, but as Mentor would not allow him a horse, he had not the
+courage to try it on foot. After a series of altercations, in which he
+took a pistol to shoot the dragoman, and applied very profane terms to
+everybody in the company, his wrath dissolved into tears, and when we
+left, Mentor had decided to rest a day at Nablous, and let him recover
+from the effects of the storm.
+
+We rode down the beautiful valley, taking the road to Sebaste (Samaria),
+while our luggage-mules kept directly over the mountains to Jenin. Our
+path at first followed the course of the stream, between turfy banks and
+through luxuriant orchards. The whole country we overlooked was planted
+with olive-trees, and, except the very summits of the mountains, covered
+with grain-fields. For two hours our course was north-east, leading over
+the hills, and now and then dipping into beautiful dells. In one of these
+a large stream gushes from the earth in a full fountain, at the foot of a
+great olive-tree. The hill-side above it was a complete mass of foliage,
+crowned with the white walls of a Syrian village. Descending the valley,
+which is very deep, we came in sight of Samaria, situated on the summit of
+an isolated hill. The sanctuary of the ancient Christian church of St.
+John towers high above the mud walls of the modern village. Riding between
+olive-orchards and wheat-fields of glorious richness and beauty, we passed
+the remains of an acqueduct, and ascended the hill The ruins of the church
+occupy the eastern summit. Part of them have been converted into a mosque,
+which the Christian foot is not allowed to profane. The church, which is
+in the Byzantine style, is apparently of the time of the Crusaders. It had
+originally a central and two side-aisles, covered with groined Gothic
+vaults. The sanctuary is semi-circular, with a row of small arches,
+supported by double pillars. The church rests on the foundations of some
+much more ancient building--probably a temple belonging to the Roman
+city.
+
+Behind the modern village, the hill terminates in a long, elliptical
+mound, about one-third of a mile in length. We made the tour of it, and
+were surprised at finding a large number of columns, each of a single
+piece of marble. They had once formed a double colonnade, extending from
+the church to a gate on the western side of the summit. Our native guide
+said they had been covered with an arch, and constituted a long market or
+bazaar--a supposition in which he may be correct. From the gate, which is
+still distinctly marked, we overlooked several deep valleys to the west,
+and over them all, the blue horizon of the Mediterranean, south of
+Caesarea. On the northern side of the hill there are upwards of twenty more
+pillars standing, besides a number hurled down, and the remains of a
+quadrangular colonnade, on the side of the hill below. The total number of
+pillars on the summit cannot be less than one hundred, from twelve to
+eighteen feet in height. The hill is strewn, even to its base, with large
+hewn blocks and fragments of sculptured stone. The present name of the
+city was given to it by Herod, and it must have been at that time a most
+stately and beautiful place.
+
+We descended to a valley on the east, climbed a long ascent, and after
+crossing the broad shoulder of a mountain beyond, saw below us a landscape
+even more magnificent than that of Nablous. It was a great winding valley,
+its bottom rolling in waves of wheat and barley, while every hill-side, up
+to the bare rock, was mantled with groves of olive. The very summits which
+looked into this garden of Israel, were green with fragrant plants--wild
+thyme and sage, gnaphalium and camomile. Away to the west was the sea, and
+in the north-west the mountain chain of Carmel. We went down to the
+gardens and pasture-land, and stopped to rest at the Village of Geba,
+which hangs on the side of the mountain. A spring of whitish but delicious
+water gushed out of the soil, in the midst of a fig orchard. The women
+passed us, going back and forth with tall water-jars on their heads. Some
+herd-boys brought down a flock of black goats, and they were all given
+drink in a large wooden bowl. They were beautiful animals, with thick
+curved horns, white eyes, and ears a foot long. It was a truly Biblical
+picture in every feature.
+
+Beyond this valley we passed a circular basin, which has no outlet, so
+that in winter the bottom of it must be a lake. After winding among the
+hills an hour more, we came out upon the town of Jenin, a Turkish village,
+with a tall white minaret, at the head of the great plain of Esdraelon. It
+is supposed to be the ancient Jezreel, where the termagant Jezebel was
+thrown out of the window. We pitched our tent in a garden near the town,
+under a beautiful mulberry tree, and, as the place is in very bad repute,
+engaged a man to keep guard at night. An English family was robbed there
+two or three weeks ago. Our guard did his duty well, pacing back and
+forth, and occasionally grounding his musket to keep up his courage by the
+sound. In the evening, Francois caught a chameleon, a droll-looking little
+creature, which changed color in a marvellous manner.
+
+Our road, next day, lay directly across the Plain of Esdraelon, one of the
+richest districts in the world. It is now a green sea, covered with fields
+of wheat and barley, or great grazing tracts, on which multitudes of sheep
+and goats are wandering. In some respects it reminded me of the Valley of
+San Jose, and if I were to liken Palestine to any other country I have
+seen, it would be California. The climate and succession of the seasons
+are the same, the soil is very similar in quality, and the landscapes
+present the same general features. Here, in spring, the plains are covered
+with that deluge of floral bloom, which makes California seem a paradise.
+Here there are the same picturesque groves, the same rank fields of wild
+oats clothing the mountain-sides, the same aromatic herbs impregnating the
+air with balm, and above all, the same blue, cloudless days and dewless
+nights. While travelling here, I am constantly reminded of our new Syria
+on the Pacific.
+
+Towards noon, Mount Tabor separated itself from the chain of hills before
+us, and stood out singly, at the extremity of the plain. We watered our
+horses at a spring in a swamp, were some women were collected, beating
+with sticks the rushes they had gathered to make mats. After reaching the
+mountains on the northern side of the plain, an ascent of an hour and
+a-half, through a narrow glen, brought us to Nazareth, which is situated
+in a cul-de-sac, under the highest peaks of the range. As we were passing
+a rocky part of the road, Mr. Harrison's horse fell with him and severely
+injured his leg. We were fortunately near our destination, and on reaching
+the Latin Convent, Fra Joachim, to whose surgical abilities the
+traveller's book bore witness, took him in charge. Many others besides
+ourselves have had reason to be thankful for the good offices of the Latin
+monks in Palestine. I have never met with a class more kind, cordial, and
+genial. All the convents are bound to take in and entertain all
+applicants--of whatever creed or nation--for the space of three days.
+
+In the afternoon, Fra Joachim accompanied me to the Church of the Virgin,
+which is inclosed within the walls of the convent. It is built over the
+supposed site of the house in which the mother of Christ was living, at
+the time of the angelic annunciation. Under the high altar, a flight of
+steps leads down to the shrine of the Virgin, on the threshold of the
+house, where the Angel Gabriel's foot rested, as he stood, with a lily in
+his hand, announcing the miraculous conception. The shrine, of white
+marble and gold, gleaming in the light of golden lamps, stands under a
+rough arch of the natural rock, from the side of which hangs a heavy
+fragment of a granite pillar, suspended, as the devout believe, by divine
+power. Fra Joachim informed me that, when the Moslems attempted to
+obliterate all tokens of the holy place, this pillar was preserved by a
+miracle, that the locality might not be lost to the Christians. At the
+same time, he said, the angels of God carried away the wooden house which
+stood at the entrance of the grotto; and, after letting it drop in
+Marseilles, while they rested, picked it up again and set it down in
+Loretto, where it still remains. As he said this, there was such entire,
+absolute belief in the good monk's eyes, and such happiness in that
+belief, that not for ten times the gold on the shrine would I have
+expressed a doubt of the story. He then bade me kneel, that I might see
+the spot where the angel stood, and devoutly repeated a paternoster while
+I contemplated the pure plate of snowy marble, surrounded with vases of
+fragrant flowers, between which hung cressets of gold, wherein perfumed
+oils were burning. All the decorations of the place conveyed the idea of
+transcendent purity and sweetness; and, for the first time in Palestine, I
+wished for perfect faith in the spot. Behind the shrine, there are two or
+three chambers in the rock, which served as habitations for the family of
+the Virgin.
+
+A young Christian Nazarene afterwards conducted me to the House of Joseph,
+the Carpenter, which is now inclosed in a little chapel. It is merely a
+fragment of wall, undoubtedly as old as the time of Christ, and I felt
+willing to consider it a genuine relic. There was an honest roughness
+about the large stones, inclosing a small room called the carpenter's
+shop, which I could not find it in my heart to doubt. Besides, in a quiet
+country town like Nazareth, which has never knows such vicissitudes as
+Jerusalem, much more dependence can be placed on popular tradition. For
+the same reason, I looked with reverence on the Table of Christ, also
+inclosed within a chapel. This is a large, natural rock, about nine feet
+by twelve, nearly square, and quite flat on the top. It is said that it
+once served as a table for Christ and his Disciples. The building called
+the School of Christ, where he went with other children of his age, is now
+a church of the Syrian Christians, who were performing a doleful mass, in
+Arabic, at the time of my visit. It is a vaulted apartment, about forty
+feet long, and only the lower part of the wall is ancient. At each of
+these places, the Nazarene put into my hand a piece of pasteboard, on
+which was printed a prayer in Latin, Italian, and Arabic, with the
+information that whoever visited the place, and made the prayer, would be
+entitled to seven years' indulgence. I duly read all the prayers, and,
+accordingly, my conscience ought to be at rest for twenty-one years.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII.
+
+The Country of Galilee.
+
+
+  Departure from Nazareth--A Christian Guide--Ascent of Mount
+  Tabor--Wallachian Hermits--The Panorama of Tabor--Ride to Tiberias--A
+  Bath in Genesareth--The Flowers of Galilee--The Mount of
+  Beatitude--Magdala--Joseph's Well--Meeting with a Turk--The Fountain of
+  the Salt-Works--The Upper Valley of the Jordan--Summer Scenery--The
+  Rivers of Lebanon--Tell el-Kadi--An Arcadian Region--The Fountains of
+  Banias.
+
+  "Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,
+  And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene;
+  And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see
+  The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee!"--Whittier.
+
+
+Banias (Caesarea Philippi), _May_ 10, 1852.
+
+We left Nazareth on the morning of the 8th inst. My companion had done so
+well under the care of Fra Joachim that he was able to ride, and our
+journey was not delayed by his accident. The benedictions of the good
+Franciscans accompanied us as we rode away from the Convent, past the
+Fountain of the Virgin, and out of the pleasant little valley where the
+boy Jesus wandered for many peaceful years. The Christian guide we engaged
+for Mount Tabor had gone ahead, and we did not find him until we had
+travelled for more than two hours among the hills. As we approached the
+sacred mountain, we came upon the region of oaks--the first oak I had seen
+since leaving Europe last autumn. There are three or four varieties, some
+with evergreen foliage, and in their wild luxuriance and the
+picturesqueness of their forms and groupings, they resemble those of
+California. The sea of grass and flowers in which they stood was sprinkled
+with thick tufts of wild oats--another point of resemblance to the latter
+country. But here, there is no gold; there, no sacred memories.
+
+The guide was waiting for us beside a spring, among the trees. He was a
+tall youth of about twenty, with a mild, submissive face, and wore the
+dark-blue turban, which appears to be the badge of a native Syrian
+Christian. I found myself involuntarily pitying him for belonging to a
+despised sect. There is no disguising the fact that one feels much more
+respect for the Mussulman rulers of the East, than for their oppressed
+subjects who profess his own faith. The surest way to make a man
+contemptible is to treat him contemptuously, and the Oriental Christians,
+who have been despised for centuries, are, with some few exceptions,
+despicable enough. Now, however, since the East has become a favorite
+field of travel, and the Frank possesses an equal dignity with the Moslem,
+the native Christians are beginning to hold up their heads, and the return
+of self-respect will, in the course of time, make them respectable.
+
+Mount Tabor stands a little in advance of the hill-country, with which it
+is connected only by a low spur or shoulder, its base being the Plain of
+Esdraelon. This is probably the reason why it has been fixed upon as the
+place of the Transfiguration, as it is not mentioned by name in the New
+Testament. The words are: "an high mountain apart," which some suppose to
+refer to the position of the mountain, and not to the remoteness of Christ
+and the three Disciples from men. The sides of the mountain are covered
+with clumps of oak, hawthorn and other trees, in many places overrun with
+the white honeysuckle, its fingers dropping with odor of nutmeg and
+cloves. The ascent, by a steep and winding path, occupied an hour. The
+summit is nearly level, and resembles some overgrown American field, or
+"oak opening." The grass is more than knee-deep; the trees grow high and
+strong, and there are tangled thickets and bowers of vines without end.
+The eastern and highest end of the mountain is covered with the remains of
+an old fortress-convent, once a place of great strength, from the
+thickness of its walls. In a sort of cell formed among the ruins we found
+two monk-hermits. I addressed them in all languages of which I know a
+salutation, without effect, but at last made out that they were
+Wallachians. They were men of thirty-five, with stupid faces, dirty
+garments, beards run to waste, and fur caps. Their cell was a mere hovel,
+without furniture, except a horrid caricature of the Virgin and Child, and
+four books of prayers in the Bulgarian character. One of them walked about
+knitting a stocking, and paid no attention to us; but the other, after
+giving us some deliciously cold water, got upon a pile of rubbish, and
+stood regarding us with open mouth while we took breakfast. So far from
+this being a cause of annoyance, I felt really glad that our presence had
+agitated the stagnant waters of his mind.
+
+The day was hazy and sultry, but the panoramic view from Mount Tabor was
+still very fine. The great Plain of Esdraelon lay below us like a vast
+mosaic of green and brown--jasper and verd-antique. On the west, Mount
+Carmel lifted his head above the blue horizon line of the Mediterranean.
+Turning to the other side, a strip of the Sea of Galilee glimmered deep
+down among the hills, and the Ghor, or the Valley of the Jordan,
+stretched like a broad gash through them. Beyond them, the country of
+Djebel Adjeloun, the ancient Decapolis, which still holds the walls of
+Gadara and the temples and theatres of Djerash, faded away into vapor,
+and, still further to the south, the desolate hills of Gilead, the home of
+Jephthah. Mount Hermon is visible when the atmosphere is clear but we were
+not able to see it.
+
+From the top of Mount Tabor to Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, is a
+journey of five hours, through a wild country, with but one single
+miserable village on the road. At first we rode through lonely dells,
+grown with oak and brilliant with flowers, especially the large purple
+mallow, and then over broad, treeless tracts of rolling land, but
+partially cultivated. The heat was very great; I had no thermometer, but
+should judge the temperature to have been at least 95 deg. in the shade. From
+the edge of the upland tract, we looked down on the Sea of Galilee--a
+beautiful sheet of water sunk among the mountains, and more than 300 feet
+below the level of the Mediterranean. It lay unruffled in the bottom of
+the basin, reflecting the peaks of the bare red mountains beyond it.
+Tiberias was at our very feet, a few palm trees alone relieving the
+nakedness of its dull walls. After taking a welcome drink at the Fountain
+of Fig-trees, we descended to the town, which has a desolate and forlorn
+air. Its walls have been partly thrown down by earthquakes, and never
+repaired. We found our tents already pitched on the bank above the lake,
+and under one of the tottering towers.
+
+Not a breath of air was stirring; the red hills smouldered in the heat,
+and the waters of Genesareth at our feet glimmered with an oily
+smoothness, unbroken by a ripple. We untwisted our turbans, kicked off our
+baggy trowsers, and speedily releasing ourselves from the barbarous
+restraints of dress, dipped into the tepid sea and floated lazily out
+until we could feel the exquisite coldness of the living springs which
+sent up their jets from the bottom. I was lying on my back, moving my fins
+just sufficiently to keep afloat, and gazing dreamily through half-closed
+eyes on the forlorn palms of Tiberias, when a shrill voice hailed me with:
+"O Howadji, get out of our way!" There, at the old stone gateway below our
+tent, stood two Galilean damsels, with heavy earthen jars upon their
+heads. "Go away yourselves, O maidens!" I answered, "if you want us to
+come out of the water." "But we must fill our pitchers," one of them
+replied. "Then fill them at once, and be not afraid; or leave them, and we
+will fill them for you." Thereupon they put the pitchers down, but
+remained watching us very complacently while we sank the vessels to the
+bottom of the lake, and let them fill from the colder and purer tide of
+the springs. In bringing them back through the water to the gate, the one
+I propelled before me happened to strike against a stone, and its fair
+owner, on receiving it, immediately pointed to a crack in the side, which
+she declared I had made, and went off lamenting. After we had resumed our
+garments, and were enjoying the pipe of indolence and the coffee of
+contentment, she returned and made such an outcry, that I was fain to
+purchase peace by the price of a new pitcher. I passed the first hours
+of-the night in looking out of my tent-door, as I lay, on the stars
+sparkling in the bosom of Galilee, like the sheen of Assyrian spears, and
+the glare of the great fires kindled on the opposite shore.
+
+The next day, we travelled northward along the lake, passing through
+continuous thickets of oleander, fragrant with its heavy pink blossoms.
+The thistles were more abundant and beautiful than ever. I noticed, in
+particular, one with a superb globular flower of a bright blue color,
+which would make a choice ornament for our gardens at home. At the
+north-western head of the lake, the mountains fall back and leave a large
+tract of the richest meadow-land, which narrows away into a deep dell,
+overhung by high mountain headlands, faced with naked cliffs of red rock.
+The features of the landscape are magnificent. Up the dell, I saw plainly
+the Mount of Beatitude, beyond which lies the village of Cana of Galilee.
+In coming up the meadow, we passed a miserable little village of thatched
+mud huts, almost hidden by the rank weeds which grew around them. A
+withered old crone sat at one of the doors, sunning herself. "What is the
+name of this village?" I asked. "It is Mejdel," was her reply. This was
+the ancient Magdala, the home of that beautiful but sinful Magdalene,
+whose repentance has made her one of the brightest of the Saints. The
+crystal waters of the lake here lave a shore of the cleanest pebbles. The
+path goes winding through oleanders, nebbuks, patches of hollyhock,
+anise-seed, fennel, and other spicy plants, while, on the west, great
+fields of barley stand ripe for the cutting. In some places, the Fellahs,
+men and women, were at work, reaping and binding the sheaves. After
+crossing this tract, we came to the hill, at the foot of which was a
+ruined khan, and on the summit, other undistinguishable ruins, supposed by
+some to be those of Capernaum. The site of that exalted town, however, is
+still a matter of discussion.
+
+We journeyed on in a most sweltering atmosphere over the ascending hills,
+the valley of the Upper Jordan lying deep on our right. In a shallow
+hollow, under one of the highest peaks, there stands a large deserted
+khan; over a well of very cold; sweet water, called _Bir Youssuf_ by the
+Arabs. Somewhere near it, according to tradition, is the field where
+Joseph was sold by his brethren; and the well is, no doubt, looked upon by
+many as the identical pit into which he was thrown. A stately Turk of
+Damascus, with four servants behind him, came riding up as we were resting
+in the gateway of the khan, and, in answer to my question, informed me
+that the well was so named from Nebbee Youssuf (the Prophet Joseph), and
+not from Sultan Joseph Saladin. He took us for his countrymen, accosting
+me first in Turkish, and, even after I had talked with him some time in
+bad Arabic, asked me whether I had been making a pilgrimage to the tombs
+of certain holy Moslem saints, in the neighborhood of Jaffa. He joined
+company with us, however, and shared his pipe with me, as we continued our
+journey. We rode for two hours more over hills bare of trees, but covered
+thick with grass and herbs, and finally lost our way. Francois went ahead,
+dashing through the fields of barley and lentils, and we reached the path
+again, as the Waters of Merom came in sight. We then descended into the
+Valley of the Upper Jordan, and encamped opposite the lake, at Ain
+el-Mellaha (the Fountain of the Salt-Works), the first source of the
+sacred river. A stream of water, sufficient to turn half-a-dozen mills,
+gushes and gurgles up at the foot of the mountain. There are the remains
+of an ancient dam, by which a large pool was formed for the irrigation of
+the valley. It still supplies a little Arab mill below the fountain. This
+is a frontier post, between the jurisdictions of the Pashas of Jerusalem
+and Damascus, and the _mukkairee_ of the Greek Caloyer, who left us at
+Tiberias, was obliged to pay a duty of seven and a half piastres on
+fifteen mats, which he had bought at Jerusalem for one and a half piastres
+each. The poor man will perhaps make a dozen piastres (about half a
+dollar) on these mats at Damascus, after carrying them on his mule for
+more than two hundred miles.
+
+We pitched our tents on the grassy meadow below the mill--a charming spot,
+with Tell el-Khanzir (the hill of wild boars) just in front, over the
+Waters of Merom, and the snow-streaked summit of Djebel esh-Shekh--the
+great Mount Hermon--towering high above the valley. This is the loftiest
+peak of the Anti-Lebanon, and is 10,000 feet above the sea. The next
+morning, we rode for three hours before reaching the second spring of the
+Jordan, at a place which Francois called Tell el-Kadi, but which did not
+at all answer with the description given me by Dr. Robinson, at Jerusalem.
+The upper part of the broad valley, whence the Jordan draws his waters, is
+flat, moist, and but little cultivated. There are immense herds of sheep,
+goats, and buffaloes wandering over it. The people are a dark Arab tribe,
+and live in tents and miserable clay huts. Where the valley begins to
+slope upward towards the hills, they plant wheat, barley, and lentils. The
+soil is the fattest brown loam, and the harvests are wonderfully rich. I
+saw many tracts of wheat, from half a mile to a mile in extent, which
+would average forty bushels to the acre. Yet the ground is never manured,
+and the Arab plough scratches up but a few inches of the surface. What a
+paradise might be made of this country, were it in better hands!
+
+The second spring is not quite so large as Ain el-Mellaha but, like it,
+pours out a strong stream from a single source The pool was filled with
+women, washing the heavy fleeces of their sheep, and beating the dirt out
+of their striped camel's hair abas with long poles. We left it, and
+entered on a slope of stony ground, forming the head of the valley. The
+view extended southward, to the mountains closing the northern cove of the
+Sea of Galilee. It was a grand, rich landscape--so rich that its
+desolation seems forced and unnatural. High on the summit of a mountain to
+the west, the ruins of a large Crusader fortress looked down upon us. The
+soil, which slowly climbs upward through a long valley between Lebanon and
+Anti-Lebanon, is cut with deep ravines. The path is very difficult to
+find; and while we were riding forward at random, looking in all
+directions for our baggage mules, we started up a beautiful gazelle. At
+last, about noon, hot, hungry, and thirsty, we reached a swift stream,
+roaring at the bottom of a deep ravine, through a bed of gorgeous foliage.
+The odor of the wild grape-blossoms, which came up to us, as we rode along
+the edge, was overpowering in its sweetness. An old bridge of two arches
+crossed the stream. There was a pile of rocks against the central pier,
+and there we sat and took breakfast in the shade of the maples, while the
+cold green waters foamed at our feet. By all the Naiads and Tritons, what
+a joy there is in beholding a running stream! The rivers of Lebanon are
+miracles to me, after my knowledge of the Desert. A company of Arabs,
+seven in all, were gathered under the bridge; and, from a flute which one
+of them blew, I judged they were taking a pastoral holiday. We kept our
+pistols beside us; for we did not like their looks. Before leaving, they
+told us that the country was full of robbers, and advised us to be on the
+lookout. We rode more carefully, after this, and kept with our baggage on
+reaching it, An hour after leaving the bridge, we came to a large
+circular, or rather annular mound, overgrown with knee-deep grass and
+clumps of oak-trees. A large stream, of a bright blue color, gushed down
+the north side, and after half embracing the mound swept off across the
+meadows to the Waters of Merom. There could be no doubt that this was Tell
+el-Kadi, the site of Dan, the most northern town of ancient Israel. The
+mound on which it was built is the crater of an extinct volcano. The
+Hebrew word _Dan_ signifies "judge," and Tell el-Kadi, in Arabic, is "The
+Hill of the Judge."
+
+The Anti-Lebanon now rose near us, its northern and western slopes green
+with trees and grass. The first range, perhaps 5,000 feet in height, shut
+out the snowy head of Hermon; but still the view was sublime in its large
+and harmonious outlines. Our road was through a country resembling
+Arcadia--the earth hidden by a dense bed of grass and flowers; thickets of
+blossoming shrubs; old, old oaks, with the most gnarled of trunks, the
+most picturesque of boughs, and the glossiest of green leaves; olive-trees
+of amazing antiquity; and, threading and enlivening all, the clear-cold
+floods of Lebanon. This was the true haunt of Pan, whose altars are now
+before me, graven on the marble crags of Hermon. Looking on those altars,
+and on the landscape, lovely as a Grecian dream, I forget that the lament
+has long been sung:
+
+  "Pan, Pan is dead!"
+
+In another hour, we reached this place, the ancient Caesarea Philippi, now
+a poor village, embowered in magnificent trees, and washed by glorious
+waters. There are abundant remains of the old city: fragments of immense
+walls; broken granite columns; traces of pavements; great blocks of hewn
+stone; marble pedestals, and the like. In the rock at the foot of the
+mountain, there are several elegant niches, with Greek inscriptions,
+besides a large natural grotto. Below them, the water gushes up through
+the stones, in a hundred streams, forming a flood of considerable size. We
+have made our camp in an olive grove near the end of the village, beside
+an immense terebinth tree, which is inclosed in an open court, paved with
+stone. This is the town-hall of Banias, where the Shekh dispenses justice,
+and at the same time, the resort of all the idlers of the place. We went
+up among them, soon after our arrival, and were given seats of honor near
+the Shekh, who talked with me a long time about America. The people
+exhibit a very sensible curiosity, desiring to know the extent of our
+country, the number of inhabitants, the amount of taxation, the price of
+grain, and other solid information.
+
+The Shekh and the men of the place inform us that the Druses are infesting
+the road to Damascus. This tribe is in rebellion in Djebel Hauaran, on
+account of the conscription, and some of them, it appears, have taken
+refuge in the fastnesses of Hermon, where they are beginning to plunder
+travellers. While I was talking with the Shekh, a Druse came down from the
+mountains, and sat for half an hour among the villagers, under the
+terebinth, and we have just heard that he has gone back the way he came.
+This fact has given us some anxiety, as he may have been a spy sent down
+to gather news and, if so, we are almost certain to be waylaid. If we were
+well armed, we should not fear a dozen, but all our weapons consist of a
+sword and four pistols. After consulting together, we decided to apply to
+the Shekh for two armed men, to accompany us. I accordingly went to him
+again, and exhibited the firman of the Pasha of Jerusalem, which he read,
+stating that, even without it, he would have felt it his duty to grant our
+request. This is the graceful way in which the Orientals submit to a
+peremptory order. He thinks that one man will be sufficient, as we shall
+probably not meet with any large party.
+
+The day has been, and still is, excessively hot. The atmosphere is
+sweltering, and all around us, over the thick patches of mallow and wild
+mustard, the bees are humming with a continuous sultry sound. The Shekh,
+with a number of lazy villagers, is still seated under the terebinth, in a
+tent of shade, impervious to the sun. I can hear the rush of the fountains
+of Banias--the holy springs of Hermon, whence Jordan is born. But what is
+this? The odor of the velvety weed of Shiraz meets my nostrils; a
+dark-eyed son of Pan places the narghileh at my feet; and, bubbling more
+sweetly than the streams of Jordan, the incense most dear to the god dims
+the crystal censer, and floats from my lips in rhythmic ejaculations. I,
+too, am in Arcadia!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII.
+
+Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.
+
+
+  The Harmless Guard--Caesarea Philippi--The Valley of the Druses--The
+  Sides of Mount Hermon--An Alarm--Threading a Defile--Distant view of
+  Djebel Hauaran--Another Alarm--Camp at Katana--We Ride into Damascus.
+
+
+Damascus, _May_ 12, 1852.
+
+We rose early, so as to be ready for a long march. The guard came--a
+mild-looking Arab--without arms; but on our refusing to take him thus, he
+brought a Turkish musket, terrible to behold, but quite guiltless of any
+murderous intent. We gave ourselves up to fate, with true
+Arab-resignation, and began ascending the Anti-Lebanon. Up and up, by
+stony paths, under the oaks, beside the streams, and between the
+wheat-fields, we climbed for two hours, and at last reached a comb or
+dividing ridge, whence we could look into a valley on the other side, or
+rather inclosed between the main chain and the offshoot named Djebel
+Heish, which stretches away towards the south-east. About half-way up the
+ascent, we passed the ruined acropolis of Caesarea Philippi, crowning the
+summit of a lower peak. The walls and bastions cover a great extent of
+ground, and were evidently used as a stronghold in the Middle Ages.
+
+The valley into which we descended lay directly under one of the peaks of
+Hermon and the rills that watered it were fed from his snow-fields. It was
+inhabited by Druses, but no men were to be seen, except a few poor
+husbandmen, ploughing on the mountain-sides. The women, wearing those
+enormous horns on their heads which distinguish them from the Mohammedan
+females, were washing at a pool below. We crossed the valley, and slowly
+ascended the height on the opposite side, taking care to keep with the
+baggage-mules. Up to this time, we met very few persons; and we forgot the
+anticipated perils in contemplating the rugged scenery of the
+Anti-Lebanon. The mountain-sides were brilliant with flowers, and many new
+and beautiful specimens arrested our attention. The asphodel grew in
+bunches beside the streams, and the large scarlet anemone outshone even
+the poppy, whose color here is the quintessence of flame. Five hours after
+leaving Banias, we reached the highest part of the pass--a dreary volcanic
+region, covered with fragments of lava. Just at this place, an old Arab
+met us, and, after scanning us closely, stopped and accosted Dervish. The
+latter immediately came running ahead, quite excited with the news that
+the old man had seen a company of about fifty Druses descend from the
+sides of Mount Hermon, towards the road we were to travel. We immediately
+ordered the baggage to halt, and Mr. Harrison, Francois, and myself rode
+on to reconnoitre. Our guard, the valiant man of Banias, whose teeth
+already chattered with fear, prudently kept with the baggage. We crossed
+the ridge and watched the stony mountain-sides for some time; but no spear
+or glittering gun-barrel could we see. The caravan was then set in motion;
+and we had not proceeded far before we met a second company of Arabs, who
+informed us that the road was free.
+
+Leaving the heights, we descended cautiously into a ravine with walls of
+rough volcanic rock on each side. It was a pass where three men might have
+stood their ground against a hundred; and we did not feel thoroughly
+convinced of our safety till we had threaded its many windings and emerged
+upon a narrow valley. A village called Beit Jenn nestled under the rocks;
+and below it, a grove of poplar-trees shaded the banks of a rapid stream.
+We had now fairly crossed the Anti-Lebanon. The dazzling snows of Mount
+Hermon overhung us on the west; and, from the opening of the valley, we
+looked across a wild, waste country, to the distant range of Djebel
+Hauaran, the seat of the present rebellion, and one of the most
+interesting regions of Syria. I regretted more than ever not being able to
+reach it. The ruins of Bozrah, Ezra, and other ancient cities, would well
+repay the arduous character of the journey, while the traveller might
+succeed in getting some insight into the life and habits of that singular
+people, the Druses. But now, and perhaps for some time to come, there is
+no chance of entering the Hauaran.
+
+Towards the middle of the afternoon, we reached a large village, which is
+usually the end of the first day's journey from Banias. Our men wanted to
+stop here, but we considered that to halt then would be to increase the
+risk, and decided to push on to Katana, four hours' journey from Damascus.
+They yielded with a bad grace; and we jogged on over the stony road,
+crossing the long hills which form the eastern base of the Anti-Lebanon.
+Before long, another Arab met us with the news that there was an
+encampment of Druses on the plain between us and Katana. At this, our
+guard, who had recovered sufficient spirit to ride a few paces in advance,
+fell back, and the impassive Dervish became greatly agitated. Where there
+is an uncertain danger, it is always better to go ahead than to turn back;
+and we did so. But the guard reined up on the top of the first ridge,
+trembling as he pointed to a distant hill, and cried out: _"Aho, aho
+henak!"_ (There they are!) There were, in fact, the shadows of some rocks,
+which bore a faint resemblance to tents. Before sunset, we reached the
+last declivity of the mountains, and saw far in the dusky plain, the long
+green belt of the gardens of Damascus, and here and there the indistinct
+glimmer of a minaret. Katana, our resting-place for the night, lay below
+us, buried in orchards of olive and orange. We pitched our tents on the
+banks of a beautiful stream, enjoyed the pipe of tranquillity, after our
+long march, and soon forgot the Druses, in a slumber that lasted unbroken
+till dawn.
+
+In the morning we sent back the man of Banias, left the baggage to take
+care of itself, and rode on to Damascus, as fast as our tired horses could
+carry us. The plain, at first barren and stony, became enlivened with
+vineyards and fields of wheat, as we advanced. Arabs were everywhere at
+work, ploughing and directing the water-courses. The belt of living green,
+the bower in which the great city, the Queen of the Orient, hides her
+beauty, drew nearer and nearer, stretching out a crescent of foliage for
+miles on either hand, that gradually narrowed and received us into its
+cool and fragrant heart. We sank into a sea of olive, pomegranate, orange,
+plum, apricot, walnut, and plane trees, and were lost. The sun sparkled in
+the rolling surface above; but we swam through the green depths, below
+his reach, and thus, drifted on through miles of shade, entered the city.
+
+Since our arrival, I find that two other parties of travellers, one of
+which crossed the Anti-Lebanon on the northern side of Mount Hermon, were
+obliged to take guards, and saw several Druse spies posted on the heights,
+as they passed. A Russian gentleman travelling from here to Tiberias, was
+stopped three times on the road, and only escaped being plundered from the
+fact of his having a Druse dragoman. The disturbances are more serious
+than I had anticipated. Four regiments left here yesterday, sent to the
+aid of a company of cavalry, which is surrounded by the rebels in a valley
+of Dejebel Hauaran, and unable to get out.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+Pictures of Damascus.
+
+
+  Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
+  Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
+  Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
+  Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
+  of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra.
+
+  "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the
+  waters of Israel?"--2 Kings, v. 12.
+
+
+Damascus, _Wednesday, May_ 19, 1852.
+
+Damascus is considered by many travellers as the best remaining type of an
+Oriental city. Constantinople is semi-European; Cairo is fast becoming so;
+but Damascus, away from the highways of commerce, seated alone between the
+Lebanon and the Syrian Desert, still retains, in its outward aspect and in
+the character of its inhabitants, all the pride and fancy and fanaticism
+of the times of the Caliphs. With this judgment, in general terms, I
+agree; but not to its ascendancy, in every respect, over Cairo. True, when
+you behold Damascus from the Salahiyeh, the last slope of the
+Anti-Lebanon, it is the realization of all that you have dreamed of
+Oriental splendor; the world has no picture more dazzling. It is Beauty
+carried to the Sublime, as I have felt when overlooking some boundless
+forest of palms within the tropics. From the hill, whose ridges heave
+behind you until in the south they rise to the snowy head of Mount Hermon,
+the great Syrian plain stretches away to the Euphrates, broken at
+distances of ten and fifteen miles, by two detached mountain chains. In a
+terrible gorge at your side, the river Barrada, the ancient Pharpar,
+forces its way to the plain, and its waters, divided into twelve different
+channels, make all between you and those blue island-hills of the desert,
+one great garden, the boundaries of which your vision can barely
+distinguish. Its longest diameter cannot be less than twenty miles. You
+look down on a world of foliage, and fruit, and blossoms, whose hue, by
+contrast with the barren mountains and the yellow rim of the desert which
+incloses it, seems brighter than all other gardens in the world. Through
+its centre, following the course of the river, lies Damascus; a line of
+white walls, topped with domes and towers and tall minarets, winding away
+for miles through the green sea. Nothing less than a city of palaces,
+whose walls are marble and whose doors are ivory and pearl, could keep up
+the enchantment of that distant view.
+
+We rode for an hour through the gardens before entering the gate. The
+fruit-trees, of whatever variety---walnut, olive, apricot, or fig--were
+the noblest of their kind. Roses and pomegranates in bloom starred the
+dark foliage, and the scented jasmine overhung the walls. But as we
+approached the city, the view was obscured by high mud walls on either
+side of the road, and we only caught glimpses now and then of the fragrant
+wilderness. The first street we entered was low and mean, the houses of
+clay. Following this, we came to an uncovered bazaar, with rude shops on
+either side, protected by mats stretched in front and supported by poles.
+Here all sorts of common stuns and utensils were sold, and the street was
+filled with crowds of Fellahs and Desert Arabs. Two large sycamores shaded
+it, and the Seraglio of the Pasha of Damascus, a plain two-story building,
+faced the entrance of the main bazaar, which branched off into the city.
+We turned into this, and after passing through several small bazaars
+stocked with dried fruits, pipes and pipe-bowls, groceries, and all the
+primitive wares of the East, reached a large passage, covered with a steep
+wooden roof, and entirely occupied by venders of silk stuffs. Out of this
+we passed through another, devoted to saddles and bridles; then another,
+full of spices, and at last reached the grand bazaar, where all the
+richest stuffs of Europe and the East were displayed in the shops. We rode
+slowly along through the cool twilight, crossed here and there by long
+pencils of white light, falling through apertures in the roof, and
+illuminating the gay turbans and silk caftans of the lazy merchants. But
+out of this bazaar, at intervals, opened the grand gate of a khan, giving
+us a view of its marble court, its fountains, and the dark arches of its
+storerooms; or the door of a mosque, with its mosaic floor and pillared
+corridor. The interminable lines of bazaars, with their atmospheres of
+spice and fruit and fragrant tobacco, the hushed tread of the slippered
+crowds; the plash of falling fountains and the bubbling of innumerable
+narghilehs; the picturesque merchants and their customers, no longer in
+the big trowsers of Egypt, but the long caftans and abas of Syria; the
+absence of Frank faces and dresses--in all these there was the true spirit
+of the Orient, and so far, we were charmed with Damascus.
+
+At the hotel in the Soog el-Harab, or Frank quarter, the illusion was not
+dissipated. It had once been the house of some rich merchant. The court
+into which we were ushered is paved with marble, with a great stone basin,
+surrounded with vases of flowering plants, in the centre. Two large lemon
+trees shade the entrance, and a vine, climbing to the top of the house,
+makes a leafy arbor over the flat roof. The walls of the house are painted
+in horizontal bars of blue, white, orange and white--a gay grotesqueness
+of style which does not offend the eye under an eastern sun. On the
+southern side of the court is the _liwan_, an arrangement for which the
+houses of Damascus are noted. It is a vaulted apartment, twenty feet high,
+entirely open towards the court, except a fine pointed arch at the top,
+decorated with encaustic ornaments of the most brilliant colors. In front,
+a tesselated pavement of marble leads to the doors of the chambers on each
+side. Beyond this is a raised floor covered with matting, and along the
+farther end a divan, whose piled cushions are the most tempting trap ever
+set to catch a lazy man. Although not naturally indolent, I find it
+impossible to resist the fascination of this lounge. Leaning back,
+cross-legged, against the cushions, with the inseparable pipe in one's
+hand, the view of the court, the water-basin, the flowers and lemon trees,
+the servants and dragomen going back and forth, or smoking their
+narghilehs in the shade--all framed in the beautiful arched entrance, is
+so perfectly Oriental, so true a tableau from the times of good old Haroun
+Al-Raschid, that one is surprised to find how many hours have slipped away
+while he has been silently enjoying it.
+
+Opposite the _liwan_ is a large room paved with marble, with a handsome
+fountain in the centre. It is the finest in the hotel, and now occupied
+by Lord Dalkeith and his friends. Our own room is on the upper floor, and
+is so rich in decorations that I have not yet finished the study of them.
+Along the side, looking down on the court, we have a mosaic floor of
+white, red, black and yellow marble. Above this is raised a second floor,
+carpeted and furnished in European style. The walls, for a height of ten
+feet, are covered with wooden panelling, painted with arabesque devices in
+the gayest colors, and along the top there is a series of Arabic
+inscriptions in gold. There are a number of niches or open closets in the
+walls, whose arched tops are adorned with pendent wooden ornaments,
+resembling stalactites, and at the corners of the room the heavy gilded
+and painted cornice drops into similar grotesque incrustations. A space of
+bare white wall intervenes between this cornice and the ceiling, which is
+formed of slim poplar logs, laid side by side, and so covered with paint
+and with scales and stripes and network devices in gold and silver, that
+one would take them to be clothed with the skins of the magic serpents
+that guard the Valley of Diamonds. My most satisfactory remembrance of
+Damascus will be this room.
+
+My walks through the city have been almost wholly confined to the bazaars,
+which are of immense extent. One can walk for many miles, without going
+beyond the cover of their peaked wooden roofs, and in all this round will
+find no two precisely alike. One is devoted entirely to soap; another to
+tobacco, through which you cough and sneeze your way to the bazaar of
+spices, and delightedly inhale its perfumed air. Then there is the bazaar
+of sweetmeats; of vegetables; of red slippers; of shawls; of caftans; of
+bakers and ovens; of wooden ware; of jewelry---a great stone building,
+covered with vaulted passages; of Aleppo silks; of Baghdad carpets; of
+Indian stuffs; of coffee; and so on, through a seemingly endless variety.
+As I have already remarked, along the line of the bazaars are many khans,
+the resort of merchants from all parts of Turkey and Persia, and even
+India. They are large, stately buildings, and some of them have superb
+gateways of sculptured marble. The interior courts are paved with stone,
+with fountains in the centre, and many of them are covered with domes
+resting on massive pillars. The largest has a roof of nine domes,
+supported by four grand pillars, which inclose a fountain. The mosques,
+into which no Christian is allowed to enter, are in general inferior to
+those of Cairo, but their outer courts are always paved with marble,
+adorned with fountains, and surrounded by light and elegant corridors. The
+grand mosque is an imposing edifice, and is said to occupy the site of a
+former Christian church.
+
+Another pleasant feature of the city is its coffee shops, which abound in
+the bazaars and on the outskirts of the gardens, beside the running
+streams. Those in the bazaars are spacious rooms with vaulted ceilings,
+divans running around the four walls, and fountains in the centre. During
+the afternoon they are nearly always filled with Turks, Armenians and
+Persians, smoking the narghileh, or water-pipe, which is the universal
+custom in Damascus. The Persian tobacco, brought here by the caravans from
+Baghdad, is renowned for this kind of smoking. The most popular
+coffee-shop is near the citadel, on the banks and over the surface of the
+Pharpar. It is a rough wooden building, with a roof of straw mats, but the
+sight and sound of the rushing waters, as they shoot away with arrowy
+swiftness under your feet, the shade of the trees that line the banks,
+and the cool breeze that always visits the spot, beguile you into a second
+pipe ere you are aware. _"El ma, wa el khodra, wa el widj el
+hassan_--water, verdure and a beautiful face," says an old Arab proverb,
+"are three things which delight the heart," and the Syrians avow that all
+three are to be found in Damascus. Not only on the three Sundays of each
+week, but every day, in the gardens about the city, you may see whole
+families (and if Jews or Christians, many groups of families) spending the
+day in the shade, beside the beautiful waters. There are several gardens
+fitted up purposely for these picnics, with kiosks, fountains and pleasant
+seats under the trees. You bring your pipes, your provisions and the like
+with you, but servants are in attendance to furnish fire and water and
+coffee, for which, on leaving, you give them a small gratuity. Of all the
+Damascenes I have yet seen, there is not one but declares his city to be
+the Garden of the World, the Pearl of the Orient, and thanks God and the
+Prophet for having permitted him to be born and to live in it. But, except
+the bazaars, the khans and the baths, of which there are several most
+luxurious establishments, the city itself is neither so rich nor so purely
+Saracenic in its architecture as Cairo. The streets are narrow and dirty,
+and the houses, which are never more than two low stories in height, are
+built of sun-dried bricks, coated with plaster. I miss the solid piles of
+stone, the elegant doorways, and, above all, the exquisite hanging
+balconies of carved wood, which meet one in the old streets of Cairo.
+Damascus is the representative of all that is gay, brilliant, and
+picturesque, in Oriental life; but for stately magnificence, Cairo, and, I
+suspect, Baghdad, is its superior.
+
+We visited the other day the houses of some of the richest Jews and
+Christians. Old Abou-Ibrahim, the Jewish servant of the hotel, accompanied
+and introduced us. It is customary for travellers to make these visits,
+and the families, far from being annoyed, are flattered by it. The
+exteriors of the houses are mean; but after threading a narrow passage, we
+emerged into a court, rivalling in profusion of ornament and rich contrast
+of colors one's early idea of the Palace of Aladdin. The floors and
+fountains are all of marble mosaic; the arches of the _liwan_ glitter with
+gold, and the walls bewilder the eye with the intricacy of their
+adornments. In the first house, we were received by the family in a room
+of precious marbles, with niches in the walls, resembling grottoes of
+silver stalactites. The cushions of the divan were of the richest silk,
+and a chandelier of Bohemian crystal hung from the ceiling. Silver
+narghilehs were brought to us, and coffee was served in heavy silver
+_zerfs_. The lady of the house was a rather corpulent lady of about
+thirty-five, and wore a semi-European robe of embroidered silk and lace,
+with full trowsers gathered at the ankles, and yellow slippers. Her black
+hair was braided, and fastened at the end with golden ornaments, and the
+light scarf twisted around her head blazed with diamonds. The lids of her
+large eyes were stained with _kohl_, and her eyebrows were plucked out and
+shaved away so as to leave only a thin, arched line, as if drawn with a
+pencil, above each eye. Her daughter, a girl of fifteen, who bore the
+genuine Hebrew name of Rachel, had even bigger and blacker eyes than her
+mother; but her forehead was low, her mouth large, and the expression of
+her face exceedingly stupid. The father of the family was a middle-aged
+man, with a well-bred air, and talked with an Oriental politeness which
+was very refreshing. An English lady, who was of our party, said to him,
+through me, that if she possessed such a house she should be willing to
+remain in Damascus. "Why does she leave, then?" he immediately answered:
+"this is her house, and everything that is in it." Speaking of visiting
+Jerusalem, he asked me whether it was not a more beautiful city than
+Damascus. "It is not more beautiful," I said, "but it is more holy," an
+expression which the whole company received with great satisfaction.
+
+The second house we visited was even larger and richer than the first, but
+had an air of neglect and decay. The slabs of rich marble were loose and
+broken, about the edges of the fountains; the rich painting of the
+wood-work was beginning to fade; and the balustrades leading to the upper
+chambers were broken off in places. We were ushered into a room, the walls
+and ceilings of which were composed entirely of gilded arabesque
+frame-work, set with small mirrors. When new, it must have had a gorgeous
+effect; but the gold is now tarnished, and the glasses dim. The mistress
+of the house was seated on the cushions, dividing her time between her
+pipe and her needle-work. She merely made a slight inclination of her head
+as we entered, and went on with her occupation. Presently her two
+daughters and an Abyssinian slave appeared, and took their places on the
+cushions at her feet, the whole forming a charming group, which I
+regretted some of my artist friends at home could not see. The mistress
+was so exceedingly dignified, that she bestowed but few words on us. She
+seemed to resent our admiration of the slave, who was a most graceful
+creature; yet her jealousy, it afterwards appeared, had reference to her
+own husband, for we had scarcely left, when a servant followed to inform
+the English lady that if she was willing to buy the Abyssinian, the
+mistress would sell her at once for two thousand piastres.
+
+The last visit we paid was to the dwelling of a Maronite, the richest
+Christian in Damascus. The house resembled those we had already seen,
+except that, having been recently built, it was in better condition, and
+exhibited better taste in the ornaments. No one but the lady was allowed
+to enter the female apartments, the rest of us being entertained by the
+proprietor, a man of fifty, and without exception the handsomest and most
+dignified person of that age I have ever seen. He was a king without a
+throne, and fascinated me completely by the noble elegance of his manner.
+In any country but the Orient, I should have pronounced him incapable of
+an unworthy thought: here, he may be exactly the reverse.
+
+Although Damascus is considered the oldest city in the world, the date of
+its foundation going beyond tradition, there are very few relics of
+antiquity in or near it. In the bazaar are three large pillars, supporting
+half the pediment, which are said to have belonged to the Christian Church
+of St. John, but, if so, that church must have been originally a Roman
+temple. Part of the Roman walls and one of the city gates remain; and we
+saw the spot where, according to tradition, Saul was let down from the
+wall in a basket. There are two localities pointed out as the scene of his
+conversion, which, from his own account, occurred near the city. I visited
+a subterranean chapel claimed by the Latin monks to be the cellar of the
+house of Ananias, in which the Apostle was concealed. The cellar is,
+undoubtedly, of great antiquity; but as the whole quarter was for many
+centuries inhabited wholly by Turks, it would be curious to know how the
+monks ascertained which was the house of Ananias. As for the "street
+called Straight," it would be difficult at present to find any in Damascus
+corresponding to that epithet.
+
+The famous Damascus blades, so renowned in the time of the Crusaders, are
+made here no longer. The art has been lost for three or four centuries.
+Yet genuine old swords, of the true steel, are occasionally to be found.
+They are readily distinguished from modern imitations by their clear and
+silvery ring when struck, and by the finely watered appearance of the
+blade, produced by its having been first made of woven wire, and then
+worked over and over again until it attained the requisite temper. A droll
+Turk, who is the _shekh ed-dellal,_ or Chief of the Auctioneers, and is
+nicknamed Abou-Anteeka (the Father of the Antiques), has a large
+collection of sabres, daggers, pieces of mail, shields, pipes, rings,
+seals, and other ancient articles. He demands enormous prices, but
+generally takes about one-third of what he first asks. I have spent
+several hours in his curiosity shop, bargaining for turquoise rings,
+carbuncles, Persian amulets, and Circassian daggers. While looking over
+some old swords the other day, I noticed one of exquisite temper, but with
+a shorter blade than usual. The point had apparently been snapped off in
+fight, but owing to the excellence of the sword, or the owner's affection
+for it, the steel had been carefully shaped into a new point. Abou-Anteeka
+asked five hundred piastres, and I, who had taken a particular fancy to
+possess it, offered him two hundred in an indifferent way, and then laid
+it aside to examine other articles. After his refusal to accept my offer,
+I said nothing more, and was leaving the shop, when the old fellow called
+me back, saying: "You have forgotten your sword,"--which I thereupon took
+at my own price. I have shown it to Mr. Wood, the British Consul, who
+pronounced it an extremely fine specimen of Damascus steel; and, on
+reading the inscription enamelled upon the blade, ascertains that it was
+made in the year of the Hegira, 181, which corresponds to A.D. 798. This
+was during the Caliphate of Haroun Al-Raschid, and who knows but the sword
+may have once flashed in the presence of that great and glorious
+sovereign--nay, been drawn by his own hand! Who knows but that the Milan
+armor of the Crusaders may have shivered its point, on the field of
+Askalon! I kiss the veined azure of thy blade, O Sword of Haroun! I hang
+the crimson cords of thy scabbard upon my shoulder, and thou shalt
+henceforth clank in silver music at my side, singing to my ear, and mine
+alone, thy chants of battle, thy rejoicing songs of slaughter!
+
+Yesterday evening, three gentlemen of Lord Dalkeith's party arrived from a
+trip to Palmyra. The road thither lies through a part of the Syrian Desert
+belonging to the Aneyzeh tribe, who are now supposed to be in league with
+the Druses, against the Government. Including this party, only six persons
+have succeeded in reaching Palmyra within a year, and two of them, Messrs.
+Noel and Cathcart, were imprisoned four days by the Arabs, and only
+escaped by the accidental departure of a caravan for Damascus. The present
+party was obliged to travel almost wholly by night, running the gauntlet
+of a dozen Arab encampments, and was only allowed a day's stay at Palmyra.
+They were all disguised as Bedouins, and took nothing with them but the
+necessary provisions. They made their appearance here last evening, in
+long, white abas, with the Bedouin _keffie_ bound over their heads, their
+faces burnt, their eyes inflamed, and their frames feverish with seven
+days and nights of travel. The shekh who conducted them was not an
+Aneyzeh, and would have lost his life had they fallen in with any of that
+tribe.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X.
+
+The Visions of Hasheesh.
+
+
+  "Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
+  Possessed beyond the Muse's painting."
+
+  Collins.
+
+
+During my stay in Damascus, that insatiable curiosity which leads me to
+prefer the acquisition of all lawful knowledge through the channels of my
+own personal experience, rather than in less satisfactory and less
+laborious ways, induced me to make a trial of the celebrated
+_Hasheesh_--that remarkable drug which supplies the luxurious Syrian with
+dreams more alluring and more gorgeous than the Chinese extracts from his
+darling opium pipe. The use of Hasheesh--which is a preparation of the
+dried leaves of the _cannabis indica_--has been familiar to the East for
+many centuries. During the Crusades, it was frequently used by the Saracen
+warriors to stimulate them to the work of slaughter, and from the Arabic
+term of "_Hashasheen,"_ or Eaters of Hasheesh, as applied to them, the
+word "assassin" has been naturally derived. An infusion of the same plant
+gives to the drink called "_bhang_," which is in common use throughout
+India and Malaysia, its peculiar properties. Thus prepared, it is a more
+fierce and fatal stimulant than the paste of sugar and spices to which the
+Turk resorts, as the food of his voluptuous evening reveries. While its
+immediate effects seem to be more potent than those of opium, its
+habitual use, though attended with ultimate and permanent injury to the
+system, rarely results in such utter wreck of mind and body as that to
+which the votaries of the latter drug inevitably condemn themselves.
+
+A previous experience of the effects of hasheesh--which I took once, and
+in a very mild form, while in Egypt--was so peculiar in its character,
+that my curiosity, instead of being satisfied, only prompted me the more
+to throw myself, for once, wholly under its influence. The sensations it
+then produced were those, physically, of exquisite lightness and
+airiness--of a wonderfully keen perception of the ludicrous, in the most
+simple and familiar objects. During the half hour in which it lasted, I
+was at no time so far under its control, that I could not, with the
+clearest perception, study the changes through which I passed. I noted,
+with careful attention, the fine sensations which spread throughout the
+whole tissue of my nervous fibre, each thrill helping to divest my frame
+of its earthy and material nature, until my substance appeared to me no
+grosser than the vapors of the atmosphere, and while sitting in the calm
+of the Egyptian twilight, I expected to be lifted up and carried away by
+the first breeze that should ruffle the Nile. While this process was going
+on, the objects by which I was surrounded assumed a strange and whimsical
+expression. My pipe, the oars which my boatmen plied, the turban worn by
+the captain, the water-jars and culinary implements, became in themselves
+so inexpressibly absurd and comical, that I was provoked into a long fit
+of laughter. The hallucination died away as gradually as it came, leaving
+me overcome with a soft and pleasant drowsiness, from which I sank into a
+deep, refreshing sleep.
+
+My companion and an English gentleman, who, with his wife, was also
+residing in Antonio's pleasant caravanserai--agreed to join me in the
+experiment. The dragoman of the latter was deputed to procure a sufficient
+quantity of the drug. He was a dark Egyptian, speaking only the _lingua
+franca_ of the East, and asked me, as he took the money and departed on
+his mission, whether he should get hasheesh "_per ridere, a per dormire?_"
+"Oh, _per ridere_, of course," I answered; "and see that it be strong and
+fresh." It is customary with the Syrians to take a small portion
+immediately before the evening meal, as it is thus diffused through the
+stomach and acts more gradually, as well as more gently, upon the system.
+As our dinner-hour was at sunset, I proposed taking hasheesh at that time,
+but my friends, fearing that its operation might be more speedy upon fresh
+subjects, and thus betray them into some absurdity in the presence of the
+other travellers, preferred waiting until after the meal. It was then
+agreed that we should retire to our room, which, as it rose like a tower
+one story higher than the rest of the building, was in a manner isolated,
+and would screen us from observation.
+
+We commenced by taking a tea-spoonful each of the mixture which Abdallah
+had procured. This was about the quantity I had taken in Egypt, and as the
+effect then had been so slight, I judged that we ran no risk of taking an
+over-dose. The strength of the drug, however, must have been far greater
+in this instance, for whereas I could in the former case distinguish no
+flavor but that of sugar and rose leaves, I now found the taste intensely
+bitter and repulsive to the palate. We allowed the paste to dissolve
+slowly on our tongues, and sat some time, quietly waiting the result. But,
+having been taken upon a full stomach, its operation was hindered, and
+after the lapse of nearly an hour, we could not detect the least change in
+our feelings. My friends loudly expressed their conviction of the humbug
+of hasheesh, but I, unwilling to give up the experiment at this point,
+proposed that we should take an additional half spoonful, and follow it
+with a cup of hot tea, which, if there were really any virtue in the
+preparation, could not fail to call it into action. This was done, though
+not without some misgivings, as we were all ignorant of the precise
+quantity which constituted a dose, and the limits within which the drug
+could be taken with safety. It was now ten o'clock; the streets of
+Damascus were gradually becoming silent, and the fair city was bathed in
+the yellow lustre of the Syrian moon. Only in the marble court-yard below
+us, a few dragomen and _mukkairee_ lingered under the lemon-trees, and
+beside the fountain in the centre.
+
+I was seated alone, nearly in the middle of the room, talking with my
+friends, who were lounging upon a sofa placed in a sort of alcove, at the
+farther end, when the same fine nervous thrill, of which I have spoken,
+suddenly shot through me. But this time it was accompanied with a burning
+sensation at the pit of the stomach; and, instead of growing upon me with
+the gradual pace of healthy slumber, and resolving me, as before, into
+air, it came with the intensity of a pang, and shot throbbing along the
+nerves to the extremities of my body. The sense of limitation---of the
+confinement of our senses within the bounds of our own flesh and
+blood--instantly fell away. The walls of my frame were burst outward and
+tumbled into ruin; and, without thinking what form I wore--losing sight
+even of all idea of form--I felt that I existed throughout a vast extent
+of space. The blood, pulsed from my heart, sped through uncounted leagues
+before it reached my extremities; the air drawn into my lungs expanded
+into seas of limpid ether, and the arch of my skull was broader than the
+vault of heaven. Within the concave that held my brain, were the
+fathomless deeps of blue; clouds floated there, and the winds of heaven
+rolled them together, and there shone the orb of the sun. It was--though I
+thought not of that at the time--like a revelation of the mystery of
+omnipresence. It is difficult to describe this sensation, or the rapidity
+with which it mastered me. In the state of mental exaltation in which I
+was then plunged, all sensations, as they rose, suggested more or less
+coherent images. They presented themselves to me in a double form: one
+physical, and therefore to a certain extent tangible; the other spiritual,
+and revealing itself in a succession of splendid metaphors. The physical
+feeling of extended being was accompanied by the image of an exploding
+meteor, not subsiding into darkness, but continuing to shoot from its
+centre or nucleus--which corresponded to the burning spot at the pit of my
+stomach--incessant adumbrations of light that finally lost themselves in
+the infinity of space. To my mind, even now, this image is still the best
+illustration of my sensations, as I recall them; but I greatly doubt
+whether the reader will find it equally clear.
+
+My curiosity was now in a way of being satisfied; the Spirit (demon, shall
+I not rather say?) of Hasheesh had entire possession of me. I was cast
+upon the flood of his illusions, and drifted helplessly whithersoever they
+might choose to bear me. The thrills which ran through my nervous system
+became more rapid and fierce, accompanied with sensations that steeped my
+whole being in unutterable rapture. I was encompassed by a sea of light,
+through which played the pure, harmonious colors that are born of light.
+While endeavoring, in broken expressions, to describe my feelings to my
+friends, who sat looking upon me incredulously--not yet having been
+affected by the drug--I suddenly found myself at the foot of the great
+Pyramid of Cheops. The tapering courses of yellow limestone gleamed like
+gold in the sun, and the pile rose so high that it seemed to lean for
+support upon the blue arch of the sky. I wished to ascend it, and the wish
+alone placed me immediately upon its apex, lifted thousands of feet above
+the wheat-fields and palm-groves of Egypt. I cast my eyes downward, and,
+to my astonishment, saw that it was built, not of limestone, but of huge
+square plugs of Cavendish tobacco! Words cannot paint the overwhelming
+sense of the ludicrous which I then experienced. I writhed on my chair in
+an agony of laughter, which was only relieved by the vision melting away
+like a dissolving view; till, out of my confusion of indistinct images and
+fragments of images, another and more wonderful vision arose.
+
+The more vividly I recall the scene which followed, the more carefully I
+restore its different features, and separate the many threads of sensation
+which it wove into one gorgeous web, the more I despair of representing
+its exceeding glory. I was moving over the Desert, not upon the rocking
+dromedary, but seated in a barque made of mother-of-pearl, and studded
+with jewels of surpassing lustre. The sand was of grains of gold, and my
+keel slid through them without jar or sound. The air was radiant with
+excess of light, though no sun was to be seen. I inhaled the most
+delicious perfumes; and harmonies, such as Beethoven may have heard in
+dreams, but never wrote, floated around me. The atmosphere itself was
+light, odor, music; and each and all sublimated beyond anything the sober
+senses are capable of receiving. Before me--for a thousand leagues, as it
+seemed--stretched a vista of rainbows, whose colors gleamed with the
+splendor of gems--arches of living amethyst, sapphire, emerald, topaz, and
+ruby. By thousands and tens of thousands, they flew past me, as my
+dazzling barge sped down the magnificent arcade; yet the vista still
+stretched as far as ever before me. I revelled in a sensuous elysium,
+which was perfect, because no sense was left ungratified. But beyond all,
+my mind was filled with a boundless feeling of triumph. My journey was
+that of a conqueror--not of a conqueror who subdues his race, either by
+Love or by Will, for I forgot that Man existed--but one victorious over
+the grandest as well as the subtlest forces of Nature. The spirits of
+Light, Color, Odor, Sound, and Motion were my slaves; and, having these, I
+was master of the universe.
+
+Those who are endowed to any extent with the imaginative faculty, must
+have at least once in their lives experienced feelings which may give them
+a clue to the exalted sensuous raptures of my triumphal march. The view of
+a sublime mountain landscape, the hearing of a grand orchestral symphony,
+or of a choral upborne by the "full-voiced organ," or even the beauty and
+luxury of a cloudless summer day, suggests emotions similar in kind, if
+less intense. They took a warmth and glow from that pure animal joy which
+degrades not, but spiritualizes and ennobles our material part, and which
+differs from cold, abstract, intellectual enjoyment, as the flaming
+diamond of the Orient differs from the icicle of the North. Those finer
+senses, which occupy a middle ground between our animal and intellectual
+appetites, were suddenly developed to a pitch beyond what I had ever
+dreamed, and being thus at one and the same time gratified to the fullest
+extent of their preternatural capacity, the result was a single harmonious
+sensation, to describe which human language has no epithet. Mahomet's
+Paradise, with its palaces of ruby and emerald, its airs of musk and
+cassia, and its rivers colder than snow and sweeter than honey, would have
+been a poor and mean terminus for my arcade of rainbows. Yet in the
+character of this paradise, in the gorgeous fancies of the Arabian Nights,
+in the glow and luxury of all Oriental poetry, I now recognize more or
+less of the agency of hasheesh.
+
+The fulness of my rapture expanded the sense of time; and though the whole
+vision was probably not more than five minutes in passing through my mind,
+years seemed to have elapsed while I shot under the dazzling myriads of
+rainbow arches. By and by, the rainbows, the barque of pearl and jewels,
+and the desert of golden sand, vanished; and, still bathed in light and
+perfume, I found myself in a land of green and flowery lawns, divided by
+hills of gently undulating outline. But, although the vegetation was the
+richest of earth, there were neither streams nor fountains to be seen; and
+the people who came from the hills, with brilliant garments that shone in
+the sun, besought me to give them the blessing of water. Their hands were
+full of branches of the coral honeysuckle, in bloom. These I took; and,
+breaking off the flowers one by one, set them in the earth. The slender,
+trumpet-like tubes immediately became shafts of masonry, and sank deep
+into the earth; the lip of the flower changed into a circular mouth of
+rose-colored marble, and the people, leaning over its brink, lowered their
+pitchers to the bottom with cords, and drew them up again, filled to the
+brim, and dripping with honey.
+
+The most remarkable feature of these illusions was, that at the time when
+I was most completely under their influence, I knew myself to be seated in
+the tower of Antonio's hotel in Damascus, knew that I had taken hasheesh,
+and that the strange, gorgeous and ludicrous fancies which possessed me,
+were the effect of it. At the very same instant that I looked upon the
+Valley of the Nile from the pyramid, slid over the Desert, or created my
+marvellous wells in that beautiful pastoral country, I saw the furniture
+of my room, its mosaic pavement, the quaint Saracenic niches in the walls,
+the painted and gilded beams of the ceiling, and the couch in the recess
+before me, with my two companions watching me. Both sensations were
+simultaneous, and equally palpable. While I was most given up to the
+magnificent delusion, I saw its cause and felt its absurdity most clearly.
+Metaphysicians say that the mind is incapable of performing two operations
+at the same time, and may attempt to explain this phenomenon by supposing
+a rapid and incessant vibration of the perceptions between the two states.
+This explanation, however, is not satisfactory to me; for not more clearly
+does a skilful musician with the same breath blow two distinct musical
+notes from a bugle, than I was conscious of two distinct conditions of
+being in the same moment. Yet, singular as it may seem, neither conflicted
+with the other. My enjoyment of the visions was complete and absolute,
+undisturbed by the faintest doubt of their reality, while, in some other
+chamber of my brain, Reason sat coolly watching them, and heaping the
+liveliest ridicule on their fantastic features. One set of nerves was
+thrilled with the bliss of the gods, while another was convulsed with
+unquenchable laughter at that very bliss. My highest ecstacies could not
+bear down and silence the weight of my ridicule, which, in its turn, was
+powerless to prevent me from running into other and more gorgeous
+absurdities. I was double, not "swan and shadow," but rather, Sphinx-like,
+human and beast. A true Sphinx, I was a riddle and a mystery to myself.
+
+The drug, which had been retarded in its operation on account of having
+been taken after a meal, now began to make itself more powerfully felt.
+The visions were more grotesque than ever, but less agreeable; and there
+was a painful tension throughout my nervous system--the effect of
+over-stimulus. I was a mass of transparent jelly, and a confectioner
+poured me into a twisted mould. I threw my chair aside, and writhed and
+tortured myself for some time to force my loose substance into the mould.
+At last, when I had so far succeeded that only one foot remained outside,
+it was lifted off, and another mould, of still more crooked and intricate
+shape, substituted. I have no doubt that the contortions through which I
+went, to accomplish the end of my gelatinous destiny, would have been
+extremely ludicrous to a spectator, but to me they were painful and
+disagreeable. The sober half of me went into fits of laughter over them,
+and through that laughter, my vision shifted into another scene. I had
+laughed until my eyes overflowed profusely. Every drop that fell,
+immediately became a large loaf of bread, and tumbled upon the shop-board
+of a baker in the bazaar at Damascus. The more I laughed, the faster the
+loaves fell, until such a pile was raised about the baker, that I could
+hardly see the top of his head. "The man will be suffocated," I cried,
+"but if he were to die, I cannot stop!"
+
+My perceptions now became more dim and confused. I felt that I was in the
+grasp of some giant force; and, in the glimmering of my fading reason,
+grew earnestly alarmed, for the terrible stress under which my frame
+labored increased every moment. A fierce and furious heat radiated from my
+stomach throughout my system; my mouth and throat were as dry and hard as
+if made of brass, and my tongue, it seemed to me, was a bar of rusty iron.
+I seized a pitcher of water, and drank long and deeply; but I might as
+well have drunk so much air, for not only did it impart no moisture, but
+my palate and throat gave me no intelligence of having drunk at all. I
+stood in the centre of the room, brandishing my arms convulsively, an
+heaving sighs that seemed to shatter my whole being. "Will no one," I
+cried in distress, "cast out this devil that has possession of me?" I no
+longer saw the room nor my friends, but I heard one of them saying, "It
+must be real; he could not counterfeit such an expression as that. But it
+don't look much like pleasure." Immediately afterwards there was a scream
+of the wildest laughter, and my countryman sprang upon the floor,
+exclaiming, "O, ye gods! I am a locomotive!" This was his ruling
+hallucination; and, for the space of two or three hours, he continued to
+pace to and fro with a measured stride, exhaling his breath in violent
+jets, and when he spoke, dividing his words into syllables, each of which
+he brought out with a jerk, at the same time turning his hands at his
+sides, as if they were the cranks of imaginary wheels, The Englishman, as
+soon as he felt the dose beginning to take effect, prudently retreated to
+his own room, and what the nature of his visions was, we never learned,
+for he refused to tell, and, moreover, enjoined the strictest silence on
+his wife.
+
+By this time it was nearly midnight. I had passed through the Paradise of
+Hasheesh, and was plunged at once into its fiercest Hell. In my ignorance
+I had taken what, I have since learned, would have been a sufficient
+portion for six men, and was now paying a frightful penalty for my
+curiosity. The excited blood rushed through my frame with a sound like the
+roaring of mighty waters. It was projected into my eyes until I could no
+longer see; it beat thickly in my ears, and so throbbed in my heart, that
+I feared the ribs would give way under its blows. I tore open my vest,
+placed my hand over the spot, and tried to count the pulsations; but there
+were two hearts, one beating at the rate of a thousand beats a minute, and
+the other with a slow, dull motion. My throat, I thought, was filled to
+the brim with blood, and streams of blood were pouring from my ears. I
+felt them gushing warm down my cheeks and neck. With a maddened, desperate
+feeling, I fled from the room, and walked over the flat, terraced roof of
+the house. My body seemed to shrink and grow rigid as I wrestled with the
+demon, and my face to become wild, lean and haggard. Some lines which had
+struck me, years before, in reading Mrs. Browning's "Rhyme of the Duchess
+May," flashed into my mind:--
+
+  "And the horse, in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air,
+    On the last verge, rears amain;
+  And he hangs, he rocks between--and his nostrils curdle in--
+  And he shivers, head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off;
+    And his face grows fierce and thin."
+
+That picture of animal terror and agony was mine. I was the horse,
+hanging poised on the verge of the giddy tower, the next moment to be
+borne sheer down to destruction. Involuntarily, I raised my hand to feel
+the leanness and sharpness of my face. Oh horror! the flesh had fallen
+from my bones, and it was a skeleton head that I carried on my shoulders!
+With one bound I sprang to the parapet, and looked down into the silent
+courtyard, then filled with the shadows thrown into it by the sinking
+moon. Shall I cast myself down headlong? was the question I proposed to
+myself; but though the horror of that skeleton delusion was greater than
+my fear of death, there was an invisible hand at my breast which pushed me
+away from the brink.
+
+I made my way back to the room, in a state of the keenest suffering. My
+companion was still a locomotive, rushing to and fro, and jerking out his
+syllables with the disjointed accent peculiar to a steam-engine. His mouth
+had turned to brass, like mine, and he raised the pitcher to his lips in
+the attempt to moisten it, but before he had taken a mouthful, set the
+pitcher down again with a yell of laughter, crying out: "How can I take
+water into my boiler, while I am letting off steam?"
+
+But I was now too far gone to feel the absurdity of this, or his other
+exclamations. I was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of unutterable
+agony and despair. For, although I was not conscious of real pain in any
+part of my body, the cruel tension to which my nerves had been subjected
+filled me through and through with a sensation of distress which was far
+more severe than pain itself. In addition to this, the remnant of will
+with which I struggled against the demon, became gradually weaker, and I
+felt that I should soon be powerless in his hands. Every effort to
+preserve my reason was accompanied by a pang of mortal fear, lest what I
+now experienced was insanity, and would hold mastery over me for ever. The
+thought of death, which also haunted me, was far less bitter than this
+dread. I knew that in the struggle which was going on in my frame, I was
+borne fearfully near the dark gulf, and the thought that, at such a time,
+both reason and will were leaving my brain, filled me with an agony, the
+depth and blackness of which I should vainly attempt to portray. I threw
+myself on my bed, with the excited blood still roaring wildly in my ears,
+my heart throbbing with a force that seemed to be rapidly wearing away my
+life, my throat dry as a pot-sherd, and my stiffened tongue cleaving to
+the roof of my mouth--resisting no longer, but awaiting my fate with the
+apathy of despair.
+
+My companion was now approaching the same condition, but as the effect of
+the drug on him had been less violent, so his stage of suffering was more
+clamorous. He cried out to me that he was dying, implored me to help him,
+and reproached me vehemently, because I lay there silent, motionless, and
+apparently careless of his danger. "Why will he disturb me?" I thought;
+"he thinks he is dying, but what is death to madness? Let him die; a
+thousand deaths were more easily borne than the pangs I suffer." While I
+was sufficiently conscious to hear his exclamations, they only provoked my
+keen anger; but after a time, my senses became clouded, and I sank into a
+stupor. As near as I can judge, this must have been three o'clock in the
+morning, rather more than five hours after the hasheesh began to take
+effect. I lay thus all the following day and night, in a state of gray,
+blank oblivion, broken only by a single wandering gleam of consciousness.
+I recollect hearing Francois' voice. He told me afterwards that I arose,
+attempted to dress myself, drank two cups of coffee, and then fell back
+into the same death-like stupor; but of all this, I did not retain the
+least knowledge. On the morning of the second day, after a sleep of thirty
+hours, I awoke again to the world, with a system utterly prostrate and
+unstrung, and a brain clouded with the lingering images of my visions. I
+knew where I was, and what had happened to me, but all that I saw still
+remained unreal and shadowy. There was no taste in what I ate, no
+refreshment in what I drank, and it required a painful effort to
+comprehend what was said to me and return a coherent answer. Will and
+Reason had come back, but they still sat unsteadily upon their thrones.
+
+My friend, who was much further advanced in his recovery, accompanied me
+to the adjoining bath, which I hoped would assist in restoring me. It was
+with great difficulty that I preserved the outward appearance of
+consciousness. In spite of myself, a veil now and then fell over my mind,
+and after wandering for years, as it seemed, in some distant world, I
+awoke with a shock, to find myself in the steamy halls of the bath, with a
+brown Syrian polishing my limbs. I suspect that my language must have been
+rambling and incoherent, and that the menials who had me in charge
+understood my condition, for as soon as I had stretched myself upon the
+couch which follows the bath, a glass of very acid sherbet was presented
+to me, and after drinking it I experienced instant relief. Still the spell
+was not wholly broken, and for two or three days I continued subject to
+frequent involuntary fits of absence, which made me insensible, for the
+time, to all that was passing around me. I walked the streets of Damascus
+with a strange consciousness that I was in some other place at the same
+time, and with a constant effort to reunite my divided perceptions.
+
+Previous to the experiment, we had decided on making a bargain with the
+shekh for the journey to Palmyra. The state, however, in which we now
+found ourselves, obliged us to relinquish the plan. Perhaps the excitement
+of a forced march across the desert, and a conflict with the hostile
+Arabs, which was quite likely to happen, might have assisted us in
+throwing off the baneful effects of the drug; but all the charm which lay
+in the name of Palmyra and the romantic interest of the trip, was gone. I
+was without courage and without energy, and nothing remained for me but to
+leave Damascus.
+
+Yet, fearful as my rash experiment proved to me, I did not regret having
+made it. It revealed to me deeps of rapture and of suffering which my
+natural faculties never could have sounded. It has taught me the majesty
+of human reason and of human will, even in the weakest, and the awful
+peril of tampering with that which assails their integrity. I have here
+faithfully and fully written out my experience, on account of the lesson
+which it may convey to others. If I have unfortunately failed in my
+design, and have but awakened that restless curiosity which I have
+endeavored to forestall, let me beg all who are thereby led to repeat the
+experiment upon themselves, that they be content to take the portion of
+hasheesh which is considered sufficient for one man, and not, like me,
+swallow enough for six.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI.
+
+A Dissertation on Bathing and Bodies.
+
+
+  "No swan-soft woman, rubbed with lucid oils,
+  The gift of an enamored god, more fair."
+
+  Browning.
+
+
+We shall not set out from Damascus--we shall not leave the Pearl of the
+Orient to glimmer through the seas of foliage wherein it lies
+buried--without consecrating a day to the Bath, that material agent of
+peace and good-will unto men. We have bathed in the Jordan, like Naaman,
+and been made clean; let us now see whether Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
+Damascus, are better than the waters of Israel.
+
+The Bath is the "peculiar institution" of the East. Coffee has become
+colonized in France and America; the Pipe is a cosmopolite, and his blue,
+joyous breath congeals under the Arctic Circle, or melts languidly into
+the soft airs of the Polynesian Isles; but the Bath, that sensuous elysium
+which cradled the dreams of Plato, and the visions of Zoroaster, and the
+solemn meditations of Mahomet, is only to be found under an Oriental sky.
+The naked natives of the Torrid Zone are amphibious; they do not bathe,
+they live in the water. The European and Anglo-American wash themselves
+and think they have bathed; they shudder under cold showers and perform
+laborious antics with coarse towels. As for the Hydropathist, the Genius
+of the Bath, whose dwelling is in Damascus, would be convulsed with
+scornful laughter, could he behold that aqueous Diogenes sitting in his
+tub, or stretched out in his wet wrappings, like a sodden mummy, in a
+catacomb of blankets and feather beds. As the rose in the East has a rarer
+perfume than in other lands, so does the Bath bestow a superior
+purification and impart a more profound enjoyment.
+
+Listen not unto the lamentations of travellers, who complain of the heat,
+and the steam, and the dislocations of their joints. They belong to the
+stiff-necked generation, who resist the processes, whereunto the Oriental
+yields himself body and soul. He who is bathed in Damascus, must be as
+clay in the hands of a potter. The Syrians marvel how the Franks can walk,
+so difficult is it to bend their joints. Moreover, they know the
+difference between him who comes to the Bath out of a mere idle curiosity,
+and him who has tasted its delight and holds it in due honor. Only the
+latter is permitted to know all its mysteries. The former is carelessly
+hurried through the ordinary forms of bathing, and, if any trace of the
+cockney remain in him, is quite as likely to be disgusted as pleased.
+Again, there are many second and third-rate baths, whither cheating
+dragomen conduct their victims, in consideration of a division of spoils
+with the bath-keeper. Hence it is, that the Bath has received but partial
+justice at the hands of tourists in the East. If any one doubts this, let
+him clothe himself with Oriental passiveness and resignation, go to the
+Hamman el-Khyateen, at Damascus, or the Bath of Mahmoud Pasha, at
+Constantinople, and demand that he be perfectly bathed.
+
+Come with me, and I will show you the mysteries of the perfect bath. Here
+is the entrance, a heavy Saracenic arch, opening upon the crowded bazaar.
+We descend a few steps to the marble pavement of a lofty octagonal hall,
+lighted by a dome. There is a jet of sparkling water in the centre,
+falling into a heavy stone basin. A platform about five feet in height
+runs around the hall, and on this are ranged a number of narrow couches,
+with their heads to the wall, like the pallets in a hospital ward. The
+platform is covered with straw matting, and from the wooden gallery which
+rises above it are suspended towels, with blue and crimson borders. The
+master of the bath receives us courteously, and conducts us to one of the
+vacant couches. We kick off our red slippers below, and mount the steps to
+the platform. Yonder traveller, in Frank dress, who has just entered, goes
+up with his boots on, and we know, from that fact, what sort of a bath he
+will get.
+
+As the work of disrobing proceeds, a dark-eyed boy appears with a napkin,
+which he holds before us, ready to bind it about the waist, as soon as we
+regain our primitive form. Another attendant throws a napkin over our
+shoulders and wraps a third around our head, turban-wise. He then thrusts
+a pair of wooden clogs upon our feet, and, taking us by the arm, steadies
+our tottering and clattering steps, as we pass through a low door and a
+warm ante-chamber into the first hall of the bath. The light, falling
+dimly through a cluster of bull's-eyes in the domed ceiling, shows, first,
+a silver thread of water, playing in a steamy atmosphere; next, some dark
+motionless objects, stretched out on a low central platform of marble. The
+attendant spreads a linen sheet in one of the vacant places, places a
+pillow at one end, takes off our clogs, deposits us gently on our back,
+and leaves us. The pavement is warm beneath us, and the first breath we
+draw gives us a sense of suffocation. But a bit of burning aloe-wood has
+just been carried through the hall, and the steam is permeated with
+fragrance. The dark-eyed boy appears with a narghileh, which he places
+beside us, offering the amber mouth-piece to our submissive lips. The
+smoke we inhale has an odor of roses; and as the pipe bubbles with our
+breathing, we feel that the dews of sweat gather heavily upon us. The
+attendant now reappears, kneels beside us, and gently kneads us with
+dexterous hands. Although no anatomist, he knows every muscle and sinew
+whose suppleness gives ease to the body, and so moulds and manipulates
+them that we lose the rigidity of our mechanism, and become plastic in his
+hands. He turns us upon our face, repeats the same process upon the back,
+and leaves us a little longer to lie there passively, glistening in our
+own dew.
+
+We are aroused from a reverie about nothing by a dark-brown shape, who
+replaces the clogs, puts his arm around our waist and leads us into an
+inner hall, with a steaming tank in the centre. Here he slips us off the
+brink, and we collapse over head and ears in the fiery fluid.
+Once--twice--we dip into the delicious heat, and then are led into a
+marble alcove, and seated flat upon the floor. The attendant stands behind
+us, and we now perceive that his hands are encased in dark hair-gloves. He
+pounces upon an arm, which he rubs until, like a serpent, we slough the
+worn-out skin, and resume our infantile smoothness and fairness. No man
+can be called clean until he has bathed in the East. Let him walk directly
+from his accustomed bath and self-friction with towels, to the Hammam
+el-Khyateen, and the attendant will exclaim, as he shakes out his
+hair-gloves: "O Frank! it is a long time since you have bathed." The other
+arm follows, the back, the breast, the legs, until the work is complete,
+and we know precisely how a horse feels after he has been curried.
+
+Now the attendant turns two cocks at the back of the alcove, and holding a
+basin alternately under the cold and hot streams, floods us at first with
+a fiery dash, that sends a delicious warm shiver through every nerve;
+then, with milder applications, lessening the temperature of the water by
+semi-tones, until, from the highest key of heat which we can bear, we
+glide rapturously down the gamut until we reach the lowest bass of
+coolness. The skin has by this time attained an exquisite sensibility, and
+answers to these changes of temperature with thrills of the purest
+physical pleasure. In fact, the whole frame seems purged of its earthy
+nature and transformed into something of a finer and more delicate
+texture.
+
+After a pause, the attendant makes his appearance with a large wooden
+bowl, a piece of soap, and a bunch of palm-fibres. He squats down beside
+the bowl, and speedily creates a mass of snowy lather, which grows up to a
+pyramid and topples over the edge. Seizing us by the crown-tuft of hair
+upon our shaven head, he plants the foamy bunch of fibres full in our
+face. The world vanishes; sight, hearing, smell, taste (unless we open our
+mouth), and breathing, are cut off; we have become nebulous. Although our
+eyes are shut, we seem to see a blank whiteness; and, feeling nothing but
+a soft fleeciness, we doubt whether we be not the Olympian cloud which
+visited lo. But the cloud clears away before strangulation begins, and the
+velvety mass descends upon the body. Twice we are thus "slushed" from head
+to foot, and made more slippery than the anointed wrestlers of the Greek
+games. Then the basin comes again into play, and we glide once more
+musically through the scale of temperature.
+
+The brown sculptor has now nearly completed his task. The figure of clay
+which entered the bath is transformed into polished marble. He turns the
+body from side to side, and lifts the limbs to see whether the workmanship
+is adequate to his conception. His satisfied gaze proclaims his success. A
+skilful bath-attendant has a certain aesthetic pleasure in his occupation.
+The bodies he polishes become to some extent his own workmanship, and he
+feels responsible for their symmetry or deformity. He experiences a degree
+of triumph in contemplating a beautiful form, which has grown more airily
+light and beautiful under his hands. He is a great connoisseur of bodies,
+and could pick you out the finest specimens with as ready an eye as an
+artist.
+
+I envy those old Greek bathers, into whose hands were delivered Pericles,
+and Alcibiades, and the perfect models of Phidias. They had daily before
+their eyes the highest types of Beauty which the world has ever produced;
+for of all things that are beautiful, the human body is the crown. Now,
+since the delusion of artists has been overthrown, and we know that
+Grecian Art is but the simple reflex of Nature--that the old masterpieces
+of sculpture were no miraculous embodiments of a _beau ideal_, but copies
+of living forms--we must admit that in no other age of the world has the
+physical Man been so perfectly developed. The nearest approach I have ever
+seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of
+Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo.
+
+Oriental life is too full of repose, and the Ottoman race has become too
+degenerate through indulgence, to exhibit many striking specimens of
+physical beauty. The face is generally fine, but the body is apt to be
+lank, and with imperfect muscular development. The best forms I saw in the
+baths were those of laborers, who, with a good deal of rugged strength,
+showed some grace and harmony of proportion. It may be received as a
+general rule, that the physical development of the European is superior to
+that of the Oriental, with the exception of the Circassians and Georgians,
+whose beauty well entitles them to the distinction of giving their name to
+our race.
+
+So far as female beauty is concerned, the Circassian women have no
+superiors. They have preserved in their mountain home the purity of the
+Grecian models, and still display the perfect physical loveliness, whose
+type has descended to us in the Venus de Medici. The Frank who is addicted
+to wandering about the streets of Oriental cities can hardly fail to be
+favored with a sight of the faces of these beauties. More than once it has
+happened to me, in meeting a veiled lady, sailing along in her
+balloon-like feridjee, that she has allowed the veil to drop by a skilful
+accident, as she passed, and has startled me with the vision of her
+beauty, recalling the line of the Persian poet: "Astonishment! is this the
+dawn of the glorious sun, or is it the full moon?" The Circassian face is
+a pure oval; the forehead is low and fair, "an excellent thing in woman,"
+and the skin of an ivory whiteness, except the faint pink of the cheeks
+and the ripe, roseate stain of the lips. The hair is dark, glossy, and
+luxuriant, exquisitely outlined on the temples; the eyebrows slightly
+arched, and drawn with a delicate pencil; while lashes like "rays of
+darkness" shade the large, dark, humid orbs below them. The alabaster of
+the face, so pure as scarcely to show the blue branching of the veins on
+the temples, is lighted by those superb eyes--
+
+  "Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone,"
+
+--whose wells are so dark and deep, that you are cheated into the belief
+that a glorious soul looks out of them.
+
+Once, by an unforeseen chance, I beheld the Circassian form, in its most
+perfect development. I was on board an Austrian steamer in the harbor of
+Smyrna, when the harem of a Turkish pasha came out in a boat to embark for
+Alexandria. The sea was rather rough, and nearly all the officers of the
+steamer were ashore. There were six veiled and swaddled women, with a
+black eunuch as guard, in the boat, which lay tossing for some time at the
+foot of the gangway ladder, before the frightened passengers could summon
+courage to step out. At last the youngest of them--a Circassian girl of
+not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age--ventured upon the ladder,
+clasping the hand-rail with one hand, while with the other she held
+together the folds of her cumbrous feridjee. I was standing in the
+gangway, watching her, when a slight lurch of the steamer caused her to
+loose her hold of the garment, which, fastened at the neck, was blown back
+from her shoulders, leaving her body screened but by a single robe
+of-light, gauzy silk. Through this, the marble whiteness of her skin, the
+roundness, the glorious symmetry of her form, flashed upon me, as a vision
+of Aphrodite, seen
+
+  "Through leagues of shimmering water, like a star."
+
+It was but a momentary glimpse; yet that moment convinced me that forms
+of Phidian perfection are still nurtured in the vales of Caucasus.
+
+The necessary disguise of dress hides from us much of the beauty and
+dignity of Humanity, I have seen men who appeared heroic in the freedom of
+nakedness, shrink almost into absolute vulgarity, when clothed. The soul
+not only sits at the windows of the eyes, and hangs upon the gateway of
+the lips; she speaks as well in the intricate, yet harmonious lines of the
+body, and the ever-varying play of the limbs. Look at the torso of
+Ilioneus, the son of Niobe, and see what an agony of terror and
+supplication cries out from that headless and limbless trunk! Decapitate
+Laocooen, and his knotted muscles will still express the same dreadful
+suffering and resistance. None knew this better than the ancient
+sculptors; and hence it was that we find many of their statues of
+distinguished men wholly or partly undraped. Such a view of Art would be
+considered transcendental now-a-days, when our dress, our costumes, and
+our modes of speech either ignore the existence of our bodies, or treat
+them with little of that reverence which is their due.
+
+But, while we have been thinking these thoughts, the attendant has been
+waiting to give us a final plunge into the seething tank. Again we slide
+down to the eyes in the fluid heat, which wraps us closely about until we
+tingle with exquisite hot shiverings. Now comes the graceful boy, with
+clean, cool, lavendered napkins, which he folds around our waist and wraps
+softly about the head. The pattens are put upon our feet, and the brown
+arm steadies us gently through the sweating-room and ante-chamber into the
+outer hall, where we mount to our couch. We sink gently upon the cool
+linen, and the boy covers us with a perfumed sheet. Then, kneeling beside
+the couch, he presses the folds of the sheet around us, that it may absorb
+the lingering moisture and the limpid perspiration shed by the departing
+heat. As fast as the linen becomes damp, he replaces it with fresh,
+pressing the folds about us as tenderly as a mother arranges the drapery
+of her sleeping babe; for we, though of the stature of a man, are now
+infantile in our helpless happiness. Then he takes our passive hand and
+warms its palm by the soft friction of his own; after which, moving to the
+end of the couch, he lifts our feet upon his lap, and repeats the friction
+upon their soles, until the blood comes back to the surface of the body
+with a misty glow, like that which steeps the clouds of a summer
+afternoon.
+
+We have but one more process to undergo, and the attendant already stands
+at the head of our couch. This is the course of passive gymnastics, which
+excites so much alarm and resistance in the ignorant Franks. It is only
+resistance that is dangerous, completely neutralizing the enjoyment of the
+process. Give yourself with a blind submission into the arms of the brown
+Fate, and he will lead you to new chambers of delight. He lifts us to a
+sitting posture, places himself behind us, and folds his arms around our
+body, alternately tightening and relaxing his clasp, as if to test the
+elasticity of the ribs. Then seizing one arm, he draws it across the
+opposite shoulder, until the joint cracks like a percussion-cap. The
+shoulder-blades, the elbows, the wrists, and the finger-joints are all
+made to fire off their muffled volleys; and then, placing one knee between
+our shoulders, and clasping both hands upon our forehead, he draws our
+head back until we feel a great snap of the vertebral column. Now he
+descends to the hip-joints, knees, ankles, and feet, forcing each and all
+to discharge a salvo _de joie_. The slight languor left from the bath is
+gone, and an airy, delicate exhilaration, befitting the winged Mercury,
+takes its place.
+
+The boy, kneeling, presents us with _finjan_ of foamy coffee, followed by
+a glass of sherbet cooled with the snows of Lebanon. He presently returns
+with a narghileh, which we smoke by the effortless inhalation of the
+lungs. Thus we lie in perfect repose, soothed by the fragrant weed, and
+idly watching the silent Orientals, who are undressing for the bath or
+reposing like ourselves. Through the arched entrance, we see a picture of
+the bazaars: a shadowy painting of merchants seated amid their silks and
+spices, dotted here and there with golden drops and splashes of sunshine,
+which have trickled through the roof. The scene paints itself upon our
+eyes, yet wakes no slightest stir of thought. The brain is a becalmed sea,
+without a ripple on its shores. Mind and body are drowned in delicious
+rest; and we no longer remember what we are. We only know that there is an
+Existence somewhere in the air, and that wherever it is, and whatever it
+may be, it is happy.
+
+More and more dim grows the picture. The colors fade and blend into each
+other, and finally merge into a bed of rosy clouds, flooded with the
+radiance of some unseen sun. Gentlier than "tired eyelids upon tired
+eyes," sleep lies upon our senses: a half-conscious sleep, wherein we know
+that we behold light and inhale fragrance. As gently, the clouds dissipate
+into air, and we are born again into the world. The Bath is at an end. We
+arise and put on our garments, and walk forth into the sunny streets of
+Damascus. But as we go homewards, we involuntarily look down to see
+whether we are really treading upon the earth, wondering, perhaps, that we
+should be content to do so, when it would be so easy to soar above the
+house-tops.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII.
+
+Baalbec and Lebanon.
+
+
+  Departure from Damascus--The Fountains of the Pharpar--Pass of the
+  Anti-Lebanon--Adventure with the Druses--The Range of Lebanon--The Demon
+  of Hasheesh departs--Impressions of Baalbec--The Temple of the
+  Sun--Titanic Masonry--The Ruined Mosque--Camp on Lebanon--Rascality of
+  the Guide--The Summit of Lebanon--The Sacred Cedars--The Christians of
+  Lebanon--An Afternoon in Eden--Rugged Travel--We Reach the Coast--Return
+  to Beyrout.
+
+
+  "Peor and Baaelim
+  Forsake their temples dim."
+
+  Milton.
+
+
+  "The cedars wave on Lebanon,
+  But Judah's statelier maids are gone."
+
+  Byron.
+
+
+Beyrout, _Thursday, May_ 27, 1852.
+
+After a stay of eight days in Damascus, we called our men, Dervish and
+Mustapha, again into requisition, loaded our enthusiastic mules, and
+mounted our despairing horses. There were two other parties on the way to
+Baalbec--an English gentleman and lady, and a solitary Englishman, so that
+our united forces made an imposing caravan. There is always a custom-house
+examination, not on entering, but on issuing from an Oriental city, but
+travellers can avoid it by procuring the company of a Consular Janissary
+as far as the gate. Mr. Wood, the British Consul, lent us one of his
+officers for the occasion, whom we found waiting, outside of the wall, to
+receive his private fee for the service. We mounted the long, barren hill
+west of the plain, and at the summit, near the tomb of a Moslem shekh,
+turned to take a last long look at the bowery plain, and the minarets of
+the city, glittering through the blue morning vapor.
+
+A few paces further on the rocky road, a different scene presented itself
+to us. There lay, to the westward, a long stretch of naked yellow
+mountains, basking in the hot glare of the sun, and through the centre,
+deep down in the heart of the arid landscape, a winding line of living
+green showed the course of the Barrada. We followed the river, until the
+path reached an impassable gorge, which occasioned a detour of two or
+three hours. We then descended to the bed of the dell, where the
+vegetation, owing to the radiated heat from the mountains and the
+fertilizing stimulus of the water below, was even richer than on the plain
+of Damascus. The trees were plethoric with an overplus of life. The boughs
+of the mulberries were weighed down with the burden of the leaves;
+pomegranates were in a violent eruption of blossoms; and the foliage of
+the fig and poplar was of so deep a hue that it shone black in the sun.
+
+Passing through a gateway of rock, so narrow that we were often obliged to
+ride in the bed of the stream, we reached a little meadow, beyond which
+was a small hamlet, almost hidden in the leaves. Here the mountains again
+approached each other, and from the side of that on the right hand, the
+main body of the Barrada, or Pharpar, gushed forth in one full stream. The
+fountain is nearly double the volume of that of the Jordan at Banias, and
+much more beautiful. The foundations of an ancient building, probably a
+temple, overhang it, and tall poplars and sycamores cover it with
+impenetrable shade. From the low aperture, where it bursts into the light,
+its waters, white with foam, bound away flashing in the chance rays of
+sunshine, until they are lost to sight in the dense, dark foliage. We sat
+an hour on the ruined walls, listening to the roar and rush of the flood,
+and enjoying the shade of the walnuts and sycamores. Soon after leaving,
+our path crossed a small stream, which comes down to the Barrada from the
+upper valleys of the Anti-Lebanon, and entered a wild pass, faced with
+cliffs of perpendicular rock. An old bridge, of one arch, spanned the
+chasm, out of which we climbed to a tract of high meadow land. In the pass
+there were some fragments of ancient columns, traces of an aqueduct, and
+inscriptions on the rocks, among which Mr. H. found the name of Antoninus.
+The place is not mentioned in any book of travel I have seen, as it is not
+on the usual road from Damascus to Baalbec.
+
+As we were emerging from the pass, we saw a company of twelve armed men
+seated in the grass, near the roadside. They were wild-looking characters,
+and eyed us somewhat sharply as we passed. We greeted them with the usual
+"salaam aleikoom!" which they did not return. The same evening, as we
+encamped at the village of Zebdeni, about three hours further up the
+valley, we were startled by a great noise and outcry, with the firing of
+pistols. It happened, as we learned on inquiring the cause of all this
+confusion, that the men we saw in the pass were rebel Druses, who were
+then lying in wait for the Shekh of Zebdeni, whom, with his son, they had
+taken captive soon after we passed. The news had by some means been
+conveyed to the village, and a company of about two hundred persons was
+then marching out to the rescue. The noise they made was probably to give
+the Druses intimation of their coming, and thus avoid a fight. I do not
+believe that any of the mountaineers of Lebanon would willingly take part
+against the Druses, who, in fact, are not fighting so much against the
+institution of the conscription law, as its abuse. The law ordains that
+the conscript shall serve for five years; but since its establishment, as
+I have been informed, there has not been a single instance of discharge.
+It amounts, therefore, to lifelong servitude, and there is little wonder
+that these independent sons of the mountains, as well as the tribes
+inhabiting the Syrian Desert, should rebel rather than submit.
+
+The next day, we crossed a pass in the Anti-Lebanon beyond Zebdeni,
+descended a beautiful valley on the western side, under a ridge which was
+still dotted with patches of snow, and after travelling for some hours
+over a wide, barren height, the last of the range, saw below us the plain
+of Baalbec. The grand ridge of Lebanon opposite, crowned with glittering
+fields of snow, shone out clearly through the pure air, and the hoary head
+of Hermon, far in the south, lost something of its grandeur by the
+comparison. Though there is a "divide," or watershed, between Husbeiya, at
+the foot of Mount Hermon, and Baalbec, whose springs join the Orontes,
+which flows northward to Antioch, the great natural separation of the two
+chains continues unbroken to the Gulf of Akaba, in the Red Sea. A little
+beyond Baalbec, the Anti-Lebanon terminates, sinking into the Syrian
+plain, while the Lebanon, though its name and general features are lost,
+about twenty miles further to the north is succeeded by other ranges,
+which, though broken at intervals, form a regular series, connecting with
+the Taurus, in Asia Minor.
+
+On leaving Damascus, the Demon of Hasheesh still maintained a partial
+control over me. I was weak in body and at times confused in my
+perceptions, wandering away from the scenes about me to some unknown
+sphere beyond the moon. But the healing balm of my sleep at Zebdeni, and
+the purity of the morning air among the mountains, completed my cure. As I
+rode along the valley, with the towering, snow-sprinkled ridge of the
+Anti-Lebanon on my right, a cloudless heaven above my head, and meads
+enamelled with the asphodel and scarlet anemone stretching before me, I
+felt that the last shadow had rolled away from my brain. My mind was now
+as clear as that sky--my heart as free and joyful as the elastic morning
+air. The sun never shone so brightly to my eyes; the fair forms of Nature
+were never penetrated with so perfect a spirit of beauty. I was again
+master of myself, and the world glowed as if new-created in the light of
+my joy and gratitude. I thanked God, who had led me out of a darkness more
+terrible than that of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and while my feet
+strayed among the flowery meadows of Lebanon, my heart walked on the
+Delectable Hills of His Mercy.
+
+By the middle of the afternoon, we reached Baalbec. The distant view of
+the temple, on descending the last slope of the Anti-Lebanon, is not
+calculated to raise one's expectations. On the green plain at the foot of
+the mountain, you see a large square platform of masonry, upon which stand
+six columns, the body of the temple, and a quantity of ruined walls. As a
+feature in the landscape, it has a fine effect, but you find yourself
+pronouncing the speedy judgment, that "Baalbec, without Lebanon, would be
+rather a poor show." Having come to this conclusion, you ride down the
+hill with comfortable feelings of indifference. There are a number of
+quarries on the left hand; you glance at them with an expression which
+merely says: "Ah! I suppose they got the stones here," and so you saunter
+on, cross a little stream that flows down from the modern village, pass a
+mill, return the stare of the quaint Arab miller who comes to the door to
+see you, and your horse is climbing a difficult path among the broken
+columns and friezes, before you think it worth while to lift your eyes to
+the pile above you. Now re-assert your judgment, if you dare! This is
+Baalbec: what have you to say? Nothing; but you amazedly measure the
+torsos of great columns which lie piled across one another in magnificent
+wreck; vast pieces which have dropped from the entablature, beautiful
+Corinthian capitals, bereft of the last graceful curves of their acanthus
+leaves, and blocks whose edges are so worn away that they resemble
+enormous natural boulders left by the Deluge, till at last you look up to
+the six glorious pillars, towering nigh a hundred feet above your head,
+and there is a sensation in your brain which would be a shout, if you
+could give it utterance, of faultless symmetry and majesty, such as no
+conception of yours and no other creation of art, can surpass.
+
+I know of nothing so beautiful in all remains of ancient Art as these six
+columns, except the colonnade of the Memnonium, at Thebes, which is of
+much smaller proportions. From every position, and with all lights of the
+day or night, they are equally perfect, and carry your eyes continually
+away from the peristyle of the smaller temple, which is better preserved,
+and from the exquisite architecture of the outer courts and pavilions.
+The two temples of Baalbec stand on an artificial platform of masonry, a
+thousand feet in length, and from fifteen to thirty feet (according to the
+depression of the soil) in height, The larger one, which is supposed to
+have been a Pantheon, occupies the whole length of this platform. The
+entrance was at the north, by a grand flight of steps, now broken away,
+between two lofty and elegant pavilions which are still nearly entire.
+Then followed a spacious hexagonal court, and three grand halls, parts of
+which, with niches for statues, adorned with cornices and pediments of
+elaborate design, still remain entire to the roof. This magnificent series
+of chambers was terminated at the southern extremity of the platform by
+the main temple, which had originally twenty columns on a side, similar to
+the six now standing.
+
+The Temple of the Sun stands on a smaller and lower platform, which
+appears to have been subsequently added to the greater one. The cella, or
+body of the temple, is complete except the roof, and of the colonnade
+surrounding it, nearly one-half of its pillars are still standing,
+upholding the frieze, entablature, and cornice, which altogether form
+probably the most ornate specimen of the Corinthian order of architecture
+now extant. Only four pillars of the superb portico remain, and the
+Saracens have nearly ruined these by building a sort of watch-tower upon
+the architrave. The same unscrupulous race completely shut up the portal
+of the temple with a blank wall, formed of the fragments they had hurled
+down, and one is obliged to creep through a narrow hole in order to reach
+the interior. Here the original doorway faces you--and I know not how to
+describe the wonderful design of its elaborate sculptured mouldings and
+cornices. The genius of Greek art seems to have exhausted itself in
+inventing ornaments, which, while they should heighten the gorgeous effect
+of the work, must yet harmonize with the grand design of the temple. The
+enormous keystone over the entrance has slipped down, no doubt from the
+shock of an earthquake, and hangs within six inches of the bottom of the
+two blocks which uphold it on either side. When it falls, the whole
+entablature of the portal will be destroyed. On its lower side is an eagle
+with outspread wings, and on the side-stones a genius with garlands of
+flowers, exquisitely sculptured in bas relief. Hidden among the wreaths of
+vines which adorn the jambs are the laughing heads of fauns. This portal
+was a continual study to me, every visit revealing new refinements of
+ornament, which I had not before observed. The interior of the temple,
+with its rich Corinthian pilasters, its niches for statues, surmounted by
+pediments of elegant design, and its elaborate cornice, needs little aid
+of the imagination to restore it to its original perfection. Like that of
+Dendera, in Egypt, the Temple of the Sun leaves upon the mind an
+impression of completeness which makes you forget far grander remains.
+
+But the most wonderful thing at Baalbec is the foundation platform upon
+which the temples stand. Even the colossal fabrics of Ancient Egypt
+dwindle before this superhuman masonry. The platform itself, 1,000 feet
+long, and averaging twenty feet in height, suggests a vast mass of stones,
+but when you come to examine the single blocks of which it is composed,
+you are crushed with their incredible bulk. On the western side is a row
+of eleven foundation stones, each of which is thirty-two feet in length,
+twelve in height, and ten in thickness, forming a wall three hundred and
+fifty-two feet long! But while you are walking on, thinking of the art
+which cut and raised these enormous blocks, you turn the southern corner
+and come upon _three_ stones, the united length of which is _one hundred
+and eighty-seven feet_--two of them being sixty-two and the other
+sixty-three feet in length! There they are, cut with faultless exactness,
+and so smoothly joined to each other, that you cannot force a cambric
+needle into the crevice. There is one joint so perfect that it can only be
+discerned by the minutest search; it is not even so perceptible as the
+junction of two pieces of paper which have been pasted together. In the
+quarry, there still lies a finished block, ready for transportation, which
+is sixty-seven feet in length. The weight of one of these masses has been
+reckoned at near 9,000 tons, yet they do not form the base of the
+foundation, but are raised upon other courses, fifteen feet from the
+ground. It is considered by some antiquarians that they are of a date
+greatly anterior to that of the temples, and were intended as the basement
+of a different edifice.
+
+In the village of Baalbec there is a small circular Corinthian temple of
+very elegant design. It is not more than thirty feet in diameter, and may
+have been intended as a tomb. A spacious mosque, now roofless and
+deserted, was constructed almost entirely out of the remains of the
+temples. Adjoining the court-yard and fountain are five rows of ancient
+pillars, forty (the sacred number) in all, supporting light Saracenic
+arches. Some of them are marble, with Corinthian capitals, and eighteen
+are single shafts of red Egyptian granite. Beside the fountain lies a
+small broken pillar of porphyry, of a dark violet hue, and of so fine a
+grain that the stone has the soft rich lustre of velvet. This fragment is
+the only thing I would carry away if I had the power.
+
+After a day's sojourn, we left Baalbec at noon, and took the road for the
+Cedars, which lie on the other side of Lebanon, in the direction of
+Tripoli. Our English fellow-travellers chose the direct road to Beyrout.
+We crossed the plain in three hours; to the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, and
+then commenced ascending the lowest slopes of the great range, whose
+topmost ridge, a dazzling parapet of snow, rose high above us. For several
+hours, our path led up and down stony ridges, covered with thickets of oak
+and holly, and with wild cherry, pear, and olive-trees. Just as the sun
+threw the shadows of the highest Lebanon over us, we came upon a narrow,
+rocky glen at his very base. Streams that still kept the color and the
+coolness of the snow-fields from which they oozed, foamed over the stones
+into the chasm at the bottom. The glen descended into a mountain basin, in
+which lay the lake of Yemouni, cold and green under the evening shadows.
+But just opposite us, on a little shelf of soil, there was a rude mill,
+and a group of superb walnut-trees, overhanging the brink of the largest
+torrent. We had sent our baggage before us, and the men, with an eye to
+the picturesque which I should not have suspected in Arabs, had pitched
+our tents under those trees, where the stream poured its snow-cold beakers
+beside us, and the tent-door looked down on the plain of Baalbec and
+across to the Anti-Lebanon. The miller and two or three peasants, who were
+living in this lonely spot, were Christians.
+
+The next morning we commenced ascending the Lebanon. We had slept just
+below the snow-line, for the long hollows with which the ridge is cloven
+were filled up to within a short distance of the glen, out of which we
+came. The path was very steep, continually ascending, now around the
+barren shoulder of the mountain, now up some ravine, where the holly and
+olive still flourished, and the wild rhubarb-plant spread its large,
+succulent leaves over the soil. We had taken a guide, the day before, at
+the village of Dayr el-Ahmar, but as the way was plain before us, and he
+demanded an exorbitant sum, we dismissed him, We had not climbed far,
+however, before he returned, professing to be content with whatever we
+might give him, and took us into another road, the first, he said, being
+impracticable. Up and up we toiled, and the long hollows of snow lay below
+us, and the wind came cold from the topmost peaks, which began to show
+near at hand. But now the road, as we had surmised, turned towards that we
+had first taken, and on reaching the next height we saw the latter at a
+short distance from us. It was not only a better, but a shorter road, the
+rascal of a guide having led us out of it in order to give the greater
+effect to his services. In order to return to it, as was necessary, there
+were several dangerous snow-fields to be passed. The angle of their
+descent was so great that a single false step would have hurled our
+animals, baggage and all, many hundred feet below. The snow was melting,
+and the crust frozen over the streams below was so thin in places that the
+animals broke through and sank to their bellies.
+
+It were needless to state the number and character of the anathemas
+bestowed upon the guide. The impassive Dervish raved; Mustapha stormed;
+Francois broke out in a frightful eruption of Greek and Turkish oaths, and
+the two travellers, though not (as I hope and believe) profanely inclined,
+could not avoid using a few terse Saxon expressions. When the general
+indignation had found vent, the men went to work, and by taking each
+animal separately, succeeded, at imminent hazard, in getting them all
+over the snow. We then dismissed the guide, who, far from being abashed by
+the discovery of his trickery, had the impudence to follow us for some
+time, claiming his pay. A few more steep pulls, over deep beds of snow and
+patches of barren stone, and at length the summit ridge--a sharp, white
+wall, shining against the intense black-blue of the zenith--stood before
+us. We climbed a toilsome zig-zag through the snow, hurried over the
+stones cumbering the top, and all at once the mountains fell away, ridge
+below ridge, gashed with tremendous chasms, whose bottoms were lost in
+blue vapor, till the last heights, crowned with white Maronite convents,
+hung above the sea, whose misty round bounded the vision. I have seen many
+grander mountain views, but few so sublimely rugged and broken in their
+features. The sides of the ridges dropped off in all directions into sheer
+precipices, and the few villages we could see were built like eagles'
+nests on the brinks. In a little hollow at our feet was the sacred Forest
+of Cedars, appearing like a patch of stunted junipers. It is the highest
+speck of vegetation on Lebanon, and in winter cannot be visited, on
+account of the snow. The summit on which we stood was about nine thousand
+feet above the sea, but there were peaks on each side at least a thousand
+feet higher.
+
+We descended by a very steep path, over occasional beds of snow, and
+reached the Cedars in an hour and a half. Not until we were within a
+hundred yards of the trees, and below their level, was I at all impressed
+with their size and venerable aspect. But, once entered into the heart of
+the little wood, walking over its miniature hills and valleys, and
+breathing the pure, balsamic exhalations of the trees, all the
+disappointment rising to my mind was charmed away in an instant There are
+about three hundred trees, in all, many of which are of the last century's
+growth, but at least fifty of them would be considered grand in any
+forest. The patriarchs are five in number, and are undoubtedly as old as
+the Christian Era, if not the Age of Solomon. The cypresses in the Garden
+of Montezuma, at Chapultepec, are even older and grander trees, but they
+are as entire and shapely as ever, whereas these are gnarled and twisted
+into wonderful forms by the storms of twenty centuries, and shivered in
+some places by lightning. The hoary father of them all, nine feet in
+diameter, stands in the centre of the grove, on a little knoll, and
+spreads his ponderous arms, each a tree in itself, over the heads of the
+many generations that have grown up below, as if giving his last
+benediction before decay. He is scarred less with storm and lightning,
+than with the knives of travellers, and the marble crags of Lebanon do not
+more firmly retain their inscriptions than his stony trunk. Dates of the
+last century are abundant, and I recollect a tablet inscribed: "Souard,
+1670," around which the newer wood has grown to the height of three or
+four inches. The seclusion of the grove, shut in by peaks of barren snow,
+is complete. Only the voice of the nightingale, singing here by daylight
+in the solemn shadows, breaks the silence. The Maronite monk, who has
+charge of a little stone chapel standing in the midst, moves about like a
+shade, and, not before you are ready to leave, brings his book for you to
+register your name therein, I was surprised to find how few of the crowd
+that annually overrun Syria reach the Cedars, which, after Baalbec, are
+the finest remains of antiquity in the whole country.
+
+After a stay of three hours, we rode on to Eden, whither our men had
+already gone with the baggage. Our road led along the brink of a
+tremendous gorge, a thousand feet deep, the bottom of which was only
+accessible here and there by hazardous foot-paths. On either side, a long
+shelf of cultivated land sloped down to the top, and the mountain streams,
+after watering a multitude of orchards and grain-fields, tumbled over the
+cliffs in long, sparkling cascades, to join the roaring flood below. This
+is the Christian region of Lebanon, inhabited almost wholly by Maronites,
+who still retain a portion of their former independence, and are the most
+thrifty, industrious, honest, and happy people in Syria. Their villages
+are not concrete masses of picturesque filth, as are those of the Moslems,
+but are loosely scattered among orchards of mulberry, poplar, and vine,
+washed by fresh rills, and have an air of comparative neatness and
+comfort. Each has its two or three chapels, with their little belfries,
+which toll the hours of prayer. Sad and poetic as is the call from the
+minaret, it never touched me as when I heard the sweet tongues of those
+Christian bells, chiming vespers far and near on the sides of Lebanon.
+
+Eden merits its name. It is a mountain paradise, inhabited by people so
+kind and simple-hearted, that assuredly no vengeful angel will ever drive
+them out with his flaming sword. It hangs above the gorge, which is here
+nearly two thousand feet deep, and overlooks a grand wilderness of
+mountain-piles, crowded on and over each other, from the sea that gleams
+below, to the topmost heights that keep off the morning sun. The houses
+are all built of hewn stone, and grouped in clusters under the shade of
+large walnut-trees. In walking among them, we received kind greetings
+everywhere, and every one who was seated rose and remained standing as we
+passed. The women are beautiful, with sprightly, intelligent faces, quite
+different from the stupid Mahometan females.
+
+The children were charming creatures, and some of the girls of ten or
+twelve years were lovely as angels. They came timidly to our tent (which
+the men had pitched as before, under two superb trees, beside a fountain),
+and offered us roses and branches of fragrant white jasmine. They expected
+some return, of course, but did not ask it, and the delicate grace with
+which the offering was made was beyond all pay. It was Sunday, and the men
+and boys, having nothing better to do, all came to see and talk with us. I
+shall not soon forget the circle of gay and laughing villagers, in which
+we sat that evening, while the dark purple shadows gradually filled up the
+gorges, and broad golden lights poured over the shoulders of the hills.
+The men had much sport in inducing the smaller boys to come up and salute
+us. There was one whom they called "the Consul," who eluded them for some
+time, but was finally caught and placed in the ring before us. "Peace be
+with you, O Consul," I said, making him a profound inclination, "may your
+days be propitious! may your shadow be increased!" but I then saw, from
+the vacant expression on the boy's face, that he was one of those
+harmless, witless creatures, whom yet one cannot quite call idiots. "He is
+an unfortunate; he knows nothing; he has no protector but God," said the
+men, crossing themselves devoutly. The boy took off his cap, crept up and
+kissed my hand, as I gave him some money, which he no sooner grasped, than
+he sprang up like a startled gazelle, and was out of sight in an instant.
+
+In descending from Eden to the sea-coast, we were obliged to cross the
+great gorge of which I spoke. Further down, its sides are less steep, and
+clothed even to the very bottom with magnificent orchards of mulberry,
+fig, olive, orange, and pomegranate trees. We were three hours in reaching
+the opposite side, although the breadth across the top is not more than a
+mile. The path was exceedingly perilous; we walked down, leading our
+horses, and once were obliged to unload our mules to get them past a tree,
+which would have forced them off the brink of a chasm several hundred feet
+deep. The view from the bottom was wonderful. We were shut in by steeps of
+foliage and blossoms from two to three thousand feet high, broken by crags
+of white marble, and towering almost precipitously to the very clouds. I
+doubt if Melville saw anything grander in the tropical gorges of Typee.
+After reaching the other side, we had still a journey of eight hours to
+the sea, through a wild and broken, yet highly cultivated country.
+
+Beyrout was now thirteen hours distant, but by making a forced march we
+reached it in a day, travelling along the shore, past the towns of Jebeil,
+the ancient Byblus, and Joonieh. The hills about Jebeil produce the
+celebrated tobacco known in Egypt as the _Jebelee_, or "mountain" tobacco,
+which is even superior to the Latakiyeh.
+
+Near Beyrout, the mulberry and olive are in the ascendant. The latter tree
+bears the finest fruit in all the Levant, and might drive all other oils
+out of the market, if any one had enterprise enough to erect proper
+manufactories. Instead of this the oil of the country is badly prepared,
+rancid from the skins in which it is kept, and the wealthy natives import
+from France and Italy in preference to using it. In the bottoms near the
+sea, I saw several fields of the taro-plant, the cultivation of which I
+had supposed was exclusively confined to the Islands of the Pacific. There
+would be no end to the wealth of Syria were the country in proper hands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII.
+
+Pipes and Coffee.
+
+
+  --"the kind nymph to Bacchus born
+  By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems
+  Gifted upon her natal morn
+  By him with fire, by her with dreams--
+  Nicotia, dearer to the Muse
+  Than all the grape's bewildering juice." Lowell.
+
+
+In painting the picture of an Oriental, the pipe and the coffee-cup are
+indispensable accessories. There is scarce a Turk, or Arab, or
+Persian--unless he be a Dervish of peculiar sanctity--but breathes his
+daily incense to the milder Bacchus of the moderns. The custom has become
+so thoroughly naturalized in the East, that we are apt to forget its
+comparatively recent introduction, and to wonder that no mention is made
+of the pipe in the Arabian Nights. The practice of smoking harmonizes so
+thoroughly with the character of Oriental life, that it is difficult for
+us to imagine a time when it never existed. It has become a part of that
+supreme patience, that wonderful repose, which forms so strong a contrast
+to the over-active life of the New World--the enjoyment of which no one
+can taste, to whom the pipe is not familiar. Howl, ye Reformers! but I
+solemnly declare unto you, that he who travels through the East without
+smoking, does not know the East.
+
+It is strange that our Continent, where the meaning of Rest is unknown,
+should have given to the world this great agent of Rest. There is nothing
+more remarkable in history than the colonization of Tobacco over the whole
+Earth. Not three centuries have elapsed since knightly Raleigh puffed its
+fumes into the astonished eyes of Spenser and Shakspeare; and now, find me
+any corner of the world, from Nova Zembla to the Mountains of the Moon,
+where the use of the plant is unknown! Tarshish (if India was Tarshish) is
+less distinguished by its "apes, ivory, and peacocks," than by its
+hookahs; the valleys of Luzon, beyond Ternate and Tidore, send us more
+cheroots than spices; the Gardens of Shiraz produce more velvety _toombek_
+than roses, and the only fountains which bubble in Samarcand are those of
+the narghilehs: Lebanon is no longer "excellent with the Cedars," as in
+the days of Solomon, but most excellent with its fields of Jebelee and
+Latakiyeh. On the unvisited plains of Central Africa, the table-lands of
+Tartary, and in the valleys of Japan, the wonderful plant has found a
+home. The naked negro, "panting at the Line," inhales it under the palms,
+and the Lapp and Samoyed on the shores of the Frozen Sea.
+
+It is idle for those who object to the use of Tobacco to attribute these
+phenomena wholly to a perverted taste. The fact that the custom was at
+once adopted by all the races of men, whatever their geographical position
+and degree of civilization, proves that there must be a reason for it in
+the physical constitution of man. Its effect, when habitually used, is
+slightly narcotic and sedative, not stimulating--or if so, at times, it
+stimulates only the imagination and the social faculties. It lulls to
+sleep the combative and destructive propensities, and hence--so far as a
+material agent may operate--it exercises a humanizing and refining
+influence. A profound student of Man, whose name is well known to the
+world, once informed me that he saw in the eagerness with which savage
+tribes adopt the use of Tobacco, a spontaneous movement of Nature towards
+Civilization.
+
+I will not pursue these speculations further, for the narghileh (bubbling
+softly at my elbow, as I write) is the promoter of repose and the begetter
+of agreeable reverie. As I inhale its cool, fragrant breath, and partly
+yield myself to the sensation of healthy rest which wraps my limbs as with
+a velvet mantle, I marvel how the poets and artists and scholars of olden
+times nursed those dreams which the world calls indolence, but which are
+the seeds that germinate into great achievements. How did Plato
+philosophize without the pipe? How did gray Homer, sitting on the
+temple-steps in the Grecian twilights, drive from his heart the bitterness
+of beggary and blindness? How did Phidias charm the Cerberus of his animal
+nature to sleep, while his soul entered the Elysian Fields and beheld the
+forms of heroes? For, in the higher world of Art, Body and Soul are sworn
+enemies, and the pipe holds an opiate more potent than all the drowsy
+syrups of the East, to drug the former into submission. Milton knew this,
+as he smoked his evening pipe at Chalfont, wandering, the while, among the
+palms of Paradise.
+
+But it is also our loss, that Tobacco was unknown to the Greeks. They
+would else have given us, in verse and in marble, another divinity in
+their glorious Pantheon--a god less drowsy than Morpheus and Somnus, less
+riotous than Bacchus, less radiant than Apollo, but with something of the
+spirit of each: a figure, beautiful with youth, every muscle in perfect
+repose, and the vague expression of dreams in his half-closed eyes. His
+temple would have been built in a grove of Southern pines, on the borders
+of a land-locked gulf, sheltered from the surges that buffet without,
+where service would have been rendered him in the late hours of the
+afternoon, or in the evening twilight. From his oracular tripod words of
+wisdom would have been spoken, and the fanes of Delphi and Dodona would
+have been deserted for his.
+
+Oh, non-smoking friends, who read these lines with pain and
+incredulity--and you, ladies, who turn pale at the thought of a pipe--let
+me tell you that you are familiar only with the vulgar form of tobacco,
+and have never passed between the wind and its gentility. The word conveys
+no idea to you but that of "long nines," and pig-tail, and cavendish.
+Forget these for a moment, and look upon this dark-brown cake of dried
+leaves and blossoms, which exhales an odor of pressed flowers. These are
+the tender tops of the _Jebelee_, plucked as the buds begin to expand, and
+carefully dried in the shade. In order to be used, it is moistened with
+rose-scented water, and cut to the necessary degree of fineness. The test
+of true Jebelee is, that it burns with a slow, hidden fire, like tinder,
+and causes no irritation to the eye when held under it. The smoke, drawn
+through a long cherry-stick pipe and amber mouth-piece, is pure, cool, and
+sweet, with an aromatic flavor, which is very pleasant in the mouth. It
+excites no salivation, and leaves behind it no unpleasant, stale odor.
+
+The narghileh (still bubbling beside me) is an institution known only in
+the East. It requires a peculiar kind of tobacco, which grows to
+perfection in the southern provinces of Persia. The smoke, after passing
+through water (rose-flavored, if you choose), is inhaled through a long,
+flexible tube directly into the lungs. It occasions not the slightest
+irritation or oppression, but in a few minutes produces a delicious sense
+of rest, which is felt even in the finger-ends. The pure physical
+sensation of rest is one of strength also, and of perfect contentment.
+Many an impatient thought, many an angry word, have I avoided by a resort
+to the pipe. Among our aborigines the pipe was the emblem of Peace, and I
+strongly recommend the Peace Society to print their tracts upon papers of
+smoking tobacco (Turkish, if possible), and distribute pipes with them.
+
+I know of nothing more refreshing, after the fatigue of a long day's
+journey, than a well-prepared narghileh. That slight feverish and
+excitable feeling which is the result of fatigue yields at once to its
+potency. The blood loses its heat and the pulse its rapidity; the muscles
+relax, the nerves are soothed into quiet, and the frame passes into a
+condition similar to sleep, except that the mind is awake and active. By
+the time one has finished his pipe, he is refreshed for the remainder of
+the day, and his nightly sleep is sound and healthy. Such are some of the
+physical effects of the pipe, in Eastern lands. Morally and
+psychologically, it works still greater transformations; but to describe
+them now, with the mouth-piece at my lips, would require an active
+self-consciousness which the habit does not allow.
+
+A servant enters with a steamy cup of coffee, seated in a silver _zerf_,
+or cup-holder. His thumb and fore-finger are clasped firmly upon the
+bottom of the zerf, which I inclose near the top with my own thumb and
+finger, so that the transfer is accomplished without his hand having
+touched mine.
+
+After draining the thick brown liquid, which must be done with due
+deliberation and a pause of satisfaction between each sip, I return the
+zerf, holding it in the middle, while the attendant places a palm of each
+hand upon the top and bottom and carries it off without contact. The
+beverage is made of the berries of Mocha, slightly roasted, pulverized in
+a mortar, and heated to a foam, without the addition of cream or sugar.
+Sometimes, however, it is flavored with the extract of roses or violets.
+When skilfully made, each cup is prepared separately, and the quantity of
+water and coffee carefully measured.
+
+Coffee is a true child of the East, and its original home was among the
+hills of Yemen, the Arabia Felix of the ancients. Fortunately for
+Mussulmen, its use was unknown in the days of Mahomet, or it would
+probably have fallen under the same prohibition as wine. The word _Kahweh_
+(whence _cafe_) is an old Arabic term for wine. The discovery of the
+properties of coffee is attributed to a dervish, who, for some
+misdemeanor, was carried into the mountains of Yemen by his brethren and
+there left to perish by starvation. In order to appease the pangs of
+hunger he gathered the ripe berries from the wild coffee-trees, roasted
+and ate them. The nourishment they contained, with water from the springs,
+sustained his life, and after two or three months he returned in good
+condition to his brethren, who considered his preservation as a miracle,
+and ever afterwards looked upon him as a pattern of holiness. He taught
+the use of the miraculous fruit, and the demand for it soon became so
+great as to render the cultivation of the tree necessary. It was a long
+time, however, before coffee was introduced into Europe. As late as the
+beginning of the seventeenth century, Sandys, the quaint old traveller,
+describes the appearance and taste of the beverage, which he calls
+"Coffa," and sagely asks: "Why not that black broth which the
+Lacedemonians used?"
+
+On account of the excellence of the material, and the skilful manner of
+its preparation, the Coffee of the East is the finest in the world. I have
+found it so grateful and refreshing a drink, that I can readily pardon the
+pleasant exaggeration of the Arabic poet, Abd-el Kader Anazari Djezeri
+Hanbali, the son of Mahomet, who thus celebrates its virtues. After such
+an exalted eulogy, my own praises would sound dull and tame; and I
+therefore resume my pipe, commending Abd-el Kader to the reader.
+
+"O Coffee! thou dispellest the cares of the great; thou bringest back
+those who wander from the paths of knowledge. Coffee is the beverage of
+the people of God, and the cordial of his servants who thirst for wisdom.
+When coffee is infused into the bowl, it exhales the odor of musk, and is
+of the color of ink. The truth is not known except to the wise, who drink
+it from the foaming coffee-cup. God has deprived fools of coffee, who,
+with invincible obstinacy, condemn it as injurious.
+
+"Coffee is our gold; and in the place of its libations we are in the
+enjoyment of the best and noblest society. Coffee is even as innocent a
+drink as the purest milk, from which it is distinguished only by its
+color. Tarry with thy coffee in the place of its preparation, and the good
+God will hover over thee and participate in his feast. There the graces of
+the saloon, the luxury of life, the society of friends, all furnish a
+picture of the abode of happiness.
+
+"Every care vanishes when the cup-bearer presents the delicious chalice.
+It will circulate fleetly through thy veins, and will not rankle there:
+if thou doubtest this, contemplate the youth and beauty of those who drink
+it. Grief cannot exist where it grows; sorrow humbles itself in obedience
+before its powers.
+
+"Coffee is the drink of God's people; in it is health. Let this be the
+answer to those who doubt its qualities. In it we will drown our
+adversities, and in its fire consume our sorrows. Whoever has once seen
+the blissful chalice, will scorn the wine-cup. Glorious drink! thy color
+is the seal of purity, and reason proclaims it genuine. Drink with
+confidence, and regard not the prattle of fools, who condemn without
+foundation."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV.
+
+Journey to Antioch and Aleppo.
+
+
+  Change of Plans--Routes to Baghdad--Asia Minor--We sail from
+  Beyrout--Yachting on the Syrian Coast--Tartus and Latakiyeh--The Coasts
+  of Syria--The Bay of Suediah--The Mouth of the Orontes--Landing--The
+  Garden of Syria--Ride to Antioch--The Modern City--The Plains of the
+  Orontes--Remains of the Greek Empire--The Ancient Road--The Plain of
+  Keftin--Approach to Aleppo.
+
+
+  "The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,
+     The living breath is fresh behind,
+  As, with dews and sunrise fed,
+     Comes the laughing morning wind."
+
+  Shelley.
+
+
+Aleppo, _Friday, June_ 4, 1852.
+
+A Traveller in the East, who has not unbounded time and an extensive
+fortune at his disposal, is never certain where and how far he shall go,
+until his journey is finished. With but a limited portion of both these
+necessaries, I have so far carried out my original plan with scarcely a
+variation; but at present I am obliged to make a material change of route.
+My farthest East is here at Aleppo. At Damascus, I was told by everybody
+that it was too late in the season to visit either Baghdad or Mosul, and
+that, on account of the terrible summer heats and the fevers which prevail
+along the Tigris, it would be imprudent to undertake it. Notwithstanding
+this, I should probably have gone (being now so thoroughly acclimated that
+I have nothing to fear from the heat), had I not met with a friend of
+Col. Rawlinson, the companion of Layard, and the sharer in his discoveries
+at Nineveh. This gentleman, who met Col. R. not long since in
+Constantinople, on his way to Baghdad (where he resides as British
+Consul), informed me that since the departure of Mr. Layard from Mosul,
+the most interesting excavations have been filled up, in order to preserve
+the sculptures. Unless one was able to make a new exhumation, he would be
+by no means repaid for so long and arduous a journey. The ruins of Nineveh
+are all below the surface of the earth, and the little of them that is now
+left exposed, is less complete and interesting than the specimens in the
+British Museum.
+
+There is a route from Damascus to Baghdad, across the Desert, by way of
+Palmyra, but it is rarely travelled, even by the natives, except when the
+caravans are sufficiently strong to withstand the attacks of the Bedouins.
+The traveller is obliged to go in Arab costume, to leave his baggage
+behind, except a meagre scrip for the journey, and to pay from $300 to
+$500 for the camels and escort. The more usual route is to come northward
+to this city, then cross to Mosul and descend the Tigris--a journey of
+four or five weeks. After weighing all the advantages and disadvantages of
+undertaking a tour of such length as it would be necessary to make before
+reaching Constantinople, I decided at Beyrout to give up the fascinating
+fields of travel in Media, Assyria and Armenia, and take a rather shorter
+and-perhaps equally interesting route from Aleppo to Constantinople, by
+way of Tarsus, Konia (Iconium), and the ancient countries of Phrygia,
+Bithynia, and Mysia. The interior of Asia Minor is even less known to us
+than the Persian side of Asiatic Turkey, which has of late received more
+attention from travellers; and, as I shall traverse it in its whole
+length, from Syria to the Bosphorus, I may find it replete with "green
+fields and pastures new," which shall repay me for relinquishing the first
+and more ambitious undertaking. At least, I have so much reason to be
+grateful for the uninterrupted good health and good luck I have enjoyed
+during seven months in Africa and the Orient, that I cannot be otherwise
+than content with the prospect before me.
+
+I left Beyrout on the night of the 28th of May, with Mr. Harrison, who has
+decided to keep me company as far as Constantinople. Francois, our classic
+dragoman, whose great delight is to recite Homer by the sea-side, is
+retained for the whole tour, as we have found no reason to doubt his
+honesty or ability. Our first thought was to proceed to Aleppo by land, by
+way of Homs and Hamah, whence there might be a chance of reaching Palmyra;
+but as we found an opportunity of engaging an American yacht for the
+voyage up the coast, it was thought preferable to take her, and save time.
+She was a neat little craft, called the "American Eagle," brought out by
+Mr. Smith, our Consul at Beyrout. So, one fine moonlit night, we slowly
+crept out of the harbor, and after returning a volley of salutes from our
+friends at Demetri's Hotel, ran into the heart of a thunder-storm, which
+poured down more rain than all I had seen for eight months before. But our
+rais, Assad (the Lion), was worthy of his name, and had two good Christian
+sailors at his command, so we lay in the cramped little cabin, and heard
+the floods washing our deck, without fear.
+
+In the morning, we were off Tripoli, which is even more deeply buried than
+Beyrout in its orange and mulberry groves, and slowly wafted along the
+bold mountain-coast, in the afternoon reached Tartus, the Ancient Tortosa.
+A mile from shore is the rocky island of Aradus, entirely covered by a
+town. There were a dozen vessels lying in the harbor. The remains of a
+large fortress and ancient mole prove it to have been a place of
+considerable importance. Tartus is a small old place on the sea-shore--not
+so large nor so important in appearance as its island-port. The country
+behind is green and hilly, though but partially cultivated, and rises into
+Djebel Ansairiyeh, which divides the valley of the Orontes from the sea.
+It is a lovely coast, especially under the flying lights and shadows of
+such a breezy day as we had. The wind fell at sunset; but by the next
+morning, we had passed the tobacco-fields of Latakiyeh, and were in sight
+of the southern cape of the Bay of Suediah. The mountains forming this
+cape culminate in a grand conical peak, about 5,000 feet in height, called
+Djebel Okrab. At ten o'clock, wafted along by a slow wind, we turned the
+point and entered the Bay of Suediah, formed by the embouchure of the
+River Orontes. The mountain headland of Akma Dagh, forming the portal of
+the Gulf of Scanderoon, loomed grandly in front of us across the bay; and
+far beyond it, we could just distinguish the coast of Karamania, the
+snow-capped range of Taurus.
+
+The Coasts of Syria might be divided, like those of Guinea, according to
+the nature of their productions. The northern division is bold and bare,
+yet flocks of sheep graze on the slopes of its mountains; and the inland
+plains behind them are covered with orchards of pistachio-trees. Silk is
+cultivated in the neighborhood of Suediah, but forms only a small portion
+of the exports. This region may be called the Wool and Pistachio Coast.
+Southward, from Latakiyeh to Tartus and the northern limit of Lebanon,
+extends the Tobacco Coast, whose undulating hills are now clothed with the
+pale-green leaves of the renowned plant. From Tripoli to Tyre, embracing
+all the western slope of Lebanon, and the deep, rich valleys lying between
+his knees, the mulberry predominates, and the land is covered with the
+houses of thatch and matting which shelter the busy worms. This is the
+Silk Coast. The palmy plains of Jaffa, and beyond, until Syria meets the
+African sands between Gaza and El-Arish, constitute the Orange Coast. The
+vine, the olive, and the fig flourish everywhere.
+
+We were all day getting up the bay, and it seemed as if we should never
+pass Djebel Okrab, whose pointed top rose high above a long belt of fleecy
+clouds that girdled his waist. At sunset we made the mouth of the Orontes.
+Our lion of a Captain tried to run into the river, but the channel was
+very narrow, and when within three hundred yards of the shore the yacht
+struck. We had all sail set, and had the wind been a little stronger, we
+should have capsized in an instant. The lion went manfully to work, and by
+dint of hard poling, shoved us off, and came to anchor in deep water. Not
+until the danger was past did he open his batteries on the unlucky
+helmsman, and then the explosion of Arabic oaths was equal to a broadside
+of twenty-four pounders. We lay all night rocking on the swells, and the
+next morning, by firing a number of signal guns, brought out a boat, which
+took us off. We entered the mouth of the Orontes, and sailed nearly a mile
+between rich wheat meadows before reaching the landing-place of
+Suediah--two or three uninhabited stone huts, with three or four small
+Turkish craft, and a health officer. The town lies a mile or two inland,
+scattered along the hill-side amid gardens so luxuriant as almost to
+conceal it from view.
+
+This part of the coast is ignorant of travellers, and we were obliged to
+wait half a day before we could find a sufficient number of horses to take
+us to Antioch, twenty miles distant. When they came, they were solid
+farmers' horses, with the rudest gear imaginable. I was obliged to mount
+astride of a broad pack-saddle, with my legs suspended in coils of rope.
+Leaving the meadows, we entered a lane of the wildest, richest and
+loveliest bloom and foliage. Our way was overhung with hedges of
+pomegranate, myrtle, oleander, and white rose, in blossom, and
+occasionally with quince, fig, and carob trees, laced together with grape
+vines in fragrant bloom. Sometimes this wilderness of color and odor met
+above our heads and made a twilight; then it opened into long, dazzling,
+sun-bright vistas, where the hues of the oleander, pomegranate and white
+rose made the eye wink with their gorgeous profusion. The mountains we
+crossed were covered with thickets of myrtle, mastic, daphne, and arbutus,
+and all the valleys and sloping meads waved with fig, mulberry, and olive
+trees. Looking towards the sea, the valley broadened out between mountain
+ranges whose summits were lost in the clouds. Though the soil was not so
+rich as in Palestine, the general aspect of the country was much wilder
+and more luxuriant.
+
+So, by this glorious lane, over the myrtled hills and down into valleys,
+whose bed was one hue of rose from the blossoming oleanders, we travelled
+for five hours, crossing the low ranges of hills through which the Orontes
+forces his way to the sea. At last we reached a height overlooking the
+valley of the river, and saw in the east, at the foot of the mountain
+chain, the long lines of barracks built by Ibrahim Pasha for the defence
+of Antioch. Behind them the ancient wall of the city clomb the mountains,
+whose crest it followed to the last peak of the chain, From the next hill
+we saw the city--a large extent of one-story houses with tiled roofs,
+surrounded with gardens, and half buried in the foliage of sycamores. It
+extends from the River Orontes, which washes its walls, up the slope of
+the mountain to the crags of gray rock which overhang it. We crossed the
+river by a massive old bridge, and entered the town. Riding along the
+rills of filth which traverse the streets, forming their central avenues,
+we passed through several lines of bazaars to a large and dreary-looking
+khan, the keeper of which gave us the best vacant chamber--a narrow place,
+full of fleas.
+
+Antioch presents not even a shadow of its former splendor. Except the
+great walls, ten to fifteen miles in circuit, which the Turks have done
+their best to destroy, every vestige of the old city has disappeared. The
+houses are all of one story, on account of earthquakes, from which Antioch
+has suffered more than any other city in the world. At one time, during
+the Middle Ages, it lost 120,000 inhabitants in one day. Its situation is
+magnificent, and the modern town, notwithstanding its filth, wears a
+bright and busy aspect. Situated at the base of a lofty mountain, it
+overlooks, towards the east, a plain thirty or forty miles in length,
+producing the most abundant harvests. A great number of the inhabitants
+are workers in wood and leather, and very thrifty and cheerful people they
+appear to be.
+
+We remained until the next day at noon, by which time a gray-bearded
+scamp, the chief of the _mukkairees_, or muleteers, succeeded in getting
+us five miserable beasts for the journey to Aleppo. On leaving the city,
+we travelled along a former street of Antioch, part of the ancient
+pavement still remaining, and after two miles came to the old wall of
+circuit, which we passed by a massive gateway, of Roman time. It is now
+called _Bab Boulos_, or St. Paul's Gate. Christianity, it will be
+remembered, was planted in Antioch by Paul and Barnabas, and the Apostle
+Peter was the first bishop of the city. We now entered the great plain of
+the Orontes--a level sea, rioting in the wealth of its ripening harvests.
+The river, lined with luxuriant thickets, meandered through the centre of
+this glorious picture. We crossed it during the afternoon, and keeping on
+our eastward course, encamped at night in a meadow near the tents of some
+wandering Turcomans, who furnished us with butter and milk from their
+herds.
+
+Leaving the plain the next morning, we travelled due east all day, over
+long stony ranges of mountains, inclosing only one valley, which bore
+evidence of great fertility. It was circular, about ten miles in its
+greater diameter, and bounded on the north by the broad peak of Djebel
+Saman, or Mount St. Simon. In the morning we passed a ruined castle,
+standing in a dry, treeless dell, among the hot hills. The muleteers
+called it the Maiden's Palace, and said that it was built long ago by a
+powerful Sultan, as a prison for his daughter. For several hours
+thereafter, our road was lined with remains of buildings, apparently
+dating from the time of the Greek Empire. There were tombs, temples of
+massive masonry, though in a bad style of architecture, and long rows of
+arched chambers, which resembled store-houses. They were all more or less
+shattered by earthquakes, but in one place I noticed twenty such arches,
+each of at least twenty feet span. All-the hills, on either hand, as far
+as we could see, were covered with the remains of buildings. In the plain
+of St. Simon, I saw two superb pillars, apparently part of a portico, or
+gateway, and the village of Dana is formed almost entirely of churches and
+convents, of the Lower Empire. There were but few inscriptions, and these
+I could not read; but the whole of this region would, no doubt, richly
+repay an antiquarian research. I am told here that the entire chain of
+hills, which extends southward for more than a hundred miles, abounds with
+similar remains, and that, in many places, whole cities stand almost
+entire, as if recently deserted by their inhabitants.
+
+During the afternoon, we came upon a portion of the ancient road from
+Antioch to Aleppo, which is still as perfect as when first constructed. It
+crossed a very stony ridge, and is much the finest specimen of road-making
+I ever saw, quite putting to shame the Appian and Flaminian Ways at Rome.
+It is twenty feet wide, and laid with blocks of white marble, from two to
+four feet square. It was apparently raised upon a more ancient road, which
+diverges here and there from the line, showing the deeply-cut traces of
+the Roman chariot-wheels. In the barren depths of the mountains we found
+every hour cisterns cut in the rock and filled with water left by the
+winter rains. Many of them, however, are fast drying up, and a month later
+this will be a desert road.
+
+Towards night we descended from the hills upon the Plain of Keftin, which
+stretches south-westward from Aleppo, till the mountain-streams which
+fertilize it are dried up, when it is merged into the Syrian Desert. Its
+northern edge, along which we travelled, is covered with fields of wheat,
+cotton, and castor-beans. We stopped all night at a village called Taireb,
+planted at the foot of a tumulus, older than tradition. The people were
+in great dread of the Aneyzeh Arabs, who come in from the Desert to
+destroy their harvests and carry off their cattle. They wanted us to take
+a guard, but after our experience on the Anti-Lebanon, we felt safer
+without one.
+
+Yesterday we travelled for seven hours over a wide, rolling country, now
+waste and barren, but formerly covered with wealth and supporting an
+abundant population, evidences of which are found in the buildings
+everywhere scattered over the hills. On and on we toiled in the heat, over
+this inhospitable wilderness, and though we knew Aleppo must be very near,
+yet we could see neither sign of cultivation nor inhabitants. Finally,
+about three o'clock, the top of a line of shattered wall and the points of
+some minarets issued out of the earth, several miles in front of us, and
+on climbing a glaring chalky ridge, the renowned city burst at once upon
+our view. It filled a wide hollow or basin among the white hills, against
+which its whiter houses and domes glimmered for miles, in the dead, dreary
+heat of the afternoon, scarcely relieved by the narrow belt of gardens on
+the nearer side, or the orchards of pistachio trees beyond. In the centre
+of the city rose a steep, abrupt mound, crowned with the remains of the
+ancient citadel, and shining minarets shot up, singly or in clusters,
+around its base. The prevailing hue of the landscape was a whitish-gray,
+and the long, stately city and long, monotonous hills, gleamed with equal
+brilliancy under a sky of cloudless and intense blue. This singular
+monotony of coloring gave a wonderful effect to the view, which is one of
+the most remarkable in all the Orient.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV.
+
+Life in Aleppo.
+
+
+  Our Entry into Aleppo--We are conducted to a House--Our Unexpected
+  Welcome--The Mystery Explained--Aleppo--Its Name--Its Situation--The
+  Trade of Aleppo--The Christians--The Revolt of 1850--Present Appearance
+  of the City--Visit to Osman Pasha--The Citadel--View from the
+  Battlements--Society in Aleppo--Etiquette and Costume--Jewish Marriage
+  Festivities--A Christian Marriage Procession--Ride around the
+  Town--Nightingales--The Aleppo Button--A Hospital for Cats--Ferhat
+  Pasha.
+
+
+Aleppo, _Tuesday, June_ 8, 1852.
+
+Our entry into Aleppo was a fitting preliminary to our experiences during
+the five days we have spent here. After passing a blackamoor, who acted as
+an advanced guard of the Custom House, at a ragged tent outside of the
+city, and bribing him with two piastres, we crossed the narrow line of
+gardens on the western side, and entered the streets. There were many
+coffee-houses, filled with smokers, nearly all of whom accosted us in
+Turkish, though Arabic is the prevailing language here. Ignorance made us
+discourteous, and we slighted every attempt to open a conversation. Out of
+the narrow streets of the suburbs, we advanced to the bazaars, in order to
+find a khan where we could obtain lodgings. All the best khans, however,
+were filled, and we were about to take a very inferior room, when a
+respectable individual came up to Francois and said: "The house is ready
+for the travellers, and I will show you the way." We were a little
+surprised at this address, but followed him to a neat, quiet and pleasant
+street near the bazaars, where we were ushered into a spacious court-yard,
+with a row of apartments opening upon it, and told to make ourselves at
+home.
+
+The place had evidently been recently inhabited, for the rooms were well
+furnished, with not only divans, but beds in the Frank style. A lean
+kitten was scratching at one of the windows, to the great danger of
+overturning a pair of narghilehs, a tame sea-gull was walking about the
+court, and two sheep bleated in a stable at the further end. In the
+kitchen we not only found a variety of utensils, but eggs, salt, pepper,
+and other condiments. Our guide had left, and the only information we
+could get, from a dyeing establishment next door, was that the occupants
+had gone into the country. "Take the good the gods provide thee," is my
+rule in such cases, and as we were very hungry, we set Francois to work at
+preparing dinner. We arranged a divan in the open air, had a table brought
+out, and by the aid of the bakers in the bazaar, and the stores which the
+kitchen supplied, soon rejoiced over a very palatable meal. The romantic
+character of our reception made the dinner a merry one. It was a chapter
+out of the Arabian Nights, and be he genie or afrite, caliph or merchant
+of Bassora, into whose hands we had fallen, we resolved to let the
+adventure take its course. We were just finishing a nondescript pastry
+which Francois found at a baker's, and which, for want of a better name,
+he called _meringues a la Khorassan,_ when there was a loud knock at the
+street door. We felt at first some little trepidation, but determined to
+maintain our places, and gravely invite the real master to join us.
+
+It was a female servant, however, who, to our great amazement, made a
+profound salutation, and seemed delighted to see us. "My master did not
+expect your Excellencies to-day; he has gone into the gardens, but will
+soon return. Will your Excellencies take coffee after your dinner?" and
+coffee was forthwith served. The old woman was unremitting in her
+attentions; and her son, a boy of eight years, and the most venerable
+child I ever saw, entertained us with the description of a horse which his
+master had just bought--a horse which had cost two thousand piastres, and
+was ninety years old. Well, this Aleppo is an extraordinary place, was my
+first impression, and the inhabitants are remarkable people; but I waited
+the master's arrival, as the only means of solving the mystery. About
+dusk, there was another rap at the door. A lady dressed in white, with an
+Indian handkerchief bound over her black hair, arrived. "Pray excuse us,"
+said she; "we thought you would not reach here before to-morrow; but my
+brother will come directly." In fact, the brother did come soon
+afterwards, and greeted us with a still warmer welcome. "Before leaving
+the gardens," he said, "I heard of your arrival, and have come in a full
+gallop the whole way." In order to put an end to this comedy of errors, I
+declared at once that he was mistaken; nobody in Aleppo could possibly
+know of our coming, and we were, perhaps, transgressing on his
+hospitality. But no: he would not be convinced. He was a dragoman to the
+English Consulate; his master had told him we would be here the next day,
+and he must be prepared to receive us. Besides, the janissary of the
+Consulate had showed us the way to his house. We, therefore, let the
+matter rest until next morning, when we called on Mr. Very, the Consul,
+who informed us that the janissary had mistaken us for two gentlemen we
+had met in Damascus, the travelling companions of Lord Dalkeith. As they
+had not arrived, he begged us to remain in the quarters which had been
+prepared for them. We have every reason to be glad of this mistake, as it
+has made us acquainted with one of the most courteous and hospitable
+gentlemen in the East.
+
+Aleppo lies so far out of the usual routes of travel, that it is rarely
+visited by Europeans. One is not, therefore, as in the case of Damascus,
+prepared beforehand by volumes of description, which preclude all
+possibility of mistake or surprise. For my part, I only knew that Aleppo
+had once been the greatest commercial city of the Orient, though its power
+had long since passed into other hands. But there were certain stately
+associations lingering around the name, which drew me towards it, and
+obliged me to include it, at all hazards, in my Asiatic tour. The scanty
+description of Captains Irby and Mangles, the only one I had read, gave me
+no distinct idea of its position or appearance; and when, the other day, I
+first saw it looming grand and gray among the gray hills, more like a vast
+natural crystallization than the product of human art, I revelled in the
+novelty of that startling first impression.
+
+The tradition of the city's name is curious, and worth relating. It is
+called, in Arabic, _Haleb el-Shahba_--Aleppo, the Gray--which most persons
+suppose to refer to the prevailing color of the soil. The legend, however,
+goes much farther. _Haleb_, which the Venetians and Genoese softened into
+Aleppo, means literally: "has milked," According to Arab tradition, the
+patriarch Abraham once lived here: his tent being pitched near the mound
+now occupied by the citadel. He had a certain gray cow (_el-shahba_)
+which was milked every morning for the benefit of the poor. When,
+therefore, it was proclaimed: "_Ibrahim haleb el-shahba_" (Abraham has
+milked the gray cow), all the poor of the tribe came up to receive their
+share. The repetition of this morning call attached itself to the spot,
+and became the name of the city which was afterwards founded.
+
+Aleppo is built on the eastern slope of a shallow upland basin, through
+which flows the little River Koweik. There are low hills to the north and
+south, between which the country falls into a wide, monotonous plain,
+extending unbroken to the Euphrates. The city is from eight to ten miles
+in circuit, and, though not so thickly populated, covers a greater extent
+of space than Damascus. The population is estimated at 100,000. In the
+excellence (not the elegance) of its architecture, it surpasses any
+Oriental city I have yet seen. The houses are all of hewn stone,
+frequently three and even four stories in height, and built in a most
+massive and durable style, on account of the frequency of earthquakes. The
+streets are well paved, clean, with narrow sidewalks, and less tortuous
+and intricate than the bewildering alleys of Damascus. A large part of the
+town is occupied with bazaars, attesting the splendor of its former
+commerce. These establishments are covered with lofty vaults of stone,
+lighted from the top; and one may walk for miles beneath the spacious
+roofs. The shops exhibit all the stuffs of the East, especially of Persia
+and India. There is also an extensive display of European fabrics, as the
+eastern provinces of Asiatic Turkey, as far as Baghdad, are supplied
+entirely from Aleppo and Trebizond.
+
+Within ten years--in fact, since the Allied Powers drove Ibrahim Pasha
+out of Syria--the trade of Aleppo has increased, at the expense of
+Damascus. The tribes of the Desert, who were held in check during the
+Egyptian occupancy, are now so unruly that much of the commerce between
+the latter place and Baghdad goes northward to Mosul, and thence by a
+safer road to this city. The khans, of which there are a great number,
+built on a scale according with the former magnificence of Aleppo, are
+nearly all filled, and Persian, Georgian, and Armenian merchants again
+make their appearance in the bazaars. The principal manufactures carried
+on are the making of shoes (which, indeed, is a prominent branch in every
+Turkish city), and the weaving of silk and golden tissues. Two long
+bazaars are entirely occupied with shoe-shops, and there is nearly a
+quarter of a mile of confectionery, embracing more varieties than I ever
+saw, or imagined possible. I saw yesterday the operation of weaving silk
+and gold, which is a very slow process. The warp and the body of the woof
+were of purple silk. The loom only differed from the old hand-looms in
+general use in having some thirty or forty contrivances for lifting the
+threads of the warp, so as to form, by variation, certain patterns. The
+gold threads by which the pattern was worked were contained in twenty
+small shuttles, thrust by hand under the different parcels of the warp, as
+they were raised by a boy trained for that purpose, who sat on the top of
+the loom. The fabric was very brilliant in its appearance, and sells, as
+the weavers informed me, at 100 piastres per _pik_--about $7 per yard.
+
+We had letters to Mr. Ford, an American Missionary established here, and
+Signor di Picciotto, who acts as American Vice-Consul. Both gentlemen have
+been very cordial in their offers of service, and by their aid we have
+been enabled to see something of Aleppo life and society. Mr. Ford, who
+has been here four years, has a pleasant residence at Jedaida, a Christian
+suburb of the city. His congregation numbers some fifty or sixty
+proselytes, who are mostly from the schismatic sects of the Armenians. Dr.
+Smith, who established the mission at Ain-tab (two days' journey north of
+this), where he died last year, was very successful among these sects, and
+the congregation there amounts to nine hundred. The Sultan, a year ago,
+issued a firman, permitting his Christian subjects to erect houses of
+worship; but, although this was proclaimed in Constantinople and much
+lauded in Europe as an act of great generosity and tolerance, there has
+been no official promulgation of it here. So of the aid which the Turkish
+Government was said to have afforded to its destitute Christian subjects,
+whose houses were sacked during the fanatical rebellion of 1850. The world
+praised the Sultan's charity and love of justice, while the sufferers, to
+this day, lack the first experience of it. But for the spontaneous relief
+contributed in Europe and among the Christian communities of the Levant,
+the amount of misery would have been frightful.
+
+To Feridj Pasha, who is at present the commander of the forces here, is
+mainly due the credit of having put down the rebels with a strong hand.
+There were but few troops in the city at the time of the outbreak, and as
+the insurgents, who were composed of the Turkish and Arab population, were
+in league with the Aneyzehs of the Desert, the least faltering or delay
+would have led to a universal massacre of the Christians. Fortunately, the
+troops were divided into two portions, one occupying the barracks on a
+hill north of the city, and the other, a mere corporal's guard of a dozen
+men, posted in the citadel. The leaders of the outbreak went to the latter
+and offered him a large sum of money (the spoils of Christian houses) to
+give up the fortress. With a loyalty to his duty truly miraculous among
+the Turks, he ordered his men to fire upon them, and they beat a hasty
+retreat. The quarter of the insurgents lay precisely between the barracks
+and the citadel, and by order of Feridj Pasha a cannonade was immediately
+opened on it from both points. It was not, however, until many houses had
+been battered down, and a still larger number destroyed by fire, that the
+rebels were brought to submission. Their allies, the Aneyzehs, appeared on
+the hill east of Aleppo, to the number of five or six thousand, but a few
+well-directed cannon-balls told them what they might expect, and they
+speedily retreated. Two or three hundred Christian families lost nearly
+all of their property during the sack, and many were left entirely
+destitute. The house in which Mr. Ford lives was plundered of jewels and
+furniture to the amount of 400,000 piastres ($20,000). The robbers, it is
+said, were amazed at the amount of spoil they found. The Government made
+some feeble efforts to recover it, but the greater part was already sold
+and scattered through a thousand hands, and the unfortunate Christians
+have only received about seven per cent. of their loss.
+
+The burnt quarter has since been rebuilt, and I noticed several Christians
+occupying shops in various parts of it. But many families, who fled at the
+time, still remain in various parts of Syria, afraid to return to their
+homes. The Aneyzehs and other Desert tribes have latterly become more
+daring than ever. Even in the immediate neighborhood of the city, the
+inhabitants are so fearful of them that all the grain is brought up to
+the very walls to be threshed. The burying-grounds on both sides are now
+turned into threshing-floors, and all day long the Turkish peasants drive
+their heavy sleds around among the tomb-stones.
+
+On the second day after our arrival, we paid a visit to Osman Pasha,
+Governor of the City and Province of Aleppo. We went in state, accompanied
+by the Consul, with two janissaries in front, bearing silver maces, and a
+dragoman behind. The _serai_, or palace, is a large, plain wooden
+building, and a group of soldiers about the door, with a shabby carriage
+in the court, were the only tokens of its character. We were ushered at
+once into the presence of the Pasha, who is a man of about seventy years,
+with a good-humored, though shrewd face. He was quite cordial in his
+manners, complimenting us on our Turkish costume, and vaunting his skill
+in physiognomy, which at once revealed to him that we belonged to the
+highest class of American nobility. In fact, in the firman which he has
+since sent us, we are mentioned as "nobles." He invited us to pass a day
+or two with him, saying that he should derive much benefit from our
+superior knowledge. We replied that such an intercourse could only benefit
+ourselves, as his greater experience, and the distinguished wisdom which
+had made his name long since familiar to our ears, precluded the hope of
+our being of any service to him. After half an hour's stay, during which
+we were regaled with jewelled pipes, exquisite Mocha coffee, and sherbet
+breathing of the gardens of Guelistan, we took our leave.
+
+The Pasha sent an officer to show us the citadel. We passed around the
+moat to the entrance on the western side, consisting of a bridge and
+double gateway. The fortress, as I have already stated, occupies the crest
+of an elliptical mound, about one thousand feet by six hundred, and two
+hundred feet in height. It is entirely encompassed by the city and forms a
+prominent and picturesque feature in the distant view thereof. Formerly,
+it was thickly inhabited, and at the time of the great earthquake of 1822,
+there were three hundred families living within the walls, nearly all of
+whom perished. The outer walls were very much shattered on that occasion,
+but the enormous towers and the gateway, the grandest specimen of
+Saracenic architecture in the East, still remain entire. This gateway, by
+which we entered, is colossal in its proportions. The outer entrance,
+through walls ten feet thick, admitted us into a lofty vestibule lined
+with marble, and containing many ancient inscriptions in mosaic. Over the
+main portal, which is adorned with sculptured lions' heads, there is a
+tablet stating that the fortress was built by El Melek el Ashraf (the
+Holiest of Kings), after which follows: "Prosperity to the True
+Believers--Death to the Infidels!" A second tablet shows that it was
+afterwards repaired by Mohammed ebn-Berkook, who, I believe, was one of
+the Fatimite Caliphs. The shekh of the citadel, who accompanied us, stated
+the age of the structure at nine hundred years, which, as nearly as I can
+recollect the Saracenic chronology, is correct. He called our attention to
+numbers of iron arrow-heads sticking in the solid masonry--the marks of
+ancient sieges. Before leaving, we were presented with a bundle of arrows
+from the armory--undoubted relics of Saracen warfare.
+
+The citadel is now a mass of ruins, having been deserted since the
+earthquake. Grass is growing on the ramparts, and the caper plant, with
+its white-and-purple blossoms, flourishes among the piles of rubbish.
+Since the late rebellion, however, a small military barrack has been
+built, and two companies of soldiers are stationed there, We walked around
+the walls, which command a magnificent view of the city and the wide
+plains to the south and east. It well deserves to rank with the panorama
+of Cairo from the citadel, and that of Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon, in
+extent, picturesqueness and rich oriental character. Out of the gray ring
+of the city, which incloses the mound, rise the great white domes and the
+whiter minarets of its numerous mosques, many of which are grand and
+imposing structures. The course of the river through the centre of the
+picture is marked by a belt of the greenest verdure, beyond which, to the
+west, rises a chain of naked red hills, and still further, fading on the
+horizon, the blue summit of Mt. St. Simon, and the coast range of Akma
+Dagh. Eastward, over vast orchards of pistachio trees, the barren plain of
+the Euphrates fades away to a glimmering, hot horizon. Looking downwards
+on the heart of the city, I was surprised to see a number of open, grassy
+tracts, out of which, here and there, small trees were growing. But,
+perceiving what appeared to be subterranean entrances at various points, I
+found that these tracts were upon the roofs of the houses and bazaars,
+verifying what I had frequently heard, that in Aleppo the inhabitants
+visit their friends in different parts of the city, by passing over the
+roofs of the houses. Previous to the earthquake of 1822, these vast
+roof-plains were cultivated as gardens, and presented an extent of airy
+bowers as large, if not as magnificent, as the renowned Hanging Gardens of
+ancient Babylon.
+
+Accompanied by Signor di Picciotto, we spent two or three days in
+visiting the houses of the principal Jewish and Christian families in
+Aleppo. We found, it is true, no such splendor as in Damascus, but more
+solid and durable architecture, and a more chastened elegance of taste.
+The buildings are all of hewn stone, the court-yards paved with marble,
+and the walls rich with gilding and carved wood. Some of the larger
+dwellings have small but beautiful gardens attached to them. We were
+everywhere received with the greatest hospitality, and the visits were
+considered as a favor rather than an intrusion. Indeed, I was frequently
+obliged to run the risk of giving offence, by declining the refreshments
+which were offered us. Each round of visits was a feat of strength, and we
+were obliged to desist from sheer inability to support more coffee,
+rose-water, pipes, and aromatic sweetmeats. The character of society in
+Aleppo is singular; its very life and essence is etiquette. The laws which
+govern it are more inviolable than those of the Medes and Persians. The
+question of precedence among the different families is adjusted by the
+most delicate scale, and rigorously adhered to in the most trifling
+matters. Even we, humble voyagers as we are, have been obliged to regulate
+our conduct according to it. After our having visited certain families,
+certain others would have been deeply mortified had we neglected to call
+upon them. Formerly, when a traveller arrived here, he was expected to
+call upon the different Consuls, in the order of their established
+precedence: the Austrian first, English second, French third, &c. After
+this, he was obliged to stay at home several days, to give the Consuls an
+opportunity of returning the visits, which they made in the same order.
+There was a diplomatic importance about all his movements, and the least
+violation of etiquette, through ignorance or neglect, was the town talk
+for days.
+
+This peculiarity in society is evidently a relic of the formal times, when
+Aleppo was a semi-Venetian city, and the opulent seat of Eastern commerce.
+Many of the inhabitants are descended from the traders of those times, and
+they all speak the _lingua franca_, or Levantine Italian. The women wear a
+costume partly Turkish and partly European, combining the graces of both;
+it is, in my eyes, the most beautiful dress in the world. They wear a rich
+scarf of some dark color on the head, which, on festive occasions, is
+almost concealed by their jewels, and the heavy scarlet pomegranate
+blossoms which adorn their dark hair. A Turkish vest and sleeves of
+embroidered silk, open in front, and a skirt of white or some light color,
+completes the costume. The Jewesses wear in addition a short Turkish
+_caftan_, and full trousers gathered at the ankles. At a ball given by Mr.
+Very, the English Consul, which we attended, all the Christian beauties of
+Aleppo were present. There was a fine display of diamonds, many of the
+ladies wearing several thousand dollars' worth on their heads. The
+peculiar etiquette of the place was again illustrated on this occasion.
+The custom is, that the music must be heard for at least one hour before
+the guests come. The hour appointed was eight, but when we went there, at
+nine, nobody had arrived. As it was generally supposed that the ball was
+given on our account, several of the families had servants in the
+neighborhood to watch our arrival; and, accordingly, we had not been there
+five minutes before the guests crowded through the door in large numbers.
+When the first dance (an Arab dance, performed by two ladies at a time)
+was proposed, the wives of the French and Spanish Consuls were first led,
+or rather dragged, out. When a lady is asked to dance, she invariably
+refuses. She is asked a second and a third time; and if the gentleman does
+not solicit most earnestly, and use some gentle force in getting her upon
+the floor, she never forgives him.
+
+At one of the Jewish houses which we visited, the wedding festivities of
+one of the daughters were being celebrated. We were welcomed with great
+cordiality, and immediately ushered into the room of state, an elegant
+apartment, overlooking the gardens below the city wall. Half the room was
+occupied by a raised platform, with a divan of blue silk cushions. Here
+the ladies reclined, in superb dresses of blue, pink, and gold, while the
+gentlemen were ranged on the floor below. They all rose at our entrance,
+and we were conducted to seats among the ladies. Pipes and perfumed drinks
+were served, and the bridal cake, made of twenty-six different fruits, was
+presented on a golden salver. Our fair neighbors, some of whom literally
+blazed with jewels, were strikingly beautiful. Presently the bride
+appeared at the door, and we all rose and remained standing, as she
+advanced, supported on each side by the two _shebeeniyeh_, or bridesmaids.
+She was about sixteen, slight and graceful in appearance, though not
+decidedly beautiful, and was attired with the utmost elegance. Her dress
+was a pale blue silk, heavy with gold embroidery; and over her long dark
+hair, her neck, bosom, and wrists, played a thousand rainbow gleams from
+the jewels which covered them. The Jewish musicians, seated at the bottom
+of the hall, struck up a loud, rejoicing harmony on their violins,
+guitars, and dulcimers, and the women servants, grouped at the door,
+uttered in chorus that wild, shrill cry, which accompanies all such
+festivals in the East. The bride was careful to preserve the decorum
+expected of her, by speaking no word, nor losing the sad, resigned
+expression of her countenance. She ascended to the divan, bowed to each of
+us with a low, reverential inclination, and seated herself on the
+cushions. The music and dances lasted some time, accompanied by the
+_zughareet_, or cry of the women, which was repeated with double force
+when we rose to take leave. The whole company waited on us to the street
+door, and one of the servants, stationed in the court, shouted some long,
+sing-song phrases after us as we passed out. I could not learn the words,
+but was told that it was an invocation of prosperity upon us, in return
+for the honor which our visit had conferred.
+
+In the evening I went to view a Christian marriage procession, which,
+about midnight, conveyed the bride to the house of the bridegroom. The
+house, it appeared, was too small to receive all the friends of the
+family, and I joined a large number of them, who repaired to the terrace
+of the English Consulate, to greet the procession as it passed. The first
+persons who appeared were a company of buffoons; after them four
+janissaries, carrying silver maces; then the male friends, bearing colored
+lanterns and perfumed torches, raised on gilded poles; then the females,
+among whom I saw some beautiful Madonna faces in the torchlight; and
+finally the bride herself, covered from head to foot with a veil of cloth
+of gold, and urged along by two maidens: for it is the etiquette of such
+occasions that the bride should resist being taken, and must be forced
+every step of the way, so that she is frequently three hours in going the
+distance of a mile. We watched the procession a long time, winding away
+through the streets--a line of torches, and songs, and incense, and noisy
+jubilee--under the sweet starlit heaven.
+
+The other evening, Signor di Picciotto mounted us from his fine Arabian
+stud, and we rode around the city, outside of the suburbs. The sun was
+low, and a pale yellow lustre touched the clusters of minarets that rose
+out of the stately masses of buildings, and the bare, chalky hills to the
+north. After leaving the gardens on the banks of the Koweik, we came upon
+a dreary waste of ruins, among which the antiquarian finds traces of the
+ancient Aleppo of the Greeks, the Mongolian conquerors of the Middle Ages,
+and the Saracens who succeeded them. There are many mosques and tombs,
+which were once imposing specimens of Saracenic art; but now, split and
+shivered by wars and earthquakes, are slowly tumbling into utter decay. On
+the south-eastern side of the city, its chalk foundations have been
+hollowed into vast, arched caverns, which extend deep into the earth.
+Pillars have been left at regular intervals, to support the masses above,
+and their huge, dim labyrinths resemble the crypts of some great
+cathedral. They are now used as rope-walks, and filled with cheerful
+workmen.
+
+Our last excursion was to a country-house of Signor di Picciotto, in the
+Gardens of Babala, about four miles from Aleppo. We set out in the
+afternoon on our Arabians, with our host's son on a large white donkey of
+the Baghdad breed. Passing the Turkish cemetery, where we stopped to view
+the tomb of General Bem, we loosened rein and sped away at full gallop
+over the hot, white hills. In dashing down a stony rise, the ambitious
+donkey, who was doing his best to keep up with the horses, fell, hurling
+Master Picciotto over his head. The boy was bruised a little, but set his
+teeth together and showed no sign of pain, mounted again, and followed
+us. The Gardens of Babala are a wilderness of fruit-trees, like those of
+Damascus. Signor P.'s country-house is buried in a wild grove of apricot,
+fig, orange, and pomegranate-trees. A large marble tank, in front of the
+open, arched _liwan_, supplies it with water. We mounted to the flat roof,
+and watched the sunset fade from the beautiful landscape. Beyond the
+bowers of dazzling greenness which surrounded us, stretched the wide, gray
+hills; the minarets of Aleppo, and the walls of its castled mount shone
+rosily in the last rays of the sun; an old palace of the Pashas, with the
+long, low barracks of the soldiery, crowned the top of a hill to the
+north; dark, spiry cypresses betrayed the place of tombs; and, to the
+west, beyond the bare red peak of Mount St. Simon, rose the faint blue
+outline of Giaour Dagh, whose mural chain divides Syria from the plains of
+Cilicia. As the twilight deepened over the scene, there came a long,
+melodious cry of passion and of sorrow from the heart of a starry-flowered
+pomegranate tree in the garden. Other voices answered it from the gardens
+around, until not one, but fifty nightingales charmed the repose of the
+hour. They vied with each other in their bursts of passionate music. Each
+strain soared over the last, or united with others, near and far, in a
+chorus of the divinest pathos--an expression of sweet, unutterable,
+unquenchable longing. It was an ecstasy, yet a pain, to listen. "Away!"
+said Jean Paul to Music: "thou tellest me of that which I have not, and
+never can have--which I forever seek, and never find!"
+
+But space fails me to describe half the incidents of our stay in Aleppo.
+There are two things peculiar to the city, however, which I must not omit
+mentioning. One is the Aleppo Button, a singular ulcer, which attacks
+every person born in the city, and every stranger who spends more than a
+month there. It can neither be prevented nor cured, and always lasts for a
+year. The inhabitants almost invariably have it on the face--either on the
+cheek, forehead, or tip of the nose--where it often leaves an indelible
+and disfiguring scar. Strangers, on the contrary, have it on one of the
+joints; either the elbow, wrist, knee, or ankle. So strictly is its
+visitation confined to the city proper, that in none of the neighboring
+villages, nor even in a distant suburb, is it known. Physicians have
+vainly attempted to prevent it by inoculation, and are at a loss to what
+cause to ascribe it. We are liable to have it, even after five days' stay;
+but I hope it will postpone its appearance until after I reach home.
+
+The other remarkable thing here is the Hospital for Cats. This was founded
+long ago by a rich, cat-loving Mussulman, and is one of the best endowed
+institutions in the city. An old mosque is appropriated to the purpose,
+under the charge of several directors; and here sick cats are nursed,
+homeless cats find shelter, and decrepit cats gratefully purr away their
+declining years. The whole category embraces several hundreds, and it is
+quite a sight to behold the court, the corridors, and terraces of the
+mosque swarming with them. Here, one with a bruised limb is receiving a
+cataplasm; there, a cataleptic patient is tenderly cared for; and so on,
+through the long concatenation of feline diseases. Aleppo, moreover,
+rejoices in a greater number of cats than even Jerusalem. At a rough
+guess, I should thus state the population of the city: Turks and Arabs,
+70,000; Christians of all denominations, 15,000; Jews, 10,000; dogs,
+12,000; and cats, 8,000.
+
+Among other persons whom I have met here, is Ferhat Pasha, formerly
+General Stein, Hungarian Minister of War, and Governor of Transylvania. He
+accepted Moslemism with Bem and others, and now rejoices in his
+circumcision and 7,000 piastres a month. He is a fat, companionable sort
+of man; who, by his own confession, never labored very zealously for the
+independence of Hungary, being an Austrian by birth. He conversed with me
+for several hours on the scenes in which he had participated, and
+attributed the failure of the Hungarians to the want of material means.
+General Bem, who died here, is spoken of with the utmost respect, both by
+Turks and Christians. The former have honored him with a large tomb, or
+mausoleum, covered with a dome.
+
+But I must close, leaving half unsaid. Suffice it to say that no Oriental
+city has interested me so profoundly as Aleppo, and in none have I
+received such universal and cordial hospitality. We leave to-morrow for
+Asia Minor, having engaged men and horses for the whole route to
+Constantinople.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI.
+
+Through the Syrian Gates.
+
+
+  An Inauspicious Departure--The Ruined Church of St. Simon--The Plain of
+  Antioch--A Turcoman Encampment--Climbing Akma Dagh--The Syrian
+  Gates--Scanderoon--An American Captain--Revolt of the Koords--We take a
+  Guard--The Field of Issus--The Robber-Chief, Kutchuk Ali--A Deserted
+  Town--A Land of Gardens.
+
+
+  "Mountains, on whose barren breast
+  The lab'ring clouds do often rest."
+
+  Milton.
+
+
+In Quarantine (Adana, Asia Minor), _Tuesday, June_ 15, 1852.
+
+We left Aleppo on the morning of the 9th, under circumstances not the most
+promising for the harmony of our journey. We had engaged horses and
+baggage-mules from the _capidji_, or chief of the muleteers, and in order
+to be certain of having animals that would not break down on the way, made
+a particular selection from a number that were brought us. When about
+leaving the city, however, we discovered that one of the horses had been
+changed. Signor di Picciotto, who accompanied us past the Custom-House
+barriers, immediately dispatched the delinquent muleteer to bring back the
+true horse, and the latter made a farce of trying to find him, leading the
+Consul and the capidji (who, I believe, was at the bottom of the cheat) a
+wild-goose chase over the hills around Aleppo, where of course, the animal
+was not to be seen. When, at length, we had waited three hours, and had
+wandered about four miles from the city, we gave up the search, took leave
+of the Consul and went on with the new horse. Our proper plan would have
+been to pitch the tent and refuse to move till the matter was settled. The
+animal, as we discovered during the first day's journey, was hopelessly
+lame, and we only added to the difficulty by taking him.
+
+We rode westward all day over barren and stony hills, meeting with
+abundant traces of the power and prosperity of this region during the
+times of the Greek Emperors. The nevastation wrought by earthquakes has
+been terrible; there is scarcely a wall or arch standing, which does not
+bear marks of having been violently shaken. The walls inclosing the
+fig-orchards near the villages contain many stones with Greek
+inscriptions, and fragments of cornices. We encamped the first night on
+the plain at the foot of Mount St. Simon, and not far from the ruins of
+the celebrated Church of the same name. The building stands in a stony
+wilderness at the foot of the mountain. It is about a hundred feet long
+and thirty in height, with two lofty square towers in front. The pavement
+of the interior is entirely concealed by the masses of pillars, capitals,
+and hewn blocks that lie heaped upon it. The windows, which are of the
+tall, narrow, arched form, common in Byzantine Churches, have a common
+moulding which falls like a mantle over and between them. The general
+effect of the Church is very fine, though there is much inelegance in the
+sculptured details. At the extremity is a half-dome of massive stone, over
+the place of the altar, and just in front of this formerly stood the
+pedestal whereon, according to tradition, St. Simeon Stylites commenced
+his pillar-life. I found a recent excavation at the spot, but no
+pedestal, which has probably been carried off by the Greek monks. Beside
+the Church stands a large building, with an upper and lower balcony,
+supported by square stone pillars, around three sides. There is also a
+paved court-yard, a large cistern cut in the rock and numerous
+out-buildings, all going to confirm the supposition of its having been a
+monastery. The main building is three stories high, with pointed gables,
+and bears a strong resemblance to an American summer hotel, with verandas.
+Several ancient fig and walnut trees are growing among the ruins, and add
+to their picturesque appearance.
+
+The next day we crossed a broad chain of hills to the Plain of Antioch,
+which we reached near its northern extremity. In one of the valleys
+through which the road lay, we saw a number of hot sulphur springs, some
+of them of a considerable volume of water. Not far from them was a
+beautiful fountain of fresh and cold water gushing from the foot of a high
+rock. Soon after reaching the plain, we crossed the stream of Kara Su,
+which feeds the Lake of Antioch. This part of the plain is low and swampy,
+and the streams are literally alive with fish. While passing over the
+bridge I saw many hundreds, from one to two feet in length. We wandered
+through the marshy meadows for two or three hours, and towards sunset
+reached a Turcoman encampment, where the ground was dry enough to pitch
+our tents. The rude tribe received us hospitably, and sent us milk and
+cheese in abundance. I visited the tent of the Shekh, who was very
+courteous, but as he knew no language but Turkish, our conversation was
+restricted to signs. The tent was of camel's-hair cloth, spacious, and
+open at the sides. A rug was spread for me, and the Shekh's wife brought
+me a pipe of tolerable tobacco. The household were seated upon the
+ground, chatting pleasantly with one another, and apparently not in the
+least disturbed by my presence. One of the Shekh's sons, who was deaf and
+dumb, came and sat before me, and described by very expressive signs the
+character of the road to Scanderoon. He gave me to understand that there
+were robbers in the mountains, with many grim gestures descriptive of
+stabbing and firing muskets.
+
+The mosquitoes were so thick during the night that we were obliged to fill
+the tent with smoke in order to sleep. When morning came, we fancied there
+would be a relief for us, but it only brought a worse pest, in the shape
+of swarms of black gnats, similar to those which so tormented me in Nubia.
+I know of no infliction so terrible as these gnats, which you cannot drive
+away, and which assail ears, eyes, and nostrils in such quantities that
+you become mad and desperate in your efforts to eject them. Through glens
+filled with oleander, we ascended the first slopes of Akma Dagh, the
+mountain range which divides the Gulf of Scanderoon from the Plain of
+Antioch. Then, passing a natural terrace, covered with groves of oak, our
+road took the mountain side, climbing upwards in the shadow of pine and
+wild olive trees, and between banks of blooming lavender and myrtle. We
+saw two or three companies of armed guards, stationed by the road-side,
+for the mountain is infested with robbers, and a caravan had been
+plundered only three days before. The view, looking backward, took in the
+whole plain, with the Lake of Antioch glittering in the centre, the valley
+of the Orontes in the south, and the lofty cone of Djebel-Okrab far to the
+west. As we approached the summit, violent gusts of wind blew through the
+pass with such force as almost to overturn our horses. Here the road from
+Antioch joins that from Aleppo, and both for some distance retain the
+ancient pavement.
+
+From the western side we saw the sea once more, and went down through the
+_Pylae Syriae_, or Syrian Gates, as this defile was called by the Romans. It
+is very narrow and rugged, with an abrupt descent. In an hour from the
+summit we came upon an aqueduct of a triple row of arches, crossing the
+gorge. It is still used to carry water to the town of Beilan, which hangs
+over the mouth of the pass, half a mile below. This is one of the most
+picturesque spots in Syria. The houses cling to the sides and cluster on
+the summits of precipitous crags, and every shelf of soil, every crevice
+where a tree can thrust its roots, upholds a mass of brilliant vegetation.
+Water is the life of the place. It gushes into the street from exhaustless
+fountains; it trickles from the terraces in showers of misty drops; it
+tumbles into the gorge in sparkling streams; and everywhere it nourishes a
+life as bright and beautiful as its own. The fruit trees are of enormous
+size, and the crags are curtained with a magnificent drapery of vines.
+This green gateway opens suddenly upon another, cut through a glittering
+mass of micaceous rock, whence one looks down on the town and Gulf of
+Scanderoon, the coast of Karamania beyond, and the distant snows of the
+Taurus. We descended through groves of pine and oak, and in three hours
+more reached the shore.
+
+Scanderoon is the most unhealthy place on the Syrian Coast, owing to the
+malaria from a marsh behind it. The inhabitants are a wretched pallid set,
+who are visited every year with devastating fevers. The marsh was partly
+drained some forty years ago by the Turkish government, and a few
+thousand dollars would be sufficient to remove it entirely, and make the
+place--which is of some importance as the seaport of Aleppo--healthy and
+habitable. At present, there are not five hundred inhabitants, and half of
+these consist of the Turkish garrison and the persons attached to the
+different Vice-Consulates. The streets are depositories of filth, and
+pools of stagnant water, on all sides, exhale the most fetid odors. Near
+the town are the ruins of a castle built by Godfrey of Bouillon. We
+marched directly down to the sea-shore, and pitched our tent close beside
+the waves, as the place most free from malaria. There were a dozen vessels
+at anchor in the road, and one of them proved to be the American bark
+Columbia, Capt. Taylor. We took a skiff and went on board, where we were
+cordially welcomed by the mate. In the evening, the captain came to our
+tent, quite surprised to find two wandering Americans in such a lonely
+corner of the world. Soon afterwards, with true seaman-like generosity, he
+returned, bringing a jar of fine Spanish olives and a large bottle of
+pickles, which he insisted on adding to our supplies. The olives have the
+choicest Andalusian flavor, and the pickles lose none of their relish from
+having been put up in New York.
+
+The road from Scanderoon to this place lies mostly along the shore of the
+gulf, at the foot of Akma Dagh, and is reckoned dangerous on account of
+the marauding bands of Koords who infest the mountains. These people, like
+the Druses, have rebelled against the conscription, and will probably hold
+their ground with equal success, though the Turks talk loudly of invading
+their strongholds. Two weeks ago, the post was robbed, about ten miles
+from Scanderoon, and a government vessel, now lying at anchor in the bay,
+opened a cannonade on the plunderers, before they could be secured. In
+consequence of the warnings of danger in everybody's mouth, we decided to
+take an escort, and therefore waited upon the commander of the forces,
+with the firman of the Pasha of Aleppo. A convoy of two soldiers was at
+once promised us; and at sunrise, next morning, they took the lead of our
+caravan.
+
+In order to appear more formidable, in case we should meet with robbers,
+we put on our Frank pantaloons, which had no other effect than to make the
+heat more intolerable. But we formed rather a fierce cavalcade, six armed
+men in all. Our road followed the shore of the bay, having a narrow,
+uninhabited flat, covered with thickets of myrtle and mastic, between us
+and the mountains. The two soldiers, more valiant than the guard of
+Banias, rode in advance, and showed no signs of fear as we approached the
+suspicious places. The morning was delightfully clear, and the
+snow-crowned range of Taurus shone through the soft vapors hanging over
+the gulf. In one place, we skirted the shore for some distance, under a
+bank twenty feet in height, and so completely mantled with shrubbery, that
+a small army might have hidden in it. There were gulleys at intervals,
+opening suddenly on our path, and we looked up them, expecting every
+moment to see the gleam of a Koordish gun-barrel, or a Turcoman spear,
+above the tops of the myrtles.
+
+Crossing a promontory which makes out from the mountains, we came upon the
+renowned plain of Issus, where Darius lost his kingdom to Alexander. On a
+low cliff overhanging the sea, there are the remains of a single tower of
+gray stone. The people in Scanderoon call it "Jonah's Pillar," and say
+that it marks the spot where the Ninevite was cast ashore by the whale.
+[This makes three places on the Syrian coast where Jonah was vomited
+forth.] The plain of Issus is from two to three miles long, but not more
+than half a mile wide, It is traversed by a little river, supposed to be
+the Pinarus, which comes down through a tremendous cleft in the Akma Dagh.
+The ground seems too small for the battle-field of such armies as were
+engaged on the occasion. It is bounded on the north by a low hill,
+separating it from the plain of Baias, and it is possible that Alexander
+may have made choice of this position, leaving the unwieldy forces of
+Darius to attack him from the plain. His advantage would be greater, on
+account of the long, narrow form of the ground, which would prevent him
+from being engaged with more than a small portion of the Persian army, at
+one time. The plain is now roseate with blooming oleanders, but almost
+entirely uncultivated. About midway there are the remains of an ancient
+quay jutting into the sea.
+
+Soon after leaving the field of Issus, we reached the town of Baias, which
+is pleasantly situated on the shore, at the mouth of a river whose course
+through the plain is marked with rows of tall poplar trees. The walls of
+the town, and the white dome and minaret of its mosque, rose dazzlingly
+against the dark blue of the sea, and the purple stretch of the mountains
+of Karamania. A single palm lifted its crest in the foreground. We
+dismounted for breakfast under the shade of an old bridge which crosses
+the river. It was a charming spot, the banks above and below being
+overhung with oleander, white rose, honeysuckle and clematis. The two
+guardsmen finished the remaining half of our Turcoman cheese, and almost
+exhausted our supply of bread. I gave one of them a cigar, which he was at
+a loss how to smoke, until our muleteer showed him.
+
+Baias was celebrated fifty years ago, as the residence of the robber
+chief, Kutchuk Ali, who, for a long time, braved the authority of the
+Porte itself. He was in the habit of levying a yearly tribute on the
+caravan to Mecca, and the better to enforce his claims, often suspended
+two or three of his captives at the gates of the town, a day or two before
+the caravan arrived. Several expeditions were sent against him, but he
+always succeeded in bribing the commanders, who, on their return to
+Constantinople, made such representations that Kutchuk Ali, instead of
+being punished, received one dignity after another, until finally he
+attained the rank of a Pasha of two tails. This emboldened him to commit
+enormities too great to be overlooked, and in 1812 Baias was taken, and
+the atrocious nest of land-pirates broken up.
+
+I knew that the town had been sacked on this occasion, but was not
+prepared to find such a complete picture of desolation. The place is
+surrounded with a substantial wall, with two gateways, on the north and
+south. A bazaar, covered with a lofty vaulted roof of stone, runs directly
+through from gate to gate; and there was still a smell of spices in the
+air, on entering. The massive shops on either hand, with their open doors,
+invited possession, and might readily be made habitable again. The great
+iron gates leading from the bazaar into the khans and courts, still swing
+on their rusty hinges. We rode into the court of the mosque, which is
+surrounded with a light and elegant corridor, supported by pillars. The
+grass has as yet but partially invaded the marble pavement, and a stone
+drinking-trough still stands in the centre. I urged my horse up the steps
+and into the door of the mosque. It is in the form of a Greek cross, with
+a dome in the centre, resting on four very elegant pointed arches. There
+is an elaborately gilded and painted gallery of wood over the entrance,
+and the pulpit opposite is as well preserved as if the _mollah_ had just
+left it. Out of the mosque we passed into a second court, and then over a
+narrow bridge into the fortress. The moat is perfect, and the walls as
+complete as if just erected. Only the bottom is dry, and now covered with
+a thicket of wild pomegranate trees. The heavy iron doors of the fortress
+swung half open, as we entered unchallenged. The interior is almost
+entire, and some of the cannon still lie buried in the springing grass.
+The plan of the little town, which appears to have been all built at one
+time, is most admirable. The walls of circuit, including the fortress,
+cannot be more than 300 yards square, and yet none of the characteristics
+of a large Oriental city are omitted.
+
+Leaving Baias, we travelled northward, over a waste, though fertile plain.
+The mountains on our right made a grand appearance, with their feet
+mantled in myrtle, and their tops plumed with pine. They rise from the sea
+with a long, bold sweep, but each peak falls off in a precipice on the
+opposite side, as if the chain were the barrier of the world and there was
+nothing but space beyond. In the afternoon we left the plain for a belt of
+glorious garden land, made by streams that came down from the mountains.
+We entered a lane embowered in pomegranate, white rose, clematis, and
+other flowering vines and shrubs, and overarched by superb plane, lime,
+and beech trees, chained together with giant grape vines. On either side
+were fields of ripe wheat and barley, mulberry orchards and groves of
+fruit trees, under the shade of which the Turkish families sat or slept
+during the hot hours of the day. Birds sang in the boughs, and the
+gurgling of water made a cool undertone to their music. Out of fairyland
+where shall I see again such lovely bowers? We were glad when the soldiers
+announced that it was necessary to encamp there; as we should find no
+other habitations for more than twenty miles.
+
+Our tent was pitched under a grand sycamore, beside a swift mountain
+stream which almost made the circuit of our camp. Beyond the tops of the
+elm, beech, and fig groves, we saw the picturesque green summits of the
+lower ranges of Giaour Dagh, in the north-east, while over the southern
+meadows a golden gleam of sunshine lay upon the Gulf of Scanderoon. The
+village near us was Chaya, where there is a military station. The guards
+we had brought from Scanderoon here left us; but the commanding officer
+advised us to take others on the morrow, as the road was still considered
+unsafe.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII.
+
+Adana and Tarsus.
+
+
+  The Black Gate--The Plain of Cilicia--A Koord Village--Missis--Cilician
+  Scenery--Arrival at Adana--Three days in Quarantine--We receive
+  Pratique--A Landscape--The Plain of Tarsus--The River Cydnus--A Vision
+  of Cleopatra--Tarsus and its Environs--The _Duniktash_--The Moon of
+  Ramazan.
+
+
+  "Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a
+  citizen of no mean city."--Acts, xxi. 89.
+
+
+Khan on Mt. Taurus, _Saturday, June_ 19, 1852.
+
+We left our camp at Chaya at dawn, with an escort of three soldiers, which
+we borrowed from the guard stationed at that place. The path led along the
+shore, through clumps of myrtle beaten inland by the wind, and rounded as
+smoothly as if they had been clipped by a gardener's shears. As we
+approached the head of the gulf, the peaked summits of Giaour Dagh, 10,000
+feet in height, appeared in the north-east. The streams we forded swarmed
+with immense trout. A brown hedgehog ran across our road, but when I
+touched him with the end of my pipe, rolled himself into an impervious
+ball of prickles. Soon after turning the head of the gulf, the road
+swerved off to the west, and entered a narrow pass, between hills covered
+with thick copse-wood. Here we came upon an ancient gateway of black lava
+stone, which bears marks of great antiquity It is now called _Kara Kapu,_
+the "Black Gate," and some suppose it to have been one of the ancient
+gates of Cilicia.
+
+Beyond this, our road led over high, grassy hills, without a sign of human
+habitation, to the ruined khan of Koord Koolak, We dismounted and unloaded
+our baggage in the spacious stone archway, and drove our beasts into the
+dark, vaulted halls behind. The building was originally intended for a
+magazine of supplies, and from the ruined mosque near it, I suspect it was
+formerly one of the caravan stations for the pilgrims from Constantinople
+to Mecca. The weather was intensely hot and sultry, and our animals were
+almost crazy from the attacks of a large yellow gad-fly. After the noonday
+heat was over we descended to the first Cilician plain, which is bounded
+on the west by the range of Durdun Dagh. As we had now passed the most
+dangerous part of the road, we dismissed the three soldiers and took but a
+single man with us. The entire plain is covered with wild fennel, six to
+eight feet in height, and literally blazing with its bloomy yellow tops.
+Riding through it, I could barely look over them, and far and wide, on all
+sides, spread a golden sea, out of which the long violet hills rose with
+the liveliest effect. Brown, shining serpents, from four to six feet in
+length, frequently slid across our path. The plain, which must be sixty
+miles in circumference, is wholly uncultivated, though no land could
+possibly be richer.
+
+Out of the region of fennel we passed into one of red and white clover,
+timothy grass and wild oats. The thistles were so large as to resemble
+young palm-trees, and the salsify of our gardens grew rank and wild. At
+length we dipped into the evening shadow of Durdun Dagh, and reached the
+village of Koord Keui, on his lower slope. As there was no place for our
+tent on the rank grass of the plain or the steep side of the hill, we took
+forcible possession of the winnowing-floor, a flat terrace built up under
+two sycamores, and still covered with the chaff of the last threshing. The
+Koords took the whole thing as a matter of course, and even brought us a
+felt carpet to rest upon. They came and seated themselves around us,
+chatting sociably, while we lay in the tent-door, smoking the pipe of
+refreshment. The view over the wide golden plain, and the hills beyond, to
+the distant, snow-tipped peaks of Akma Dagh, was superb, as the shadow of
+the mountain behind us slowly lengthened over it, blotting out the mellow
+lights of sunset. There were many fragments of pillars and capitals of
+white marble built up in the houses, showing that they occupied the site
+of some ancient village or temple.
+
+The next morning, we crossed Durdun Dagh, and entered the great plain of
+Cilicia. The range, after we had passed it, presented a grand, bold,
+broken outline, blue in the morning vapor, and wreathed with shifting
+belts of cloud. A stately castle, called the Palace of Serpents, on the
+summit of an isolated peak to the north, stood out clear and high, in the
+midst of a circle of fog, like a phantom picture of the air. The River
+Jyhoon, the ancient Pyramus, which rises on the borders of Armenia, sweeps
+the western base of the mountains. It is a larger stream than the Orontes,
+with a deep, rapid current, flowing at the bottom of a bed lower than the
+level of the plain. In three hours, we reached Missis, the ancient
+Mopsuestia, on the right bank of the river. There are extensive ruins on
+the left bank, which were probably those of the former city. The soil for
+some distance around is scattered with broken pillars, capitals, and hewn
+stones. The ancient bridge still crosses the river, but the central arch
+having been broken away, is replaced with a wooden platform. The modern
+town is a forlorn place, and all the glorious plain around it is
+uncultivated. The view over this plain was magnificent: unbounded towards
+the sea, but on the north girdled by the sublime range of Taurus, whose
+great snow-fields gleamed in the sun. In the afternoon, we reached the old
+bridge over the Jyhoon, at Adana. The eastern bank is occupied with the
+graves of the former inhabitants, and there are at least fifteen acres of
+tombstones, as thickly planted as the graves can be dug. The fields of
+wheat and barley along the river are very rich, and at present the natives
+are busily occupied in drawing the sheaves on large sleds to the open
+threshing-floors.
+
+The city is built over a low eminence, and its four tall minarets, with a
+number of palm-trees rising from the mass of brown brick walls, reminded
+me of Egypt. At the end of the bridge, we were met by one of the
+Quarantine officers, who preceded us, taking care that we touched nobody
+in the streets, to the Quarantine building. This land quarantine, between
+Syria and Asia Minor, when the former country is free from any epidemic,
+seems a most absurd thing. We were detained at Adana three days and a
+half, to be purified, before proceeding further. Lately, the whole town
+was placed in quarantine for five days, because a Turkish Bey, who lives
+near Baias, entered the gates without being noticed, and was found in the
+bazaars. The Quarantine building was once a palace of the Pashas of Adana,
+but is now in a half-ruined condition. The rooms are large and airy, and
+there is a spacious open divan which affords ample shade and a cool
+breeze throughout the whole day. Fortunately for us, there were only three
+persons in Quarantine, who occupied a room distant from ours. The
+Inspector was a very obliging person, and procured us a table and two
+chairs. The only table to be had in the whole place--a town of 15,000
+inhabitants--belonged to an Italian merchant, who kindly gave it for our
+use. We employed a messenger to purchase provisions in the bazaars; and
+our days passed quietly in writing, smoking, and gazing indolently from
+our windows upon the flowery plains beyond the town. Our nights, however,
+were tormented by small white gnats, which stung us unmercifully. The
+physician of Quarantine, Dr. Spagnolo, is a Venetian refugee, and formerly
+editor of _La Lega Italiana_, a paper published in Venice during the
+revolution. He informed us that, except the Princess Belgioioso, who
+passed through Adana on her way to Jerusalem, we were the only travellers
+he had seen for eleven months.
+
+After three days and four nights of grateful, because involuntary,
+indolence, Dr. Spagnolo gave us _pratique_, and we lost no time in getting
+under weigh again. We were the only occupants of Quarantine; and as we
+moved out of the portal of the old serai, at sunrise, no one was guarding
+it. The Inspector and Mustapha, the messenger, took their back-sheeshes
+with silent gratitude. The plain on the west side of the town is well
+cultivated; and as we rode along towards Tarsus, I was charmed with the
+rich pastoral air of the scenery. It was like one of the midland
+landscapes of England, bathed in Southern sunshine. The beautiful level,
+stretching away to the mountains, stood golden with the fields of wheat
+which the reapers were cutting. It was no longer bare, but dotted with
+orange groves, clumps of holly, and a number of magnificent
+terebinth-trees, whose dark, rounded masses of foliage remind one of the
+Northern oak. Cattle were grazing in the stubble, and horses, almost
+buried under loads of fresh grass, met us as they passed to the city. The
+sheaves were drawn to the threshing-floor on sleds, and we could see the
+husbandmen in the distance treading out and winnowing the grain. Over
+these bright, busy scenes, rose the lesser heights of the Taurus, and
+beyond them, mingled in white clouds, the snows of the crowning range.
+
+The road to Tarsus, which is eight hours distant, lies over an unbroken
+plain. Towards the sea, there are two tumuli, resembling those on the
+plains east of Antioch. Stone wells, with troughs for watering horses,
+occur at intervals of three or four miles; but there is little cultivation
+after leaving the vicinity of Adana. The sun poured down an intense summer
+heat, and hundreds of large gad-flies, swarming around us, drove the
+horses wild with their stings. Towards noon, we stopped at a little
+village for breakfast. We took possession of a shop, which the
+good-natured merchant offered us, and were about to spread our provisions
+upon the counter, when the gnats and mosquitoes fairly drove us away. We
+at once went forward in search of a better place, which gave occasion to
+our chief mukkairee, Hadji Youssuf, for a violent remonstrance. The terms
+of the agreement at Aleppo gave the entire control of the journey into our
+own hands, and the Hadji now sought to violate it. He protested against
+our travelling more than six hours a day, and conducted himself so
+insolently, that we threatened to take him before the Pasha of Tarsus.
+This silenced him for the time; but we hate him so cordially since then,
+that I foresee we shall have more trouble. In the afternoon, a gust,
+sweeping along the sides of Taurus, cooled the air and afforded us a
+little relief.
+
+By three o'clock we reached the River Cydnus, which is bare of trees on
+its eastern side, but flows between banks covered with grass and shrubs.
+It is still spanned by the ancient bridge, and the mules now step in the
+hollow ruts worn long ago by Roman and Byzantine chariot wheels. The
+stream is not more than thirty yards broad, but has a very full and rapid
+current of a bluish-white color, from the snows which feed it. I rode down
+to the brink and drank a cup of the water. It was exceedingly cold, and I
+do not wonder that a bath in it should have killed the Emperor Barbarossa.
+From the top of the bridge, there is a lovely view, down the stream, where
+it washes a fringe of willows and heavy fruit-trees on its western bank,
+and then winds away through the grassy plain, to the sea. For once, my
+fancy ran parallel with the inspiration of the scene. I could think of
+nothing but the galley of Cleopatra slowly stemming the current of the
+stream, its silken sails filled with the sea-breeze, its gilded oars
+keeping time to the flutes, whose voluptuous melodies floated far out over
+the vernal meadows. Tarsus was probably almost hidden then, as now, by its
+gardens, except just where it touched the river; and the dazzling vision
+of the Egyptian Queen, as she came up conquering and to conquer, must have
+been all the more bewildering, from the lovely bowers through which she
+sailed.
+
+From the bridge an ancient road still leads to the old Byzantine gate of
+Tarsus. Part of the town is encompassed by a wall, built by the Caliph
+Haroun Al-Raschid, and there is a ruined fortress, which is attributed to
+Sultan Bajazet Small streams, brought from the Cydnus, traverse the
+environs, and, with such a fertile soil, the luxuriance of the gardens in
+which the city lies buried is almost incredible. In our rambles in search
+of a place to pitch the tent, we entered a superb orange-orchard, the
+foliage of which made a perpetual twilight. Many of the trunks were two
+feet in diameter. The houses are mostly of one story, and the materials
+are almost wholly borrowed from the ancient city. Pillars, capitals,
+fragments of cornices and entablatures abound. I noticed here, as in
+Adana, a high wooden frame on the top of every house, raised a few steps
+above the roof, and covered with light muslin, like a portable
+bathing-house. Here the people put up their beds in the evening, sleep,
+and come down to the roofs in the morning--an excellent plan for getting
+better air in these malarious plains and escaping from fleas and
+mosquitoes. In our search for the Armenian Church, which is said to have
+been founded by St. Paul ("Saul of Tarsus"), we came upon a mosque, which
+had been originally a Christian Church, of Greek times.
+
+From the top of a mound, whereupon stand the remains of an ancient
+circular edifice, we obtained a fine view of the city and plain of Tarsus.
+A few houses or clusters of houses stood here and there like reefs amid
+the billowy green, and the minarets--one of them with a nest of young
+storks on its very summit--rose like the masts of sunken ships. Some palms
+lifted their tufted heads from the gardens, beyond which the great plain
+extended from the mountains to the sea. The tumulus near Mersyn, the port
+of Tarsus, was plainly visible. Two hours from Mersyn are the ruins of
+Pompeiopolis, the name given by Pompey to the town of Soli, after his
+conquest of the Cilician pirates. From Soli, on account of the bad Greek
+spoken by its inhabitants, came the term "solecism." The ruins of
+Pompeiopolis consist of a theatre, temples, and a number of houses, still
+in good preservation. The whole coast, as far as Aleya, three hundred
+miles west of this, is said to abound with ruined cities, and I regret
+exceedingly that time will not permit me to explore it.
+
+While searching for the antiquities about Tarsus, I accosted a man in a
+Frank dress, who proved to be the Neapolitan Consul. He told us that the
+most remarkable relic was the _Duniktash_ (the Round Stone), and procured
+us a guide. It lies in a garden near the city, and is certainly one of the
+most remarkable monuments in the East. It consists of a square inclosure
+of solid masonry, 350 feet long by 150 feet wide, the walls of which are
+eighteen feet in thickness and twenty feet high. It appears to have been
+originally a solid mass, without entrance, but a passage has been broken
+in one place, and in another there is a split or fissure, evidently
+produced by an earthquake. The material is rough stone, brick and mortar.
+Inside of the inclosure are two detached square masses of masonry, of
+equal height, and probably eighty feet on a side, without opening of any
+kind. One of them has been pierced at the bottom, a steep passage leading
+to a pit or well, but the sides of the passage thus broken indicate that
+the whole structure is one solid mass. It is generally supposed that they
+were intended as tombs: but of whom? There is no sign by which they may be
+recognized, and, what is more singular, no tradition concerning them.
+
+The day we reached Tarsus was the first of the Turkish fast-month of
+Ramazan, the inhabitants having seen the new moon the night before. At
+Adana, where they did not keep such a close look-out, the fast had not
+commenced. During its continuance, which is from twenty-eight to
+twenty-nine days, no Mussulman dares eat, drink, or smoke, from an hour
+before sunrise till half an hour after sunset. The Mohammedan months are
+lunar, and each month makes the whole round of the seasons, once in
+thirty-three years. When, therefore, the Ramazan comes in midsummer, as at
+present, the fulfilment of this fast is a great trial, even to the
+strongest and most devout. Eighteen hours without meat or drink, and what
+is still worse to a genuine Turk, without a pipe, is a rigid test of
+faith. The rich do the best they can to avoid it, by feasting all night
+and sleeping all day, but the poor, who must perform their daily
+avocations, as usual, suffer exceedingly. In walking through Tarsus I saw
+many wretched faces in the bazaars, and the guide who accompanied us had a
+painfully famished air. Fortunately the Koran expressly permits invalids,
+children, and travellers to disregard the fast, so that although we eat
+and drink when we like, we are none the less looked upon as good
+Mussulmans. About dark a gun is fired and a rocket sent up from the
+mosque, announcing the termination of the day's fast. The meals are
+already prepared, the pipes filled, the coffee smokes in the _finjans_,
+and the echoes have not died away nor the last sparks of the rocket become
+extinct, before half the inhabitants are satisfying their hunger, thirst
+and smoke-lust.
+
+We left Tarsus this morning, and are now encamped among the pines of Mount
+Taurus. The last flush of sunset is fading from his eternal snows, and I
+drop my pen to enjoy the silence of twilight in this mountain solitude.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII.
+
+The Pass of Mount Taurus.
+
+  We enter the Taurus--Turcomans--Forest Scenery--the Palace of Pan--Khan
+  Mezarluk--Morning among the Mountains--The Gorge of the Cydnus--The Crag
+  of the Fortress--The Cilician Gate--Deserted Forts--A Sublime
+  Landscape--The Gorge of the Sihoon--The Second Gate--Camp in the
+  Defile--Sunrise--Journey up the Sihoon--A Change of Scenery--A Pastoral
+  Valley--Kolue Kushla--A Deserted Khan--A Guest in Ramazan--Flowers--The
+  Plain of Karamania--Barren Hills--The Town of Eregli--The Hadji again.
+
+
+        "Lo! where the pass expands
+  Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,
+  And seems, with its accumulated crags,
+  To overhang the world." Shelley.
+
+
+Eregli, _in Karamania, June_ 22, 1852.
+
+Striking our tent in the gardens of Tarsus, we again crossed the Cydnus,
+and took a northern course across the plain. The long line of Taurus rose
+before us, seemingly divided into four successive ranges, the highest of
+which was folded in clouds; only the long streaks of snow, filling the
+ravines, being visible. The outlines of these ranges were very fine, the
+waving line of the summits cut here and there by precipitous gorges--the
+gateways of rivers that came down to the plain. In about two hours, we
+entered the lower hills. They are barren and stony, with a white, chalky
+soil; but the valleys were filled with myrtle, oleander, and lauristinus
+in bloom, and lavender grew in great profusion on the hill-sides. The
+flowers of the oleander gave out a delicate, almond-like fragrance, and
+grew in such dense clusters as frequently to hide the foliage. I amused
+myself with finding a derivation of the name of this beautiful plant,
+which may answer until somebody discovers a better one. Hero, when the
+corpse of her lover was cast ashore by the waves, buried him under an
+oleander bush, where she was accustomed to sit daily, and lament over his
+untimely fate. Now, a foreign horticulturist, happening to pass by when
+the shrub was in blossom, was much struck with its beauty, and asked Hero
+what it was called. But she, absorbed in grief, and thinking only of her
+lover, clasped her hands, and sighed out: "O Leander! O Leander!" which
+the horticulturist immediately entered in his note-book as the name of the
+shrub; and by that name it is known, to the present time.
+
+For two or three hours, the scenery was rather tame, the higher summits
+being obscured with a thunder-cloud. Towards noon, however, we passed the
+first chain, and saw, across a strip of rolling land intervening, the
+grand ramparts of the second, looming dark and large under the clouds. A
+circular watch-tower of white stone, standing on the summit of a
+promontory at the mouth of a gorge on our right, flashed out boldly
+against the storm. We stopped under an oak-tree to take breakfast; but
+there was no water; and two Turks, who were resting while their horses
+grazed in the meadow, told us we should find a good spring half a mile
+further. We ascended a long slope, covered with wheat-fields, where
+numbers of Turcoman reapers were busy at work, passed their black tents,
+surrounded with droves of sheep and goats, and reached a rude stone
+fountain of good water, where two companies of these people had stopped
+to rest, on their way to the mountains. It was the time of noon prayer,
+and they went through their devotions with great solemnity. We nestled
+deep in a bed of myrtles, while we breakfasted; for the sky was clouded,
+and the wind blew cool and fresh from the region of rain above us. Some of
+the Turcomans asked us for bread, and were very grateful when we gave it
+to them.
+
+In the afternoon, we came into a higher and wilder region, where the road
+led through thickets of wild olive, holly, oak, and lauristinus, with
+occasional groves of pine. What a joy I felt in hearing, once more, the
+grand song of my favorite tree! Our way was a woodland road; a storm had
+passed over the region in the morning; the earth was still fresh and
+moist, and there was an aromatic smell of leaves in the air. We turned
+westward into the entrance of a deep valley, over which hung a
+perpendicular cliff of gray and red rock, fashioned by nature so as to
+resemble a vast fortress, with windows, portals and projecting bastions.
+Francois displayed his knowledge of mythology, by declaring it to be the
+Palace of Pan. While we were carrying out the idea, by making chambers for
+the Fauns and Nymphs in the basement story of the precipice, the path
+wound around the shoulder of the mountain, and the glen spread away before
+us, branching up into loftier ranges, disclosing through its gateway of
+cliffs, rising out of the steeps of pine forest, a sublime vista of blue
+mountain peaks, climbing to the topmost snows. It was a magnificent Alpine
+landscape, more glowing and rich than Switzerland, yet equalling it in all
+the loftier characteristics of mountain scenery. Another and greater
+precipice towered over us on the right, and the black eagles which had
+made their eyries in its niched and caverned vaults, were wheeling around
+its crest. A branch of the Cydnus foamed along the bottom of the gorge,
+and soma Turcoman boys were tending their herds on its banks.
+
+Further up the glen, we found a fountain of delicious water, beside the
+deserted Khan of Mezarluk, and there encamped for the night. Our tent was
+pitched on the mountain side, near a fountain of the coolest, clearest and
+sweetest water I have seen in all the East. There was perfect silence
+among the mountains, and the place was as lonely as it was sublime. The
+night was cool and fresh; but I could not sleep until towards morning.
+When I opened my belated eyes, the tall peaks on the opposite side of the
+glen were girdled below their waists with the flood of a sparkling
+sunrise. The sky was pure as crystal, except a soft white fleece that
+veiled the snowy pinnacles of Taurus, folding and unfolding, rising and
+sinking, as if to make their beauty still more attractive by the partial
+concealment. The morning air was almost cold, but so pure and bracing--so
+aromatic with the healthy breath of the pines--that I took it down in the
+fullest possible draughts.
+
+We rode up the glen, following the course of the Cydnus, through scenery
+of the wildest and most romantic character. The bases of the mountains
+were completely enveloped in forests of pine, but their summits rose in
+precipitous crags, many hundreds of feet in height, hanging above our very
+heads. Even after the sun was five hours high, their shadows fell upon us
+from the opposite side of the glen. Mixed with the pine were occasional
+oaks, an undergrowth of hawthorn in bloom, and shrubs covered with yellow
+and white flowers. Over these the wild grape threw its rich festoons,
+filling the air with exquisite fragrance.
+
+Out of this glen, we passed into another, still narrower and wilder. The
+road was the old Roman way, and in tolerable condition, though it had
+evidently not been mended for many centuries. In half an hour, the pass
+opened, disclosing an enormous peak in front of us, crowned with the ruins
+of an ancient fortress of considerable extent. The position was almost
+impregnable, the mountain dropping on one side into a precipice five
+hundred feet in perpendicular height. Under the cliffs of the loftiest
+ridge, there was a terrace planted with walnut-trees: a charming little
+hamlet in the wilderness. Wild sycamore-trees, with white trunks and
+bright green foliage, shaded the foamy twists of the Cydnus, as it plunged
+down its difficult bed. The pine thrust its roots into the naked
+precipices, and from their summits hung out over the great abysses below.
+I thought of OEnone's
+
+  --"tall, dark pines, that fringed the craggy ledge
+  High over the blue gorge, and all between
+  The snowy peak and snow-white cataract
+  Fostered the callow eaglet;"
+
+and certainly she had on Mount Ida no more beautiful trees than these.
+
+We had doubled the Crag of the Fortress, when the pass closed before us,
+shut in by two immense precipices of sheer, barren rock, more than a
+thousand feet in height. Vast fragments, fallen from above, choked up the
+entrance, whence the Cydnus, spouting forth in foam, leaped into the
+defile. The ancient road was completely destroyed, but traces of it were
+to be seen on the rocks, ten feet above the present bed of the stream, and
+on the broken masses which had been hurled below. The path wound with
+difficulty among these wrecks, and then merged into the stream itself, as
+we entered the gateway. A violent wind blew in our faces as we rode
+through the strait, which is not ten yards in breadth, while its walls
+rise to the region of the clouds. In a few minutes we had traversed it,
+and stood looking back on the enormous gap. There were several Greek
+tablets cut in the rock above the old road, but so defaced as to be
+illegible. This is undoubtedly the principal gate of the Taurus, and the
+pass through which the armies of Cyrus and Alexander entered Cilicia.
+
+Beyond the gate the mountains retreated, and we climbed up a little dell,
+past two or three Turcoman houses, to the top of a hill, whence opened a
+view of the principal range, now close at hand. The mountains in front
+were clothed with dark cedars to their very tops, and the snow-fields
+behind them seemed dazzlingly bright and near. Our course for several
+miles now lay through a more open valley, drained by the upper waters of
+the Cydnus. On two opposing terraces of the mountain chains are two
+fortresses, built by Ibraham Pasha, but now wholly deserted. They are
+large and well-constructed works of stone, and surrounded by ruins of
+stables, ovens, and the rude houses of the soldiery. Passing between
+these, we ascended to the shelf dividing the waters of the Cydnus and the
+Sihoon. From the point where the slope descends to the latter river, there
+opened before me one of the most glorious landscapes I ever beheld. I
+stood at the extremity of a long hollow or depression between the two
+ranges of the Taurus--not a valley, for it was divided by deep cloven
+chasms, hemmed in by steeps overgrown with cedars. On my right rose a
+sublime chain, soaring far out of the region of trees, and lifting its
+peaked summits of gray rock into toe sky. Another chain, nearly as lofty,
+but not so broken, nor with such large, imposing features, overhung me on
+the left; and far in front, filling up the magnificent vista--filling up
+all between the lower steeps, crowned with pine, and the round white
+clouds hanging on the verge of heaven--were the shining snows of the
+Taurus. Great God, how shall I describe the grandeur of that view! How
+draw the wonderful outlines of those mountains! How paint the airy hue of
+violet-gray, the soft white lights, the thousandfold pencillings of mellow
+shadow, the height, the depth, the far-reaching vastness of the landscape!
+
+In the middle distance, a great blue gorge passed transversely across the
+two ranges and the region between. This, as I rightly conjectured, was the
+bed of the Sihoon. Our road led downward through groves of fragrant
+cedars, and we travelled thus for two hours before reaching the river.
+Taking a northward course up his banks, we reached the second of the _Pylae
+Ciliciae_ before sunset. It is on a grander scale than the first gate,
+though not so startling and violent in its features. The bare walls on
+either side fall sheer to the water, and the road, crossing the Sihoon by
+a lofty bridge of a single arch, is cut along the face of the rock. Near
+the bridge a subterranean stream, almost as large as the river, bursts
+forth from the solid heart of the mountain. On either side gigantic masses
+of rock, with here and there a pine to adorn their sterility, tower to the
+height of 6,000 feet, in some places almost perpendicular from summit to
+base. They are worn and broken into all fantastic forms. There are
+pyramids, towers, bastions, minarets, and long, sharp spires, splintered
+and jagged as the turrets of an iceberg. I have seen higher mountains,
+but I have never seen any which looked so high as these. We camped on a
+narrow plot of ground, in the very heart of the tremendous gorge. A
+soldier, passing along at dusk, told us that a merchant and his servant
+were murdered in the same place last winter, and advised us to keep watch.
+But we slept safely all night, while the stars sparkled over the chasm,
+and slips of misty cloud hung low on the thousand pinnacles of rock.
+
+When I awoke, the gorge lay in deep shadow; but high up on the western
+mountain, above the enormous black pyramids that arose from the river, the
+topmost pinnacles of rock sparkled like molten silver, in the full gush of
+sunrise. The great mountain, blocking up the gorge behind us, was bathed
+almost to its foot in the rays, and, seen through such a dark vista, was
+glorified beyond all other mountains of Earth. The air was piercingly cold
+and keen, and I could scarcely bear the water of the Sihoon on my
+sun-inflamed face. There was a little spring not far off, from which we
+obtained sufficient water to drink, the river being too muddy. The spring
+was but a thread oozing from the soil; but the Hadji collected it in
+handfuls, which he emptied into his water-skin, and then brought to us.
+
+The morning light gave a still finer effect to the manifold forms of the
+mountains than that of the afternoon sun. The soft gray hue of the rocks
+shone clearly against the cloudless sky, fretted all over with the shadows
+thrown by their innumerable spires and jutting points, and by the natural
+arches scooped out under the cliffs. After travelling less than an hour,
+we passed the riven walls of the mighty gateway, and rode again under the
+shade of pine forests. The height of the mountains now gradually
+diminished, and their sides, covered with pine and cedar, became less
+broken and abrupt. The summits, nevertheless, still retained the same
+rocky spine, shooting up into tall, single towers, or long lines of even
+parapets Occasionally, through gaps between, we caught glimpses of the
+snow-fields, dazzlingly high and white.
+
+After travelling eight or nine miles, we emerged from the pass, and left
+the Sihoon at a place called Chiftlik Khan--a stone building, with a small
+fort adjoining, wherein fifteen splendid bronze cannon lay neglected on
+their broken and rotting carriages. As we crossed the stone bridge over
+the river, a valley opened suddenly on the left, disclosing the whole
+range of the Taurus, which we now saw on its northern side, a vast stretch
+of rocky spires, with sparkling snow-fields between, and long ravines
+filled with snow, extending far down between the dark blue cliffs and the
+dark green plumage of the cedars.
+
+Immediately after passing the central chain of the Taurus, the character
+of the scenery changed. The heights were rounded, the rocky strata only
+appearing on the higher peaks, and the slopes of loose soil were deeply
+cut and scarred by the rains of ages. Both in appearance, especially in
+the scattered growth of trees dotted over the dark red soil, and in their
+formation, these mountains strongly resemble the middle ranges of the
+Californian Sierra Nevada. We climbed a long, winding glen, until we had
+attained a considerable height, when the road reached a dividing ridge,
+giving us a view of a deep valley, beyond which a chain of barren
+mountains rose to the height of some five thousand feet. As we descended
+the rocky path, a little caravan of asses and mules clambered up to meet
+us, along the brinks of steep gulfs. The narrow strip of bottom land
+along the stream was planted with rye, now in head, and rolling in silvery
+waves before the wind.
+
+After our noonday halt, we went over the hills to another stream, which
+came from the north-west. Its valley was broader and greener than that we
+had left, and the hills inclosing it had soft and undulating outlines.
+They were bare of trees, but colored a pale green by their thin clothing
+of grass and herbs. In this valley the season was so late, owing to its
+height above the sea, that the early spring-flowers were yet in bloom.
+Poppies flamed among the wheat, and the banks of the stream were brilliant
+with patches of a creeping plant, with a bright purple blossom. The
+asphodel grew in great profusion, and an ivy-leaved shrub, covered with
+flakes of white bloom, made the air faint with its fragrance. Still
+further up, we came to orchards of walnut and plum trees, and vineyards
+There were no houses, but the innabitants, who were mostly Turcomans, live
+in villages during the winter, and in summer pitch their tents on the
+mountains where they pasture their flocks. Directly over this quiet
+pastoral, vale towered the Taurus, and I looked at once on its secluded
+loveliness and on the wintry heights, whose bleak and sublime heads were
+mantled in clouds. From no point is there a more imposing view of the
+whole snowy range. Near the head of the valley we passed a large Turcoman
+encampment, surrounded with herds of sheep and cattle.
+
+We halted for the evening at a place called Kolue-Kushla---an immense
+fortress-village, resembling Baias, and like it, wholly deserted. Near it
+there is a small town of very neat houses, which is also deserted, the
+inhabitants having gone into the mountains with their flocks. I walked
+through the fortress, which is a massive building of stone, about 500
+feet square, erected by Sultan Murad as a resting-place for the caravans
+to Mecca. It has two spacious portals, in which the iron doors are still
+hanging, connected by a vaulted passage, twenty feet high and forty wide,
+with bazaars on each side. Side gateways open into large courts,
+surrounded with arched chambers. There is a mosque entire, with its pulpit
+and galleries, and the gilded crescent still glittering over its dome.
+Behind it is a bath, containing an entrance hall and half a dozen
+chambers, in which the water-pipes and stone tanks still remain. With a
+little alteration, the building would make a capital Phalanstery, where
+the Fourierites might try their experiment without contact with Society.
+There is no field for them equal to Asia Minor--a glorious region,
+abounding in natural wealth, almost depopulated, and containing a great
+number of Phalansteries ready built.
+
+We succeeded in getting some eggs, fowls, and milk from an old Turcoman
+who had charge of the village. A man who rode by on a donkey sold us a bag
+of _yaourt_ (sour milk-curds), which was delicious, notwithstanding the
+suspicious appearance of the bag. It was made before the cream had been
+removed, and was very rich and nourishing. The old Turcoman sat down and
+watched us while we ate, but would not join us, as these wandering tribes
+are very strict in keeping Ramazan. When we had reached our dessert--a
+plate of fine cherries--another white-bearded and dignified gentleman
+visited us. We handed him the cherries, expecting that he would take a few
+and politely return the dish: but no such thing. He coolly produced his
+handkerchief, emptied everything into it, and marched off. He also did not
+venture to eat, although we pointed to the Taurus, on whose upper snows
+the last gleam of daylight was just melting away.
+
+We arose this morning in a dark, cloudy dawn. There was a heavy black
+storm hanging low in the west, and another was gathering its forces along
+the mountains behind us. A cold wind blew down the valley, and long peals
+of thunder rolled grandly among the gorges of Taurus. An isolated hill,
+crowned with a shattered crag which bore a striking resemblance to a
+ruined fortress, stood out black and sharp against the far, misty, sunlit
+peaks. As far as the springs were yet undried, the land was covered with
+flowers. In one place I saw a large square plot of the most brilliant
+crimson hue, burning amid the green wheat-fields, as if some Tyrian mantle
+had been flung there. The long, harmonious slopes and rounded summits of
+the hills were covered with drifts of a beautiful purple clover, and a
+diminutive variety of the _achillea_, or yarrow, with glowing yellow
+blossoms. The leaves had a pleasant aromatic odor, and filled the air with
+their refreshing breath, as they were crushed under the hoofs of our
+horses.
+
+We had now reached the highest ridge of the hilly country along the
+northern base of Taurus, and saw, far and wide before us, the great
+central plain of Karamania. Two isolated mountains, at forty or fifty
+miles distance, broke the monotony of the desert-like level: Kara Dagh in
+the west, and the snow-capped summits of Hassan Dagh in the north-east.
+Beyond the latter, we tried to catch a glimpse of the famous Mons Argseus,
+at the base of which is Kaisariyeh, the ancient Caesarea of Cappadocia.
+This mountain, which is 13,000 feet high, is the loftiest peak of Asia
+Minor. The clouds hung low on the horizon, and the rains were falling,
+veiling it from our sight.
+
+Our road, for the remainder of the day, was over barren hills, covered
+with scanty herbage. The sun shone out intensely hot, and the glare of the
+white soil was exceedingly painful to my eyes. The locality of Eregli was
+betrayed, some time before we reached it, by its dark-green belt of fruit
+trees. It stands in the mouth of a narrow valley which winds down from the
+Taurus, and is watered by a large rapid stream that finally loses itself
+in the lakes and morasses of the plain. There had been a heavy black
+thunder-cloud gathering, and as we reached our camping-ground, under some
+fine walnut-trees near the stream, a sudden blast of cold wind swept over
+the town, filling the air with dust. We pitched the tent in all haste,
+expecting a storm, but the rain finally passed to the northward. We then
+took a walk through the town, which is a forlorn place. A spacious khan,
+built apparently for the Mecca pilgrims, is in ruins, but the mosque has
+an exquisite minaret, eighty feet high, and still bearing traces of the
+devices, in blue tiles, which once covered it. The shops were mostly
+closed, and in those which were still open the owners lay at full length
+on their bellies, their faces gaunt with fasting. They seemed annoyed at
+our troubling them, even with purchases. One would have thought that some
+fearful pestilence had fallen upon the town. The cobblers only, who
+somewhat languidly plied their implements, seemed to retain a little life.
+The few Jews and Armenians smoked their pipes in a tantalizing manner, in
+the very faces of the poor Mussulmans. We bought an oka of excellent
+cherries, which we were cruel enough to taste in the streets, before the
+hungry eyes of the suffering merchants.
+
+This evening the asses belonging to the place were driven in from
+pasture--four or five hundred in all; and such a show of curious asinine
+specimens as I never before beheld. A Dervish, who was with us in
+Quarantine, at Adana, has just arrived. He had lost his _teskere_
+(passport), and on issuing forth purified, was cast into prison. Finally
+he found some one who knew him, and procured his release. He had come on
+foot to this place in five days, suffering many privations, having been
+forty-eight hours without food. He is bound to Konia, on a pilgrimage to
+the tomb of Hazret Mevlana, the founder of the sect of dancing Dervishes.
+We gave him food, in return for which he taught me the formula of his
+prayers. He tells me I should always pronounce the name of Allah when my
+horse stumbles, or I see a man in danger of his life, as the word has a
+saving power. Hadji Youssuf, who has just been begging for an advance of
+twenty piastres to buy grain for his horses, swore "by the pardon of God"
+that he would sell the lame horse at Konia and get a better one. We have
+lost all confidence in the old villain's promises, but the poor beasts
+shall not suffer for his delinquencies.
+
+Our tent is in a charming spot, and, from without, makes a picture to be
+remembered. The yellow illumination from within strikes on the under sides
+of the walnut boughs, while the moonlight silvers them from above. Beyond
+gardens where the nightingales are singing, the tall minaret of Eregli
+stands revealed in the vapory glow. The night is too sweet and balmy for
+sleep, and yet I must close my eyes upon it, for the hot plains of
+Karamania await us to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX.
+
+The Plains of Karamania.
+
+
+  The Plains of Karamania--Afternoon Heat--A Well--Volcanic
+  Phenomena--Kara-bounar--A Grand Ruined Khan--Moonlight Picture--A
+  Landscape of the Plains-Mirages--A Short Interview--The Village of
+  Ismil---Third Day on the Plains--Approach to Konia.
+
+
+  "A weary waste, expanding to the skies."--Goldsmith.
+
+
+Konia, Capital of Karamania, _Friday, June_ 25, 1854.
+
+Francois awoke us at the break of day, at Eregli, as we had a journey of
+twelve hours before us. Passing through the town, we traversed a narrow
+belt of garden and orchard land, and entered the great plain of Karamania.
+Our road led at first northward towards a range called Karadja Dagh, and
+then skirted its base westward. After three hours' travel we passed a
+village of neat, whitewashed houses, which were entirely deserted, all the
+inhabitants having gone off to the mountains. There were some herds
+scattered over the plain, near the village. As the day wore on, the wind,
+which had been chill in the morning, ceased, and the air became hot and
+sultry. The glare from the white soil was so painful that I was obliged to
+close my eyes, and so ran a continual risk of falling asleep and tumbling
+from my horse. Thus, drowsy and half unconscious of my whereabouts, I rode
+on in the heat and arid silence of the plain until noon, when we reached
+a well. It was a shaft, sunk about thirty feet deep, with a long, sloping
+gallery slanting off to the surface. The well was nearly dry, but by
+descending the gallery we obtained a sufficient supply of cold, pure
+water. We breakfasted in the shaded doorway, sharing our provisions with a
+Turcoman boy, who was accompanying his father to Eregli with a load of
+salt.
+
+Our road now crossed a long, barren pass, between two parts of Karadja
+Dagh. Near the northern side there was a salt lake of one hundred yards in
+diameter, sunk in a deep natural basin. The water was intensely saline. On
+the other side of the road, and a quarter of a mile distant, is an extinct
+volcano, the crater of which, near two hundred feet deep, is a salt lake,
+with a trachytic cone three hundred feet high rising from the centre. From
+the slope of the mountain we overlooked another and somewhat deeper plain,
+extending to the north and west. It was bounded by broken peaks, all of
+which betrayed a volcanic origin. Far before us we saw the tower on the
+hill of Kara-bounar, our resting-place for the night. The road thither was
+over a barren plain, cheered here and there by patches of a cushion-like
+plant, which was covered with pink blossoms. Mr. Harrison scared up some
+coveys of the frankolin, a large bird resembling the pheasant, and
+enriched our larder with a dozen starlings.
+
+Kara-bounar is built on the slope of a mound, at the foot of which stands
+a spacious mosque, visible far over the plain. It has a dome, and two
+tall, pencil-like towers, similar to those of the Citadel-mosque of Cairo.
+Near it are the remains of a magnificent khan-fortress, said to have been
+built by the eunuch of one of the former Sultans. As there was no water in
+the wells outside of the town, we entered the khan and pitched the tent
+in its grass-grown court. Six square pillars of hewn stone made an aisle
+to our door, and the lofty, roofless walls of the court, 100 by 150 feet,
+inclosed us. Another court, of similar size, communicated with it by a
+broad portal, and the remains of baths and bazaars lay beyond. A handsome
+stone fountain, with two streams of running water, stood in front of the
+khan. We were royally lodged, but almost starved in our splendor, as only
+two or three Turcomans remained out of two thousand (who had gone off with
+their herds to the mountains), and they were unable to furnish us with
+provisions. But for our frankolins and starlings we should have gone
+fasting.
+
+The mosque was a beautiful structure of white limestone, and the galleries
+of its minarets were adorned with rich arabesque ornaments. While the
+muezzin was crying his sunset-call to prayer, I entered the portico and
+looked into the interior, which was so bare as to appear incomplete. As we
+sat in our palace-court, after dinner, the moon arose, lighting up the
+niches in the walls, the clusters of windows in the immense eastern gable,
+and the rows of massive columns. The large dimensions of the building gave
+it a truly grand effect, and but for the whine of a distant jackal I could
+have believed that we were sitting in the aisles of a roofless Gothic
+cathedral, in the heart of Europe. Francois was somewhat fearful of
+thieves, but the peace and repose of the place we've so perfect that I
+would not allow any such apprehensions to disturb me. In two minutes after
+I touched my bed I was insensible, and I did not move a limb until
+sunrise.
+
+Beyond Kara-bounar, there is a low, barren ridge, climbing which, we
+overlooked an immense plain, uncultivated, apparently unfertile, and
+without a sign of life as far as the eye could reach. Kara Dagh, in the
+south, lifted nearer us its cluster of dark summits; to the north, the
+long ridge of Uesedjik Dagh (the Pigmy Mountain) stretched like a cape into
+the plain; Hassan Dagh; wrapped in a soft white cloud, receded behind us,
+and the snows of Taurus seemed almost as distant as when we first beheld
+them from the Syrian Gates. We rode for four hours over the dead level,
+the only objects that met our eyes being an occasional herd of camels in
+the distance. About noon, we reached a well, similar to that of the
+previous day, but of recent construction. A long, steep gallery led down
+to the water, which was very cold, but had a villainous taste of lime,
+salt, and sulphur.
+
+After an hour's halt, we started again. The sun was intensely hot, and for
+hours we jogged on over the dead level, the bare white soil blinding our
+eyes with its glare. The distant hills were lifted above the horizon by a
+mirage. Long sheets of blue water were spread along their bases, islanding
+the isolated peaks, and turning into ships and boats the black specks of
+camels far away. But the phenomena were by no means on so grand a scale as
+I had seen in the Nubian Desert. On the south-western horizon, we
+discerned the summits of the Karaman range of Taurus, covered with snow.
+In the middle of the afternoon, we saw a solitary tent upon the plain,
+from which an individual advanced to meet us. As he drew nearer, we
+noticed that he wore white Frank pantaloons, similar to the Turkish
+soldiery, with a jacket of brown cloth, and a heavy sabre. When he was
+within convenient speaking distance, he cried out: "Stop! why are you
+running away from me?" "What do you call running away?" rejoined Francois;
+"we are going on our journey." "Where do you come from?" he then asked.
+"From there," said Francois, pointing behind us "Where are you going?"
+"There!" and the provoking Greek simply pointed forwards. "You have
+neither faith nor religion!" said the man, indignantly; then, turning upon
+his heel, he strode back across the plain.
+
+About four o'clock, we saw a long line of objects rising before us, but so
+distorted by the mirage that it was impossible to know what they were.
+After a while, however, we decided that they were houses interspersed with
+trees; but the trees proved to be stacks of hay and lentils, heaped on the
+flat roofs. This was Ismil, our halting-place. The houses were miserable
+mud huts; but the village was large, and, unlike most of those we have
+seen this side of Taurus, inhabited. The people are Turcomans, and their
+possessions appear to be almost entirely in their herds. Immense numbers
+of sheep and goats were pasturing on the plain. There were several wells
+in the place, provided with buckets attached to long swing-poles; the
+water was very cold, but brackish. Our tent was pitched on the plain, on a
+hard, gravelly strip of soil. A crowd of wild-haired Turcoman boys
+gathered in front, to stare at us, and the shepherds quarrelled at the
+wells, as to which should take his turn at watering his flocks. In the
+evening a handsome old Turk visited us, and, finding that we were bound to
+Constantinople, requested Francois to take a letter to his son, who was
+settled there.
+
+Francois aroused us this morning before the dawn, as we had a journey of
+thirty-five miles before us. He was in a bad humor; for a man, whom he had
+requested to keep watch over his tent, while he went into the village, had
+stolen a fork and spoon. The old Turk, who had returned as soon as we
+were stirring, went out to hunt the thief, but did not succeed in finding
+him. The inhabitants of the village were up long before sunrise, and
+driving away in their wooden-wheeled carts to the meadows where they cut
+grass. The old Turk accompanied us some distance, in order to show us a
+nearer way, avoiding a marshy spot. Our road lay over a vast plain,
+seemingly boundless, for the lofty mountain-ranges that surrounded it on
+all sides were so distant and cloud-like, and so lifted from the horizon
+by the deceptive mirage, that the eye did not recognize their connection
+with it. The wind blew strongly from the north-west, and was so cold that
+I dismounted and walked ahead for two or three hours.
+
+Before noon, we passed two villages of mud huts, partly inhabited, and
+with some wheat-fields around them. We breakfasted at another well, which
+furnished us with a drink that tasted like iced sea-water. Thence we rode
+forth again into the heat, for the wind had fallen by this time, and the
+sun shone out with great force. There was ever the same dead level, and we
+rode directly towards the mountains, which, to my eyes, seemed nearly as
+distant as ever. At last, there was a dark glimmer through the mirage, at
+their base, and a half-hour's ride showed it to be a line of trees. In
+another hour, we could distinguish a minaret or two, and finally, walls
+and the stately domes of mosques. This was Konia, the ancient Iconium, one
+of the most renowned cities of Asia Minor.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+Scenes in Konia.
+
+
+  Kpproach to Konia---Tomb of Hazret Mevlana--Lodgings in a Khan--An
+  American Luxury--A Night-Scene in Ramazan--Prayers in the
+  Mosque--Remains of the Ancient City--View from the Mosque--The
+  Interior--A Leaning Minaret--The Diverting History of the Muleteers.
+
+
+  "But they shook off the dust on their feet, and came unto
+  Iconium."--Acts, xiii. 51.
+
+
+Konia (Ancient Iconium), _June_ 27, 1852.
+
+The view of Konia from the plain is not striking until one has approached
+within a mile of the suburbs, when the group of mosques, with their heavy
+central domes lifted on clusters of smaller ones, and their tall, light,
+glittering minarets, rising above the foliage of the gardens, against the
+background of airy hills, has a very pleasing effect. We approached
+through a long line of dirty suburbs, which looked still more forlorn on
+account of the Ramazan. Some Turkish officials, in shabby Frank dresses,
+followed us to satisfy their curiosity by talking with our _Katurjees_, or
+muleteers. Outside the city walls, we passed some very large barracks for
+cavalry, built by Ibrahim Pasha. On the plain north-east of the city, the
+battle between him and the forces of the Sultan, resulting in the defeat
+of the latter, was fought.
+
+We next came upon two magnificent mosques, built of white limestone, with
+a multitude of leaden domes and lofty minarets, adorned with galleries
+rich in arabesque ornaments. Attached to one of them is the tomb, of
+Hazret Mevlana, the founder of the sect of Mevlevi Dervishes, which is
+reputed one of the most sacred places in the East. The tomb is surmounted
+by a dome, upon which stands a tall cylindrical tower, reeded, with
+channels between each projection, and terminating in a long, tapering
+cone. This tower is made of glazed tiles, of the most brilliant sea-blue
+color, and sparkles in the sun like a vast pillar of icy spar in some
+Polar grotto. It is a most striking and fantastic object, surrounded by a
+cluster of minarets and several cypress-trees, amid which it seems placed
+as the central ornament and crown of the group.
+
+The aspect of the city was so filthy and uninviting that we preferred
+pitching our tent; but it was impossible to find a place without going
+back upon the plain; so we turned into the bazaar, and asked the way to a
+khan. There was a tolerable crowd in the street, although many of the
+shops were shut. The first khan we visited was too filthy to enter; but
+the second, though most unpromising in appearance, turned out to be better
+than it looked. The _oda-bashi_ (master of the rooms) thoroughly swept and
+sprinkled the narrow little chamber he gave us, laid clean mats upon the
+floor, and, when our carpets and beds were placed within, its walls of mud
+looked somewhat comfortable. Its single window, with an iron grating in
+lieu of glass, looked upon an oblong court, on the second story,
+surrounded by the rooms of Armenian merchants. The main court (the gate of
+which is always closed at sunset) is two stories in height, with a rough
+wooden balcony running around it, and a well of muddy water in the centre.
+
+The oda-bashi lent us a Turkish table and supplied us with dinner from
+his own kitchen; kibabs, stewed beans, and cucumber salad. Mr. H. and I,
+forgetting the Ramazan, went out to hunt for an iced sherbet; but all the
+coffee-shops were closed until sunset. The people stared at our Egyptian
+costumes, and a fellow in official dress demanded my _teskere_. Soon after
+we returned, Francois appeared with a splendid lump of ice in a basin and
+some lemons. The ice, so the _khangee_ said, is taken from a lake among
+the mountains, which in winter freezes to the thickness of a foot. Behind
+the lake is a natural cavern, which the people fill with ice, and then
+close up. At this season they take it out, day by day, and bring it down
+to the city. It is very pure and thick, and justifies the Turkish proverb
+in regard to Konia, which is celebrated for three excellent things:
+"_dooz, booz, kuez_"--salt, ice, and girls.
+
+Soon after sunset, a cannon announced the close of the fast. We waited an
+hour or two longer, to allow the people time to eat, and then sallied out
+into the streets. Every minaret in the city blazed with a crown of lighted
+lamps around its upper gallery, while the long shafts below, and the
+tapering cones above, topped with brazen crescents, shone fair in the
+moonlight. It was a strange, brilliant spectacle. In the square before the
+principal mosque we found a crowd of persons frolicking around the
+fountain, in the light of a number of torches on poles planted in the
+ground. Mats were spread on the stones, and rows of Turks of all classes
+sat thereon, smoking their pipes. Large earthen water-jars stood here and
+there, and the people drank so often and so long that they seemed
+determined to provide against the morrow. The boys were having their
+amusement in wrestling, shouting and firing off squibs, which they threw
+into the crowd. We kicked off our slippers, sat down among the Turks,
+smoked a narghileh, drank a cup of coffee and an iced sherbet of raisin
+juice, and so enjoyed the Ramazan as well as the best of them.
+
+Numbers of True Believers were drinking and washing themselves at the
+picturesque fountain, and just as we rose to depart, the voice of a
+boy-muezzin, on one of the tallest minarets, sent down a musical call to
+prayer. Immediately the boys left off their sports and started on a run
+for the great mosque, and the grave, gray-bearded Turks got up from the
+mats, shoved on their slippers, and marched after them. We followed,
+getting a glimpse of the illuminated interior of the building, as we
+passed; but the oda-bashi conducted us still further, to a smaller though
+more beautiful mosque, surrounded with a garden-court. It was a truly
+magical picture. We entered the gate, and passed on by a marble pavement,
+under trees and arbors of vines that almost shut out the moonlight, to a
+paved space, in the centre whereof was a beautiful fountain, in the purest
+Saracenic style. Its heavy, projecting cornices and tall pyramidal roof
+rested on a circle of elegant arches, surrounding a marble structure,
+whence the water gushed forth in a dozen sparkling streams. On three sides
+it was inclosed by the moonlit trees and arbors; on the fourth by the
+outer corridor of the mosque, the door of entrance being exactly opposite.
+
+Large numbers of persons were washing their hands and feet at the
+fountain, after which they entered and knelt on the floor. We stood
+unobserved in the corridor, and looked in on the splendidly illuminated
+interior and the crowd at prayer, all bending their bodies to the earth at
+regular intervals and murmuring the name of Allah. They resembled a
+plain, of reeds bending before the gusts of wind which precede a storm.
+When all had entered and were united in solemn prayer, we returned,
+passing the grand mosque. I stole up to the door, lifted the heavy carpet
+that hung before it, and looked in. There was a Mevlevi Dervish standing
+in the entrance, but his eyes were lifted in heavenly abstraction, and he
+did not see me. The interior was brilliantly lit by white and colored
+lamps, suspended from the walls and the great central dome. It was an
+imposing structure, simple in form, yet grand from its dimensions. The
+floor was covered with kneeling figures, and a deep voice, coming from the
+other end of the mosque, was uttering pious phrases in a kind of chant. I
+satisfied my curiosity quickly, and we then returned to the khan.
+
+Yesterday afternoon I made a more thorough examination of the city.
+Passing through the bazaars, I reached the Serai, or Pasha's Palace, which
+stands on the site of that of the Sultans of Iconium. It is a long, wooden
+building, with no pretensions to architectural beauty. Near it there is a
+large and ancient mosque, with a minaret of singular elegance. It is about
+120 feet high, with two hanging galleries; the whole built of blue and red
+bricks, the latter projecting so as to form quaint patterns or designs.
+Several ancient buildings near this mosque are surmounted with pyramidal
+towers, resembling Pagodas of India. Following the long, crooked lanes
+between mud buildings, we passed these curious structures and reached the
+ancient wall of the city. In one of the streets lay a marble lion, badly
+executed, and apparently of the time of the Lower Empire. In the wall were
+inserted many similar figures, with fragments of friezes and cornices.
+This is the work of the Seljook Kings, who, in building the wall, took
+great pains to exhibit the fragments of the ancient city. The number of
+altars they have preserved is quite remarkable. On the square towers are
+sunken tablets, containing long Arabic inscriptions.
+
+The high walls of a ruined building in the southern part of the city
+attracted us, and on going thither we found it to be an ancient mosque,
+standing on an eminence formed apparently of the debris of other
+buildings. Part of the wall was also ancient, and in some places showed
+the marks of an earthquake. A long flight of steps led up to the door of
+the mosque, and as we ascended we were rewarded by the most charming view
+of the city and the grand plain. Konia lay at our feet--a wide, straggling
+array of low mud dwellings, dotted all over with patches of garden
+verdure, while its three superb mosques, with the many smaller tombs and
+places of worship, appeared like buildings left from some former and more
+magnificent capital. Outside of this circle ran a belt of garden land,
+adorned with groves and long lines of fruit trees; still further, the
+plain, a sea of faded green, flecked with the softest cloud-shadows, and
+beyond all, the beautiful outlines and dreamy tints of the different
+mountain chains. It was in every respect a lovely landscape, and the city
+is unworthy such surroundings. The sky, which in this region is of a pale,
+soft, delicious blue, was dotted with scattered fleeces of white clouds,
+and there was an exquisite play of light and shade over the hills.
+
+There were half a dozen men and boys about the door, amusing themselves
+with bursting percussion caps on the stone. They addressed us as
+"_hadji_!" (pilgrims), begging for more caps. I told them I was not a
+Turk, but an Arab, which they believed at once, and requested me to enter
+the mosque. The interior had a remarkably fine effect. It was a maze of
+arches, supported by columns of polished black marble, forty in number. In
+form it was nearly square, and covered with a flat, wooden roof. The floor
+was covered with a carpet, whereon several persons were lying at full
+length, while an old man, seated in one of the most remote corners, was
+reading in a loud, solemn voice. It is a peculiar structure, which I
+should be glad to examine more in detail.
+
+Not far from this eminence is a remarkable leaning minaret, more than a
+hundred feet in height, while in diameter it cannot be more than fifteen
+feet. In design it is light and elegant, and the effect is not injured by
+its deviation from the perpendicular, which I should judge to be about six
+feet. From the mosque we walked over the mounds of old Iconium to the
+eastern wall, passing another mosque, wholly in ruin, but which must have
+once been more splendid than any now standing. The portal is the richest
+specimen of Saracenic sculpture I have ever seen: a very labyrinth of
+intricate ornaments. The artist must have seen the great portal of the
+Temple of the Sun at Baalbec. The minarets have tumbled down, the roof has
+fallen in, but the walls are still covered with white and blue tiles, of
+the finest workmanship, resembling a mosaic of ivory and lapis lazuli.
+Some of the chambers seem to be inhabited, for two old men with white
+beards lay in the shade, and were not a little startled by our sudden
+appearance.
+
+We returned to the great mosque, which we had visited on the evening of
+our arrival, and listened for some time to the voice of a mollah who was
+preaching an afternoon sermon to a small and hungry congregation. We then
+entered the court before the tomb of Hazret Mevlana. It was apparently
+forbidden ground to Christians, but as the Dervishes did not seem to
+suspect us we walked about boldly, and were about to enter, when an
+indiscretion of my companion frustrated our plans. Forgetting his assumed
+character, he went to the fountain and drank, although it was no later
+than the _asser_, or afternoon prayer. The Dervishes were shocked and
+scandalized by this violation of the fast, in the very court-yard of their
+holiest mosque, and we judged it best to retire by degrees. We sent this
+morning to request an interview with the Pasha, but he had gone to pass
+the day in a country palace, about three hours distant. It is a still,
+hot, bright afternoon, and the silence of the famished populace disposes
+us to repose. Our view is bounded by the mud walls of the khan, and I
+already long for the freedom of the great Karamanian Plain. Here, in the
+heart of Asia Minor, all life seems to stagnate. There is sleep
+everywhere, and I feel that a wide barrier separates me from the living
+world.
+
+We have been detained here a whole day, through a chain of accidents, all
+resulting from the rascality of our muleteers on leaving Aleppo. The lame
+horse they palmed upon us was unable to go further, so we obliged them to
+buy another animal, which they succeeded in getting for 350 piastres. We
+advanced the money, although they were still in our debt, hoping to work
+our way through with the new horse, and thus avoid the risk of loss or
+delay. But this morning at sunrise Hadji Youssuf comes with a woeful face
+to say that the new horse has been stolen in the night, and we, who are
+ready to start, must sit down and wait till he is recovered. I suspected
+another trick, but when, after the lapse of three hours, Francois found
+the hadji sitting on the ground, weeping, and Achmet beating his breast,
+it seemed probable that the story was true. All search for the horse being
+vain, Francois went with them to the shekh of the horses, who promised, in
+case it should hereafter be found, to place it in the general pen, where
+they would be sure to get it on their return. The man who sold them the
+horse offered them another for the lame one and 150 piastres, and there
+was no other alternative but to accept it. But _we_ must advance the 150
+piastres, and so, in mid-journey, we have already paid them to the end,
+with the risk of their horses breaking down, or they, horses and all,
+absconding from us. But the knavish varlets are hardly bold enough for
+such a climax of villany.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI.
+
+The Heart of Asia Minor.
+
+
+  Scenery of the Hills--Ladik, the Ancient Laodicea--The Plague of
+  Gad-Flies--Camp at Ilguen--A Natural Warm Bath--The Gad-Flies Again--A
+  Summer Landscape--Ak-Sheher--The Base of Sultan Dagh--The Fountain of
+  Midas--A Drowsy Journey--The Town of Bolawaduen.
+
+
+  "By the forests, lakes, and fountains,
+  Though the many-folded mountains." Shelley.
+
+
+Bolawaduen, _July_ 1, 1852.
+
+Our men brought all the beasts into the court-yard of the khan at Konia,
+the evening before our departure, so that no more were stolen during the
+night. The oda-bashi, indefatigable to the last in his attention to us,
+not only helped load the mules, but accompanied us some distance on our
+way. All the merchants in the khan collected in the gallery to see us
+start, and we made our exit in some state. The morning was clear, fresh,
+and delightful. Turning away from the city walls, we soon emerged from the
+lines of fruit-trees and interminable fields of tomb-stones, and came out
+upon the great bare plain of Karamania. A ride of three hours brought us
+to a long, sloping hill, which gave us a view of the whole plain, and its
+circuit of mountains. A dark line in the distance marked the gardens of
+Konia. On the right, near the centre of the plain, the lake, now
+contracted to very narrow limits, glimmered in the sun. Notwithstanding
+the waste and unfertile appearance of the country, the soft, sweet sky
+that hangs over it, the pure, transparent air, the grand sweep of the
+plain, and the varied forms of the different mountain chains that
+encompass it, make our journey an inspiring one. A descent of the hills
+soon shut out the view; and the rest of the day's journey lay among them,
+skirting the eastern base of Allah Dagh.
+
+The country improved in character, as we advanced. The bottoms of the dry
+glens were covered with wheat, and shrubbery began to make its appearance
+on the mountain-sides In the afternoon, we crossed a watershed, dividing
+Karamania from the great central plain of Asia Minor, and descended to a
+village called Ladik, occupying the site of the ancient Laodicea, at the
+foot of Allah Dagh. The plain upon which we came was greener and more
+flourishing than that we had left. Trees were scattered here and there in
+clumps, and the grassy wastes, stretching beyond the grain-fields, were
+dotted with herds of cattle. Emir Dagh stood in the north-west, blue and
+distant, while, towards the north and north-east, the plain extended to
+the horizon--a horizon fifty miles distant--without a break. In that
+direction lay the great salt lake of Yuezler, and the strings of camels we
+met on the road, laden with salt, were returning from it. Ladik is
+surrounded with poppy-fields, brilliant with white and purple blossoms.
+When the petals have fallen, the natives go carefully over the whole field
+and make incisions in every stalk, whence the opium exudes.
+
+We pitched our tent under a large walnut tree, which we found standing in
+a deserted inclosure. The graveyard of the village is studded with relics
+of the ancient town. There are pillars, cornices, entablatures, jambs,
+altars, mullions and sculptured tablets, all of white marble, and many of
+them in an excellent state of preservation. They appear to date from the
+early time of the Lower Empire, and the cross has not yet been effaced
+from some which serve as head-stones for the True Believers. I was
+particularly struck with the abundance of altars, some of which contained
+entire and legible inscriptions. In the town there is the same abundance
+of ruins. The lid of a sarcophagus, formed of a single block of marble,
+now serves as a water-trough, and the fountain is constructed of ancient
+tablets. The town stands on a mound which appears to be composed entirely
+of the debris of the former place, and near the summit there are many
+holes which the inhabitants have dug in their search for rings, seals and
+other relics.
+
+The next day we made a journey of nine hours over a hilly country lying
+between the ranges of Allah Dagh and Emir Dagh. There were wells of
+excellent water along the road, at intervals of an hour or two. The day
+was excessively hot and sultry during the noon hours, and the flies were
+so bad as to give great inconvenience to our horses. The animal I bestrode
+kicked so incessantly that I could scarcely keep my seat. His belly was
+swollen and covered with clotted blood, from their bites. The hadji's mule
+began to show symptoms of illness, and we had great difficulty in keeping
+it on its legs. Mr. Harrison bled it in the mouth, as a last resource, and
+during the afternoon it partly recovered.
+
+An hour before sunset we reached Ilguen, a town on the plain, at the foot
+of one of the spurs of Emir Dagh. To the west of it there is a lake of
+considerable size, which receives the streams that flow through the town
+and water its fertile gardens. We passed through the town and pitched our
+tent upon a beautiful grassy meadow. Our customary pipe of refreshment was
+never more heartily enjoyed than at this place. Behind us was a barren
+hill, at the foot of which was a natural hot bath, wherein a number of
+women and children were amusing themselves. The afternoon heat had passed
+away, the air was calm, sweet, and tempered with the freshness of coming
+evening, and the long shadows of the hills, creeping over the meadows, had
+almost reached the town. Beyond the line of sycamore, poplar and fig-trees
+that shaded the gardens of Ilguen, rose the distant chain of Allah Dagh,
+and in the pale-blue sky, not far above it, the dim face of the gibbous
+moon showed like the ghost of a planet. Our horses were feeding on the
+green meadow; an old Turk sat beside us, silent with fasting, and there
+was no sound but the shouts of the children in the bath. Such hours as
+these, after a day's journey made in the drowsy heat of an Eastern summer,
+are indescribably grateful.
+
+After the women had retired from the bath, we were allowed to enter. The
+interior consisted of a single chamber, thirty feet high, vaulted and
+almost dark. In the centre was a large basin of hot water, filled by four
+streams which poured into it. A ledge ran around the sides, and niches in
+the wall supplied places for our clothes. The bath-keeper furnished us
+with towels, and we undressed and plunged in. The water was agreeably warm
+(about 90 deg.), had a sweet taste, and a very slight sulphury smell. The
+vaulted hall redoubled the slightest noise, and a shaven Turk, who kept us
+company, sang in his delight, that he might hear the echo of his own
+voice. When we went back to the tent we found our visitor lying on the
+ground, trying to stay his hunger. It was rather too bad in us to light
+our pipes, make a sherbet and drink and smoke in his face, while we joked
+him about the Ramazan; and he at last got up and walked off, the picture
+of distress.
+
+We made an early start the next morning, and rode on briskly over the
+rolling, grassy hills. A beautiful lake, with an island in it, lay at the
+foot of Emir Dagh. After two hours we reached a guard-house, where our
+_teskeres_ were demanded, and the lazy guardsman invited us in to take
+coffee, that he might establish a right to the backsheesh which he could
+not demand. He had seen us afar off, and the coffee was smoking in the
+_finjans_ when we arrived. The sun was already terribly hot, and the
+large, green gad-flies came in such quantities that I seemed to be riding
+in the midst of a swarm of bees. My horse suffered very much, and struck
+out his hind feet so violently, in his endeavors to get rid of them, that
+he racked every joint in my body. They were not content with sucking his
+blood, but settling on the small segment of my calf, exposed between the
+big Tartar boot and the flowing trowsers, bit through my stockings with
+fierce bills. I killed hundreds of them, to no purpose, and at last, to
+relieve my horse, tied a bunch of hawthorn to a string, by which I swung
+it under his belly and against the inner side of his flanks. In this way I
+gave him some relief--a service which he acknowledged by a grateful motion
+of his head.
+
+As we descended towards Ak-Sheher the country became exceedingly rich and
+luxuriant. The range of Sultan Dagh (the Mountain of the Sultan) rose on
+our left, its sides covered with a thick screen of shrubbery, and its
+highest peak dotted with patches of snow; opposite, the lower range of
+Emir Dagh (the Mountain of the Prince) lay blue and bare in the sun
+shine. The base of Sultan Dagh was girdled with groves of fruit-trees,
+stretching out in long lines on the plain, with fields of ripening wheat
+between. In the distance the large lake of Ak-Sheher glittered in the sun.
+Towards the north-west, the plain stretched away for fifty miles before
+reaching the hills. It is evidently on a much lower level than the plain
+of Konia; the heat was not only greater, but the season was further
+advanced. Wheat was nearly ready for cutting, and the poppy-fields where,
+the day previous, the men were making their first incisions for opium,
+here had yielded their harvest and were fast ripening their seed.
+Ak-Sheher is beautifully situated at the entrance of a deep gorge in the
+mountains. It is so buried in its embowered gardens that little, except
+the mosque, is seen as you approach it. It is a large place, and boasts a
+fine mosque, but contains nothing worth seeing. The bazaar, after that of
+Konia, was the largest we had seen since leaving Tarsus. The greater part
+of the shopkeepers lay at full length, dozing, sleeping, or staying their
+appetites till the sunset gun. We found some superb cherries, and plenty
+of snow, which is brought down from the mountain. The natives were very
+friendly and good-humored, but seemed surprised at Mr. Harrison tasting
+the cherries, although I told them we were upon a journey. Our tent was
+pitched under a splendid walnut tree, outside of the town. The green
+mountain rose between us and the fading sunset, and the yellow moon was
+hanging in the east, as we took our dinner at the tent-door. Turks were
+riding homewards on donkeys, with loads of grass which they had been
+cutting in the meadows. The gun was fired, and the shouts of the children
+announced the close of the day's fast, while the sweet, melancholy voice
+of a boy muezzin called us to sunset prayer, from the minaret.
+
+Leaving Ak-Sheher this morning, we rode along the base of Sultan Dagh. The
+plain which we overlooked was magnificent. The wilderness of shrubbery
+which fringed the slopes of the mountain gave place to great orchards and
+gardens, interspersed with fields of grain, which extended far out on the
+plain, to the wild thickets and wastes of reeds surrounding the lake. The
+sides of Sultan Dagh were terraced and cultivated wherever it was
+practicable, and I saw some fields of wheat high up on the mountain. There
+were many, people in the road or laboring in the fields; and during the
+forenoon we passed several large villages. The country is more thickly
+inhabited, and has a more thrifty and prosperous air than any part of Asia
+Minor which I have seen. The people are better clad, have more open,
+honest, cheerful and intelligent faces, and exhibit a genuine courtesy and
+good-will in their demeanor towards us. I never felt more perfectly
+secure, or more certain of being among people whom I could trust.
+
+We passed under the summit of Sultan Dagh, which shone out so clear and
+distinct in the morning sun, that I could scarcely realize its actual
+height above the plain. From a tremendous gorge, cleft between the two
+higher peaks, issued a large stream, which, divided into a hundred
+channels, fertilizes a wide extent of plain. About two hours from
+Ak-Sheher we passed a splendid fountain of crystal water, gushing up
+beside the road. I believe it is the same called by some travellers the
+Fountain of Midas, but am ignorant wherefore the name is given it. We rode
+for several hours through a succession of grand, rich landscapes. A
+smaller lake succeeded to that of Ak-Sheher, Emir Dagh rose higher in the
+pale-blue sky, and Sultan Dagh showed other peaks, broken and striped with
+snow; but around us were the same glorious orchards and gardens, the same
+golden-green wheat and rustling phalanxes of poppies--armies of vegetable
+Round-heads, beside the bristling and bearded Cavaliers. The sun was
+intensely hot during the afternoon, as we crossed the plain, and I became
+so drowsed that it required an agony of exertion to keep from tumbling off
+my horse. We here left the great post-road to Constantinople, and took a
+less frequented track. The plain gradually became a meadow, covered with
+shrub cypress, flags, reeds, and wild water-plants. There were vast wastes
+of luxuriant grass, whereon thousands of black buffaloes were feeding. A
+stone causeway, containing many elegant fragments of ancient sculpture,
+extended across this part of the plain, but we took a summer path beside
+it, through beds of iris in bloom--a fragile snowy blossom, with a lip of
+the clearest golden hue. The causeway led to a bare salt plain, beyond
+which we came to the town of Bolawaduen, and terminated our day's journey
+of forty miles.
+
+Bolawaduen is a collection of mud houses, about a mile long, situated on an
+eminence at the western base of Emir Dagh. I went into the bazaar, which
+was a small place, and not very well supplied, though, as it was near
+sunset, there was quite a crowd of people, and the bakers were shovelling
+out their fresh bread at a brisk rate. Every one took me for a good
+Egyptian Mohammedan, and I was jostled right and left among the turbans,
+in a manner that certainly would not have happened me had I not also worn
+one. Mr. H., who had fallen behind the caravan, came up after we had
+encamped, and might have wandered a long time without finding us, but for
+the good-natured efforts of the inhabitants to set him aright. This
+evening he knocked over a hedgehog, mistaking it for a cat. The poor
+creature was severely hurt, and its sobs of distress, precisely like those
+of a little child, were to painful to hear, that we were obliged to have
+it removed from the vicinity of the tent.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+The Forests of Phrygia.
+
+
+  The Frontier of Phrygia--Ancient Quarries and Tombs--We Enter the Pine
+  Forests--A Guard-House--Encampments of the Turcomans--Pastoral
+  Scenery--A Summer Village--The Valley of the Tombs--Rock Sepulchres of
+  the Phrygian Kings--The Titan's Camp--The Valley of Kuembeh--A Land of
+  Flowers--Turcoman Hospitality--The Exiled Effendis--The Old Turcoman--A
+  Glimpse of Arcadia--A Landscape--Interested Friendship--The Valley of
+  the Pursek--Arrival at Kiutahya.
+
+
+  "And round us all the thicket rang
+  To many a flute of Arcady." Tennyson.
+
+
+Kiutahya, _July_ 5, 1852.
+
+We had now passed through the ancient provinces of Cilicia, Cappadocia,
+and Lycaonia, and reached the confines of Phrygia--a rude mountain region,
+which was never wholly penetrated by the light of Grecian civilization. It
+is still comparatively a wilderness, pierced but by a single high-road,
+and almost unvisited by travellers, yet inclosing in its depths many
+curious relics of antiquity. Leaving Bolawaduen in the morning, we ascended
+a long, treeless mountain-slope, and in three or four hours reached the
+dividing ridge---the watershed of Asia Minor, dividing the affluents of
+the Mediterranean and the central lakes from the streams that flow to the
+Black Sea. Looking back, Sultan Dagh, along whose base we had travelled
+the previous day, lay high and blue in the background, streaked with
+shining snow, and far away behind it arose a still higher peak, hoary with
+the lingering winter. We descended into a grassy plain, shut in by a range
+of broken mountains, covered to their summits with dark-green shrubbery,
+through which the strata of marble rock gleamed like patches of snow. The
+hills in front were scarred with old quarries, once worked for the
+celebrated Phrygian marble. There was neither a habitation nor a human
+being to be seen, and the landscape had a singularly wild, lonely, and
+picturesque air.
+
+Turning westward, we crossed a high rolling tract, and entered a valley
+entirely covered with dwarf oaks and cedars. In spite of the dusty road,
+the heat, and the multitude of gad-flies, the journey presented an
+agreeable contrast to the great plains over which we had been travelling
+for many days. The opposite side of the glen was crowned with a tall crest
+of shattered rock, in which were many old Phrygian tombs. They were mostly
+simple chambers, with square apertures. There were traces of many more,
+the rock having been blown up or quarried down--the tombs, instead of
+protecting it, only furnishing one facility the more for destruction.
+After an hour's rest at a fountain, we threaded the windings of the glen
+to a lower plain, quite shut in by the hills, whose ribs of marble showed
+through the forests of oak, holly, cedar, and pine, which dotted them. We
+were now fully entered into the hill-country, and our road passed over
+heights and through hollows covered with picturesque clumps of foliage. It
+resembled some of the wild western downs of America, and, but for the
+Phrygian tombs, whose doorways stared at us from every rock, seemed as
+little familiar with the presence of Man.
+
+Hadji Youssuf, in stopping to arrange some of the baggage, lost his hold
+of his mule, and in spite of every effort to secure her, the provoking
+beast kept her liberty for the rest of the day. In vain did we head her
+off, chase her, coax her, set traps for her: she was too cunning to be
+taken in, and marched along at her ease, running into every field of
+grain, stopping to crop the choicest bunches of grass, or walking demurely
+in the caravan, allowing the hadji to come within arm's length before she
+kicked up her heels and dashed away again. We had a long chase through the
+clumps of oak and holly, but all to no purpose. The great green gad-flies
+swarmed around us, biting myself as well as my horse. Hecatombs, crushed
+by my whip, dropped dead in the dust, but the ranks were immediately
+filled from some invisible reserve. The soil was no longer bare, but
+entirely covered with grass and flowers. In one of the valleys I saw a
+large patch of the crimson larkspur, so thick as to resemble a pool of
+blood. While crossing a long, hot hill, we came upon a little arbor of
+stones, covered with pine branches. It inclosed an ancient sarcophagus of
+marble, nearly filled with water. Beside it stood a square cup, with a
+handle, rudely hewn out of a piece of pine wood. This was a charitable
+provision for travellers, and constantly supplied by the Turcomans who
+lived in the vicinity.
+
+The last two hours of our journey that day were through a glorious forest
+of pines. The road lay in a winding glen, green and grassy, and covered to
+the summits on both sides with beautiful pine trees, intermixed with
+cedar. The air had the true northern aroma, and was more grateful than
+wine. Every turn of the glen disclosed a charming woodland view. It was a
+wild valley of the northern hills, filled with the burning lustre of a
+summer sun, and canopied by the brilliant blue of a summer sky. There were
+signs of the woodman's axe, and the charred embers of forest camp-fires. I
+thought of the lovely _canadas_ in the pine forests behind Monterey, and
+could really have imagined myself there. Towards evening we reached a
+solitary guard-house, on the edge of the forest. The glen here opened a
+little, and a stone fountain of delicious water furnished all that we
+wanted for a camping-place. The house was inhabited by three soldiers;
+sturdy, good-humored fellows, who immediately spread a mat in the shade
+for us and made us some excellent coffee. A Turcoman encampment in the
+neighborhood supplied us with milk and eggs.
+
+The guardsmen were good Mussulmans, and took us for the same. One of them
+asked me to let him know when the sun was down, and I prolonged his fast
+until it was quite dark, when I gave him permission to eat. They all had
+tolerable stallions for their service, and seemed to live pleasantly
+enough, in their wild way. The fat, stumpy corporal, with his enormously
+broad pantaloons and automaton legs, went down to the fountain with his
+musket, and after taking a rest and sighting full five minutes, fired at a
+dove without hitting it. He afterwards joined us in a social pipe, and we
+sat on a carpet at the door of the guard-house, watching the splendid
+moonrise through the pine boughs. When the pipes had burned out I went to
+bed, and slept a long, sweet sleep until dawn.
+
+We knew that the tombs of the Phrygian Kings could not be far off, and, on
+making inquiries of the corporal, found that he knew the place. It was not
+four hours distant, by a by-road and as it would be impossible to reach
+it without a guide, he would give us one of his men, in consideration of a
+fee of twenty piastres. The difficulty was evident, in a hilly, wooded
+country like this, traversed by a labyrinth of valleys and ravines, and so
+we accepted the soldier. As we were about leaving, an old Turcoman, whose
+beard was dyed a bright red, came up, saying that he knew Mr. H. was a
+physician, and could cure him of his deafness. The morning air was sweet
+with the breath of cedar and pine, and we rode on through the woods and
+over the open turfy glades, in high spirits. We were in the heart of a
+mountainous country, clothed with evergreen forests, except some open
+upland tracts, which showed a thick green turf, dotted all over with
+park-like clumps, and single great trees. The pines were noble trunks,
+often sixty to eighty feet high, and with boughs disposed in all possible
+picturesqueness of form. The cedar frequently showed a solid white bole,
+three feet in diameter.
+
+We took a winding footpath, often a mere track, striking across the hills
+in a northern direction. Everywhere we met the Turks of the plain, who are
+now encamped in the mountains, to tend their flocks through the summer
+months. Herds of sheep and goats were scattered over the green
+pasture-slopes, and the idle herd-boys basked in the morning sun, playing
+lively airs on a reed flute, resembling the Arabic _zumarra_. Here and
+there was a woodman, busy at a recently felled tree, and we met several of
+the creaking carts of the country, hauling logs. All that we saw had a
+pleasant rural air, a smack of primitive and unsophisticated life. From
+the higher ridges over which we passed, we could see, far to the east and
+west, other ranges of pine-covered mountains, and in the distance the
+cloudy lines of loftier chains. The trunks of the pines were nearly all
+charred, and many of the smaller trees dead, from the fires which, later
+in the year, rage in these forests.
+
+After four hours of varied and most inspiring travel, we reached a
+district covered for the most part with oak woods--a more open though
+still mountainous region. There was a summer village of Turks scattered
+over the nearest slope--probably fifty houses in all, almost perfect
+counterparts of Western log-cabins. They were built of pine logs, laid
+crosswise, and covered with rough boards. These, as we were told, were the
+dwellings of the people who inhabit the village of Khosref Pasha Khan
+during the winter. Great numbers of sheep and goats were browsing over the
+hills or lying around the doors of the houses. The latter were beautiful
+creatures, with heavy, curved horns, and long, white, silky hair, that
+entirely hid their eyes. We stopped at a house for water, which the man
+brought out in a little cask. He at first proposed giving us _yaourt_, and
+his wife suggested _kaimak_ (sweet curds), which we agreed to take, but it
+proved to be only boiled milk.
+
+Leaving the village, we took a path leading westward, mounted a long hill,
+and again entered the pine forests. Before long, we came to a well-built
+country-house, somewhat resembling a Swiss cottage. It was two stories
+high, and there was an upper balcony, with cushioned divans, overlooking a
+thriving garden-patch and some fruit-trees. Three or four men were weeding
+in the garden, and the owner came up and welcomed us. A fountain of
+ice-cold water gushed into a stone trough at the door, making a tempting
+spot for our breakfast, but we were bent on reaching the tombs. There were
+convenient out-houses for fowls, sheep, and cattle. The herds were out,
+grazing along the edges of the forest, and we heard the shrill, joyous
+melodies of the flutes blown by the herd-boys.
+
+We now reached a ridge, whence we looked down through the forest upon a
+long valley, nearly half a mile wide, and bordered on the opposite side by
+ranges of broken sandstone crags. This was the place we sought--the Valley
+of the Phrygian Tombs. Already we could distinguish the hewn faces of the
+rocks, and the dark apertures to the chambers within. The bottom of the
+valley was a bed of glorious grass, blazoned with flowers, and redolent of
+all vernal smells. Several peasants, finding it too hot to mow, had thrown
+their scythes along the swarths, and were lying in the shade of an oak. We
+rode over the new-cut hay, up the opposite side, and dismounted at the
+face of the crags. As we approached them, the number of chambers hewn in
+the rock, the doors and niches now open to the day, surmounted by
+shattered spires and turrets, gave the whole mass the appearance of a
+grand fortress in ruins. The crags, which are of a very soft, reddish-gray
+sandstone, rise a hundred and fifty feet from their base, and their
+summits are worn by the weather into the most remarkable forms.
+
+The principal monument is a broad, projecting cliff, one side of which has
+been cut so as to resemble the facade of a temple. The sculptured part is
+about sixty feet high by sixty in breadth, and represents a solid wall
+with two pilasters at the ends, upholding an architrave and pediment,
+which is surmounted by two large volutes. The whole face of the wall is
+covered with ornaments resembling panel-work, not in regular squares, but
+a labyrinth of intricate designs. In the centre, at the bottom, is a
+shallow square recess, surrounded by an elegant, though plain moulding,
+but there is no appearance of an entrance to the sepulchral chamber, which
+may be hidden in the heart of the rock. There is an inscription in Greek
+running up one side, but it is of a later date than the work itself. On
+one of the tombs there is an inscription: "To King Midas." These relics
+are supposed to date from the period of the Gordian Dynasty, about seven
+centuries before Christ.
+
+A little in front of a headland, formed by the summit walls of two meeting
+valleys, rises a mass of rocks one hundred feet high, cut into sepulchral
+chambers, story above story, with the traces of steps between them,
+leading to others still higher. The whole rock, which may be a hundred and
+fifty feet long by fifty feet broad, has been scooped out, leaving but
+narrow partitions to separate the chambers of the dead. These chambers are
+all plain, but some are of very elegant proportions, with arched or
+pyramidal roofs, and arched recesses at the sides, containing sarcophagi
+hewn in the solid stone. There are also many niches for cinerary urns. The
+principal tomb had a portico, supported by columns, but the front is now
+entirely hurled down, and only the elegant panelling and stone joists of
+the ceiling remain. The entire hill was a succession of tombs. There is
+not a rock which does not bear traces of them. I might have counted
+several hundred within a stone's throw. The position of these curious
+remains in a lonely valley, shut in on all sides by dark, pine-covered
+mountains---two of which are crowned with a natural acropolis of rock,
+resembling a fortress--increases the interest with which they inspire the
+beholder. The valley on the western side, with its bed of ripe wheat in
+the bottom, its tall walls, towers, and pinnacles of rock, and its distant
+vista of mountain and forest, is the most picturesque in Phrygia.
+
+The Turcoman reapers, who came up to see us and talk with us, said that
+there were the remains of walls on the summit of the principal acropolis
+opposite us, and that, further up the valley, there was a chamber with two
+columns in front. Mr. Harrison and I saddled and rode off, passing along a
+wall of fantastic rock-turrets, at the base of which was a natural column,
+about ten feet high, and five in diameter, almost perfectly round, and
+upholding an immense rock, shaped like a cocked hat. In crossing the
+meadow we saw a Turk sitting in the sun beside a spring, and busily
+engaged in knitting a stocking. After a ride of two miles we found the
+chamber, hewn like the facade of a temple in an isolated rock, overlooking
+two valleys of wild meadow-land. The pediment and cornice were simple and
+beautiful, but the columns had been broken away. The chambers were
+perfectly plain, but the panel-work on the ceiling of the portico was
+entire.
+
+After passing three hours in examining these tombs, we took the track
+which our guide pointed out as the road to Kiutahya. We rode two hours
+through the forest, and came out upon a wooded height, overlooking a
+grand, open valley, rich in grain-fields and pasture land. While I was
+contemplating this lovely view, the road turned a corner of the ridge, and
+lo! before me there appeared (as I thought), above the tops of the pines,
+high up on the mountain side, a line of enormous tents. Those snow-white
+cones, uprearing their sharp spires, and spreading out their broad
+bases--what could they be but an encampment of monster tents? Yet no; they
+were pinnacles of white rock--perfect cones, from thirty to one hundred
+feet in height, twelve in all, and ranged side by side along the edge of
+the cliff, with the precision of a military camp. They were snow-white,
+perfectly smooth and full, and their bases touched. What made the
+spectacle more singular, there was no other appearance of the same rock on
+the mountain. All around them was the dark-green of the pines, out of
+which they rose like drifted horns of unbroken snow. I named this singular
+phenomenon--which seems to have escaped the notice of travellers--The
+Titan's Camp.
+
+In another hour we reached a fountain near the village of Kuembeh, and
+pitched our tents for the night. The village, which is half a mile in
+length, is built upon a singular crag, which shoots up abruptly from the
+centre of the valley, rising at one extremity to a height of more than a
+hundred feet. It was entirely deserted, the inhabitants having all gone
+off to the mountains with their herds. The solitary muezzin, who cried the
+_mughreb_ at the close of the fast, and lighted the lamps on his minaret,
+went through with his work in most unclerical haste, now that there was no
+one to notice him. We sent Achmet, the _katurgee_, to the mountain camp of
+the villagers, to procure a supply of fowls and barley.
+
+We rose very early yesterday morning, shivering in the cold air of the
+mountains, and just as the sun, bursting through the pines, looked down
+the little hollow where our tents were pitched, set the caravan in motion.
+The ride down the valley was charming. The land was naturally rich and
+highly cultivated, which made its desertion the more singular. Leagues of
+wheat, rye and poppies spread around us, left for the summer warmth to do
+its silent work. The dew sparkled on the fields as we rode through them,
+and the splendor of the flowers in blossom was equal to that of the plains
+of Palestine. There were purple, white and scarlet poppies; the rich
+crimson larkspur; the red anemone; the golden daisy; the pink convolvulus;
+and a host of smaller blooms, so intensely bright and dazzling in their
+hues, that the meadows were richer than a pavement of precious jewels. To
+look towards the sun, over a field of scarlet poppies, was like looking on
+a bed of live coals; the light, striking through the petals, made them
+burn as with an inward fire. Out of this wilderness of gorgeous color,
+rose the tall spires of a larger plant, covered with great yellow flowers,
+while here and there the snowy blossoms of a clump of hawthorn sweetened
+the morning air.
+
+A short distance beyond Kuembeh, we passed another group of ancient tombs,
+one of which was of curious design. An isolated rock, thirty feet in
+height by twenty in diameter, was cut so as to resemble a triangular
+tower, with the apex bevelled. A chamber, containing a sarcophagus, was
+hewn out of the interior. The entrance was ornamented with double columns
+in bas-relief, and a pediment. There was another arched chamber, cut
+directly through the base of the triangle, with a niche on each side,
+hollowed out at the bottom so as to form a sarcophagus.
+
+Leaving these, the last of the Phrygian tombs, we struck across the valley
+and ascended a high range of hills, covered with pine, to an upland,
+wooded region. Here we found a summer village of log cabins, scattered
+over a grassy slope. The people regarded us with some curiosity, and the
+women hastily concealed their faces. Mr. H. rode up to a large new house,
+and peeped in between the logs. There were several women inside, who
+started up in great confusion and threw over their heads whatever article
+was most convenient. An old man, with a long white beard, neatly dressed
+in a green jacket and shawl turban, came out and welcomed us. I asked for
+_kaimak_, which he promised, and immediately brought out a carpet and
+spread it on the ground. Then followed a large basin of kaimak, with
+wooden spoons, three loaves of bread, and a plate of cheese. We seated
+ourselves on the carpet, and delved in with the spoons, while the old man
+retired lest his appetite should be provoked. The milk was excellent, nor
+were the bread and cheese to be despised.
+
+While we were eating, the Khowagee, or schoolmaster of the community, a
+genteel little man in a round white turban, came op to inquire of Francois
+who we were. "That effendi in the blue dress," said he, "is the Bey, is he
+not?" "Yes," said F. "And the other, with the striped shirt and white
+turban, is a writer?" [Here he was not far wrong.] "But how is it that the
+effendis do not speak Turkish?" he persisted. "Because," said Francois,
+"their fathers were exiled by Sultan Mahmoud when they were small
+children. They have grown up in Aleppo like Arabs, and have not yet
+learned Turkish; but God grant that the Sultan may not turn his face away
+from them, and that they may regain the rank their fathers once had in
+Stamboul." "God grant it!" replied the Khowagee, greatly interested in the
+story. By this time we had eaten our full share of the kaimak, which was
+finished by Francois and the katurgees. The old man now came up, mounted
+on a dun mare, stating that he was bound for Kiutahya, and was delighted
+with the prospect of travelling in such good company, I gave one of his
+young children some money, as the kaimak was tendered out of pure
+hospitality, and so we rode off.
+
+Our new companion was armed to the teeth, having a long gun with a heavy
+wooden stock and nondescript lock, and a sword of excellent metal. It was,
+in fact, a weapon of the old Greek empire, and the cross was still
+enamelled in gold at the root of the blade, in spite of all his efforts to
+scratch it out. He was something of a _fakeer_, having made a pilgrimage
+to Mecca and Jerusalem. He was very inquisitive, plying Francois with
+questions about the government. The latter answered that we were not
+connected with the government, but the old fellow shrewdly hinted that he
+knew better--we were persons of rank, travelling incognito. He was very
+attentive to us, offering us water at every fountain, although he believed
+us to be good Mussulmans. We found him of some service as a guide,
+shortening our road by taking by-paths through the woods.
+
+For several hours we traversed a beautifully wooded region of hills.
+Graceful clumps of pine shaded the grassy knolls, where the sheep and
+silky-haired goats were basking at rest, and the air was filled with a
+warm, summer smell, blown from the banks of golden broom. Now and then,
+from the thickets of laurel and arbutus, a shrill shepherd's reed piped
+some joyous woodland melody. Was it a Faun, astray among the hills? Green
+dells, open to the sunshine, and beautiful as dreams of Arcady, divided
+the groves of pine. The sky overhead was pure and cloudless, clasping the
+landscape with its belt of peace and silence. Oh, that delightful region,
+haunted by all the bright spirits of the immortal Grecian Song! Chased
+away from the rest of the earth, here they have found a home--here
+secret altars remain to them from the times that are departed!
+
+Out of these woods, we passed into a lonely plain, inclosed by piny hills
+that brightened in the thin, pure ether. In the distance were some
+shepherds' tents, and musical goat-bells tinkled along the edges of the
+woods. From the crest of a lofty ridge beyond this plain, we looked back
+over the wild solitudes wherein we had been travelling for two days--long
+ranges of dark hills, fading away behind each other, with a perspective
+that hinted of the hidden gulfs between. From the western slope, a still
+more extensive prospect opened before us. Over ridges covered with forests
+of oak and pine, we saw the valley of the Pursek, the ancient Thymbrius,
+stretching far away to the misty line of Keshish Dagh, The mountains
+behind Kintahya loomed up high and grand, making a fine feature in the
+middle distance. We caught but fleeting glimpses of the view through the
+trees; and then, plunging into the forest again, descended to a cultivated
+slope, whereon there was a little village, now deserted. The graveyard
+beside it was shaded with large cedar-trees, and near it there was a
+fountain of excellent water. "Here," said the old man, "you can wash and
+pray, and then rest awhile under the trees." Francois excused us by saying
+that, while on a journey, we always bathed before praying; but, not to
+slight his faith entirely, I washed my hands and face before sitting down
+to our scanty breakfast of bread and water.
+
+Our path now led down through long, winding glens, over grown with oaks,
+from which the wild yellow honeysuckles fell in a shower of blossoms. As
+we drew near the valley, the old man began to hint that his presence had
+been of great service to us, and deserved recompense. "God knows," said
+he to Francois, "in what corner of the mountains you might now be, if I
+had not accompanied you." "Oh," replied Francois, "there are always plenty
+of people among the woods, who would have been equally as kind as yourself
+in showing us the way." He then spoke of the robbers in the neighborhood,
+and pointed out some graves by the road-side, as those of persons who had
+been murdered. "But," he added, "everybody in these parts knows me, and
+whoever is in company with me is always safe." The Greek assured him that
+we always depended on ourselves for our safety. Defeated on these tacks,
+he boldly affirmed that his services were worthy of payment. "But," said
+Francois "you told us at the village that you had business in Kiutahya,
+and would be glad to join us for the sake of having company on the road."
+"Well, then," rejoined the old fellow, making a last effort, "I leave the
+matter to your politeness." "Certainly," replied the imperturbable
+dragoman, "we could not be so impolite as to offer money to a man of your
+wealth and station; we could not insult you by giving you alms." The old
+Turcoman thereupon gave a shrug and a grunt, made a sullen good-by
+salutation, and left us.
+
+It was nearly six o'clock when we reached the Pursek. There was no sign of
+the city, but we could barely discern an old fortress on the lofty cliff
+which commands the town. A long stone bridge crossed the river, which here
+separates into half a dozen channels. The waters are swift and clear, and
+wind away in devious mazes through the broad green meadows. We hurried on,
+thinking we saw minarets in the distance, but they proved to be poplars.
+The sun sank lower and lower, and finally went down before there was any
+token of our being in the vicinity of the city. Soon, however, a line of
+tiled roofs appeared along the slope of a hill on our left, and turning
+its base, we saw the city before us, filling the mouth of a deep valley or
+gorge, which opened from the mountains.
+
+But the horses are saddled, and Francois tells me it is time to put up my
+pen. We are off, over the mountains, to the Greek city of OEzani, in
+the valley of the Rhyndacus.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII.
+
+Kiutahya and the Ruins of OEzani.
+
+
+  Entrance into Kiutahya--The New Khan--An Unpleasant
+  Discovery--Kiutahya--The Citadel--Panorama from the Walls--The Gorge of
+  the Mountains--Camp in a Meadow--The Valley of the
+  Rhyndacus--Chavduer--The Ruins of OEzani--The Acropolis and
+  Temple--The Theatre and Stadium--Ride down the Valley--Camp at Daghje
+  Koei
+
+
+  "There is a temple in ruin stands,
+  Fashioned by long-forgotten hands;
+  Two or three columns and many a stone,
+  Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown!
+  Out upon Time! it will leave no more
+  Of the things to come than the things before!"
+
+
+Daghje Koei, on the Rhyndacus, _July_ 6, 1852.
+
+On entering Kiutahya, we passed the barracks, which were the residence of
+Kossuth and his companions in exile. Beyond them, we came to a broad
+street, down which flowed the vilest stream of filth of which even a
+Turkish city could ever boast. The houses on either side were two stories
+high, the upper part of wood, with hanging balconies, over which shot the
+eaves of the tiled roofs. The welcome cannon had just sounded, announcing
+the close of the day's fast. The coffee-shops were already crowded with
+lean and hungry customers, the pipes were filled and lighted, and the
+coffee smoked in the finjans. In half a minute such whiffs arose on all
+sides as it would have cheered the heart of a genuine smoker to behold.
+Out of these cheerful places we passed into other streets which were
+entirely deserted, the inhabitants being at dinner. It had a weird,
+uncomfortable effect to ride through streets where the clatter of our
+horses' hoofs was the only sound of life. At last we reached the entrance
+to a bazaar, and near it a khan--a new khan, very neatly built, and with a
+spare room so much better than we expected, that we congratulated
+ourselves heartily. We unpacked in a hurry, and Francois ran off to the
+bazaar, from which he speedily returned with some roast kid, cucumbers,
+and cherries. We lighted two lamps, I borrowed the oda-bashi's narghileh,
+and Francois, learning that it was our national anniversary, procured us a
+flask of Greek wine, that we might do it honor. The beverage, however,
+resembled a mixture of vinegar and sealing-wax, and we contented ourselves
+with drinking patriotic toasts, in two finjans of excellent coffee. But in
+the midst of our enjoyment, happening to cast my eye on the walls, I saw a
+sight that turned all our honey into gall. Scores on scores--nay, hundreds
+on hundreds--of enormous bed-bugs swarmed on the plaster, and were already
+descending to our beds and baggage. To sleep there was impossible, but we
+succeeded in getting possession of one of the outside balconies, where we
+made our beds, after searching them thoroughly.
+
+In the evening a merchant, who spoke a little Arabic, came up to me and
+asked: "Is not your Excellency's friend the _hakim pasha_" (chief
+physician). I did not venture to assent, but replied: "No; he is a
+_sowakh_" This was beyond his comprehension, and he went away with the
+impression that Mr. H. was much greater than a _hakim pasha_. I slept
+soundly on my out-doors bed, but was awakened towards morning by two
+tremendous claps of thunder, echoing in the gorge, and the rattling of
+rain on the roof of the khan.
+
+I spent two or three hours next morning in taking a survey of Kiutahya.
+The town is much larger than I had supposed: I should judge it to contain
+from fifty to sixty thousand inhabitants. The situation is remarkable, and
+gives a picturesque effect to the place when seen from above, which makes
+one forget its internal filth. It is built in the mouth of a gorge, and
+around the bases of the hills on either side. The lofty mountains which
+rise behind it supply it with perpetual springs of pure water. At every
+dozen steps you come upon a fountain, and every large street has a brook
+in the centre. The houses are all two and many of them three stories high,
+with hanging balconies, which remind me much of Switzerland. The bazaars
+are very extensive, covering all the base of the hill on which stands the
+ancient citadel. The goods displayed were mostly European cotton fabrics,
+_quincaillerie_, boots and slippers, pipe-sticks and silks. In the parts
+devoted to the produce of the country, I saw very fine cherries, cucumbers
+and lettuce, and bundles of magnificent clover, three to four feet high.
+
+We climbed a steep path to the citadel, which covers the summit of an
+abrupt, isolated hill, connected by a shoulder with the great range. The
+walls are nearly a mile in circuit, consisting almost wholly of immense
+circular buttresses, placed so near each other that they almost touch. The
+connecting walls are broken down on the northern side, so that from below
+the buttresses have the appearance of enormous shattered columns. They are
+built of rough stones, with regular layers of flat, burnt bricks. On the
+highest part of the hill stands the fortress, or stronghold, a place which
+must have been almost impregnable before the invention of cannon. The
+structure probably dates from the ninth or tenth century, but is built on
+the foundations of more ancient edifices. The old Greek city of Cotyaeum
+(whence Kiutahya) probably stood upon this hill. Within the citadel is an
+upper town, containing about a hundred houses, the residence, apparently
+of poor families.
+
+From the circuit of the walls, on every side, there are grand views over
+the plain, the city, and the gorges of the mountains behind. The valley of
+the Pursek, freshened by the last night's shower, spread out a sheet of
+vivid green, to the pine-covered mountains which bounded it on all sides.
+Around the city it was adorned with groves and gardens, and, in the
+direction of Brousa, white roads went winding away to other gardens and
+villages in the distance. The mountains of Phrygia, through which we had
+passed, were the loftiest in the circle that inclosed the valley. The city
+at our feet presented a thick array of red-tiled roofs, out of which rose
+here and there the taper shaft of a minaret, or the dome of a mosque or
+bath. From the southern side of the citadel, we looked down into the gorge
+which supplies Kiutahya with water--a wild, desert landscape of white
+crags and shattered peaks of gray rock, hanging over a narrow winding bed
+of the greenest foliage.
+
+Instead of taking the direct road to Brousa, we decided to make a detour
+of two days, in order to visit the ruins of the old Greek city of
+OEzani, which are thirty-six miles south of Kiutahya. Leaving at
+noon, we ascended the gorge behind the city, by delightfully embowered
+paths, at first under the eaves of superb walnut-trees, and then through
+wild thickets of willow, hazel, privet, and other shrubs, tangled
+together with the odorous white honeysuckle. Near the city, the
+mountain-sides were bare white masses of gypsum and other rock, in many
+places with the purest chrome-yellow hue; but as we advanced they were
+clothed to the summit with copsewood. The streams that foamed down these
+perennial heights were led into buried channels, to come to light again in
+sparkling fountains, pouring into ever-full stone basins. The day was cool
+and cloudy, and the heavy shadows which hung on the great sides of the
+mountain gateway, heightened, by contrast, the glory of the sunlit plain
+seen through them.
+
+After passing the summit ridge, probably 5,000 feet above the sea, we came
+upon a wooded, hilly region, stretching away in long misty lines to Murad
+Dagh, whose head was spotted with snow. There were patches of wheat and
+rye in the hollows, and the bells of distant herds tinkled occasionally
+among the trees. There was no village on the road, and we were on the way
+to one which we saw in the distance, when we came upon a meadow of good
+grass, with a small stream running through it. Here we encamped, sending
+Achmet, the katurgee, to the village for milk and eggs. The ewes had just
+been milked for the suppers of their owners, but they went over the flock
+again, stripping their udders, which greatly improved the quality of the
+milk. The night was so cold that I could scarcely sleep during the morning
+hours. There was a chill, heavy dew on the meadow; but when Francois awoke
+me at sunrise, the sky was splendidly clear and pure, and the early beams
+had a little warmth in them. Our coffee, before starting, made with
+sheep's milk, was the richest I ever drank.
+
+After riding for two hours across broad, wild ridges, covered with cedar,
+we reached a height overlooking the valley of the Rhyndacus, or rather the
+plain whence he draws his sources--a circular level, ten or twelve miles
+in diameter, and contracting towards the west into a narrow dell, through
+which his waters find outlet; several villages, each embowered in gardens,
+were scattered along the bases of the hills that inclose it. We took the
+wrong road, but were set aright by a herdsman, and after threading a lane
+between thriving grain-fields, were cheered by the sight of the Temple of
+OEzani, lifted on its acropolis above the orchards of Chavduer, and
+standing out sharp and clear against the purple of the hills.
+
+Our approach to the city was marked by the blocks of sculptured marble
+that lined the way: elegant mouldings, cornices, and entablatures, thrown
+together with common stone to make walls between the fields. The village
+is built on both sides of the Rhyndacus; it is an ordinary Turkish hamlet,
+with tiled roofs and chimneys, and exhibits very few of the remains of the
+old city in its composition. This, I suspect, is owing to the great size
+of the hewn blocks, especially of the pillars, cornices, and entablatures,
+nearly all of which are from twelve to fifteen feet long. It is from the
+size and number of these scattered blocks, rather than from the buildings
+which still partially exist, that one obtains an idea of the size and
+splendor of the ancient OEzani. The place is filled with fragments,
+especially of columns, of which there are several hundred, nearly all
+finely fluted. The Rhyndacus is still spanned by an ancient bridge of
+three arches, and both banks are lined with piers of hewn stone. Tall
+poplars and massy walnuts of the richest green shade the clear waters, and
+there are many picturesque combinations of foliage and ruin--death and
+life--which would charm a painter's eye. Near the bridge we stopped to
+examine a pile of immense fragments which have been thrown together by the
+Turks--pillars, cornices, altars, pieces of a frieze, with bulls' heads
+bound together by hanging garlands, and a large square block, with a
+legible tablet. It resembled an altar in form, and, from the word
+"_Artemidoron_" appeared to have belonged to some temple to Diana.
+
+Passing through the village we came to a grand artificial platform on its
+western side, called the Acropolis. It is of solid masonry, five hundred
+feet square, and averaging ten feet in height. On the eastern side it is
+supported on rude though massive arches, resembling Etruscan workmanship.
+On the top and around the edges of this platform lie great numbers of
+fluted columns, and immense fragments of cornice and architrave. In the
+centre, on a foundation platform about eight feet high, stands a beautiful
+Ionic temple, one hundred feet in length. On approaching, it appeared
+nearly perfect, except the roof, and so many of the columns remain
+standing that its ruined condition scarcely injures the effect. There are
+seventeen columns on the side and eight at the end, Ionic in style,
+fluted, and fifty feet in height. About half the cella remains, with an
+elegant frieze and cornice along the top, and a series of tablets, set in
+panels of ornamental sculpture, running along the sides. The front of the
+cella includes a small open peristyle, with two composite Corinthian
+columns at the entrance, making, with those of the outer colonnade,
+eighteen columns standing. The tablets contain Greek inscriptions,
+perfectly legible, where the stone has not been shattered. Under the
+temple there are large vaults, which we found filled up with young kids,
+who had gone in there to escape the heat of the sun. The portico was
+occupied by sheep, which at first refused to make room for us, and gave
+strong olfactory evidence of their partiality for the temple as a
+resting-place.
+
+On the side of a hill, about three hundred yards to the north, are the
+remains of a theatre. Crossing some patches of barley and lentils, we
+entered a stadium, forming an extension of the theatre---that is, it took
+the same breadth and direction, so that the two might be considered as one
+grand work, more than one thousand feet long by nearly four hundred wide.
+The walls of the stadium are hurled down, except an entrance of five
+arches of massive masonry, on the western side. We rode up the artificial
+valley, between high, grassy hills, completely covered with what at a
+distance resembled loose boards, but which were actually the long marble
+seats of the stadium. Urging our horses over piles of loose blocks, we
+reached the base of the theatre, climbed the fragments that cumber the
+main entrance, and looked on the spacious arena and galleries within.
+Although greatly ruined, the materials of the whole structure remain, and
+might be put together again. It is a grand wreck; the colossal fragments
+which have tumbled from the arched proscenium fill the arena, and the rows
+of seats, though broken and disjointed, still retain their original order.
+It is somewhat more than a semicircle, the radius being about one hundred
+and eighty feet. The original height was upwards of fifty feet, and there
+were fifty rows of seats in all, each row capable of seating two hundred
+persons, so that the number of spectators who could be accommodated was
+eight thousand.
+
+The fragments cumbering the arena were enormous, and highly interesting
+from their character. There were rich blocks of cornice, ten feet long;
+fluted and reeded pillars; great arcs of heavily-carved sculpture, which
+appeared to have served as architraves from pillar to pillar, along the
+face of the proscenium, where there was every trace of having been a
+colonnade; and other blocks sculptured with figures of animals in
+alto-relievo. There were generally two figures on each block, and among
+those which could be recognized were the dog and the lion. Doors opened
+from the proscenium into the retiring-rooms of the actors, under which
+were the vaults where the beasts were kept. A young fox or jackal started
+from his siesta as we entered the theatre, and took refuge under the loose
+blocks. Looking backwards through the stadium from the seats of the
+theatre, we had a lovely view of the temple, standing out clear and bright
+in the midst of the summer plain, with the snow-streaked summits of Murad
+Dagh in the distance. It was a picture which I shall long remember. The
+desolation of the magnificent ruins was made all the more impressive by
+the silent, solitary air of the region around them.
+
+Leaving Chavduer in the afternoon, we struck northward, down the valley of
+the Rhyndacus, over tracts of rolling land, interspersed with groves of
+cedar and pine. There were so many branch roads and crossings that we
+could not fail to go wrong; and after two or three hours found ourselves
+in the midst of a forest, on the broad top of a mountain, without any road
+at all. There were some herdsmen tending their flocks near at hand, but
+they could give us no satisfactory direction. We thereupon, took our own
+course, and soon brought up on the brink of a precipice, overhanging a
+deep valley. Away to the eastward we caught a glimpse of the Rhyndacus,
+and the wooden minaret of a little village on his banks. Following the
+edge of the precipice, we came at last to a glen, down which ran a rough
+footpath that finally conducted us, by a long road through the forests, to
+the village of Daghje Koei, where we are now encamped.
+
+The place seems to be devoted to the making of flints, and the streets are
+filled with piles of the chipped fragments. Our tent is pitched on the
+bank of the river, in a barren meadow. The people tell us that the whole
+region round about has just been visited by a plague of grasshoppers,
+which have destroyed their crops. Our beasts have wandered off to the
+hills, in search for grass, and the disconsolate Hadji is hunting them.
+Achmet, the katurgee, lies near the fire, sick; Mr. Harrison complains of
+fever, and Francois moves about languidly, with a dismal countenance. So
+here we are in the solitudes of Bithynia, but there is no God but God, and
+that which is destined comes to pass.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV.
+
+The Mysian Olympus.
+
+
+  Journey Down the Valley--The Plague of Grasshoppers--A Defile--The Town
+  of Taushanlue--The Camp of Famine--We leave the Rhyndacus--The Base of
+  Olympus--Primeval Forests--The Guard-House--Scenery of the
+  Summit--Forests of Beech--Saw-Mills--Descent of the Mountain--The View
+  of Olympus--Morning--The Land of Harvest--Aineghioel--A Showery Ride--The
+  Plain of Brousa--The Structure of Olympus--We reach Brousa--The Tent is
+  Furled.
+
+
+  "I looked yet farther and higher, and saw in the heavens a silvery cloud
+  that stood fast, and still against the breeze; * * * * and so it was as
+  a sign and a testimony--almost as a call from the neglected gods, that I
+  now saw and acknowledged the snowy crown of the Mysian Olympus!"
+  Kinglake.
+
+
+Brousa, _July_ 9, 1852.
+
+From Daghje Kuei, there were two roads to Taushanlue, but the people
+informed us that the one which led across the mountains was difficult to
+find, and almost impracticable. We therefore took the river road, which we
+found picturesque in the highest degree. The narrow dell of the Rhyndacus
+wound through a labyrinth of mountains, sometimes turning at sharp angles
+between craggy buttresses, covered with forests, and sometimes broadening
+out into a sweep of valley, where the villagers were working in companies
+among the grain and poppy fields. The banks of the stream were lined with
+oak, willow and sycamore, and forests of pine, descending from the
+mountains, frequently overhung the road. We met numbers of peasants,
+going to and from the fields, and once a company of some twenty women,
+who, on seeing us, clustered together like a flock of frightened sheep,
+and threw their mantles over their heads. They had curiosity enough,
+however, to peep at us as we went by, and I made them a salutation, which
+they returned, and then burst into a chorus of hearty laughter. All this
+region was ravaged by a plague of grasshoppers. The earth was black with
+them in many places, and our horses ploughed up a living spray, as they
+drove forward through the meadows. Every spear of grass was destroyed, and
+the wheat and rye fields were terribly cut up. We passed a large crag
+where myriads of starlings had built their nests, and every starling had a
+grasshopper in his mouth.
+
+We crossed the river, in order to pass a narrow defile, by which it forces
+its way through the rocky heights of Dumanidj Dagh. Soon after passing the
+ridge, a broad and beautiful valley expanded before us. It was about ten
+miles in breadth, nearly level, and surrounded by picturesque ranges of
+wooded mountains. It was well cultivated, principally in rye and poppies,
+and more thickly populated than almost any part of Europe. The tinned tops
+of the minarets of Taushanlue shone over the top of a hill in front, and
+there was a large town nearly opposite, on the other bank of the
+Rhyndacus, and seven small villages scattered about in various directions.
+Most of the latter, however, were merely the winter habitations of the
+herdsmen, who are now living in tents on the mountain tops. All over the
+valley, the peasants were at work in the harvest-fields, cutting and
+binding grain, gathering opium from the poppies, or weeding the young
+tobacco. In the south, over the rim of the hills that shut in this
+pastoral solitude, rose the long blue summits of Urus Dagh. We rode into
+Taushanlue, which is a long town, filling up a hollow between two stony
+hills. The houses are all of stone, two stories high, with tiled roofs and
+chimneys, so that, but for the clapboarded and shingled minarets, it would
+answer for a North-German village.
+
+The streets were nearly deserted, and even in the bazaars, which are of
+some extent, we found but few persons. Those few, however, showed a
+laudable curiosity with regard to us, clustering about us whenever we
+stopped, and staring at us with provoking pertinacity. We had some
+difficulty in procuring information concerning the road, the directions
+being so contradictory that we were as much in the dark as ever. We lost
+half an hour in wandering among the hills; and, after travelling four
+hours over piny uplands, without finding the village of Kara Koei, encamped
+on a dry plain, on the western bank of the river. There was not a spear of
+grass for the beasts, everything being eaten up by the grasshoppers, and
+there were no Turcomans near who could supply us with food. So we dined on
+hard bread and black coffee, and our forlorn beasts walked languidly
+about, cropping the dry stalks of weeds and the juiceless roots of the
+dead grass.
+
+We crossed the river next morning, and took a road following its course,
+and shaded with willows and sycamores. The lofty, wooded ranges of the
+Mysian Olympus lay before us, and our day's work was to pass them. After
+passing the village of Kara Koei, we left the valley of the Rhyndacus, and
+commenced ascending one of the long, projecting spurs thrust out from the
+main chain of Olympus. At first we rode through thickets of scrubby cedar,
+but soon came to magnificent pine forests, that grew taller and sturdier
+the higher we clomb. A superb mountain landscape opened behind us. The
+valleys sank deeper and deeper, and at last disappeared behind the great
+ridges that heaved themselves out of the wilderness of smaller hills. All
+these ridges were covered with forests; and as we looked backwards out of
+the tremendous gulf up the sides of which we were climbing, the scenery
+was wholly wild and uncultivated. Our path hung on the imminent side of a
+chasm so steep that one slip might have been destruction to both horse and
+rider. Far below us, at the bottom of the chasm, roared an invisible
+torrent. The opposite side, vapory from its depth, rose like an immense
+wall against Heaven. The pines were even grander than those in the woods
+of Phrygia. Here they grew taller and more dense, hanging their cloudy
+boughs over the giddy depths, and clutching with desperate roots to the
+almost perpendicular sides of the gorges. In many places they were the
+primeval forests of Olympus, and the Hamadryads were not yet frightened
+from their haunts.
+
+Thus, slowly toiling up through the sublime wilderness, breathing the
+cold, pure air of those lofty regions, we came at last to a little stream,
+slowly trickling down the bed of the gorge. It was shaded, not by the
+pine, but by the Northern beech, with its white trunk and close,
+confidential boughs, made for the talks of lovers and the meditations of
+poets. Here we stopped to breakfast, but there was nothing for the poor
+beasts to eat, and they waited for us droopingly, with their heads thrust
+together. While we sat there three camels descended to the stream, and
+after them a guard with a long gun. He was a well-made man, with a brown
+face, keen, black eye, and piratical air, and would have made a good hero
+of modern romance. Higher up we came to a guard house, on a little cleared
+space, surrounded by beech forests. It was a rough stone hut, with a white
+flag planted on a pole before it, and a miniature water-wheel, running a
+miniature saw at a most destructive rate, beside the door.
+
+Continuing our way, we entered on a region such as I had no idea could be
+found in Asia. The mountains, from the bottoms of the gorges to their
+topmost summits, were covered with the most superb forests of beech I ever
+saw--masses of impenetrable foliage, of the most brilliant green, touched
+here and there by the darker top of a pine. Our road was through a deep,
+dark shade, and on either side, up and down, we saw but a cool, shadowy
+solitude, sprinkled with dots of emerald light, and redolent with the odor
+of damp earth, moss, and dead leaves. It was a forest, the counterpart of
+which could only be found in America--such primeval magnitude of growth,
+such wild luxuriance, such complete solitude and silence! Through the
+shafts of the pines we had caught glorious glimpses of the blue mountain
+world below us; but now the beech folded us in its arms, and whispered in
+our ears the legends of our Northern home. There, on the ridges of the
+Mysian Olympus, sacred to the bright gods of Grecian song, I found the
+inspiration of our darker and colder clime and age. "_O gloriosi spiriti
+degli boschi!_"
+
+I could scarcely contain myself, from surprise and joy. Francois failed to
+find French adjectives sufficient for his admiration, and even our
+cheating katurgees were touched by the spirit of the scene. On either
+side, whenever a glimpse could be had through the boughs, we looked upon
+leaning walls of trees, whose tall, rounded tops basked in the sunshine,
+while their bases were wrapped in the shadows cast by themselves. Thus,
+folded over each other like scales, or feathers on a falcon's wing, they
+clad the mountain. The trees were taller, and had a darker and more glossy
+leaf than the American beech. By and by patches of blue shone between the
+boughs before us, a sign that the summit was near, and before one o'clock
+we stood upon the narrow ridge forming the crest of the mountain. Here,
+although we were between five and six thousand feet above the sea, the
+woods of beech were a hundred feet in height, and shut out all view. On
+the northern side the forest scenery is even grander than on the southern.
+The beeches are magnificent trees, straight as an arrow, and from a
+hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in height. Only now and then could we
+get any view beyond the shadowy depths sinking below us, and then it was
+only to see similar mountain ranges, buried in foliage, and rolling far
+behind each other into the distance. Twice, in the depth of the gorge, we
+saw a saw-mill, turned by the snow-cold torrents. Piles of pine and
+beechen boards were heaped around them, and the sawyers were busily plying
+their lonely business. The axe of the woodman echoed but rarely through
+the gulfs, though many large trees lay felled by the roadside. The rock,
+which occasionally cropped out of the soil, was white marble, and there
+was a shining precipice of it, three hundred feet high, on the opposite
+side of the gorge.
+
+After four hours of steady descent, during the last hour of which we
+passed into a forest entirely of oaks, we reached the first terrace at the
+base of the mountain. Here, as I was riding in advance of the caravan, I
+met a company of Turkish officers, who saluted me with an inclination of
+the most profound reverence. I replied with due Oriental gravity, which
+seemed to justify their respect, for when they met Francois, who is
+everywhere looked upon as a Turkish janissary, they asked: "Is not your
+master a _Shekh el-Islam_?" "You are right: he is," answered the
+unscrupulous Greek. A Shekh el-Islam is a sort of high-priest,
+corresponding in dignity to a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. It is
+rather singular that I am generally taken for a Secretary of some kind, or
+a Moslem priest, while my companion, who, by this time, has assumed the
+Oriental expression, is supposed to be either medical or military.
+
+We had no sooner left the forests and entered the copsewood which
+followed, than the blue bulk, of Olympus suddenly appeared in the west,
+towering far into the sky. It is a magnificent mountain, with a broad
+though broken summit, streaked with snow. Before us, stretching away
+almost to his base, lay a grand mountain slope, covered with orchards and
+golden harvest-fields. Through lanes of hawthorn and chestnut trees in
+blossom, which were overgrown with snowy clematis and made a shady roof
+above our heads, we reached the little village of Orta Koei, and encamped
+in a grove of pear-trees. There was grass for our beasts, who were on the
+brink of starvation, and fowls and cucumbers for ourselves, who had been
+limited to bread and coffee for two days. But as one necessity was
+restored, another disappeared. We had smoked the last of our delicious
+Aleppo tobacco, and that which the villagers gave us was of very inferior
+quality. Nevertheless, the pipe which we smoked with them in the twilight,
+beside the marble fountain, promoted that peace of mind which is the
+sweetest preparative of slumber.
+
+Francois was determined to finish our journey to-day. He had a
+presentiment that we should reach Brousa, although I expected nothing of
+the kind. He called us long before the lovely pastoral valley in which we
+lay had a suspicion of the sun, but just in time to see the first rays
+strike the high head of Olympus. The long lines of snow blushed with an
+opaline radiance against the dark-blue of the morning sky, and all the
+forests and fields below lay still, and cool, and dewy, lapped in dreams
+yet unrecalled by the fading moon. I bathed my face in the cold well that
+perpetually poured over its full brim, drank the coffee which Francois had
+already prepared, sprang into the saddle, and began the last day of our
+long pilgrimage. The tent was folded, alas! for the last time; and now
+farewell to the freedom of our wandering life! Shall I ever feel it again?
+
+The dew glistened on the chestnuts and the walnuts, on the wild
+grape-vines and wild roses, that shaded our road, as we followed the
+course of an Olympian stream through a charming dell, into the great plain
+below. Everywhere the same bountiful soil, the same superb orchards, the
+same ripe fields of wheat and barley, and silver rye. The peasants were at
+work, men and women, cutting the grain with rude scythes, binding it into
+sheaves, and stacking it in the fields. As we rode over the plain, the
+boys came running out to us with handfuls of grain, saluting us from afar,
+bidding us welcome as pilgrims, wishing us as many years of prosperity as
+there were kernels in their sheaves, and kissing the hands that gave them
+the harvest-toll. The whole landscape had an air of plenty, peace, and
+contentment. The people all greeted us cordially; and once a Mevlevi
+Dervish and a stately Turk, riding in company, saluted me so
+respectfully, stopping to speak with me, that I quite regretted being
+obliged to assume an air of dignified reserve, and ride away from them.
+
+Ere long, we saw the two white minarets of Aineghioel, above the line of
+orchards in front of us, and, in three hours after starting, reached the
+place. It is a small town, not particularly clean, but with brisk-looking
+bazaars. In one of the houses, I saw half-a-dozen pairs of superb antlers,
+the spoils of Olympian stags. The bazaar is covered with a trellised roof,
+overgrown with grape-vines, which hang enormous bunches of young grapes
+over the shop-boards. We were cheered by the news that Brousa was only
+eight hours distant, and I now began to hope that we might reach it. We
+jogged on as fast as we could urge our weary horses, passed another belt
+of orchard land, paid more harvest-tolls to the reapers, and commenced
+ascending a chain of low hills which divides the plain of Aineghioel from
+that of Brousa.
+
+At a fountain called the "mid-day _konnak_" we met some travellers coming
+from Brousa, who informed us that we could get there by the time of
+_asser_ prayer. Rounding the north-eastern base of Olympus, we now saw
+before us the long headland which forms his south-western extremity. A
+storm was arising from the sea of Marmora, and heavy white clouds settled
+on the topmost summits of the mountain. The wind began to blow fresh and
+cool, and when we had reached a height overlooking the deep valley, in the
+bottom of which lies the picturesque village of Ak-su, there were long
+showery lines coming up from the sea, and a filmy sheet of gray rain
+descended between us and Olympus, throwing his vast bulk far into the
+background. At Ak-su, the first shower met us, pouring so fast and thick
+that we were obliged to put on our capotes, and halt under a walnut-tree
+for shelter. But it soon passed over, laying the dust, for the time, and
+making the air sweet and cool.
+
+We pushed forward over heights covered with young forests of oak, which
+are protected by the government, in order that they may furnish
+ship-timber. On the right, we looked down into magnificent valleys,
+opening towards the west into the the plain of Brousa; but when, in the
+middle of the afternoon, we reached the last height, and saw the great
+plain itself, the climax was attained. It was the crown of all that we had
+yet seen. This superb plain or valley, thirty miles long, by five in
+breadth, spread away to the westward, between the mighty mass of Olympus
+on the one side, and a range of lofty mountains on the other, the sides of
+which presented a charming mixture of forest and cultivated land. Olympus,
+covered with woods of beech and oak, towered to the clouds that concealed
+his snowy head; and far in advance, under the last cape he threw out
+towards the sea, the hundred minarets of Brousa stretched in a white and
+glittering line, like the masts of a navy, whose hulls were buried in the
+leafy sea. No words can describe the beauty of the valley, the blending of
+the richest cultivation with the wildest natural luxuriance. Here were
+gardens and orchards; there groves of superb chestnut-trees in blossom;
+here, fields of golden grain or green pasture-land; there, Arcadian
+thickets overgrown with clematis and wild rose; here, lofty poplars
+growing beside the streams; there, spiry cypresses looking down from the
+slopes: and all blended in one whole, so rich, so grand, so gorgeous, that
+I scarcely breathed when it first burst upon me.
+
+And now we descended to its level, and rode westward along the base of
+Olympus, grandest of Asian mountains. This after-storm view, although his
+head was shrouded, was sublime. His base is a vast sloping terrace,
+leagues in length, resembling the nights of steps by which the ancient
+temples were approached. From this foundation rise four mighty pyramids,
+two thousand feet in height, and completely mantled with forests. They are
+very nearly regular in their form and size, and are flanked to the east
+and west by headlands, or abutments, the slopes of which are longer and
+more gradual, as if to strengthen the great structure. Piled upon the four
+pyramids are others nearly as large, above whose green pinnacles appear
+still other and higher ones, bare and bleak, and clustering thickly
+together, to uphold the great central dome of snow. Between the bases of
+the lowest, the streams which drain the gorges of the mountain issue
+forth, cutting their way through the foundation terrace, and widening
+their beds downwards to the plain, like the throats of bugles, where, in
+winter rains, they pour forth the hoarse, grand monotone of their Olympian
+music. These broad beds are now dry and stony tracts, dotted all over with
+clumps of dwarfed sycamores and threaded by the summer streams, shrunken
+in bulk, but still swift, cold, and clear as ever.
+
+We reached the city before night, and Francois is glad to find his
+presentiment fulfilled. We have safely passed through the untravelled
+heart of Asia Minor, and are now almost in sight of Europe. The camp-fire
+is extinguished; the tent is furled. We are no longer happy nomads,
+masquerading in Moslem garb. We shall soon become prosaic Christians, and
+meekly hold out our wrists for the handcuffs of Civilization. Ah, prate
+as we will of the progress of the race, we are but forging additional
+fetters, unless we preserve that healthy physical development, those pure
+pleasures of mere animal existence, which are now only to be found among
+our semi-barbaric brethren. Our progress is nervous, when it should be
+muscular.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV.
+
+Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.
+
+
+  The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
+  Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
+  Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
+  the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
+  Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Caique--Breakfast with
+  the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
+  View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn.
+
+
+  "And we glode fast o'er a pellucid plain
+  Of waters, azure with the noontide ray.
+  Ethereal mountains shone around--a fane
+  Stood in the midst, beyond green isles which lay
+  On the blue, sunny deep, resplendent far away."
+
+  Shelley.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Monday, July_ 12, 1852.
+
+Before entering Brousa, we passed the whole length of the town, which is
+built on the side of Olympus, and on three bluffs or spurs which project
+from it. The situation is more picturesque than that of Damascus, and from
+the remarkable number of its white domes and minarets, shooting upward
+from the groves of chestnut, walnut, and cypress-trees, the city is even
+more beautiful. There are large mosques on all the most prominent points,
+and, near the centre of the city, the ruins of an ancient castle, built
+upon a crag. The place, as we rode along, presented a shifting diorama of
+delightful views. The hotel is at the extreme western end of the city, not
+far from its celebrated hot baths. It is a new building, in European
+style, and being built high on the slope, commands one of the most
+glorious prospects I ever enjoyed from windows made with hands. What a
+comfort it was to go up stairs into a clean, bright, cheerful room; to
+drop at full length on a broad divan; to eat a Christian meal; to smoke a
+narghileh of the softest Persian tobacco; and finally, most exquisite of
+all luxuries, to creep between cool, clean sheets, on a curtained bed, and
+find it impossible to sleep on account of the delicious novelty of the
+sensation!
+
+At night, another storm came up from the Sea of Marmora. Tremendous peals
+of thunder echoed in the gorges of Olympus and sharp, broad flashes of
+lightning gave us blinding glimpses of the glorious plain below. The rain
+fell in heavy showers, but our tent-life was just closed, and we sat
+securely at our windows and enjoyed the sublime scene.
+
+The sun, rising over the distant mountains of Isnik, shone full in my
+face, awaking me to a morning view of the valley, which, freshened by the
+night's thunder-storm, shone wonderfully bright and clear. After coffee,
+we went to see the baths, which are on the side of the mountain, a mile
+from the hotel. The finest one, called the Kalputcha Hammam, is at the
+base of the hill. The entrance hall is very large, and covered by two
+lofty domes. In the centre is a large marble urn-shaped fountain, pouring
+out an abundant flood of cold water. Out of this, we passed into an
+immense rotunda, filled with steam and traversed by long pencils of light,
+falling from holes in the roof. A small but very beautiful marble fountain
+cast up a jet of cold water in the centre. Beyond this was still another
+hall, of the same size, but with a circular basin, twenty-five feet in
+diameter, in the centre. The floor was marble mosaic, and the basin was
+lined with brilliantly-colored tiles. It was kept constantly full by the
+natural hot streams of the mountain. There were a number of persons in the
+pool, but the atmosphere was so hot that we did not long disturb them by
+our curiosity.
+
+We then ascended to the Armenian bath, which is the neatest of all, but it
+was given up to the women, and we were therefore obliged to go to a
+Turkish one adjoining. The room into which we were taken was so hot that a
+violent perspiration immediately broke out all over my body, and by the
+time the _delleks_ were ready to rasp me, I was as limp as a wet towel,
+and as plastic as a piece of putty. The man who took me was sweated away
+almost to nothing; his very bones appeared to have become soft and
+pliable. The water was slightly sulphureous, and the pailfuls which he
+dashed over my head were so hot that they produced the effect of a
+chill--a violent nervous shudder. The temperature of the springs is 180 deg.
+Fahrenheit, and I suppose the tank into which he afterwards plunged me
+must have been nearly up to the mark. When, at last, I was laid on the
+couch, my body was so parboiled that I perspired at all pores for full an
+hour--a feeling too warm and unpleasant at first, but presently merging
+into a mood which was wholly rapturous and heavenly. I was like a soft
+white cloud, that rests all of a summer afternoon on the peak of a distant
+mountain. I felt the couch on which I lay no more than the cloud might
+feel the cliffs on which it lingers so airily. I saw nothing but peaceful,
+glorious sights; spaces of clear blue sky; stretches of quiet lawns;
+lovely valleys threaded by the gentlest of streams; azure lakes, unruffled
+by a breath; calms far out on mid-ocean, and Alpine peaks bathed in the
+flush of an autumnal sunset. My mind retraced all our journey from
+Aleppo, and there was a halo over every spot I had visited. I dwelt with
+rapture on the piny hills of Phrygia, on the gorges of Taurus, on the
+beechen solitudes of Olympus. Would to heaven that I might describe those
+scenes as I then felt them! All was revealed to me: the heart of Nature
+lay bare, and I read the meaning and knew the inspiration of her every
+mood. Then, as my frame grew cooler, and the fragrant clouds of the
+narghileh, which had helped my dreams, diminished, I was like that same
+summer cloud, when it feels a gentle breeze and is lifted above the hills,
+floating along independent of Earth, but for its shadow.
+
+Brousa is a very long, straggling place, extending for three or four miles
+along the side of the mountain, but presenting a very picturesque
+appearance from every point. The houses are nearly all three stories high,
+built of wood and unburnt bricks, and each story projects over the other,
+after the manner of German towns of the Middle Ages. They have not the
+hanging balconies which I have found so quaint and pleasing in Kiutahya.
+But, especially in the Greek quarter, many of them are plastered and
+painted of some bright color, which gives a gay, cheerful appearance to
+the streets. Besides, Brousa is the cleanest Turkish town I have seen. The
+mountain streams traverse most of the streets, and every heavy rain washes
+them out thoroughly. The whole city has a brisk, active air, and the
+workmen appear both more skilful and more industrious than in the other
+parts of Asia Minor. I noticed a great many workers in copper, iron, and
+wood, and an extensive manufactory of shoes and saddles. Brousa, however,
+is principally noted for its silks, which are produced in this valley,
+and others to the South and East. The manufactories are near the city. I
+looked over some of the fabrics in the bazaars, but found them nearly all
+imitations of European stuffs, woven in mixed silk and cotton, and even
+more costly than the silks of Damascus.
+
+We passed the whole length of the bazaars, and then, turning up one of the
+side streets on our right, crossed a deep ravine by a high stone bridge.
+Above and below us there were other bridges, under which a stream flowed
+down from the mountains. Thence we ascended the height, whereon stands the
+largest and one of the oldest mosques in Brousa. The position is
+remarkably fine, commanding a view of nearly the whole city and the plain
+below it. We entered the court-yard boldly, Francois taking the precaution
+to speak to me only in Arabic, as there was a Turk within. Mr. H. went to
+the fountain, washed his hands and face, but did not dare to swallow a
+drop, putting on a most dolorous expression of countenance, as if
+perishing with thirst. The mosque was a plain, square building, with a
+large dome and two minarets. The door was a rich and curious specimen of
+the _stalactitic_ style, so frequent in Saracenic buildings. We peeped
+into the windows, and, although the mosque, which does not appear to be in
+common use, was darkened, saw enough to show that the interior was quite
+plain.
+
+Just above this edifice stands a large octagonal tomb, surmounted by a
+dome, and richly adorned with arabesque cornices and coatings of green and
+blue tiles. It stood in a small garden inclosure, and there was a sort of
+porter's lodge at the entrance. As we approached, an old gray-bearded man
+in a green turban came out, and, on Francois requesting entrance for us,
+took a key and conducted us to the building. He had not the slightest idea
+of our being Christians. We took off our slippers before touching the
+lintel of the door, as the place was particularly holy. Then, throwing
+open the door, the old man lingered a few moments after we entered, so as
+not to disturb our prayers--a mark of great respect. We advanced to the
+edge of the parapet, turned our faces towards Mecca, and imitated the
+usual Mohammedan prayer on entering a mosque, by holding both arms
+outspread for a few moments, then bringing the hands together and bowing
+the face upon them. This done, we leisurely examined the building, and the
+old man was ready enough to satisfy our curiosity. It was a rich and
+elegant structure, lighted from the dome. The walls were lined with
+brilliant tiles, and had an elaborate cornice, with Arabic inscriptions in
+gold. The floor was covered with a carpet, whereon stood eight or ten
+ancient coffins, surrounding a larger one which occupied a raised platform
+in the centre. They were all of wood, heavily carved, and many of them
+entirely covered with gilded inscriptions. These, according to the old
+man, were the coffins of the Ottoman Sultans, who had reigned at Brousa
+previous to the taking of Constantinople, with some members of their
+families. There were four Sultans, among whom were Mahomet I., and a
+certain Achmet. Orchan, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty, is buried
+somewhere in Brousa, and the great central coffin may have been his.
+Francois and I talked entirely in Arabic, and the old man asked: "Who are
+these Hadjis?" whereupon F. immediately answered: "They are Effendis from
+Baghdad."
+
+We had intended making the ascent of Olympus, but the summit was too
+thickly covered with clouds. On the morning of the second day, therefore,
+we determined to take up the line of march for Constantinople. The last
+scene of our strange, eventful history with the katurgees had just
+transpired, by their deserting us, being two hundred piastres in our debt.
+They left their khan on the afternoon after our arrival, ostensibly for
+the purpose of taking their beasts out to pasture, and were never heard of
+more. We let them go, thankful that they had not played the trick sooner.
+We engaged fresh horses for Moudania, on the Sea of Marmora, and
+dispatched Francois in advance, to procure a caique for Constantinople,
+while we waited to have our passports signed. But after waiting an hour,
+as there was no appearance of the precious documents, we started the
+baggage also, under the charge of a _surroudjee_, and remained alone.
+Another hour passed by, and yet another, and the Bey was still occupied in
+sleeping off his hunger. Mr. Harrison, in desperation, went to the office,
+and after some delay, received the passports with a vise, but not, as we
+afterwards discovered, the necessary one.
+
+It was four o'clock by the time we left Brousa. Our horses were stiff,
+clumsy pack-beasts; but, by dint of whips and the sharp shovel-stirrups,
+we forced them into a trot and made them keep it. The road was well
+travelled, and by asking everybody we met: "_Bou yol Moudania yedermi_?"
+("Is this the way to Moudania?"), we had no difficulty in finding it. The
+plain in many places is marshy, and traversed by several streams. A low
+range of hills stretches across, and nearly closes it, the united waters
+finding their outlet by a narrow valley to the north. From the top of the
+hill we had a grand view, looking back over the plain, with the long line
+of Brousa's minarets glittering through the interminable groves at the
+foot of the mountain Olympus now showed a superb outline; the clouds hung
+about his shoulders, but his snowy head was bare. Before us lay a broad,
+rich valley, extending in front to the mountains of Moudania. The country
+was well cultivated, with large farming establishments here and there.
+
+The sun was setting as we reached the summit ridge, where stood a little
+guard-house. As we rode over the crest, Olympus disappeared, and the Sea
+of Marmora lay before us, spreading out from the Gulf of Moudania, which
+was deep and blue among the hills, to an open line against the sunset.
+Beyond that misty line lay Europe, which I had not seen for nearly nine
+months, and the gulf below me was the bound of my tent and saddle life.
+But one hour more, old horse! Have patience with my Ethiopian thong, and
+the sharp corners of my Turkish stirrups: but one hour more, and I promise
+never to molest you again! Our path was downward, and I marvel that the
+poor brute did not sometimes tumble headlong with me. He had been too long
+used to the pack, however, and his habits were as settled as a Turk's. We
+passed a beautiful village in a valley on the right, and came into olive
+groves and vineyards, as the dusk was creeping on. It was a lovely country
+of orchards and gardens, with fountains spouting by the wayside, and
+country houses perched on the steeps. In another hour, we reached the
+sea-shore. It was now nearly dark, but we could see the tower of Moudania
+some distance to the west.
+
+Still in a continual trot, we rode on; and as we drew near, Mr. H. fired
+his gun to announce our approach. At the entrance of the town, we found
+the sourrudjee waiting to conduct us. We clattered through the rough
+streets for what seemed an endless length of time. The Ramazan gun had
+just fired, the minarets were illuminated, and the coffee-houses were
+filled with people. Finally, Francois, who had been almost in despair at
+our non-appearance, hailed us with the welcome news that he had engaged a
+caique, and that our baggage was already embarked. We only needed the
+vises of the authorities, in order to leave. He took our teskeres to get
+them, and we went upon the balcony of a coffee-house overhanging the sea,
+and smoked a narghileh.
+
+But here there was another history. The teskeres had not been properly
+vised at Brousa, and the Governor at first decided to send us back. Taking
+Francois, however, for a Turk, and finding that we had regularly passed
+quarantine, he signed them after a delay of an hour and a half, and we
+left the shore, weary, impatient, and wolfish with twelve hours' fasting.
+A cup of Brousan beer and a piece of bread brought us into a better mood,
+and I, who began to feel sick from the rolling of the caique, lay down on
+my bed, which was spread at the bottom, and found a kind of uneasy sleep.
+The sail was hoisted at first, to get us across the mouth of the Gulf, but
+soon the Greeks took to their oars. They were silent, however, and though
+I only slept by fits, the night wore away rapidly. As the dawn was
+deepening, we ran into a little bight in the northern side of a
+promontory, where a picturesque Greek village stood at the foot of the
+mountains. The houses were of wood, with balconies overgrown with
+grape-vines, and there was a fountain of cold, excellent water on the very
+beach. Some Greek boatmen were smoking in the portico of a cafe on shore,
+and two fishermen, who had been out before dawn to catch sardines, were
+emptying their nets of the spoil. Our men kindled a fire on the sand, and
+roasted us a dish of the fish. Some of the last night's hunger remained,
+and the meal had enough of that seasoning to be delicious.
+
+After giving our men an hour's rest, we set off for the Princes' Islands,
+which now appeared to the north, over the glassy plain of the sea. The
+Gulf of Iskmid, or Nicomedia, opened away to the east, between two
+mountain headlands. The morning was intensely hot and sultry, and but for
+the protection of an umbrella, we should have suffered greatly. There was
+a fiery blue vapor on the sea, and a thunder-cloud hid the shores of
+Thrace. Now and then came a light puff of wind, whereupon the men would
+ship the little mast, and crowd on an enormous quantity of sail. So,
+sailing and rowing, we neared the islands with the storm, but it advanced
+slowly enough to allow a sight of the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed, gleaming far and white, like icebergs astray on a torrid sea.
+Another cloud was pouring its rain over the Asian shore, and we made haste
+to get to the landing at Prinkipo before it could reach us. From the
+south, the group of islands is not remarkable for beauty. Only four of
+them--Prinkipo, Chalki, Prote, and Antigone--are inhabited, the other five
+being merely barren rocks.
+
+There is an ancient convent on the summit of Prinkipo, where the Empress
+Irene--the contemporary of Charlemagne--is buried. The town is on the
+northern side of the island, and consists mostly of the summer residences
+of Greek and Armenian merchants. Many of these are large and stately
+houses, surrounded with handsome gardens. The streets are shaded with
+sycamores, and the number of coffee-houses shows that the place is much
+frequented on festal days. A company of drunken Greeks were singing in
+violation of all metre and harmony--a discord the more remarkable, since
+nothing could be more affectionate than their conduct towards each other.
+Nearly everybody was in Frank costume, and our Oriental habits, especially
+the red Tartar boots, attracted much observation. I began to feel awkward
+and absurd, and longed to show myself a Christian once more.
+
+Leaving Prinkipo, we made for Constantinople, whose long array of marble
+domes and gilded spires gleamed like a far mirage over the waveless sea.
+It was too faint and distant and dazzling to be substantial. It was like
+one of those imaginary cities which we build in a cloud fused in the light
+of the setting sun. But as we neared the point of Chalcedon, running along
+the Asian shore, those airy piles gathered form and substance. The
+pinnacles of the Seraglio shot up from the midst of cypress groves;
+fantastic kiosks lined the shore; the minarets of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed rose more clearly against the sky; and a fleet of steamers and
+men-of-war, gay with flags, marked the entrance of the Golden Horn. We
+passed the little bay where St. Chrysostom was buried, the point of
+Chalcedon, and now, looking up the renowned Bosphorus, saw the Maiden's
+Tower, opposite Scutari. An enormous pile, the barracks of the Anatolian
+soldiery, hangs over the high bank, and, as we row abreast of it, a fresh
+breeze comes up from the Sea of Marmora. The prow of the caique is turned
+across the stream, the sail is set, and we glide rapidly and noiselessly
+over the Bosphorus and into the Golden Horn, between the banks of the
+Frank and Moslem--Pera and Stamboul. Where on the earth shall we find a
+panorama more magnificent?
+
+The air was filled with the shouts and noises of the great Oriental
+metropolis; the water was alive with caiques and little steamers; and all
+the world of work and trade, which had grown almost to be a fable,
+welcomed us back to its restless heart. We threaded our rather perilous
+way over the populous waves, and landed in a throng of Custom-House
+officers and porters, on the wharf at Galata.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI.
+
+The Night of Predestination.
+
+
+  Constantinople in Ramazan--The Origin of the Fast--Nightly
+  Illuminations--The Night of Predestination--The Golden Horn at
+  Night--Illumination of the Shores--The Cannon of Constantinople--A Fiery
+  Panorama--The Sultan's Caique--Close of the Celebration--A Turkish
+  Mob--The Dancing Dervishes.
+
+
+  "Skies full of splendid moons and shooting stars,
+  And spouting exhalations, diamond fires." Keats.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Wednesday, July_ 14, 1862.
+
+Constantinople, during the month of Ramazan, presents a very different
+aspect from Constantinople at other times. The city, it is true, is much
+more stern and serious during the day; there is none of that gay, careless
+life of the Orient which you see in Smyrna, Cairo, and Damascus; but when
+once the sunset gun has fired, and the painful fast is at an end, the
+picture changes as if by magic. In all the outward symbols of their
+religion, the Mussulmans show their joy at being relieved from what they
+consider a sacred duty. During the day, it is quite a science to keep the
+appetite dormant, and the people not only abstain from eating and
+drinking, but as much as possible from the sight of food. In the bazaars,
+you see the famished merchants either sitting, propped back against their
+cushions, with the shawl about their stomachs, tightened so as to prevent
+the void under it from being so sensibly felt, or lying at full length in
+the vain attempt to sleep. It is whispered here that many of the Turks
+will both eat and smoke, when there is no chance of detection, but no one
+would dare infringe the fast in public. Most of the mechanics and porters
+are Armenians, and the boatmen are Greeks.
+
+I have endeavored to ascertain the origin of this fast month. The Syrian
+Christians say that it is a mere imitation of an incident which happened
+to Mahomet. The Prophet, having lost his camels, went day after day
+seeking them in the Desert, taking no nourishment from the time of his
+departure in the morning until his return at sunset. After having sought
+them thus daily, for the period of one entire moon, he found them, and in
+token of joy, gave a three days' feast to the tribe, now imitated in the
+festival of Bairam, which lasts for three days after the close of Ramazan.
+This reason, however, seems too trifling for such a rigid fast, and the
+Turkish tradition, that the Koran was sent down from heaven during this
+month, offers a more probable explanation. During the fast, the
+Mussulmans, as is quite natural, are much more fanatical than at other
+times. They are obliged to attend prayers at the mosque every night, or to
+have a _mollah_ read the Koran to them at their own houses. All the
+prominent features of their religion are kept constantly before their
+eyes, and their natural aversion to the Giaour, or Infidel, is increased
+tenfold. I have heard of several recent instances in which strangers have
+been exposed to insults and indignities.
+
+At dusk the minarets are illuminated; a peal of cannon from the Arsenal,
+echoed by others from the forts along the Bosphorus, relieves the
+suffering followers of the Prophet, and after an hour of silence, during
+which they are all at home, feasting, the streets are filled with noisy
+crowds, and every coffee-shop is thronged. Every night there are
+illuminations along the water, which, added to the crowns of light
+sparkling on the hundred minarets and domes, give a magical effect to the
+night view of the city. Towards midnight there is again a season of
+comparative quiet, most of the inhabitants having retired to rest; but,
+about two hours afterwards a watchman comes along with a big drum, which
+he beats lustily before the doors of the Faithful, in order to arouse them
+in time to eat again before the daylight-gun, which announces the
+commencement of another day's fast.
+
+Last night was the holiest night of Islam, being the twenty-fifth of the
+fast. It is called the _Leilet-el-Kadr,_ or Night of the Predestination,
+the anniversary of that on which the Koran was miraculously communicated
+to the Prophet. On this night the Sultan, accompanied by his whole suite,
+attends service at the mosque, and on his return to the Seraglio, the
+Sultana Valide, or Sultana-Mother, presents him with a virgin from one of
+the noble families of Constantinople. Formerly, St. Sophia was the theatre
+of this celebration, but this year the Sultan chose the Mosque of
+Tophaneh, which stands on the shore--probably as being nearer to his
+imperial palace at Beshiktashe, on the Bosphorus. I consider myself
+fortunate in having reached Constantinople in season to witness this
+ceremony, and the illumination of the Golden Horn, which accompanies it.
+
+After sunset the mosques crowning the hills of Stamboul, the mosque of
+Tophaneh, on this side of the water, and the Turkish men-of-war and
+steamers afloat at the mouth of the Golden Horn, began to blaze with more
+than their usual brilliance. The outlines of the minarets and domes were
+drawn in light on the deepening gloom, and the masts and yards of the
+vessel were hung with colored lanterns. From the battery in front of the
+mosque and arsenal of Tophaneh a blaze of intense light streamed out over
+the water, illuminating the gliding forms of a thousand caiques, and the
+dark hulls of the vessels lying at anchor. The water is the best place
+from which to view the illumination, and a party of us descended to the
+landing-place. The streets of Tophaneh were crowded with swarms of Turks,
+Greeks and Armenians. The square around the fountain was brilliantly
+lighted, and venders of sherbet and kaimak were ranged along the
+sidewalks. In the neighborhood of the mosque the crowd was so dense that
+we could with difficulty make our way through. All the open space next the
+water was filled up with the clumsy _arabas_, or carriages of the Turks,
+in which sat the wives of the Pashas and other dignitaries.
+
+We took a caique, and were soon pulled out into the midst of a multitude
+of other caiques, swarming all over the surface of the Golden Horn. The
+view from this point was strange, fantastic, yet inconceivably gorgeous.
+In front, three or four large Turkish frigates lay in the Bosphorus, their
+hulls and spars outlined in fire against the dark hills and distant
+twinkling lights of Asia. Looking to the west, the shores of the Golden
+Horn were equally traced by the multitude of lamps that covered them, and
+on either side, the hills on which the city is built rose from the
+water--masses of dark buildings, dotted all over with shafts and domes of
+the most brilliant light. The gateway on Seraglio Point was illuminated,
+as well as the quay in front of the mosque of Tophaneh, all the cannons of
+the battery being covered with lamps. The commonest objects shared in the
+splendor, even a large lever used for hoisting goods being hung with
+lanterns from top to bottom. The mosque was a mass of light, and between
+the tall minarets flanking it, burned the inscription, in Arabic
+characters, "Long life to you, O our Sovereign!"
+
+The discharge of a cannon announced the Sultan's departure from his
+palace, and immediately the guns on the frigates and the batteries on both
+shores took up the salute, till the grand echoes, filling the hollow
+throat of the Golden Horn, crashed from side to side, striking the hills
+of Scutari and the point of Chalcedon, and finally dying away among the
+summits of the Princes' Islands, out on the Sea of Marmora. The hulls of
+the frigates were now lighted up with intense chemical fires, and an
+abundance of rockets were spouted from their decks. A large Drummond light
+on Seraglio Point, and another at the Battery of Tophaneh, poured their
+rival streams across the Golden Horn, revealing the thousands of caiques
+jostling each other from shore to shore, and the endless variety of gay
+costumes with which they were filled. The smoke of the cannon hanging in
+the air, increased the effect of this illumination, and became a screen of
+auroral brightness, through which the superb spectacle loomed with large
+and unreal features. It was a picture of air--a phantasmagoric spectacle,
+built of luminous vapor and meteoric fires, and hanging in the dark round
+of space. In spite of ourselves, we became eager and excited, half fearing
+that the whole pageant would dissolve the next moment, and leave no trace
+behind.
+
+Meanwhile, the cannon thundered from a dozen batteries, and the rockets
+burst into glittering rain over our heads. Grander discharges I never
+heard; the earth shook and trembled under the mighty bursts of sound, and
+the reverberation which rattled along the hill of Galata, broken by the
+scattered buildings into innumerable fragments of sound, resembled the
+crash of a thousand falling houses. The distant echoes from Asia and the
+islands in the sea filled up the pauses between the nearer peals, and we
+seemed to be in the midst of some great naval engagement. But now the
+caique of the Sultan is discerned, approaching from the Bosphorus. A
+signal is given, and a sunrise of intense rosy and golden radiance
+suddenly lights up the long arsenal and stately mosque of Tophaneh, plays
+over the tall buildings on the hill of Pera, and falls with a fainter
+lustre on the Genoese watch-tower that overlooks Galata. It is impossible
+to describe the effect of this magical illumination. The mosque, with its
+taper minarets, its airy galleries, and its great central dome, is built
+of compact, transparent flame, and in the shifting of the red and yellow
+fires, seems to flicker and waver in the air. It is as lofty, and
+gorgeous, and unsubstantial as the cloudy palace in Cole's picture of
+"Youth." The long white front of the arsenal is fused in crimson heat, and
+burns against the dark as if it were one mass of living coal. And over all
+hangs the luminous canopy of smoke, redoubling its lustre on the waters of
+the Golden Horn, and mingling with the phosphorescent gleams that play
+around the oars of the caiques.
+
+A long barge, propelled by sixteen oars, glides around the dark corner of
+Tophaneh, and shoots into the clear, brilliant space in front of the
+mosque. It is not lighted, and passes with great swiftness towards the
+brilliant landing-place. There are several persons seated under a canopy
+in the stern, and we are trying to decide which is the Sultan, when a
+second boat, driven by twenty-four oarsmen, comes in sight. The men rise
+up at each stroke, and the long, sharp craft flies over the surface of
+the water, rather than forces its way through it. A gilded crown surmounts
+the long, curved prow, and a light though superb canopy covers the stern.
+Under this, we catch a glimpse of the Sultan and Grand Vizier, as they
+appear for an instant like black silhouettes against the burst of light on
+shore.
+
+After the Sultan had entered the mosque, the fires diminished and the
+cannon ceased, though the illuminated masts, minarets and gateways still
+threw a brilliant gleam over the scene. After more than an hour spent in
+devotion, he again entered his caique and sped away to greet his new wife,
+amid a fresh discharge from the frigates and the batteries on both shores,
+and a new dawn of auroral splendor. We made haste to reach the
+landing-place, in order to avoid the crowd of caiques; but, although we
+were among the first, we came near being precipitated into the water, in
+the struggle to get ashore. The market-place at Tophaneh was so crowded
+that nothing but main force brought us through, and some of our party had
+their pockets picked. A number of Turkish soldiers and police-men were
+mixed up in the melee, and they were not sparing of blows when they came
+in contact with a Giaour. In making my way through, I found that a
+collision with one of the soldiers was inevitable, but I managed to plump
+against him with such force as to take the breath out of his body, and was
+out of his reach before he had recovered himself. I saw several Turkish
+women striking right and left in their endeavors to escape, and place
+their hands against the faces of those who opposed them, pushing them
+aside. This crowd was contrived by thieves, for the purpose of plunder,
+and, from what I have since learned, must have been very successful.
+
+I visited to-day the College of the Mevlevi Dervishes at Pera, and
+witnessed their peculiar ceremonies. They assemble in a large hall, where
+they take their seats in a semi-circle, facing the shekh. After going
+through several times with the usual Moslem prayer, they move in slow
+march around the room, while a choir in the gallery chants Arabic phrases
+in a manner very similar to the mass in Catholic churches. I could
+distinguish the sentences "God is great," "Praise be to God," and other
+similar ejaculations. The chant was accompanied with a drum and flute, and
+had not lasted long before the Dervishes set themselves in a rotary
+motion, spinning slowly around the shekh, who stood in the centre. They
+stretched both arms out, dropped their heads on one side, and glided
+around with a steady, regular motion, their long white gowns spread out
+and floating on the air. Their steps were very similar to those of the
+modern waltz, which, it is possible, may have been derived from the dance
+of the Mevlevis. Baron Von Hammer finds in this ceremony an imitation of
+the dance of the spheres, in the ancient Samothracian Mysteries; but I see
+no reason to go so far back for its origin. The dance lasted for about
+twenty minutes, and the Dervishes appeared very much exhausted at the
+close, as they are obliged to observe the fast very strictly.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII.
+
+The Solemnities of Bairam.
+
+
+  The Appearance of the New Moon--The Festival of Bairam--The Interior of
+  the Seraglio--The Pomp of the Sultan's Court--Rescind Pasha--The
+  Sultan's Dwarf--Arabian Stallions--The Imperial Guard--Appearance of the
+  Sultan--The Inner Court--Return of the Procession--The Sultan on his
+  Throne--The Homage of the Pashas--An Oriental Picture--Kissing the
+  Scarf--The Shekh el-Islam--The Descendant of the Caliphs--Bairam
+  Commences.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Monday_, _July_ 19, 1852.
+
+Saturday was the last day of the fast-month of Ramazan, and yesterday the
+celebration of the solemn festival of Bairam took place. The moon changed
+on Friday morning at 11 o'clock, but as the Turks have no faith in
+astronomy, and do not believe the moon has actually changed until they see
+it, all good Mussulmen were obliged to fast an additional day. Had
+Saturday been cloudy, and the new moon invisible, I am not sure but the
+fast would have been still further prolonged. A good look-out was kept,
+however, and about four o'clock on Saturday afternoon some sharp eyes saw
+the young crescent above the sun. There is a hill near Gemlik, on the Gulf
+of Moudania, about fifty miles from here, whence the Turks believe the new
+moon can be first seen. The families who live on this hill are exempted
+from taxation, in consideration of their keeping a watch for the moon, at
+the close of Ramazan. A series of signals, from hill to hill, is in
+readiness, and the news is transmitted to Constantinople in a very short
+time Then, when the muezzin proclaims the _asser_, or prayer two hours
+before sunset, he proclaims also the close of Ramazan. All the batteries
+fire a salute, and the big guns along the water announce the joyful news
+to all parts of the city. The forts on the Bosphorus take up the tale, and
+both shores, from the Black Sea to the Propontis, shake with the burden of
+their rejoicing. At night the mosques are illuminated for the last time,
+for it is only during Ramazan that they are lighted, or open for night
+service.
+
+After Ramazan, comes the festival of Bairam, which lasts three days, and
+is a season of unbounded rejoicing. The bazaars are closed, no Turk does
+any work, but all, clothed in their best dresses, or in an entire new suit
+if they can afford it, pass the time in feasting, in paying visits, or in
+making excursions to the shores of the Bosphorus, or other favorite spots
+around Constantinople. The festival is inaugurated by a solemn state
+ceremony, at the Seraglio and the mosque of Sultan Achmed, whither the
+Sultan goes in procession, accompanied by all the officers of the
+Government. This is the last remaining pageant which has been spared to
+the Ottoman monarchs by the rigorous reforming measures of Sultan Mahmoud,
+and shorn as it is of much of its former splendor, it probably surpasses
+in brilliant effect any spectacle which any other European Court can
+present. The ceremonies which take place inside of the Seraglio were,
+until within three or four years, prohibited to Frank eyes, and travellers
+were obliged to content themselves with a view of the procession, as it
+passed to the mosque. Through the kindness of Mr. Brown, of the American
+Embassy, I was enabled to witness the entire solemnity, in all its
+details.
+
+As the procession leaves the Seraglio at sunrise, we rose with the first
+streak of dawn, descended to Tophaneh, and crossed to Seraglio Point,
+where the cavass of the Embassy was in waiting for us. He conducted us
+through the guards, into the garden of the Seraglio, and up the hill to
+the Palace. The Capudan Pasha, or Lord High Admiral, had just arrived in a
+splendid caique, and pranced up the hill before us on a magnificent
+stallion, whose trappings blazed with jewels and gold lace. The rich
+uniforms of the different officers of the army and marine glittered far
+and near under the dense shadows of the cypress trees, and down the dark
+alleys where the morning twilight had not penetrated. We were ushered into
+the great outer court-yard of the Seraglio, leading to the Sublime Porte.
+A double row of marines, in scarlet jackets and white trowsers, extended
+from one gate to the other, and a very excellent brass band played "_Suoni
+la tromba_" with much spirit. The groups of Pashas and other officers of
+high rank, with their attendants, gave the scene a brilliant character of
+festivity. The costumes, except those of the secretaries and servants,
+were after the European model, but covered with a lavish profusion of gold
+lace. The horses were all of the choicest Eastern breeds, and the broad
+housings of their saddles of blue, green, purple, and crimson cloth, were
+enriched with gold lace, rubies, emeralds and turquoises.
+
+The cavass took us into a chamber near the gate, and commanding a view of
+the whole court. There we found Mr. Brown and his lady, with several
+officers from the U.S. steamer San Jacinto. At this moment the sun,
+appearing above the hill of Bulgaria, behind Scutari, threw his earliest
+rays upon the gilded pinnacles of the Seraglio. The commotion in the long
+court-yard below increased. The marines were formed into exact line, the
+horses of the officers clattered on the rough pavement as they dashed
+about to expedite the arrangements, the crowd pressed closer to the line
+of the procession, and in five minutes the grand pageant was set in
+motion. As the first Pasha made his appearance under the dark archway of
+the interior gate, the band struck up the _Marseillaise_ (which is a
+favorite air among the Turks), and the soldiers presented arms. The
+court-yard was near two hundred yards long, and the line of Pashas, each
+surrounded with the officers of his staff, made a most dazzling show. The
+lowest in rank came first. I cannot recollect the precise order, nor the
+names of all of them, which, in fact, are of little consequence, while
+power and place are such uncertain matters in Turkey.
+
+Each Pasha wore the red fez on his head, a frock-coat of blue cloth, the
+breast of which was entirely covered with gold lace, while a broad band of
+the same decorated the skirts, and white pantaloons. One of the Ministers,
+Mehemet Ali Pasha, the brother-in-law of the Sultan, was formerly a
+cooper's apprentice, but taken, when a boy, by the late Sultan Mahmoud, to
+be a playmate for his son, on account of his extraordinary beauty. Rescind
+Pasha, the Grand Vizier, is a man of about sixty years of age. He is
+frequently called Giaour, or Infidel, by the Turks, on account of his
+liberal policy, which has made him many enemies. The expression of his
+face denotes intelligence, but lacks the energy necessary to accomplish
+great reforms. His son, a boy of about seventeen, already possesses the
+rank of Pasha, and is affianced to the Sultan's daughter, a child of ten,
+or twelve years old. He is a fat, handsome youth, with a sprightly face,
+and acted his part in the ceremonies with a nonchalance which made him
+appear graceful beside his stiff, dignified elders.
+
+After the Pashas came the entire household of the Sultan, including even
+his eunuchs, cooks, and constables. The Kislar Aga, or Chief Eunuch, a
+tall African in resplendent costume, is one of the most important
+personages connected with the Court. The Sultan's favorite dwarf, a little
+man about forty years old and three feet high, bestrode his horse with as
+consequential an air as any of them. A few years ago, this man took a
+notion to marry, and applied to the Sultan for a wife. The latter gave him
+permission to go into his harem and take the one whom he could kiss. The
+dwarf, like all short men, was ambitious to have a long wife. While the
+Sultan's five hundred women, who knew the terms according to which the
+dwarf was permitted to choose, were laughing at the amorous mannikin, he
+went up to one of the tallest and handsomest of them, and struck her a
+sudden blow on the stomach. She collapsed with the pain, and before she
+could recover he caught her by the neck and gave her the dreaded kiss. The
+Sultan kept his word, and the tall beauty is now the mother of the dwarfs
+children.
+
+The procession grows more brilliant as it advances, and the profound
+inclination made by the soldiers at the further end of the court,
+announces the approach of the Sultan himself. First come three led horses,
+of the noblest Arabian blood--glorious creatures, worthy to represent
+
+  "The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven,
+   And snort the morning from their nostrils,
+   Making their fiery gait above the glades."
+
+Their eyes were more keen and lustrous than the diamonds which studded
+their head-stalls, and the wealth of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires that
+gleamed on their trappings would have bought the possessions of a German
+Prince. After them came the Sultan's body-guard, a company of tall, strong
+men, in crimson tunics and white trousers, with lofty plumes of peacock
+feathers in their hats. Some of them carried crests of green feathers,
+fastened upon long staves. These superb horses and showy guards are the
+only relics of that barbaric pomp which characterized all State
+processions during the time of the Janissaries. In the centre of a hollow
+square of plume-bearing guards rode Abdul-Medjid himself, on a snow-white
+steed. Every one bowed profoundly as he passed along, but he neither
+looked to the right or left, nor made the slightest acknowledgment of the
+salutations. Turkish etiquette exacts the most rigid indifference on the
+part of the Sovereign, who, on all public occasions, never makes a
+greeting. Formerly, before the change of costume, the Sultan's turbans
+were carried before him in the processions, and the servants who bore them
+inclined them to one side and the other, in answer to the salutations of
+the crowd.
+
+Sultan Abdul-Medjid is a man of about thirty, though he looks older. He
+has a mild, amiable, weak face, dark eyes, a prominent nose, and short,
+dark brown mustaches and beard. His face is thin, and wrinkles are already
+making their appearance about the corners of his mouth and eyes. But for a
+certain vacancy of expression, he would be called a handsome man. He sits
+on his horse with much ease and grace, though there is a slight stoop in
+his shoulders. His legs are crooked, owing to which cause he appears
+awkward when on his feet, though he wears a long cloak to conceal the
+deformity. Sensual indulgence has weakened a constitution not naturally
+strong, and increased that mildness which has now become a defect in his
+character. He is not stern enough to be just, and his subjects are less
+fortunate under his easy rule than under the rod of his savage father,
+Mahmoud. He was dressed in a style of the utmost richness and elegance. He
+wore a red Turkish fez, with an immense rosette of brilliants, and a long,
+floating plume of bird-of-paradise feathers. The diamond in the centre of
+the rosette is of unusual size; it was picked up some years ago in the
+Hippodrome, and probably belonged to the treasury of the Greek Emperors.
+The breast and collar of his coat were one mass of diamonds, and sparkled
+in the early sun with a thousand rainbow gleams. His mantle of dark-blue
+cloth hung to his knees, concealing the deformity of his legs. He wore
+white pantaloons, white kid gloves, and patent leather boots, thrust into
+his golden stirrups.
+
+A few officers of the Imperial household followed behind the Sultan, and
+the procession then terminated. Including the soldiers, it contained from
+two to three thousand persons. The marines lined the way to the mosque of
+Sultan Achmed, and a great crowd of spectators filled up the streets and
+the square of the Hippodrome. Coffee was served to us, after which we were
+all conducted into the inner court of the Seraglio, to await the return of
+the cortege. This court is not more than half the size of the outer one,
+but is shaded with large sycamores, embellished with fountains, and
+surrounded with light and elegant galleries, in pure Saracenic style. The
+picture which it presented was therefore far richer and more
+characteristic of the Orient than the outer court, where the architecture
+is almost wholly after Italian models. The portals at either end rested
+on slender pillars, over which projected broad eaves, decorated with
+elaborate carved and gilded work, and above all rose a dome, surmounted by
+the Crescent. On the right, the tall chimneys of the Imperial kitchens
+towered above the walls. The sycamores threw their broad, cool shadows
+over the court, and groups of servants, in gala dresses, loitered about
+the corridors.
+
+After waiting nearly half an hour, the sound of music and the appearance
+of the Sultan's body-guard proclaimed the return of the procession. It
+came in reversed order, headed by the Sultan, after whom followed the
+Grand Vizier and other Ministers of the Imperial Council, and the Pashas,
+each surrounded by his staff of officers. The Sultan dismounted at the
+entrance to the Seraglio, and disappeared through the door. He was absent
+for more than half an hour, during which time he received the
+congratulations of his family, his wives, and the principal personages of
+his household, all of whom came to kiss his feet. Meanwhile, the Pashas
+ranged themselves in a semicircle around the arched and gilded portico.
+The servants of the Seraglio brought out a large Persian carpet, which
+they spread on the marble pavement. The throne, a large square seat,
+richly carved and covered with gilding, was placed in the centre, and a
+dazzling piece of cloth-of-gold thrown over the back of it. When the
+Sultan re-appeared, he took his seat thereon, placing his feet on a small
+footstool. The ceremony of kissing his feet now commenced. The first who
+had this honor was the Chief of the Emirs, an old man in a green robe,
+embroidered with pearls. He advanced to the throne, knelt, kissed the
+Sultan's patent-leather boot, and retired backward from the presence.
+
+The Ministers and Pashas followed in single file, and, after they had
+made the salutation, took their stations on the right hand of the throne.
+Most of them were fat, and their glittering frock-coats were buttoned so
+tightly that they seemed ready to burst. It required a great effort for
+them to rise from their knees. During all this time, the band was playing
+operatic airs, and as each Pasha knelt, a marshal, or master of
+ceremonies, with a silver wand, gave the signal to the Imperial Guard, who
+shouted at the top of their voices: "Prosperity to our Sovereign! May he
+live a thousand years!" This part of the ceremony was really grand and
+imposing. All the adjuncts were in keeping: the portico, wrought in rich
+arabesque designs; the swelling domes and sunlit crescents above; the
+sycamores and cypresses shading the court; the red tunics and peacock
+plumes of the guard; the monarch himself, radiant with jewels, as he sat
+in his chair of gold--all these features combined to form a stately
+picture of the lost Orient, and for the time Abdul-Medjid seemed the true
+representative of Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid.
+
+After the Pashas had finished, the inferior officers of the Army, Navy,
+and Civil Service followed, to the number of at least a thousand. They
+were not considered worthy to touch the Sultan's person, but kissed his
+golden scarf, which was held out to them by a Pasha, who stood on the left
+of the throne. The Grand Vizier had his place on the right, and the Chief
+of the Eunuchs stood behind him. The kissing of the scarf occupied an
+hour. The Sultan sat quietly during all this time, his face expressing a
+total indifference to all that was going on. The most skilful
+physiognomist could not have found in it the shadow of an expression. If
+this was the etiquette prescribed for him, he certainly acted it with
+marvellous skill and success.
+
+The long line of officers at length came to an end, and I fancied that the
+solemnities were now over; but after a pause appeared the _Shekh
+el-Islam,_ or High Priest of the Mahometan religion. His authority in
+religious matters transcends that of the Sultan, and is final and
+irrevocable. He was a very venerable man, of perhaps seventy-five years of
+age, and his tottering steps were supported by two mollahs. He was dressed
+in a long green robe, embroidered with gold and pearls, over which his
+white beard flowed below his waist. In his turban of white cambric was
+twisted a scarf of cloth-of-gold. He kissed the border of the Sultan's
+mantle, which salutation was also made by a long line of the chief priests
+of the mosques of Constantinople, who followed him. These priests were
+dressed in long robes of white, green, blue, and violet, many of them with
+collars of pearls and golden scarfs wound about their turbans, the rich
+fringes falling on their shoulders. They were grave, stately men, with
+long gray beards, and the wisdom of age and study in their deep-set eyes.
+
+Among the last who came was the most important personage of all. This was
+the Governor of Mecca (as I believe he is called), the nearest descendant
+of the Prophet, and the successor to the Caliphate, in case the family of
+Othman becomes extinct. Sultan Mahmoud, on his accession to the throne,
+was the last descendant of Orchan, the founder of the Ottoman Dynasty, the
+throne being inherited only by the male heirs. He left two sons, who are
+both living, Abdul-Medjid having departed from the practice of his
+predecessors, each of whom slew his brothers, in order to make his own
+sovereignty secure. He has one son, Muzad, who is about ten years old, so
+that there are now three males of the family of Orchan. In case of their
+death, the Governor of Mecca would become Caliph, and the sovereignty
+would be established in his family. He is a swarthy Arab, of about fifty,
+with a bold, fierce face. He wore a superb dress of green, the sacred
+color, and was followed by his two sons, young men of twenty and
+twenty-two. As he advanced to the throne, and was about to kneel and kiss
+the Sultan's robe, the latter prevented him, and asked politely after his
+health--the highest mark of respect in his power to show. The old Arab's
+face gleamed with such a sudden gush of pride and satisfaction, that no
+flash of lightning could have illumined it more vividly.
+
+The sacred writers, or transcribers of the Koran, closed the procession,
+after which the Sultan rose and entered the Seraglio. The crowd slowly
+dispersed, and in a few minutes the grand reports of the cannon on
+Seraglio Point announced the departure of the Sultan for his palace on the
+Bosphorus. The festival of Bairam was now fairly inaugurated, and all
+Stamboul was given up to festivity. There was no Turk so poor that he did
+not in some sort share in the rejoicing. Our Fourth could scarcely show
+more flags, let off more big guns or send forth greater crowds of
+excursionists than this Moslem holiday.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII.
+
+The Mosques of Constantinople.
+
+
+  Sojourn at Constantinople--Semi-European Character of the City--The
+  Mosque--Procuring a Firman--The Seraglio--The Library--The Ancient
+  Throne-Room--Admittance to St. Sophia--Magnificence of the Interior--The
+  Marvellous Dome--The Mosque of Sultan Achmed--The Sulemanye--Great
+  Conflagrations--Political Meaning of the Fires--Turkish Progress--Decay
+  of the Ottoman Power.
+
+
+  "Is that indeed Sophia's far-famed dome,
+  Where first the Faith was led in triumph home,
+  Like some high bride, with banner and bright sign,
+  And melody, and flowers?" Audrey de Vere.
+
+
+Constantinople, _Tuesday, August_ 8, 1852.
+
+The length of my stay in Constantinople has enabled me to visit many
+interesting spots in its vicinity, as well as to familiarize myself with
+the peculiar features of the great capital. I have seen the beautiful
+Bosphorus from steamers and caiques; ridden up the valley of Buyukdere,
+and through the chestnut woods of Belgrade; bathed in the Black Sea, under
+the lee of the Symplegades, where the marble altar to Apollo still invites
+an oblation from passing mariners; walked over the flowery meadows beside
+the "Heavenly Waters of Asia;" galloped around the ivy-grown walls where
+Dandolo and Mahomet II. conquered, and the last of the Palaeologi fell; and
+dreamed away many an afternoon-hour under the funereal cypresses of Pera,
+and beside the Delphian tripod in the Hippodrome. The historic interest
+of these spots is familiar to all, nor; with one exception, have their
+natural beauties been exaggerated by travellers. This exception is the
+village of Belgrade, over which Mary Montague went into raptures, and set
+the fashion for tourists ever since. I must confess to having been wofully
+disappointed. The village is a miserable cluster of rickety houses, on an
+open piece of barren land, surrounded by the forests, or rather thickets,
+which keep alive the springs that supply Constantinople with water. We
+reached there with appetites sharpened by our morning's ride, expecting to
+find at least a vender of _kibabs_ (bits of fried meat) in so renowned a
+place; but the only things to be had were raw salt mackerel, and bread
+which belonged to the primitive geological formation.
+
+The general features of Constantinople and the Bosphorus are so well
+known, that I am spared the dangerous task of painting scenes which have
+been colored by abler pencils. Von Hammer, Lamartine, Willis, Miss Pardoe,
+Albert Smith, and thou, most inimitable Thackeray! have made Pera and
+Scutari, the Bazaars and Baths, the Seraglio and the Golden Horn, as
+familiar to our ears as Cornhill and Wall street. Besides, Constantinople
+is not the true Orient, which is to be found rather in Cairo, in Aleppo,
+and brightest and most vital, in Damascus. Here, we tread European soil;
+the Franks are fast crowding out the followers of the Prophet, and
+Stamboul itself, were its mosques and Seraglio removed, would differ
+little in outward appearance from a third-rate Italian town. The Sultan
+lives in a palace with a Grecian portico; the pointed Saracenic arch, the
+arabesque sculptures, the latticed balconies, give place to clumsy
+imitations of Palladio, and every fire that sweeps away a recollection of
+the palmy times of Ottoman rule, sweeps it away forever.
+
+But the Mosque--that blossom of Oriental architecture, with its crowning
+domes, like the inverted bells of the lotus, and its reed-like minarets,
+its fountains and marble courts--can only perish with the faith it
+typifies. I, for one, rejoice that, so long as the religion of Islam
+exists (and yet, may its time be short!), no Christian model can shape its
+houses of worship. The minaret must still lift its airy tower for the
+muezzin; the dome must rise like a gilded heaven above the prayers of the
+Faithful, with its starry lamps and emblazoned phrases; the fountain must
+continue to pour its waters of purification. A reformation of the Moslem
+faith is impossible. When it begins to give way, the whole fabric must
+fall. Its ceremonies, as well as its creed, rest entirely on the
+recognition of Mahomet as the Prophet of God. However the Turks may change
+in other respects, in all that concerns their religion they must continue
+the same.
+
+Until within a few years, a visit to the mosques, especially the more
+sacred ones of St. Sophia and Sultan Achmed, was attended with much
+difficulty. Miss Pardoe, according to her own account, risked her life in
+order to see the interior of St. Sophia, which she effected in the
+disguise of a Turkish Effendi. I accomplished the same thing, a few days
+since, but without recourse to any such romantic expedient. Mr. Brown, the
+interpreter of the Legation, procured a firman from the Grand Vizier, on
+behalf of the officers of the San Jacinto, and kindly invited me, with
+several other American and English travellers, to join the party. During
+the month of Ramazan, no firmans are given, and as at this time there are
+few travellers in Constantinople, we should otherwise have been subjected
+to a heavy expense. The cost of a firman, including backsheesh to the
+priests and doorkeepers, is 700 piastres (about $33).
+
+We crossed the Golden Horn in caiques, and first visited the gardens and
+palaces on Seraglio Point. The Sultan at present resides in his summer
+palace of Beshiktashe, on the Bosphorus, and only occupies the Serai
+Bornou, as it is called, during the winter months. The Seraglio covers the
+extremity of the promontory on which Constantinople is built, and is
+nearly three miles in circuit. The scattered buildings erected by
+different Sultans form in themselves a small city, whose domes and pointed
+turrets rise from amid groves of cypress and pine. The sea-wall is lined
+with kiosks, from whose cushioned windows there are the loveliest views of
+the European and Asian shores. The newer portion of the palace, where the
+Sultan now receives the ambassadors of foreign nations, shows the
+influence of European taste in its plan and decorations. It is by no means
+remarkable for splendor, and suffers by contrast with many of the private
+houses in Damascus and Aleppo. The building is of wood, the walls
+ornamented with detestable frescoes by modern Greek artists, and except a
+small but splendid collection of arms, and some wonderful specimens of
+Arabic chirography, there is nothing to interest the visitor.
+
+In ascending to the ancient Seraglio, which was founded by Mahomet II., on
+the site of the palace of the Palaeologi, we passed the Column of
+Theodosius, a plain Corinthian shaft, about fifty feet high. The Seraglio
+is now occupied entirely by the servants and guards, and the greater part
+of it shows a neglect amounting almost to dilapidation. The Saracenic
+corridors surrounding its courts are supported by pillars of marble,
+granite, and porphyry, the spoils of the Christian capital. We were
+allowed to walk about at leisure, and inspect the different compartments,
+except the library, which unfortunately was locked. This library was for a
+long time supposed to contain many lost treasures of ancient
+literature--among other things, the missing books of Livy--but the recent
+researches of Logothetos, the Prince of Samos, prove that there is little
+of value, among its manuscripts. Before the door hangs a wooden globe,
+which is supposed to be efficacious in neutralizing the influence of the
+Evil Eye. There are many ancient altars and fragments of pillars scattered
+about the courts, and the Turks have even commenced making a collection of
+antiquities, which, with the exception of two immense sarcophagi of red
+porphyry, contains nothing of value. They show, however, one of the brazen
+heads of the Delphian tripod in the Hippodrome, which, they say, Mahomet
+the Conqueror struck off with a single blow of his sword, on entering
+Constantinople.
+
+The most interesting portion of the Seraglio is the ancient throne-room,
+now no longer used, but still guarded by a company of white eunuchs. The
+throne is an immense, heavy bedstead, the posts of which are thickly
+incrusted with rubies, turquoises, emeralds, and sapphires. There is a
+funnel-shaped chimney-piece in the room, a master-work of Benevenuto
+Cellini. There, half a century ago, the foreign ambassadors were
+presented, after having been bathed, fed, and clothed with a rich mantle
+in the outer apartments. They were ushered into the imperial presence,
+supported by a Turkish official on either side, in order that they might
+show no signs of breaking down under the load of awe and reverence they
+were supposed to feel. In the outer Court, adjoining the Sublime Porte, is
+the Chapel of the Empress Irene, now converted into an armory, which, for
+its size, is the most tasteful and picturesque collection of weapons I
+have ever seen. It is especially rich in Saracenic armor, and contains
+many superb casques of inlaid gold. In a large glass case in the chancel,
+one sees the keys of some thirty or forty cities, with the date of their
+capture. It is not likely that another will ever be added to the list.
+
+We now passed out through the Sublime Porte, and directed our steps to the
+famous _Aya Sophia_--the temple dedicated by Justinian to the Divine
+Wisdom. The repairs made to the outer walls by the Turks, and the addition
+of the four minarets, have entirely changed the character of the building,
+without injuring its effect. As a Christian Church, it must have been less
+imposing than in its present form. A priest met us at the entrance, and
+after reading the firman with a very discontented face, informed us that
+we could not enter until the mid-day prayers were concluded. After taking
+off our shoes, however, we were allowed to ascend to the galleries, whence
+we looked down on the bowing worshippers. Here the majesty of the renowned
+edifice, despoiled as it now is, bursts at once upon the eye. The
+wonderful flat dome, glittering with its golden mosaics, and the sacred
+phrase from the Koran: "_God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth_,"
+swims in the air, one hundred and eighty feet above the marble pavement.
+On the eastern and western sides, it rests on two half domes; which again
+rise from or rest upon a group of three small half-domes, so that the
+entire roof of the mosque, unsupported by a pillar, seems to have been
+dropped from above on the walls, rather than to have been built up from
+them. Around the edifice run an upper and a lower gallery, which alone
+preserve the peculiarities of the Byzantine style. These galleries are
+supported by the most precious columns which ancient art could afford:
+among them eight shafts of green marble, from the Temple of Diana, at
+Ephesus; eight of porphyry, from the Temple of the Sun, at Baalbek;
+besides Egyptian granite from the shrines of Isis and Osiris, and
+Pentelican marble from the sanctuary of Pallas Athena. Almost the whole of
+the interior has been covered with gilding, but time has softened its
+brilliancy, and the rich, subdued gleam of the walls is in perfect harmony
+with the varied coloring of the ancient marbles.
+
+Under the dome, four Christian seraphim, executed in mosaic, have been
+allowed to remain, but the names of the four archangels of the Moslem
+faith are inscribed underneath. The bronze doors are still the same, the
+Turks having taken great pains to obliterate the crosses with which they
+were adorned. Around the centre of the dome, as on that of Sultan Achmed,
+may be read, in golden letters, and in all the intricacy of Arabic
+penmanship, the beautiful verse:--"God is the Light of the Heavens and the
+Earth. His wisdom is a light on the wall, in which burns a lamp covered
+with glass. The glass shines like a star, the lamp is lit with the oil of
+a blessed tree. No Eastern, no Western oil, it shines for whoever wills."
+After the prayers were over, and we had descended to the floor of the
+mosque, I spent the rest of my time under the dome, fascinated by its
+marvellous lightness and beauty. The worshippers present looked at us with
+curiosity, but without ill-will; and before we left, one of the priests
+came slyly with some fragments of the ancient gilded mosaic, which, he was
+heathen enough to sell, and we to buy.
+
+From St. Sophia we went to Sultan Achmed, which faces the Hippodrome, and
+is one of the stateliest piles of Constantinople. It is avowedly an
+imitation of St. Sophia, and the Turks consider it a more wonderful work,
+because the dome is seven feet higher. It has six minarets, exceeding in
+this respect all the mosques of Asia. The dome rests on four immense
+pillars, the bulk of which quite oppresses the light galleries running
+around the walls. This, and the uniform white color of the interior,
+impairs the effect which its bold style and imposing dimensions would
+otherwise produce. The outside view, with the group of domes swelling
+grandly above the rows of broad-armed sycamores, is much more
+satisfactory. In the tomb of Sultan Achmed, in one corner of the court, we
+saw his coffin, turban, sword, and jewelled harness. I had just been
+reading old Sandys' account of his visit to Constantinople, in 1610,
+during this Sultan's reign, and could only think of him as Sandys
+represents him, in the title-page to his book, as a fat man, with bloated
+cheeks, in a long gown and big turban, and the words underneath:--
+"_Achmed, sive Tyrannus._"
+
+The other noted mosques of Constantinople are the _Yeni Djami,_ or Mosque
+of the Sultana Valide, on the shore of the Golden Horn, at the end of the
+bridge to Galata; that of Sultan Bajazet; of Mahomet II., the Conqueror,
+and of his son, Suleyman the Magnificent, whose superb mosque well
+deserves this title. I regret exceedingly that our time did not allow us
+to view the interior, for outwardly it not only surpasses St. Sophia, and
+all other mosques in the city, but is undoubtedly one of the purest
+specimens of Oriental architecture extant. It stands on a broad terrace,
+on one of the seven hills of Stamboul, and its exquisitely proportioned
+domes and minarets shine as if crystalized in the blue of the air. It is a
+type of Oriental, as the Parthenon is of Grecian, and the Cologne
+Cathedral of Gothic art. As I saw it the other night, lit by the flames of
+a conflagration, standing out red and clear against the darkness, I felt
+inclined to place it on a level with either of those renowned structures.
+It is a product of the rich fancy of the East, splendidly ornate, and not
+without a high degree of symmetry--yet here the symmetry is that of
+ornament alone, and not the pure, absolute proportion of forms, which we
+find in Grecian Art. It requires a certain degree of enthusiasm--nay, a
+slight inebriation of the imaginative faculties--in order to feel the
+sentiment of this Oriental Architecture. If I rightly express all that it
+says to me, I touch the verge of rapsody. The East, in almost all its
+aspects, is so essentially poetic, that a true picture of it must be
+poetic in spirit, if not in form.
+
+Constantinople has been terribly ravaged by fires, no less than fifteen
+having occurred during the past two weeks. Almost every night the sky has
+been reddened by burning houses, and the minarets of the seven hills
+lighted with an illumination brighter than that of the Bairam. All the
+space from the Hippodrome to the Sea of Marmora has been swept away; the
+lard, honey, and oil magazines on the Golden Horn, with the bazaars
+adjoining; several large blocks on the hill of Galata, with the College of
+the Dancing Dervishes; a part of Scutari, and the College of the Howling
+Dervishes, all have disappeared; and to-day, the ruins of 3,700 houses,
+which were destroyed last night, stand smoking in the Greek quarter,
+behind the aqueduct of Valens. The entire amount of buildings consumed in
+these two weeks is estimated at between _five and six thousand_! The fire
+on the hill of Galata threatened to destroy a great part of the suburb of
+Pera. It came, sweeping over the brow of the hill, towards my hotel,
+turning the tall cypresses in the burial ground into shafts of angry
+flame, and eating away the crackling dwellings of hordes of hapless Turks.
+I was in bed; from a sudden attack of fever, but seeing the other guests
+packing up their effects and preparing to leave, I was obliged to do the
+same; and this, in my weak state, brought on such a perspiration that the
+ailment left me, The officers of the United States steamer _San Jacinto_,
+and the French frigate _Charlemagne_, came to the rescue with their men
+and fire-engines, and the flames were finally quelled. The proceedings of
+the Americans, who cut holes in the roofs and played through them upon the
+fires within, were watched by the Turks with stupid amazement.
+"Mashallah!" said a fat Bimbashi, as he stood sweltering in the heat; "The
+Franks are a wonderful people."
+
+To those initiated into the mysteries of Turkish politics, these fires are
+more than accidental; they have a most weighty significance. They indicate
+either a general discontent with the existing state of affairs, or else a
+powerful plot against the Sultan and his Ministry. Setting fire to houses
+is, in fact, the Turkish method of holding an "indignation meeting," and
+from the rate with which they are increasing, the political crisis must be
+near at hand. The Sultan, with his usual kindness of heart, has sent large
+quantities of tents and other supplies to the guiltless sufferers; but no
+amount of kindness can soften the rancor of these Turkish intrigues.
+Reschid Pasha, the present Grand Vizier, and the leader of the party of
+Progress, is the person against whom this storm of opposition is now
+gathering.
+
+In spite of all efforts, the Ottoman Power is rapidly wasting away. The
+life of the Orient is nerveless and effete; the native strength of the
+race has died out, and all attempts to resuscitate it by the adoption of
+European institutions produce mere galvanic spasms, which leave it more
+exhausted than before. The rosy-colored accounts we have had of Turkish
+Progress are for the most part mere delusions. The Sultan is a
+well-meaning but weak man, and tyrannical through his very weakness. Had
+he strength enough to break through the meshes of falsehood and venality
+which are woven so close about him, he might accomplish some solid good.
+But Turkish rule, from his ministers down to the lowest _cadi_, is a
+monstrous system of deceit and corruption. These people have not the most
+remote conception of the true aims of government; they only seek to enrich
+themselves and their parasites, at the expense of the people and the
+national treasury. When we add to this the conscript system, which is
+draining the provinces of their best Moslem subjects, to the advantage of
+the Christians and Jews, and the blindness of the Revenue Laws, which
+impose on domestic manufactures double the duty levied on foreign
+products, it will easily be foreseen that the next half-century, or less,
+will completely drain the Turkish Empire of its last lingering energies.
+
+Already, in effect, Turkey exists only through the jealousy of the
+European nations. The treaty of Unkiar-iskelessi, in 1833, threw her into
+the hands of Russia, although the influence of England has of late years
+reigned almost exclusively in her councils. These are the two powers who
+are lowering at each other with sleepless eyes, in the Dardanelles and the
+Bosphorus. The people, and most probably the government, is strongly
+preposessed in favor of the English; but the Russian Bear has a heavy paw,
+and when he puts it into the scale, all other weights kick the beam. It
+will be a long and wary struggle, and no man can prophecy the result. The
+Turks are a people easy to govern, were even the imperfect laws, now in
+existence, fairly administered. They would thrive and improve under a
+better state of things; but I cannot avoid the conviction that the
+regeneration of the East will never be effected at their hands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIX.
+
+Farewell to the Orient--Malta.
+
+
+  Embarcation--Farewell to the Orient--Leaving Constantinople--A
+  Wreck--The Dardanelles--Homeric Scenery--Smyrna Revisited--The Grecian
+  Isles--Voyage to Malta--Detention--La Valetta--The Maltese--The
+  Climate--A Boat for Sicily.
+
+  "Farewell, ye mountains,
+    By glory crowned
+  Ye sacred fountains
+    Of Gods renowned;
+  Ye woods and highlands,
+    Where heroes dwell;
+  Ye seas and islands,
+    Farewell! Farewell!"
+
+  Frithiof's Saga.
+
+
+In The Dardanelles, _Saturday, August_ 7, 1852.
+
+At last, behold me fairly embarked for Christian Europe, to which I bade
+adieu in October last, eager for the unknown wonders of the Orient. Since
+then, nearly ten months have passed away, and those wonders are now
+familiar as every-day experiences. I set out, determined to be satisfied
+with no slight taste of Eastern life, but to drain to the bottom its
+beaker of mingled sunshine and sleep. All this has been accomplished; and
+if I have not wandered so far, nor enriched myself with such varied
+knowledge of the relics of ancient history, as I might have purposed or
+wished, I have at least learned to know the Turk and the Arab, been
+soothed by the patience inspired by their fatalism, and warmed by the
+gorgeous gleams of fancy that animate their poetry and religion. These
+ten months of my life form an episode which seems to belong to a separate
+existence. Just refined enough to be poetic, and just barbaric enough to
+be freed from all conventional fetters, it is as grateful to brain and
+soul, as an Eastern bath to the body. While I look forward, not without
+pleasure, to the luxuries and conveniences of Europe, I relinquish with a
+sigh the refreshing indolence of Asia.
+
+We have passed between the Castles of the two Continents, guarding the
+mouth of the Dardanelles, and are now entering the Grecian Sea. To-morrow,
+we shall touch, for a few hours, at Smyrna, and then turn westward, on the
+track of Ulysses and St. Paul. Farewell, then, perhaps forever, to the
+bright Orient! Farewell to the gay gardens, the spicy bazaars, to the
+plash of fountains and the gleam of golden-tipped minarets! Farewell to
+the perfect morn's, the balmy twilights, the still heat of the blue noons,
+the splendor of moon and stars! Farewell to the glare of the white crags,
+the tawny wastes of dead sand, the valleys of oleander, the hills of
+myrtle and spices! Farewell to the bath, agent of purity and peace, and
+parent of delicious dreams--to the shebook, whose fragrant fumes are
+breathed from the lips of patience and contentment--to the narghileh,
+crowned with that blessed plant which grows in the gardens of Shiraz,
+while a fountain more delightful than those of Samarcand bubbles in its
+crystal bosom I Farewell to the red cap and slippers, to the big turban,
+the flowing trousers, and the gaudy shawl--to squatting on broad divans,
+to sipping black coffee in acorn cups, to grave faces and _salaam
+aleikooms_, and to aching of the lips and forehead! Farewell to the
+evening meal in the tent door, to the couch on the friendly earth, to the
+yells of the muleteers, to the deliberate marches of the plodding horse,
+and the endless rocking of the dromedary that knoweth his master!
+Farewell, finally, to annoyance without anger, delay without vexation,
+indolence without ennui, endurance without fatigue, appetite without
+intemperance, enjoyment without pall!
+
+
+La Valetta, Malta, _Saturday, August_ 14, 1852.
+
+My last view of Stamboul was that of the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan
+Achmed, shining faintly in the moonlight, as we steamed down the Sea of
+Marmora. The _Caire_ left at nine o'clock, freighted with the news of
+Reschid Pasha's deposition, and there were no signs of conflagration in
+all the long miles of the city that lay behind us. So we speculated no
+more on the exciting topics of the day, but went below and took a vapor
+bath in our berths; for I need not assure you that the nights on the
+Mediterranean at this season are anything but chilly. And here I must note
+the fact, that the French steamers, while dearer than the Austrian, are
+more cramped in their accommodations, and filled with a set of most
+uncivil servants. The table is good, and this is the only thing to be
+commended. In all other respects, I prefer the Lloyd vessels.
+
+Early next morning, we passed the promontory of Cyzicus, and the Island of
+Marmora, the marble quarries of which give name to the sea. As we were
+approaching the entrance to the Dardanelles, we noticed an Austrian brig
+drifting in the current, the whiff of her flag indicating distress. Her
+rudder was entirely gone, and she was floating helplessly towards the
+Thracian coast. A boat was immediately lowered and a hawser carried to her
+bows, by which we towed her a short distance; but our steam engine did
+not like this drudgery, and snapped the rope repeatedly, so that at last
+we were obliged to leave her to her fate. The lift we gave, however, had
+its effect, and by dexterous maneuvering with the sails, the captain
+brought her safely into the harbor of Gallipoli, where she dropped anchor
+beside us.
+
+Beyond Gallipoli, the Dardanelles contract, and the opposing continents
+rise into lofty and barren hills. In point of natural beauty, this strait
+is greatly inferior to the Bosphorus. It lacks the streams and wooded
+valleys which open upon the latter. The country is but partially
+cultivated, except around the town of Dardanelles, near the mouth of the
+strait. The site of the bridge of Xerxes is easily recognized, the
+conformation of the different shores seconding the decision of
+antiquarians. Here, too, are Sestos and Abydos, of passionate and poetic
+memory. But as the sun dipped towards the sea, we passed out of the narrow
+gateway. On our left lay the plain of Troy, backed by the blue range of
+Mount Ida. The tamulus of Patroclus crowned a low bluff looking on the
+sea. On the right appeared the long, irregular island of Imbros, and the
+peaks of misty Samothrace over and beyond it. Tenedos was before us. The
+red flush of sunset tinged the grand Homeric landscape, and lingered and
+lingered on the summit of Ida, as if loth to depart. I paced the deck
+until long after it was too dark to distinguish it any more.
+
+The next morning we dropped anchor in the harbor of Smyrna, where we
+remained five hours. I engaged a donkey, and rode out to the Caravan
+Bridge, where the Greek driver and I smoked narghilehs and drank coffee in
+the shade of the acacias. I contrasted my impressions with those of my
+first visit to Smyrna last October--my first glimpse of Oriental ground.
+Then, every dog barked at me, and all the horde of human creatures who
+prey upon innocent travellers ran at my heels, but now, with my brown face
+and Turkish aspect of grave indifference, I was suffered to pass as
+quietly as my donkey-driver himself. Nor did the latter, nor the ready
+_cafidji_, who filled our pipes on the banks of the Meles, attempt to
+overcharge me--a sure sign that the Orient had left its seal on my face.
+Returning through the city, the same mishap befel me which travellers
+usually experience on their first arrival. My donkey, while dashing at
+full speed through a crowd of Smyrniotes in their Sunday dresses, slipped
+up in a little pool of black mud, and came down with a crash. I flew over
+his head and alighted firmly on my feet, but the spruce young Greeks,
+whose snowy fustanelles were terribly bespattered, came off much worse.
+The donkey shied back, levelled his ears and twisted his head on one side,
+awaiting a beating, but his bleeding legs saved him.
+
+We left at two o'clock, touched at Scio in the evening, and the next
+morning at sunrise lay-to in the harbor of Syra. The Piraeus was only
+twelve hours distant; but after my visitation of fever in Constantinople,
+I feared to encounter the pestilential summer heats of Athens. Besides, I
+had reasons for hastening with all speed to Italy and Germany. At ten
+o'clock we weighed anchor again and steered southwards, between the groups
+of the Cyclades, under a cloudless sky and over a sea of the brightest
+blue. The days were endurable under the canvas awning of our quarter-deck,
+but the nights in our berths were sweat-baths, which left us so limp and
+exhausted that we were almost fit to vanish, like ghosts, at daybreak.
+
+Our last glimpse of the Morea--Cape Matapan--faded away in the moonlight,
+and for _two_ days we travelled westward over the burning sea. On the
+evening of the 11th, the long, low outline of Malta rose gradually against
+the last flush of sunset, and in two hours thereafter, we came to anchor
+in Quarantine Harbor. The quarantine for travellers returning from the
+East, which formerly varied from fourteen to twenty-one days, is now
+reduced to one day for those arriving from Greece or Turkey, and three
+days for those from Egypt and Syria. In our case, it was reduced to
+sixteen hours, by an official courtesy. I had intended proceeding directly
+to Naples; but by the contemptible trickery of the agents of the French
+steamers--a long history, which it is unnecessary to recapitulate--am left
+here to wait ten days for another steamer. It is enough to say that there
+are six other travellers at the same hotel, some coming from
+Constantinople, and some from Alexandria, in the same predicament. Because
+a single ticket to Naples costs some thirty or forty francs less than by
+dividing the trip into two parts, the agents in those cities refuse to
+give tickets further than Malta to those who are not keen enough to see
+through the deception. I made every effort to obtain a second ticket in
+time to leave by the branch steamer for Italy, but in vain.
+
+La Valetta is, to my eyes, the most beautiful small city in the world. It
+is a jewel of a place; not a street but is full of picturesque effects,
+and all the look-outs, which you catch at every turn, let your eyes rest
+either upon one of the beautiful harbors on each side, or the distant
+horizon of the sea. The streets are so clean that you might eat your
+dinner off the pavement; the white balconies and cornices of the houses,
+all cleanly cut in the soft Maltese stone, stand out in intense relief
+against the sky, and from the manifold reflections and counter
+reflections, the shadows (where there are any) become a sort of milder
+light. The steep sides of the promontory, on which the city is built, are
+turned into staircases, and it is an inexhaustible pastime to watch the
+groups, composed of all nations who inhabit the shores of the
+Mediterranean, ascending and descending. The Auberges of the old Knights,
+the Palace of the Grand Master, the Church of St. John, and other relics
+of past time, but more especially the fortifications, invest the place
+with a romantic interest, and I suspect that, after Venice and Granada,
+there are few cities where the Middle Ages have left more impressive
+traces of their history.
+
+The Maltese are contented, and appear to thrive under the English
+administration. They are a peculiar people, reminding me of the Arab even
+more than the Italian, while a certain rudeness in their build and motions
+suggests their Punic ancestry. Their language is a curious compound of
+Arabic and Italian, the former being the basis. I find that I can
+understand more than half that is said, the Arabic terminations being
+applied to Italian words. I believe it has never been successfully reduced
+to writing, and the restoration of pure Arabic has been proposed, with
+much reason, as preferable to an attempt to improve or refine it. Italian
+is the language used in the courts of justice and polite society, and is
+spoken here with much more purity than either in Naples or Sicily.
+
+The heat has been so great since I landed that I have not ventured outside
+of the city, except last evening to an amateur theatre, got up by the
+non-commissioned officers and privates in the garrison. The performances
+were quite tolerable, except a love-sick young damsel who spoke with a
+rough masculine voice, and made long strides across the stage when she
+rushed into her lover's arms. I am at a loss to account for the exhausting
+character of the heat. The thermometer shows 90 deg. by day, and 80 deg. to 85 deg. by
+night--a much lower temperature than I have found quite comfortable in
+Africa and Syria. In the Desert 100 deg. in the shade is rather bracing than
+otherwise; here, 90 deg. renders all exercise, more severe than smoking a
+pipe, impossible. Even in a state of complete inertia, a shirt-collar will
+fall starchless in five minutes.
+
+Rather than waste eight more days in this glimmering half-existence, I
+have taken passage in a Maltese _speronara_, which sails this evening for
+Catania, in Sicily, where the grand festival of St. Agatha, which takes
+place once in a hundred years, will be celebrated next week. The trip
+promises a new experience, and I shall get a taste, slight though it be,
+of the golden Trinacria of the ancients. Perhaps, after all, this delay
+which so vexes me (bear in mind, I am no longer in the Orient!) may be
+meant solely for my good. At least, Mr. Winthrop, our Consul here, who has
+been exceedingly kind and courteous to me, thinks it a rare good fortune
+that I shall see the Catanian festa.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXX.
+
+The Festival of St. Agatha.
+
+
+  Departure from Malta--The Speronara--Our Fellow-Passengers--The First
+  Night on Board--Sicily--Scarcity of Provisions--Beating in the Calabrian
+  Channel--The Fourth Morning--The Gulf of Catania--A Sicilian
+  Landscape--The Anchorage--The Suspected List--The Streets of
+  Catania--Biography of St. Agatha--The Illuminations--The Procession of
+  the Veil--The Biscari Palace--The Antiquities of Catania--The Convent of
+  St. Nicola.
+
+
+  "The morn is full of holiday, loud bells
+  With rival clamors ring from every spire;
+  Cunningly-stationed music dies and swells
+  In echoing places; when the winds respire,
+  Light flags stream out like gauzy tongues of fire."--Keats.
+
+
+Catania, Sicily, _Friday_, _August_ 20, 1852.
+
+I went on board the _speronara_ in the harbor of La Valetta at the
+appointed hour (5 P.M.), and found the remaining sixteen passengers
+already embarked. The captain made his appearance an hour later, with our
+bill of health and passports, and as the sun went down behind the brown
+hills of the island, we passed the wave-worn rocks of the promontory,
+dividing the two harbors, and slowly moved off towards Sicily.
+
+The Maltese _speronara_ resembles the ancient Roman galley more than any
+modern craft. It has the same high, curved poop and stern, the same short
+masts and broad, square sails. The hull is too broad for speed, but this
+adds to the security of the vessel in a gale. With a fair wind, it rarely
+makes more than eight knots an hour, and in a calm, the sailors (if not
+too lazy) propel it forward with six long oars. The hull is painted in a
+fanciful style, generally blue, red, green and white, with bright red
+masts. The bulwarks are low, and the deck of such a convexity that it is
+quite impossible to walk it in a heavy sea. Such was the vessel to which I
+found myself consigned. It was not more than fifty feet long, and of less
+capacity than a Nile _dahabiyeh_. There was a sort of deck cabin, or crib,
+with two berths, but most of the passengers slept in the hold. For a
+passage to Catania I was obliged to pay forty francs, the owner swearing
+that this was the regular price; but, as I afterwards discovered, the
+Maltese only paid thirty-six francs for the whole trip. However, the
+Captain tried to make up the money's worth in civilities, and was
+incessant in his attentions to "your Lordships," as he styled myself and
+my companion, Caesar di Cagnola, a young Milanese.
+
+The Maltese were tailors and clerks, who were taking a holiday trip to
+witness the great festival of St. Agatha. With two exceptions, they were a
+wild and senseless, though good-natured set, and in spite of sea-sickness,
+which exercised them terribly for the first two days, kept up a constant
+jabber in their bastard Arabic from morning till night. As is usual in
+such a company, one of them was obliged to serve as a butt for the rest,
+and "Maestro Paolo," as they termed him, wore such a profoundly serious
+face all the while, from his sea-sickness, that the fun never came to an
+end. As they were going to a religious festival, some of them had brought
+their breviaries along with them; but I am obliged to testify that, after
+the first day, prayers were totally forgotten. The sailors, however, wore
+linen bags, printed with a figure of the Madonna, around their necks.
+
+The sea was rather rough, but Caesar and I fortified our stomachs with a
+bottle of English ale, and as it was dark by this time, sought our
+resting-places for the night. As we had paid double, _places_ were assured
+us in the coop on deck, but beds were not included in the bargain. The
+Maltese, who had brought mattresses and spread a large Phalansteriau bed
+in the hold, fared much better. I took one of my carpet bags for a pillow
+and lay down on the planks, where I succeeded in getting a little sleep
+between the groans of the helpless land-lubbers. We had the _ponente_, or
+west-wind, all night, but the speronara moved sluggishly, and in the
+morning it changed to the _greco-levante,_ or north-east. No land was in
+sight; but towards noon, the sky became clearer, and we saw the southern
+coast of Sicily--a bold mountain-shore, looming phantom-like in the
+distance. Cape Passaro was to the east, and the rest of the day was spent
+in beating up to it. At sunset, we were near enough to see the villages
+and olive-groves of the beautiful shore, and, far behind the nearer
+mountains, ninety miles distant, the solitary cone of Etna.
+
+The second night passed like the first, except that our bruised limbs were
+rather more sensitive to the texture of the planks. We crawled out of our
+coop at dawn, expecting to behold Catania in the distance; but there was
+Cape Passaro still staring us in the face. The Maltese were patient, and
+we did not complain, though Caesar and I began to make nice calculations as
+to the probable duration of our two cold fowls and three loaves of bread.
+The promontory of Syracuse was barely visible forty miles ahead; but the
+wind was against us, and so another day passed in beating up the eastern
+coast. At dusk, we overtook another speronara which had left Malta two
+hours before us, and this was quite a triumph to our captain, All the oars
+were shipped, the sailors and some of the more courageous passengers took
+hold, and we shot ahead, scudding rapidly along the dark shores, to the
+sound of the wild Maltese songs. At length, the promontory was gained, and
+the restless current, rolling down from Scylla and Charybdis, tossed our
+little bark from wave to wave with a recklessness that would have made any
+one nervous but an old sailor like myself.
+
+"To-morrow morning," said the Captain, "we shall sail into Catania;" but
+after a third night on the planks, which were now a little softer, we rose
+to find ourselves abreast of Syracuse, with Etna as distant as ever. The
+wind was light, and what little we made by tacking was swept away by the
+current, so that, after wasting the whole forenoon, we kept a straight
+course across the mouth of the channel, and at sunset saw the Calabrian
+Mountains. This move only lost us more ground, as it happened. Caesar and I
+mournfully and silently consumed our last fragment of beef, with the
+remaining dry crusts of bread, and then sat down doggedly to smoke and see
+whether the captain would discover our situation. But no; while we were
+supplied, the whole vessel was at our Lordships' command, and now that we
+were destitute, he took care to make no rash offers. Caesar, at last, with
+an imperial dignity becoming his name, commanded dinner. It came, and the
+pork and maccaroni, moistened with red Sicilian wine, gave us patience for
+another day.
+
+The fourth morning dawned, and--Great Neptune be praised!--we were
+actually within the Gulf of Catania. Etna loomed up in all his sublime
+bulk, unobscured by cloud or mist, while a slender jet of smoke, rising
+from his crater, was slowly curling its wreaths in the clear air, as if
+happy to receive the first beam of the sun. The towers of Syracuse, which
+had mocked us all the preceding day, were no longer visible; the
+land-locked little port of Augusta lay behind us; and, as the wind
+continued favorable, ere long we saw a faint white mark at the foot of the
+mountain. This was Catania. The shores of the bay were enlivened with
+olive-groves and the gleam of the villages, while here and there a single
+palm dreamed of its brothers across the sea. Etna, of course, had the
+monarch's place in the landscape, but even his large, magnificent outlines
+could not usurp all my feeling. The purple peaks to the westward and
+farther inland, had a beauty of their own, and in the gentle curves with
+which they leaned towards each other, there was a promise of the flowery
+meadows of Enna. The smooth blue water was speckled with fishing-boats. We
+hailed one, inquiring when the _festa_ was to commence; but, mistaking our
+question, they answered: "Anchovies." Thereupon, a waggish Maltese
+informed them that Maestro Paolo thanked them heartily. All the other
+boats were hailed in the name of Maestro Paolo, who, having recovered from
+his sea-sickness, took his bantering good-humoredly.
+
+Catania presented a lovely picture, as we drew near the harbor. Planted at
+the very foot of Etna, it has a background such as neither Naples nor
+Genoa can boast. The hills next the sea are covered with gardens and
+orchards, sprinkled with little villages and the country palaces of the
+nobles--a rich, cultured landscape, which gradually merges into the
+forests of oak and chestnut that girdle the waist of the great volcano.
+But all the wealth of southern vegetation cannot hide the footsteps of
+that Ruin, which from time to time visits the soil. Half-way up, the
+mountain-side is dotted with cones of ashes and cinders, some covered with
+the scanty shrubbery which centuries have called forth, some barren and
+recent; while two dark, winding streams of sterile lava descend to the
+very shore, where they stand congealed in ragged needles and pyramids.
+Part of one of these black floods has swept the town, and, tumbling into
+the sea, walls one side of the port.
+
+We glided slowly past the mole, and dropped anchor a few yards from the
+shore. There was a sort of open promenade planted with trees, in front of
+us, surrounded with high white houses, above which rose the dome of the
+Cathedral and the spires of other churches. The magnificent palace of
+Prince Biscari was on our right, and at its foot the Customs and Revenue
+offices. Every roof, portico, and window was lined with lamps, a triumphal
+arch spanned the street before the palace, and the landing-place at the
+offices was festooned with crimson and white drapery, spangled with gold.
+While we were waiting permission to land, a scene presented itself which
+recalled the pagan days of Sicily to my mind. A procession came in sight
+from under the trees, and passed along the shore. In the centre was borne
+a stately shrine, hung with garlands, and containing an image of St.
+Agatha. The sound of flutes and cymbals accompanied it, and a band of
+children, bearing orange and palm branches, danced riotously before. Had
+the image been Pan instead of St. Agatha, the ceremonies would have been
+quite as appropriate.
+
+The speronara's boat at last took us to the gorgeous landing place, where
+we were carefully counted by a fat Sicilian official, and declared free
+from quarantine. We were then called into the Passport Office where the
+Maltese underwent a searching examination. One of the officers sat with
+the Black Book, or list of suspected persons of all nations, open before
+him, and looked for each name as it was called out. Another scanned the
+faces of the frightened tailors, as if comparing them with certain
+revolutionary visages in his mind. Terrible was the keen, detective glance
+of his eye, and it went straight through the poor Maltese, who vanished
+with great rapidity when they were declared free to enter the city. At
+last, they all passed the ordeal, but Caesar and I remained, looking in at
+the door. "There are still these two Frenchmen," said the captain. "I am
+no Frenchman," I protested; "I am an American." "And I," said Caesar, "am
+an Austrian subject." Thereupon we received a polite invitation to enter;
+the terrible glance softened into a benign, respectful smile; he of the
+Black Book ran lightly over the C's and T's, and said, with a courteous
+inclination: "There is nothing against the signori." I felt quite relieved
+by this; for, in the Mediterranean, one is never safe from spies, and no
+person is too insignificant to escape the ban, if once suspected.
+
+Calabria was filled to overflowing with strangers from all parts of the
+Two Sicilies, and we had some difficulty in finding very bad and dear
+lodgings. It was the first day of the _festa,_ and the streets were
+filled with peasants, the men in black velvet jackets and breeches, with
+stockings, and long white cotton caps hanging on the shoulders, and the
+women with gay silk shawls on their heads, after the manner of the Mexican
+_reboza_. In all the public squares, the market scene in Masaniello was
+acted to the life. The Sicilian dialect is harsh and barbarous, and the
+original Italian is so disguised by the admixture of Arabic, Spanish,
+French, and Greek words, that even my imperial friend, who was a born
+Italian, had great difficulty in understanding the people.
+
+I purchased a guide to the festa, which, among other things, contained a
+biography of St. Agatha. It is a beautiful specimen of pious writing, and
+I regret that I have not space to translate the whole of it. Agatha was a
+beautiful Catanian virgin, who secretly embraced Christianity during the
+reign of Nero. Catania was then governed by a praetor named Quintianus,
+who, becoming enamored of Agatha, used the most brutal means to compel her
+to submit to his desires, but without effect. At last, driven to the
+cruelest extremes, he cut off her breasts, and threw her into prison. But
+at midnight, St. Peter, accompanied by an angel, appeared to her, restored
+the maimed parts, and left her more beautiful than ever. Quintianus then
+ordered a furnace to be heated, and cast her therein. A terrible
+earthquake shook the city; the sun was eclipsed; the sea rolled backwards,
+and left its bottom dry; the praetor's palace fell in ruins, and he,
+pursued by the vengeance of the populace, fled till he reached the river
+Simeto, where he was drowned in attempting to cross. "The thunders of the
+vengeance of God," says the biography, "struck him down into the
+profoundest Hell." This was in the year 252.
+
+The body was carried to Constantinople in 1040, "although the Catanians
+wept incessantly at their loss;" but in 1126, two French knights, named
+Gilisbert and Goselin, were moved by angelic influences to restore it to
+its native town, which they accomplished, "and the eyes of the Catanians
+again burned with joy." The miracles effected by the saint are numberless,
+and her power is especially efficacious in preventing earthquakes and
+eruptions of Mount Etna. Nevertheless, Catania has suffered more from
+these causes than any other town in Sicily. But I would that all saints
+had as good a claim to canonization as St. Agatha. The honors of such a
+festival as this are not out of place, when paid to such youth, beauty,
+and "heavenly chastity," as she typifies.
+
+The guide, which I have already consulted, gives a full account of the
+festa, in advance, with a description of Catania. The author says: "If thy
+heart is not inspired by gazing on this lovely city, it is a fatal
+sign--thou wert not born to feel the sweet impulses of the Beautiful!"
+Then, in announcing the illuminations and pyrotechnic displays, he
+exclaims: "Oh, the amazing spectacle! Oh, how happy art thou, that thou
+beholdest it! I What pyramids of lamps! What myriads of rockets! What
+wonderful temples of flame! The Mountain himself is astonished at such a
+display." And truly, except the illumination of the Golden Horn on the
+Night of Predestination, I have seen nothing equal to the spectacle
+presented by Catania, during the past three nights. The city, which has
+been built up from her ruins more stately than ever, was in a blaze of
+light--all her domes, towers, and the long lines of her beautiful palaces
+revealed in the varying red and golden flames of a hundred thousand lamps
+and torches. Pyramids of fire, transparencies, and illuminated triumphal
+arches filled the four principal streets, and the fountain in the
+Cathedral square gleamed like a jet of molten silver, spinning up from one
+of the pores of Etna. At ten o'clock, a gorgeous display of fireworks
+closed the day's festivities, but the lamps remained burning nearly all
+night.
+
+On the second night, the grand Procession of the Veil took place. I
+witnessed this imposing spectacle from the balcony of Prince Gessina's
+palace. Long lines of waxen torches led the way, followed by a military
+band, and then a company of the highest prelates, in their most brilliant
+costumes, surrounding the Bishop, who walked under a canopy of silk and
+gold, bearing the miraculous veil of St. Agatha. I was blessed with a
+distant view of it, but could see no traces of the rosy hue left upon it
+by the flames of the Saint's martyrdom. Behind the priests came the
+_Intendente_ of Sicily, Gen. Filangieri, the same who, three years ago,
+gave up Catania to sack and slaughter. He was followed by the Senate of
+the City, who have just had the cringing cowardice to offer him a ball on
+next Sunday night. If ever a man deserved the vengeance of an outraged
+people, it is this Filangieri, who was first a Liberal, when the cause
+promised success, and then made himself the scourge of the vilest of
+kings. As he passed me last night in his carriage of State, while the
+music pealed in rich rejoicing strains, that solemn chant with which the
+monks break upon the revellers, in "Lucrezia Borgia," came into my mind:
+
+  "La gioja del profani
+  'E un fumo passagier'--"
+
+[the rejoicing of the profane is a transitory mist.] I heard, under the
+din of all these festivities, the voice of that Retribution which even now
+lies in wait, and will not long be delayed.
+
+To-night Signor Scavo, the American Vice-Consul, took me to the palace of
+Prince Biscari, overlooking the harbor, in order to behold the grand
+display of fireworks from the end of the mole. The showers of rockets and
+colored stars, and the temples of blue and silver fire, were repeated in
+the dark, quiet bosom of the sea, producing the most dazzling and
+startling effects. There was a large number of the Catanese nobility
+present, and among them a Marchesa Gioveni, the descendant of the bloody
+house of Anjou. Prince Biscari is a benign, courtly old man, and greatly
+esteemed here. His son is at present in exile, on account of the part he
+took in the late revolution. During the sack of the city under Filangieri,
+the palace was plundered of property to the amount of ten thousand
+dollars. The museum of Greek and Roman antiquities attached to it, and
+which the house of Biscari has been collecting for many years, is probably
+the finest in Sicily. The state apartments were thrown open this evening,
+and when I left, an hour ago, the greater portion of the guests were going
+through mazy quadrilles on the mosaic pavements.
+
+Among the antiquities of Catania which I have visited, are the
+Amphitheatre, capable of holding 15,000 persons, the old Greek Theatre,
+the same in which Alcibiades made his noted harangue to the Catanians, the
+Odeon, and the ancient Baths. The theatre, which is in tolerable
+preservation, is built of lava, like many of the modern edifices in the
+city. The Baths proved to me, what I had supposed, that the Oriental Bath
+of the present day is identical with that of the Ancients. Why so
+admirable an institution has never been introduced into Europe (except in
+the _Bains Chinois_ of Paris) is more than I can tell. From the pavement
+of these baths, which is nearly twenty feet below the surface of the
+earth, the lava of later eruptions has burst up, in places, in hard black
+jets. The most wonderful token of that flood which whelmed Catania two
+hundred years ago, is to be seen at the Grand Benedictine Convent of San
+Nicola, in the upper part of the city. Here the stream of lava divides
+itself just before the Convent, and flows past on both sides, leaving the
+building and gardens untouched. The marble courts, the fountains, the
+splendid galleries, and the gardens of richest southern bloom and
+fragrance, stand like an epicurean island in the midst of the terrible
+stony waves, whose edges bristle with the thorny aloe and cactus. The
+monks of San Nicola are all chosen from the Sicilian nobility, and live a
+comfortable life of luxury and vice. Each one has his own carriage,
+horses, and servants, and each his private chambers outside of the convent
+walls and his kept concubines. These facts are known and acknowledged by
+the Catanians, to whom they are a lasting scandal.
+
+It is past midnight, and I must close. Caesar started this afternoon,
+alone, for the ascent of Etna. I would have accompanied him, but my only
+chance of reaching Messina in time for the next steamer to Naples is the
+diligence which leaves here to-morrow. The mountain has been covered with
+clouds for the last two days, and I have had no view at all comparable to
+that of the morning of my arrival. To-morrow the grand procession of the
+Body of St. Agatha takes place, but I am quite satisfied with three days
+of processions and horse races, and three nights of illuminations.
+
+I leave in the morning, with a Sicilian passport, my own availing me
+nothing, after landing.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXI.
+
+The Eruption of Mount Etna.
+
+
+  The Mountain Threatens--The Signs Increase--We Leave Catania--Gardens
+  Among the Lava--Etna Labors--Aci Reale--The Groans of Etna--The
+  Eruption--Gigantic Tree of Smoke--Formation of the New Crater--We Lose
+  Sight of the Mountain--Arrival at Messina--Etna is Obscured--Departure.
+
+
+  -------"the shattered side
+  Of thundering AEtna, whose combustible
+  And fuel'd entrails thence conceiving fire,
+  Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
+  And leave a singed bottom." Milton.
+
+
+Messina, Sicily, _Monday, August_ 23, 1852.
+
+The noises of the festival had not ceased when I closed my letter at
+midnight, on Friday last. I slept soundly through the night, but was
+awakened before sunrise by my Sicilian landlord. "O, Excellenza! have you
+heard the Mountain? He is going to break out again; may the holy Santa
+Agatha protect us!" It is rather ill-timed on the part of the Mountain,
+was my involuntary first thought, that he should choose for a new eruption
+precisely the centennial festival of the only Saint who is supposed to
+have any power over him. It shows a disregard of female influence not at
+all suited to the present day, and I scarcely believe that he seriously
+means it. Next came along the jabbering landlady: "I don't like his looks.
+It was just so the last time. Come, Excellenza, you can see him from the
+back terrace." The sun was not yet risen, but the east was bright with
+his coming, and there was not a cloud in the sky. All the features of Etna
+were sharply sculptured in the clear air. From the topmost cone, a thick
+stream of white smoke was slowly puffed out at short intervals, and rolled
+lazily down the eastern side. It had a heavy, languid character, and I
+should have thought nothing of the appearance but for the alarm of my
+hosts. It was like the slow fire of Earth's incense, burning on that grand
+mountain altar.
+
+I hurried off to the Post Office, to await the arrival of the diligence
+from Palermo. The office is in the Strada Etnea, the main street of
+Catania, which runs straight through the city, from the sea to the base of
+the mountain, whose peak closes the long vista. The diligence was an hour
+later than usual, and I passed the time in watching the smoke which
+continued to increase in volume, and was mingled, from time to time, with
+jets of inky blackness. The postilion said he had seen fires and heard
+loud noises during the night. According to his account, the disturbances
+commenced about midnight. I could not but envy my friend Caesar, who was
+probably at that moment on the summit, looking down into the seething
+fires of the crater.
+
+At last, we rolled out of Catania. There were in the diligence, besides
+myself, two men and a woman, Sicilians of the secondary class. The road
+followed the shore, over rugged tracts of lava, the different epochs of
+which could be distinctly traced in the character of the vegetation. The
+last great flow (of 1679) stood piled in long ridges of terrible
+sterility, barely allowing the aloe and cactus to take root in the hollows
+between. The older deposits were sufficiently decomposed to nourish the
+olive and vine; but even here, the orchards were studded with pyramids of
+the harder fragments, which are laboriously collected by the husbandmen.
+In the few favored spots which have been untouched for so many ages that a
+tolerable depth of soil has accumulated, the vegetation has all the
+richness and brilliancy of tropical lands. The palm, orange, and
+pomegranate thrive luxuriantly, and the vines almost break under their
+heavy clusters. The villages are frequent and well built, and the hills
+are studded, far and near, with the villas of rich proprietors, mostly
+buildings of one story, with verandahs extending their whole length.
+Looking up towards Etna, whose base the road encircles, the views are
+gloriously rich and beautiful. On the other hand is the blue Mediterranean
+and the irregular outline of the shore, here and there sending forth
+promontories of lava, cooled by the waves into the most fantastic forms.
+
+We had sot proceeded far before a new sign called my attention to the
+mountain. Not only was there a perceptible jar or vibration in the earth,
+but a dull, groaning sound, like the muttering of distant thunder, began
+to be heard. The smoke increased in volume, and, as we advanced further to
+the eastward, and much nearer to the great cone, I perceived that it
+consisted of two jets, issuing from different mouths. A broad stream of
+very dense white smoke still flowed over the lip of the topmost crater and
+down the eastern side. As its breadth did not vary, and the edges were
+distinctly defined, it was no doubt the sulphureous vapor rising from a
+river of molten lava. Perhaps a thousand yards below, a much stronger
+column of mingled black and white smoke gushed up, in regular beats or
+pants, from a depression in the mountain side, between two small, extinct
+cones. All this part of Etna was scarred with deep chasms, and in the
+bottoms of those nearest the opening, I could see the red gleam of fire.
+The air was perfectly still, and as yet there was no cloud in the sky.
+
+When we stopped to change horses at the town of Aci Reale, I first felt
+the violence of the tremor and the awful sternness of the sound. The smoke
+by this time seemed to be gathering on the side towards Catania, and hung
+in a dark mass about half-way down the mountain. Groups of the villagers
+were gathered in the streets which looked upwards to Etna, and discussing
+the chances of an eruption. "Ah," said an old peasant, "the Mountain knows
+how to make himself respected. When he talks, everybody listens." The
+sound was the most awful that ever met my ears. It was a hard, painful
+moan, now and then fluttering like a suppressed sob, and had, at the same
+time, an expression of threatening and of agony. It did not come from Etna
+alone. It had no fixed location; it pervaded all space. It was in the air,
+in the depths of the sea, in the earth under my feet--everywhere, in fact;
+and as it continued to increase in violence, I experienced a sensation of
+positive pain. The people looked anxious and alarmed, although they said
+it was a good thing for all Sicily; that last year they had been in
+constant fear from earthquakes, and that an eruption invariably left the
+island quiet for several years. It is true that, during the past year,
+parts of Sicily and Calabria have been visited with severe shocks,
+occasioning much damage to property. A merchant of this city informed me
+yesterday that his whole family had slept for two months in the vaults of
+his warehouse, fearing that their residence might be shaken down in the
+night.
+
+As we rode along from Aci Reale to Taormina, all the rattling of the
+diligence over the rough road could not drown the awful noise. There was a
+strong smell of sulphur in the air, and the thick pants of smoke from the
+lower crater continued to increase in strength. The sun was fierce and
+hot, and the edges of the sulphureous clouds shone with a dazzling
+whiteness. A mounted soldier overtook us, and rode beside the diligence,
+talking with the postillion. He had been up to the mountain, and was
+taking his report to the Governor of the district. The heat of the day and
+the continued tremor of the air lulled me into a sort of doze, when I was
+suddenly aroused by a cry from the soldier and the stopping of the
+diligence. At the same time, there was a terrific peal of sound, followed
+by a jar which must have shaken the whole island. We looked up to Etna,
+which was fortunately in full view before us. An immense mass of
+snow-white smoke had burst up from the crater and was rising
+perpendicularly into the air, its rounded volumes rapidly whirling one
+over the other, yet urged with such impetus that they only rolled outwards
+after they had ascended to an immense height. It might have been one
+minute or five--for I was so entranced by this wonderful spectacle that I
+lost the sense of time--but it seemed instantaneous (so rapid and violent
+were the effects of the explosion), when there stood in the air, based on
+the summit of the mountain, a mass of smoke four or five miles high, and
+shaped precisely like the Italian pine tree.
+
+Words cannot paint the grandeur of this mighty tree. Its trunk of columned
+smoke, one side of which was silvered by the sun, while the other, in
+shadow, was lurid with red flame, rose for more than a mile before it sent
+out its cloudy boughs. Then parting into a thousand streams, each of
+which again threw out its branching tufts of smoke, rolling and waving in
+the air, it stood in intense relief against the dark blue of the sky. Its
+rounded masses of foliage were dazzlingly white on one side, while, in the
+shadowy depths of the branches, there was a constant play of brown,
+yellow, and crimson tints, revealing the central shaft of fire. It was
+like the tree celebrated in the Scandinavian sagas, as seen by the mother
+of Harold Hardrada--that tree, whose roots pierced through the earth,
+whose trunk was of the color of blood, and whose branches filled the
+uttermost corners of the heavens.
+
+This outburst seemed to have relieved the mountain, for the tremors were
+now less violent, though the terrible noise still droned in the air, and
+earth, and sea. And now, from the base of the tree, three white streams
+slowly crept into as many separate chasms, against the walls of which
+played the flickering glow of the burning lava. The column of smoke and
+flame was still hurled upwards, and the tree, after standing about ten
+minutes--a new and awful revelation of the active forces of
+Nature--gradually rose and spread, lost its form, and, slowly moved by a
+light wind (the first that disturbed the dead calm of the day), bent over
+to the eastward. We resumed our course. The vast belt of smoke at last
+arched over the strait, here about twenty miles wide, and sank towards the
+distant Calabrian shore. As we drove under it, for some miles of our way,
+the sun was totally obscured, and the sky presented the singular spectacle
+of two hemispheres of clear blue, with a broad belt of darkness drawn
+between them. There was a hot, sulphureous vapor in the air, and showers
+of white ashes fell, from time to time. We were distant about twelve
+miles, in a straight line, from the crater; but the air was so clear,
+even under the shadow of the smoke, that I could distinctly trace the
+downward movement of the rivers of lava.
+
+This was the eruption, at last, to which all the phenomena of the morning
+had been only preparatory. For the first time in ten years the depths of
+Etna had been stirred, and I thanked God for my detention at Malta, and
+the singular hazard of travel which had brought me here, to his very base,
+to witness a scene, the impression of which I shall never lose, to my
+dying day. Although the eruption may continue and the mountain pour forth
+fiercer fires and broader tides of lava, I cannot but think that the first
+upheaval, which lets out the long-imprisoned forces, will not be equalled
+in grandeur by any later spectacle.
+
+After passing Taormina, our road led us under the hills of the coast, and
+although I occasionally caught glimpses of Etna, and saw the reflection of
+fires from the lava which was filling up his savage ravines, the smoke at
+last encircled his waist, and he was then shut out of sight by the
+intervening mountains. We lost a bolt in a deep valley opening on the sea,
+and during our stoppage I could still hear the groans of the Mountain,
+though farther off and less painful to the ear. As evening came on, the
+beautiful hills of Calabria, with white towns and villages on their sides,
+gleamed in the purple light of the setting sun. We drove around headland
+after headland, till the strait opened, and we looked over the harbor of
+Messina to Capo Faro, and the distant islands of the Tyrrhene Sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I leave this afternoon for Naples and Leghorn. I have lost already so much
+time between Constantinople and this place, that I cannot give up ten
+days more to Etna. Besides, I am so thoroughly satisfied with what I have
+seen, that I fear no second view of the eruption could equal it. Etna
+cannot be seen from here, nor from a nearer point than a mountain six or
+eight miles distant. I tried last evening to get a horse and ride out to
+it, in order to see the appearance of the eruption by night; but every
+horse, mule and donkey in the place was engaged, except a miserable lame
+mule, for which five dollars was demanded. However, the night happened to
+be cloudy so that I could have seen nothing.
+
+My passport is finally _en regle_. It has cost the labors of myself and an
+able-bodied valet-de-place since yesterday morning, and the expenditure of
+five dollars and a half, to accomplish this great work. I have just been
+righteously abusing the Neapolitan Government to a native merchant whom,
+from his name, I took to be a Frenchman, but as I am off in an hour or
+two, hope to escape arrest. Perdition to all Tyranny!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXII.
+
+Gibraltar.
+
+
+  Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
+  Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
+  Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
+  Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock.
+
+
+  ------"to the north-west, Cape St. Vincent died away,
+  Sunset ran, a burning blood-red, blushing into Cadiz Bay.
+  In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray."
+
+  Browning.
+
+
+Gibraltar, _Saturday, November_ 6, 1852.
+
+I leave unrecorded the links of travel which connected Messina and
+Gibraltar. They were over the well-trodden fields of Europe, where little
+ground is left that is not familiar. In leaving Sicily I lost the
+Saracenic trail, which I had been following through the East, and first
+find it again here, on the rock of Calpe, whose name, _Djebel el-Tarik_
+(the Mountain of Tarik), still speaks of the fiery race whose rule
+extended from the unknown ocean of the West to "Ganges and Hydaspes,
+Indian streams." In Malta and Sicily, I saw their decaying watch-towers,
+and recognized their sign-manual in the deep, guttural, masculine words
+and expressions which they have left behind them. I now design following
+their footsteps through the beautiful _Belad-el-Andaluz_, which, to the
+eye of the Melek Abd-er-rahman, was only less lovely than the plains of
+Damascus.
+
+While in Constantinople, I received letters which opened to me wider and
+richer fields of travel than I had already traversed. I saw a possibility
+of exploring the far Indian realms, the shores of farthest Cathay and the
+famed Zipango of Marco Polo. Before entering on this new sphere of
+experiences, however, it was necessary for me to visit Italy, Germany, and
+England. I sailed from Messina to Leghorn, and travelled thence, by way of
+Florence, Venice, and the Tyrol, to Munich. After three happy weeks at
+Gotha, and among the valleys of she Thueringian Forest, I went to London,
+where business and the preparation for my new journeys detained me two or
+three weeks longer. Although the comforts of European civilization were
+pleasant, as a change, after the wild life of the Orient, the autumnal
+rains of England soon made me homesick for the sunshine I had left. The
+weather was cold, dark, and dreary, and the oppressive, sticky atmosphere
+of the bituminous metropolis weighed upon me like a nightmare. Heartily
+tired of looking at a sun that could show nothing brighter than a red
+copper disk, and of breathing an air that peppered my face with particles
+of soot, I left on the 28th of October. It was one of the dismalest days
+of autumn; the meadows of Berkshire were flooded with broad, muddy
+streams, and the woods on the hills of Hampshire looked brown and sodden,
+as if slowly rotting away. I reached Southampton at dusk, but there the
+sky was neither warmer nor clearer, so I spent the evening over a coal
+fire, all impatience for the bright beloved South, towards which my face
+was turned once more.
+
+The _Madras_ left on the next day, at 2 P.M., in the midst of a cheerless
+rain, which half blotted out the pleasant shores of Southampton Water, and
+the Isle of Wight. The _Madras_ was a singularly appropriate vessel for
+one bound on such a journey as mine. The surgeon was Dr. Mungo Park, and
+one of my room-mates was Mr. R. Crusoe. It was a Friday, which boded no
+good for the voyage; but then my journey commenced with my leaving London
+the day previous, and Thursday is a lucky day among the Arabs. I caught a
+watery view of the gray cliffs of the Needles, when dinner was announced,
+but many were those (and I among them) who commenced that meal, and did
+not stay to finish it.
+
+Is there any piece of water more unreasonably, distressingly, disgustingly
+rough and perverse than the British Channel? Yes: there is one, and but
+one--the Bay of Biscay. And as the latter succeeds the former, without a
+pause between, and the head-winds never ceased, and the rain continually
+poured, I leave you to draw the climax of my misery. Four days and four
+nights in a berth, lying on your back, now dozing dull hour after hour,
+now making faint endeavors to eat, or reading the feeblest novel ever
+written, because the mind cannot digest stronger aliment--can there be a
+greater contrast to the wide-awake life, the fiery inspiration, of the
+Orient? My blood became so sluggish and my mind so cloudy and befogged,
+that I despaired of ever thinking clearly or feeling vividly again. "The
+winds are rude" in Biscay, Byron says. They are, indeed: very rude. They
+must have been raised in some most disorderly quarter of the globe. They
+pitched the waves right over our bulwarks, and now and then dashed a
+bucketful of water down the cabin skylight, swamping the ladies' cabin,
+and setting scores of bandboxes afloat. Not that there was the least
+actual danger; but Mrs. ---- would not be persuaded that we were not on
+the brink of destruction, and wrote to friends at home a voluminous
+account of her feelings. There was an Irishman on board, bound to Italy,
+with his sister. It was his first tour, and when asked why he did not go
+direct, through France, he replied, with brotherly concern, that he was
+anxious his sister should see the Bay of Biscay.
+
+This youth's perceptions were of such an emerald hue, that a lot of wicked
+Englishmen had their own fun out of him. The other day, he was trying to
+shave, to the great danger of slicing off his nose, as the vessel was
+rolling fearfully. "Why don't you have the ship headed to the wind?" said
+one of the Englishmen, who heard his complaints; "she will then lie
+steady, and you can shave beautifully." Thereupon the Irishman sent one of
+the stewards upon deck with a polite message to the captain, begging him
+to put the vessel about for five minutes.
+
+Towards noon of the fifth day, we saw the dark, rugged mountains that
+guard the north-western corner of the Spanish Peninsula. We passed the Bay
+of Corunna, and rounding the bold headland of Finisterre, left the
+Biscayan billows behind us. But the sea was still rough and the sky
+clouded, although the next morning the mildness of the air showed the
+change in our latitude. About noon that day, we made the Burlings, a
+cluster of rocks forty miles north of Lisbon, and just before sunset, a
+transient lifting of the clouds revealed the Rock of Cintra, at the mouth
+of the Tagus. The tall, perpendicular cliffs, and the mountain slopes
+behind, covered with gardens, orchards, and scattered villas and hamlets,
+made a grand though dim picture, which was soon hidden from our view.
+
+On the 4th, we were nearly all day crossing the mouth of the Bay of
+Cadiz, and only at sunset saw Cape Trafalgar afar off, glimmering through
+the reddish haze. I remained on deck, as there were patches of starlight
+in the sky. After passing the light-house at Tarifa, the Spanish shore
+continued to be visible. In another hour, there was a dim, cloudy outline
+high above the horizon, on our right. This was the Lesser Atlas, in
+Morocco. And now, right ahead, distinctly visible, though fifteen miles
+distant, lay a colossal lion, with his head on his outstretched paws,
+looking towards Africa. If I had been brought to the spot blindfolded, I
+should have known what it was. The resemblance is certainly very striking,
+and the light-house on Europa Point seemed to be a lamp held in his paws.
+The lights of the city and fortifications rose one by one, glittering
+along the base, and at midnight we dropped anchor before them on the
+western side.
+
+I landed yesterday morning. The mists, which had followed me from England,
+had collected behind the Rock, and the sun, still hidden by its huge bulk,
+shone upwards through them, making a luminous background, against which
+the lofty walls and jagged ramparts of this tremendous natural
+fortification were clearly defined. I announced my name, and the length of
+time I designed remaining, at a little office on the quay, and was then
+allowed to pass into the city. A number of familiar white turbans met me
+on entering, and I could not resist the temptation of cordially saluting
+the owners in their own language. The town is long and narrow, lying
+steeply against the Rock. The houses are white, yellow and pink, as in
+Spanish towns, but the streets are clean and well paved. There is a
+square, about the size of an ordinary building-lot, where a sort of
+market of dry goods and small articles is held The "Club-House Hotel"
+occupies one side of it; and, as I look out of my window upon it, I see
+the topmost cliffs of the Rock above me, threatening to topple down from a
+height of 1,500 feet.
+
+My first walk in Gibraltar was in search of a palm-tree. After threading
+the whole length of the town, I found two small ones in a garden, in the
+bottom of the old moat. The sun was shining, and his rays seemed to fall
+with double warmth on their feathery crests. Three brown Spaniards,
+bare-armed, were drawing water with a pole and bucket, and filling the
+little channels which conveyed it to the distant vegetables. The sea
+glittered blue below; an Indian fig-tree shaded me; but, on the rock
+behind, an aloe lifted its blossoming stem, some twenty feet high, into
+the sunshine. To describe what a weight was lifted from my heart would
+seem foolish to those who do not know on what little things the whole tone
+of our spirits sometimes depends.
+
+But if an even balance was restored yesterday, the opposite scale kicked
+the beam this morning. Not a speck of vapor blurred the spotless crystal
+of the sky, as I walked along the hanging paths of the Alameda. The sea
+was dazzling ultra-marine, with a purple lustre; every crag and notch of
+the mountains across the bay, every shade of brown or gray, or the green
+of grassy patches, was drawn and tinted with a pencil so exquisitely
+delicate as almost to destroy the perspective. The white houses of
+Algeciras, five miles off, appeared close at hand: a little toy-town,
+backed by miniature hills. Apes' Hill, the ancient Abyla, in Africa,
+advanced to meet Calpe, its opposing pillar, and Atlas swept away to the
+east ward, its blue becoming paler and paler, till the powers of vision
+finally failed. From the top of the southern point of the Rock, I saw the
+mountain-shore of Spain, as far as Malaga, and the snowy top of one of the
+Sierra Nevada. Looking eastward to the horizon line of the Mediterranean,
+my sight extended so far, in the wonderful clearness of the air, that the
+convexity of the earth's surface was plainly to be seen. The sea, instead
+of being a plane, was slightly convex, and the sky, instead of resting
+upon it at the horizon, curved down beyond it, as the upper side of a horn
+curves over the lower, when one looks into the mouth. There is none of the
+many aspects of Nature more grand than this, which is so rarely seen, that
+I believe the only person who has ever described it is Humboldt, who saw
+it, looking from the Silla de Caraccas over the Caribbean Sea. It gives
+you the impression of standing on the edge of the earth, and looking off
+into space. From the mast-head, the ocean appears either flat or slightly
+concave, and aeronauts declare that this apparent concavity becomes more
+marked, the higher they ascend. It is only at those rare periods when the
+air is so miraculously clear as to produce the effect of _no
+air_--rendering impossible the slightest optical illusion--that our eyes
+can see things as they really are. So pure was the atmosphere to-day,
+that, at meridian, the moon, although a thin sickle, three days distant
+from the sun, shone perfectly white and clear.
+
+As I loitered in the Alameda, between thick hedges of ever-blooming
+geraniums, clumps of heliotrope three feet high, and luxuriant masses of
+ivy, around whose warm flowers the bees clustered and hummed, I could only
+think of the voyage as a hideous dream. The fog and gloom had been in my
+own eyes and in my own brain, and now the blessed sun, shining full in my
+face, awoke me. I am a worshipper of the Sun. I took off my hat to him, as
+I stood there, in a wilderness of white, crimson, and purple flowers, and
+let him blaze away in my face for a quarter of an hour. And as I walked
+home with my back to him, I often turned my face from side to side that I
+might feel his touch on my cheek. How a man can live, who is sentenced to
+a year's imprisonment, is more than I can understand.
+
+But all this (you will say) gives you no picture of Gibraltar. The Rock is
+so familiar to all the world, in prints and descriptions, that I find
+nothing new to say of it, except that it is by no means so barren a rock
+as the island of Malta, being clothed, in many places, with beautiful
+groves and the greenest turf; besides, I have not yet seen the
+rock-galleries, having taken passage for Cadiz this afternoon. When I
+return--as I hope to do in twenty days, after visiting Seville and
+Granada--I shall procure permission to view all the fortifications, and
+likewise to ascend to the summit.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII.
+
+Cadiz And Seville.
+
+
+  Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
+  Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
+  House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
+  Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar-Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
+  House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
+  Evening in Seville.
+
+
+  "The walls of Cadiz front the shore,
+      And shimmer o'er the sea."
+
+  R. H. Stoddard.
+
+
+               "Beautiful Seville!
+  Of which I've dreamed, until I saw its towers
+  In every cloud that hid the setting sun."
+
+  George H. Boker.
+
+
+Seville, _November_ 10, 1852.
+
+I left Gibraltar on the evening of the 6th, in the steamer Iberia. The
+passage to Cadiz was made in nine hours, and we came to anchor in the
+harbor before day-break. It was a cheerful picture that the rising sun
+presented to us. The long white front of the city, facing the East, glowed
+with a bright rosy lustre, on a ground of the clearest blue. The tongue of
+land on which Cadiz stands is low, but the houses are lifted by the heavy
+sea-wall which encompasses them. The main-land consists of a range of low
+but graceful hills, while in the south-east the mountains of Ronda rise at
+some distance. I went immediately on shore, where my carpet-bag was seized
+upon by a boy, with the rich brown complexion of one Murillo's beggars,
+who trudged off with it to the gate. After some little detention there, I
+was conducted to a long, deserted, barn-like building, where I waited half
+an hour before the proper officer came. When the latter had taken his
+private toll of my contraband cigars, the brown imp conducted me to
+Blanco's English Hotel, a neat and comfortable house on the Alameda.
+
+Cadiz is soon seen. Notwithstanding its venerable age of three thousand
+years--having been founded by Hercules, who figures on its
+coat-of-arms--it is purely a commercial city, and has neither antiquities,
+nor historic associations that interest any but Englishmen. It is
+compactly built, and covers a smaller space than accords with my ideas of
+its former splendor. I first walked around the sea-ramparts, enjoying the
+glorious look-off over the blue waters. The city is almost insulated, the
+triple line of fortifications on the land side being of but trifling
+length. A rocky ledge stretches out into the sea from the northern point,
+and at its extremity rises the massive light-house tower, 170 feet high.
+The walls toward the sea were covered with companies of idle anglers,
+fishing with cane rods of enormous length. On the open, waste spaces
+between the bastions, boys had spread their limed cords to catch singing
+birds, with chirping decoys placed here and there in wicker cages. Numbers
+of boatmen and peasants, in their brown jackets, studded with tags and
+bugles, and those round black caps which resemble smashed bandboxes,
+loitered about the walls or lounged on the grass in the sun.
+
+Except along the Alameda, which fronts the bay, the exterior of the city
+has an aspect of neglect and desertion. The interior, however, atones for
+this in the gay and lively air of its streets, which, though narrow, are
+regular and charmingly clean. The small plazas are neatness itself, and
+one is too content with this to ask for striking architectural effects.
+The houses are tall and stately, of the most dazzling whiteness, and
+though you could point out no one as a pattern of style, the general
+effect is chaste and harmonious. In fact, there are two or three streets
+which you would almost pronounce faultless. The numbers of hanging
+balconies and of court-yards paved with marble and surrounded with elegant
+corridors, show the influence of Moorish taste. There is not a
+mean-looking house to be seen, and I have no doubt that Cadiz is the best
+built city of its size in the world. It lies, white as new-fallen snow,
+like a cluster of ivory palaces, between sea and sky. Blue and silver are
+its colors, and, as everybody knows, there can be no more charming
+contrast.
+
+I visited both the old and new cathedrals, neither of which is
+particularly interesting. The latter is unfinished, and might have been a
+fine edifice had the labor and money expended on its construction been
+directed by taste. The interior, rich as it is in marbles and sculpture,
+has a heavy, confused effect. The pillars dividing the nave from the
+side-aisles are enormous composite masses, each one consisting of six
+Corinthian columns, stuck around and against a central shaft. More
+satisfactory to me was the Opera-House, which I visited in the evening,
+and where the dazzling array of dark-eyed Gaditanas put a stop to
+architectural criticism. The women of Cadiz are noted for their beauty and
+their graceful gait. Some of them are very beautiful, it is true; but
+beauty is not the rule among them. Their gait, however, is the most
+graceful possible, because it is perfectly free and natural. The
+commonest serving-maid who walks the streets of Cadiz would put to shame a
+whole score of our mincing and wriggling belles.
+
+Honest old Blanco prepared me a cup of chocolate by sunrise next morning,
+and accompanied me down to the quay, to embark for Seville. A furious wind
+was blowing from the south-east, and the large green waves raced and
+chased one another incessantly over the surface of the bay. I took a heavy
+craft, which the boatmen pushed along under cover of the pier, until they
+reached the end, when the sail was dropped in the face of the wind, and
+away we shot into the watery tumult. The boat rocked and bounced over the
+agitated surface, running with one gunwale on the waves, and sheets of
+briny spray broke over me. I felt considerably relieved when I reached the
+deck of the steamer, but it was then diversion enough to watch those who
+followed. The crowd of boats pitching tumultuously around the steamer,
+jostling against each other, their hulls gleaming with wet, as they rose
+on the beryl-colored waves, striped with long, curded lines of wind-blown
+foam, would have made a fine subject for the pencil of Achenbach.
+
+At last we pushed off, with a crowd of passengers fore and aft, and a
+pyramid of luggage piled around the smoke-pipe. There was a party of four
+Englishmen on board, and, on making their acquaintance, I found one of
+them to be a friend to some of my friends--Sir John Potter, the
+progressive ex-Mayor of Manchester. The wind being astern, we ran rapidly
+along the coast, and in two hours entered the mouth of the Guadalquivir.
+[This name comes from the Arabic _wadi el-kebeer_--literally, the Great
+Valley.] The shores are a dead flat. The right bank is a dreary forest of
+stunted pines, abounding with deer and other game; on the left is the
+dilapidated town of San Lucar, whence Magellan set sail on his first
+voyage around the world. A mile further is Bonanza, the port of Xeres,
+where we touched and took on board a fresh lot of passengers. Thenceforth,
+for four hours, the scenery of the Guadalquivir had a most distressing
+sameness. The banks were as flat as a board, with here and there a
+straggling growth of marshy thickets. Now and then we passed a herdsman's
+hut, but there were no human beings to be seen, except the peasants who
+tended the large flocks of sheep and cattle. A sort of breakfast was
+served in the cabin, but so great was the number of guests that I had much
+difficulty in getting anything to eat. The waiters were models of calmness
+and deliberation.
+
+As we approached Seville, some low hills appeared on the left, near the
+river. Dazzling white villages were planted at their foot, and all the
+slopes were covered with olive orchards, while the banks of the stream
+were bordered with silvery birch trees. This gave the landscape, in spite
+of the African warmth and brightness of the day, a gray and almost wintry
+aspect. Soon the graceful Giralda, or famous Tower of Seville, arose in
+the distance; but, from the windings of the river, we were half an hour in
+reaching the landing-place. One sees nothing of the far-famed beauty of
+Seville, on approaching it. The boat stops below the Alameda, where the
+passengers are received by Custom-House officers, who, in my case, did not
+verify the stories told of them in Cadiz. I gave my carpet-bag to a boy,
+who conducted me along the hot and dusty banks to the bridge over the
+Guadalquivir, where he turned into the city. On passing the gate, two
+loafer-like guards stopped my baggage, notwithstanding it had already been
+examined. "What!" said I, "do you examine twice on entering Seville?"
+"Yes," answered one; "twice, and even three times;" but added in a lower
+tone, "it depends entirely on yourself." With that he slipped behind me,
+and let one hand fall beside my pocket. The transfer of a small coin was
+dexterously made, and I passed on without further stoppage to the Fonda de
+Madrid.
+
+Sir John Potter engaged Antonio Bailli, the noted guide of Seville, who
+professes to have been the cicerone of all distinguished travellers, from
+Lord Byron and Washington Irving down to Owen Jones, and I readily
+accepted his invitation to join the party. Bailli is recommended by Ford
+as "fat and good-humored" Fat he certainly is, and very good-humored when
+speaking of himself, but he has been rather spoiled by popularity, and is
+much too profuse in his critical remarks on art and architecture.
+Nevertheless, as my stay in Seville is limited, I have derived no slight
+advantage from his services.
+
+On the first morning I took an early stroll through the streets. The
+houses are glaringly white, like those of Cadiz, but are smaller and have
+not the same stately exteriors. The windows are protected by iron
+gratings, of florid patterns, and, as many of these are painted green, the
+general effect is pleasing. Almost every door opens upon a _patio_, or
+courtyard, paved with black and white marble and adorned with flowers and
+fountains. Many of these remain from the time of the Moors, and are still
+surrounded by the delicate arches and brilliant tile-work of that period.
+The populace in the streets are entirely Spanish--the jaunty _majo_ in
+his queer black cap, sash, and embroidered jacket, and the nut-brown,
+dark-eyed damsel, swimming along in her mantilla, and armed with the
+irresistible fan.
+
+We went first to the Cathedral, built on the site of the great mosque of
+Abou Youssuf Yakoub. The tall Giralda beckoned to us over the tops of the
+intervening buildings, and finally a turn in the street brought us to the
+ancient Moorish gateway on the northern side. This is an admirable
+specimen of the horse-shoe arch, and is covered with elaborate tracery. It
+originally opened into the court, or _haram_, of the mosque, which still
+remains, and is shaded by a grove of orange trees. The Giralda, to my eye,
+is a more perfect tower than the Campanile of Florence, or that of San
+Marco, at Venice, which is evidently an idea borrowed from it. The Moorish
+structure, with a base of fifty feet square, rises to the height of two
+hundred and fifty feet. It is of a light pink color, and the sides, which
+are broken here and there by exquisitely proportioned double Saracenic
+arches, are covered from top to bottom with arabesque tracery, cut in
+strong relief. Upon this tower, a Spanish architect has placed a tapering
+spire, one hundred feet high, which fortunately harmonizes with the
+general design, and gives the crowning grace to the work.
+
+The Cathedral of Seville may rank as one of the grandest Gothic piles in
+Europe. The nave lacks but five feet of being as high as that of St.
+Peter's, while the length and breadth of the edifice are on a commensurate
+scale. The ninety-three windows of stained glass fill the interior with a
+soft and richly-tinted light, mellower and more gentle than the sombre
+twilight of the Gothic Cathedrals of Europe. The wealth lavished on the
+smaller chapels and shrines is prodigious, and the high altar, inclosed
+within a gilded railing fifty feet high, is probably the most enormous
+mass of wood-carving in existence. The Cathedral, in fact, is encumbered
+with its riches. While they bewilder you as monuments of human labor and
+patience, they detract from the grand simplicity of the building. The
+great nave, on each side of the transept, is quite blocked up, so that the
+choir and magnificent royal chapel behind it have almost the effect of
+detached edifices.
+
+We returned again this morning, remaining two hours, and succeeded in
+making a thorough survey, including a number of trashy pictures and
+barbarously rich shrines. Murillo's "Guardian Angel" and the "Vision of
+St. Antonio" are the only gems. The treasury contains a number of sacred
+vessels of silver, gold and jewels--among other things, the keys of
+Moorish Seville, a cross made of the first gold brought from the New-World
+by Columbus, and another from that robbed in Mexico by Cortez. The
+Cathedral won my admiration more and more. The placing of the numerous
+windows, and their rich coloring, produce the most glorious effects of
+light in the lofty aisles, and one is constantly finding new vistas, new
+combinations of pillar, arch and shrine. The building is in itself a
+treasury of the grandest Gothic pictures.
+
+From the Cathedral we went to the Alcazar _(El-Kasr),_ or Palace of the
+Moorish Kings. We entered by a long passage, with round arches on either
+side, resting on twin pillars, placed at right angles to the line of the
+arch, as one sees both in Saracenic and Byzantine structures. Finally, old
+Bailli brought us into a dull, deserted court-yard, where we were
+surprised by the sight of an entire Moorish facade, with its pointed
+arches, its projecting roof, its rich sculptured ornaments and its
+illuminations of red, blue, green and gold. It has been lately restored,
+and now rivals in freshness and brilliancy any of the rich houses of
+Damascus. A doorway, entirely too low and mean for the splendor of the
+walls above it, admitted us into the first court. On each side of the
+passage are the rooms of the guard and the Moorish nobles. Within, all is
+pure Saracenic, and absolutely perfect in its grace and richness. It is
+the realization of an Oriental dream; it is the poetry and luxury of the
+East in tangible forms. Where so much depends on the proportion and
+harmony of the different parts--on those correspondences, the union of
+which creates that nameless soul of the work, which cannot be expressed in
+words--it is useless to describe details. From first to last--the chambers
+of state; the fringed arches; the open tracery, light and frail as the
+frost-stars crystallized on a window-pane; the courts, fit to be
+vestibules to Paradise; the audience-hall, with its wondrous sculptures,
+its columns and pavement of marble, and its gilded dome; the garden,
+gorgeous with its palm, banana, and orange-trees--all were in perfect
+keeping, all jewels of equal lustre, forming a diadem which still lends a
+royal dignity to the phantom of Moorish power.
+
+We then passed into the gardens laid out by the Spanish monarchs--trim,
+mathematical designs, in box and myrtle, with concealed fountains
+springing up everywhere unawares in the midst of the paven walks; yet
+still made beautiful by the roses and jessamines that hung in rank
+clusters over the marble balustrades, and by the clumps of tall orange
+trees, bending to earth under the weight of their fruitage. We afterward
+visited Pilate's House, as it is called--a fine Spanish-Moresco palace,
+now belonging to the Duke of Medina Coeli. It is very rich and elegant,
+but stands in the same relation to the Alcazar as a good copy does to the
+original picture. The grand staircase, nevertheless, is a marvel of tile
+work, unlike anything else in Seville, and exhibits a genius in the
+invention of elaborate ornamental patterns, which is truly wonderful. A
+number of workmen were busy in restoring the palace, to fit it for the
+residence of the young Duke. The Moorish sculptures are reproduced in
+plaster, which, at least, has a better effect than the fatal whitewash
+under which the original tints of the Alcazar are hidden. In the courts
+stand a number of Roman busts--Spanish antiquities, and therefore not of
+great merit--singularly out of place in niches surrounded by Arabic
+devices and sentences from the Koran.
+
+This morning, I climbed the Giralda. The sun had just risen, and the clay
+was fresh and crystal-clear. A little door in the Cathedral, near the foot
+of the tower, stood open, and I entered. A rather slovenly Sevillana had
+just completed her toilet, but two children were still in undress.
+However, she opened a door in the tower, and I went up without hindrance.
+The ascent is by easy ramps, and I walked four hundred yards, or nearly a
+quarter of a mile, before reaching the top of the Moorish part. The
+panoramic view was superb. To the east and west, the Great Valley made a
+level line on a far-distant horizon. There were ranges of hills in the
+north and south, and those rising near the city, clothed in a gray mantle
+of olive-trees, were picturesquely crowned with villages. The
+Guadalquivir, winding in the most sinuous mazes, had no longer a turbid
+hue; he reflected the blue morning sky, and gleamed brightly between his
+borders of birch and willow. Seville sparkled white and fair under my
+feet, her painted towers and tiled domes rising thickly out of the mass of
+buildings. The level sun threw shadows into the numberless courts,
+permitting the mixture of Spanish and Moorish architecture to be plainly
+discerned, even at that height. A thin golden vapor softened the features
+of the landscape, towards the sun, while, on the opposite side, every
+object stood out in the sharpest and clearest outlines.
+
+On our way to the Museo, Bailli took us to the house of a friend of his,
+in order that we might taste real Manzanilla wine. This is a pale,
+straw-colored vintage, produced in the valley of the Guadalquivir. It is
+flavored with camomile blossoms, and is said to be a fine tonic for weak
+stomachs. The master then produced a dark-red wine, which he declared to
+be thirty years old. It was almost a syrup in consistence, and tasted more
+of sarsaparilla than grapes. None of us relished it, except Bailli, who
+was so inspired by the draught, that he sang us two Moorish songs and an
+Andalusian catch, full of fun and drollery.
+
+The Museo contains a great amount of bad pictures, but it also contains
+twenty-three of Murillo's works, many of them of his best period. To those
+who have only seen his tender, spiritual "Conceptions" and "Assumptions,"
+his "Vision of St. Francis" in this gallery reveals a mastery of the
+higher walks of his art, which they would not have anticipated. But it is
+in his "Cherubs" and his "Infant Christs" that he excels. No one ever
+painted infantile grace and beauty with so true a pencil. There is but one
+Velasquez in the collection, and the only thing that interested me, in two
+halls filled with rubbish, was a "Conception" by Murillo's mulatto pupil,
+said by some to have been his slave. Although an imitation of the great
+master, it is a picture of much sweetness and beauty. There is no other
+work of the artist in existence, and this, as the only production of the
+kind by a painter of mixed African blood, ought to belong to the Republic
+of Liberia.
+
+Among the other guests at the Fonda de Madrid is Mr. Thomas Hobhouse,
+brother of Byron's friend. We had a pleasant party in the Court this
+evening, listening to blind Pepe, who sang to his guitar a medley of merry
+Andalusian refrains. Singing made the old man courageous, and, at the
+close, he gave us the radical song of Spain, which is now strictly
+prohibited. The air is charming, but too gay; one would sooner dance than
+fight to its measures. It does not bring the hand to the sword, like the
+glorious Marseillaise.
+
+_Adios_, beautiful Seville!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIV.
+
+Journey in a Spanish Diligence.
+
+
+  Spanish Diligence Lines--Leaving Seville--An Unlucky Start--Alcala of
+  the Bakers--Dinner at Carmona--A Dehesa--The Mayoral and his
+  Team--Ecija--Night Journey--Cordova--The Cathedral-Mosque--Moorish
+  Architecture--The Sierra Morena--A Rainy Journey--A Chapter of
+  Accidents--Baylen--The Fascination of Spain--Jaen--The Vega of Granada.
+
+
+Granada, _November_ 14, 1852.
+
+It is an enviable sensation to feel for the first time that you are in
+Granada. No amount of travelling can weaken the romantic interest which
+clings about this storied place, or take away aught from the freshness of
+that emotion with which you first behold it, I sit almost at the foot of
+the Alhambra, whose walls I can see from my window, quite satisfied for
+to-day with being here. It has been raining since I arrived, the thunder
+is crashing overhead, and the mountains are covered with clouds, so I am
+kept in-doors, with the luxury of knowing that all the wonders of the
+place are within my reach. And now let me beguile the dull weather by
+giving you a sketch of my journey from Seville hither.
+
+There are three lines of stages from Seville to Madrid, and their
+competition has reduced the fare to $12, which, for a ride of 350 miles,
+is remarkably cheap. The trip is usually made in three days and a half. A
+branch line from Baylen--nearly half-way--strikes southward to Granada,
+and as there is no competition on this part of the road, I was charged $15
+for a through seat in the _coupe_. On account of the lateness of the
+season, and the limited time at my command, this was preferable to taking
+horses and riding across the country from Seville to Cordova. Accordingly,
+at an early hour on Thursday morning last, furnished with a travelling
+ticket inscribed: "Don Valtar de Talor" (myself!), I took leave of my
+English friends at the Fonda de Madrid, got into an immense, lumbering
+yellow vehicle, drawn by ten mules, and started, trusting to my good luck
+and bad Spanish to get safely through. The commencement, however, was
+unpropitious, and very often a stumble at starting makes the whole journey
+limp. The near mule in the foremost span was a horse, ridden by our
+postillion, and nothing could prevent that horse from darting into all
+sorts of streets and alleys where we had no desire to go. As all mules
+have implicit faith in horses, of course the rest of the animals followed.
+We were half an hour in getting out of Seville, and when at last we
+reached the open road and dashed off at full gallop, one of the mules in
+the traces fell and was dragged in the dust some twenty or thirty yards
+before we could stop. My companions in the coupe were a young Spanish
+officer and his pretty Andalusian bride, who was making her first journey
+from home, and after these mishaps was in a state of constant fear and
+anxiety.
+
+The first stage across the valley of the Guadalquivir took us to the town
+of Alcala, which lies in the lap of the hills above the beautiful little
+river Guadaira. It is a picturesque spot; the naked cliffs overhanging the
+stream have the rich, red hue of cinnabar, and the trees and shrubbery in
+the meadows, and on the hill-sides are ready grouped to the artist's
+hand. The town is called Alcala de los Panadores (of the Bakers) from its
+hundreds of flour mills and bake-ovens, which supply Seville with those
+white, fine, delicious twists, of which Spain may be justly proud. They
+should have been sent to the Exhibition last year, with the Toledo blades
+and the wooden mosaics. We left the place and its mealy-headed population,
+and turned eastward into wide, rolling tracts, scattered here and there
+with gnarled olive trees. The soil was loose and sandy, and hedges of
+aloes lined the road. The country is thinly populated, and very little of
+it under cultivation.
+
+About noon we reached Carmona, which was founded by the Romans, as,
+indeed, were nearly all the towns of Southern Spain. It occupies the crest
+and northern slope of a high hill, whereon the ancient Moorish castle
+still stands. The Alcazar, or palace, and the Moorish walls also remain,
+though in a very ruinous condition. Here we stopped to dinner, for the
+"Nueva Peninsular," in which I was embarked, has its hotels all along the
+route, like that of Zurutuza, in Mexico. We were conducted into a small
+room adjoining the stables, and adorned with colored prints illustrating
+the history of Don John of Austria. The table-cloths, plates and other
+appendages were of very ordinary quality, but indisputably clean; we
+seated ourselves, and presently the dinner appeared. First, a vermicelli
+_pilaff_, which I found palatable, then the national _olla_, a dish of
+enormous yellow peas, sprinkled with bits of bacon and flavored with oil;
+then three successive courses of chicken, boiled, stewed and roasted, but
+in every case done to rags, and without a particle of the original
+flavor. This was the usual style of our meals on the road, whether
+breakfast, dinner or supper, except that kid was sometimes substituted for
+fowl, and that the oil employed, being more or less rancid, gave different
+flavors to the dishes, A course of melons, grapes or pomegranates wound up
+the repast, the price of which varied from ten to twelve reals--a real
+being about a half-dime. In Seville, at the Fonda de Madrid, the cooking
+is really excellent; but further in the interior, judging from what I have
+heard, it is even worse than I have described.
+
+Continuing our journey, we passed around the southern brow of the hill,
+under the Moorish battlements. Here a superb view opened to the south and
+east over the wide Vega of Carmona, as far as the mountain chain which
+separates it from the plain of Granada. The city has for a coat of arms a
+silver star in an azure field, with the pompous motto: "As Lucifer shines
+in the morning, so shines Carmona in Andalusia." If it shines at all, it
+is because it is a city set upon a hill; for that is the only splendor I
+could find about the place. The Vega of Carmona is partially cultivated,
+and now wears a sombre brown hue, from its tracts of ploughed land.
+
+Cultivation soon ceased, however, and we entered on a _dehesa_, a
+boundless plain of waste land, covered with thickets of palmettos. Flocks
+of goats and sheep, guarded by shepherds in brown cloaks, wandered here
+and there, and except their huts and an isolated house, with its group of
+palm-trees, there was no sign of habitation. The road was a deep, red
+sand, and our mules toiled along slowly and painfully, urged by the
+incessant cries of the _mayoral_, or conductor, and his _mozo_. As the
+mayoral's whip could only reach the second span, the business of the
+latter was to jump down every ten minutes, run ahead and belabor the
+flanks of the foremost mules, uttering at the same time a series of sharp
+howls, which seemed to strike the poor beasts with quite as much severity
+as his whip. I defy even a Spanish ear to distinguish the import of these
+cries, and the great wonder was how they could all come out of one small
+throat. When it came to a hard pull, they cracked and exploded like
+volleys of musketry, and flew like hail-stones about the ears of the
+_machos_ (he-mules). The postillion, having only the care of the foremost
+span, is a silent man, but he has contracted a habit of sleeping in the
+saddle, which I mention for the benefit of timid travellers, as it adds to
+the interest of a journey by night.
+
+The clouds which had been gathering all day, now settled down upon the
+plain, and night came on with a dull rain. At eight o'clock we reached the
+City of Ecija, where we had two hours' halt and supper. It was so dark and
+rainy that I saw nothing, not even the classic Xenil, the river of
+Granada, which flows through the city on its way to the Guadalquivir, The
+night wore slowly away, and while the _mozo_ drowsed on his post, I caught
+snatches of sleep between his cries. As the landscape began to grow
+distinct in the gray, cloudy dawn, we saw before us Cordova, with the dark
+range of the Sierra Morena rising behind it. This city, once the glory of
+Moorish Spain, the capital of the great Abd-er-Rahman, containing, when in
+its prime, a million of inhabitants, is now a melancholy wreck. It has not
+a shadow of the art, science, and taste which then distinguished it, and
+the only interest it now possesses is from these associations, and the
+despoiled remnant of its renowned Mosque.
+
+We crossed the Guadalquivir on a fine bridge built on Roman foundations,
+and drove slowly down the one long, rough, crooked street. The diligence
+stops for an hour, to allow passengers to breakfast, but my first thought
+was for the Cathedral-mosque, _la Mezquita_, as it is still called. "It is
+closed," said the ragged crowd that congregated about us; "you cannot get
+in until eight o'clock." But I remembered that a silver key will open
+anything in Spain, and taking a mozo as a guide we hurried off as fast as
+the rough pavements would permit. We had to retrace the whole length of
+the city, but on reaching the Cathedral, found it open. The exterior is
+low, and quite plain, though of great extent. A Moorish gateway admitted
+me into the original court-yard, or _haram_, of the mosque, which is
+planted with orange trees and contains the fountain, for the ablutions of
+Moslem worshippers, in the centre. The area of the Mosque proper,
+exclusive of the court-yard, is about 400 by 350 feet. It was built on the
+plan of the great Mosque of Damascus, about the end of the eighth century.
+The materials--including twelve hundred columns of marble, jasper and
+porphyry, from the ruins of Carthage, and the temples of Asia
+Minor---belonged to a Christian basilica, of the Gothic domination, which
+was built upon the foundations of a Roman temple of Janus; so that the
+three great creeds of the world have here at different times had their
+seat. The Moors considered this mosque as second in holiness to the Kaaba
+of Mecca, and made pilgrimages to it from all parts of Moslem Spain and
+Barbary. Even now, although shorn of much of its glory, it surpasses any
+Oriental mosque into which I have penetrated, except St. Sophia, which is
+a Christian edifice.
+
+All the nineteen original entrances--beautiful horse-shoe arches--are
+closed, except the central one. I entered by a low door, in one corner of
+the corridor. A wilderness of columns connected by double arches (one
+springing above the other, with an opening between), spread their dusky
+aisles before me in the morning twilight. The eight hundred and fifty
+shafts of this marble forest formed labyrinths and mazes, which at that
+early hour appeared boundless, for their long vistas disappeared in the
+shadows. Lamps were burning before distant shrines, and a few worshippers
+were kneeling silently here and there. The sound of my own footsteps, as I
+wandered through the ranks of pillars, was all that I heard. In the centre
+of the wood (for such it seemed) rises the choir, a gaudy and tasteless
+excrescence added by the Christians. Even Charles V., who laid a merciless
+hand on the Alhambra, reproved the Bishop of Cordova for this barbarous
+and unnecessary disfigurement.
+
+The sacristan lighted lamps in order to show me the Moorish chapels.
+Nothing but the precious materials of which these exquisite structures are
+composed could have saved them from the holy hands of the Inquisition,
+which intentionally destroyed all the Roman antiquities of Cordova. Here
+the fringed arches, the lace-like filigrees, the wreathed inscriptions,
+and the domes of pendent stalactites which enchant you in the Alcazar of
+Seville, are repeated, not in stucco, but in purest marble, while the
+entrance to the "holy of holies" is probably the most glorious piece of
+mosaic in the world. The pavement of the interior is deeply worn by the
+knees of the Moslem pilgrims, who compassed it seven times, kneeling, as
+they now do in the Kaaba, at Mecca. The sides are embroidered with
+sentences from the Koran, in Cufic characters, and the roof is in the
+form of a fluted shell, of a single piece of pure white marble, fifteen
+feet in diameter. The roof of the vestibule is a wonderful piece of
+workmanship, formed of pointed arches, wreathed and twined through each
+other, like basket-work. No people ever wrought poetry into stone so
+perfectly as the Saracens. In looking on these precious relics of an
+elegant and refined race, I cannot help feeling a strong regret that their
+kingdom ever passed into other hands.
+
+Leaving Cordova, our road followed the Guadalquivir, along the foot of the
+Sierra Morena, which rose dark and stern, a barrier to the central
+table-lands of La Mancha. At Alcolea, we crossed the river on a noble
+bridge of black marble, out of all keeping with the miserable road. It
+rained incessantly, and the scenery through which we passed had a wild and
+gloomy character. The only tree to be seen was the olive, which covered
+the hills far and near, the profusion of its fruit showing the natural
+richness of the soil. This part of the road is sometimes infested with
+robbers, and once, when I saw two individuals waiting for us in a lonely
+defile, with gun-barrels thrust out from under their black cloaks, I
+anticipated a recurrence of a former unpleasant experience. But they
+proved to be members of the _guardia civil_, and therefore our protectors.
+
+The ruts and quagmires, made by the rain, retarded our progress, and it
+was dark when we reached Andujar, fourteen leagues from Cordova. To
+Baylen, where I was to quit the diligence, and take another coming down
+from Madrid to Granada, was four leagues further. We journeyed on in the
+dark, in a pouring rain, up and down hill for some hours, when all at
+once the cries of the mozo ceased, and the diligence came to a dead stop.
+There was some talk between our conductors, and then the mayoral opened
+the door and invited us to get out. The postillion had fallen asleep, and
+the mules had taken us into a wrong road. An attempt was made to turn the
+diligence, but failed, leaving it standing plump against a high bank of
+mud. We stood, meanwhile, shivering in the cold and wet, and the fair
+Andalusian shed abundance of tears. Fortunately, Baylen was close at hand,
+and, after some delay, two men came with lanterns and escorted us to the
+_posada_, or inn, where we arrived at midnight. The diligence from Madrid,
+which was due six hours before, had not made its appearance, and we passed
+the rest of the night in a cold room, fasting, for the meal was only to be
+served when the other passengers came. At day-break, finally, a single
+dish of oily meat was vouchsafed to us, and, as it was now certain that
+some accident had happened, the passengers to Madrid requested the
+_Administrador_ to send them on in an extra conveyance. This he refused,
+and they began to talk about getting up a pronunciamento, when a messenger
+arrived with the news that the diligence had broken down at midnight,
+about two leagues off. Tools were thereupon dispatched, nine hours after
+the accident happened, and we might hope to be released from our
+imprisonment in four or five more.
+
+Baylen is a wretched place, celebrated for having the first palm-tree
+which those see who come from Madrid, and for the victory gained by
+Castanos over the French forces under Dupont, which occasioned the flight
+of Joseph Buonaparte from Madrid, and the temporary liberation of Spain
+from the French yoke. Castanos, who received the title of Duke de Baylen,
+and is compared by the Spaniards to Wellington, died about three months
+ago. The battle-field I passed in the night; the palm-tree I found, but it
+is now a mere stump, the leaves having been stripped off to protect the
+houses of the inhabitants from lightning. Our posada had one of them hung
+at the window. At last, the diligence came, and at three P.M., when I
+ought to have been in sight of Granada, I left the forlorn walls of
+Baylen. My fellow-passengers were a young sprig of the Spanish nobility
+and three chubby-faced nuns.
+
+The rest of the journey that afternoon was through a wide, hilly region,
+entirely bare of trees and habitations, and but partially cultivated.
+There was something sublime in its very nakedness and loneliness, and I
+felt attracted to it as I do towards the Desert. In fact, although I have
+seen little fine scenery since leaving Seville, have had the worst of
+weather, and no very pleasant travelling experiences, the country has
+exercised a fascination over me, which I do not quite understand. I find
+myself constantly on the point of making a vow to return again. Much to my
+regret, night set in before we reached Jaen, the capital of the Moorish
+kingdom of that name. We halted for a short time in the large plaza of the
+town, where the dash of fountains mingled with the sound of the rain, and
+the black, jagged outline of a mountain overhanging the place was visible
+through the storm.
+
+All night we journeyed on through the mountains, sometimes splashing
+through swollen streams, sometimes coming almost to a halt in beds of deep
+mud. When this morning dawned, we were ascending through wild, stony
+hills, overgrown with shrubbery, and the driver said we were six leagues
+from Granada. Still on, through a lonely country, with now and then a
+large _venta_, or country inn, by the road-side, and about nine o'clock,
+as the sky became more clear, I saw in front of us, high up under the
+clouds, the snow-fields of the Sierra Nevada. An hour afterwards we were
+riding between gardens, vineyards, and olive orchards, with the
+magnificent Vega of Granada stretching far away on the right, and the
+Vermilion Towers of the Alhambra crowning the heights before us.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXV.
+
+Granada And The Alhambra.
+
+
+  Mateo Ximenez, the Younger--The Cathedral of Granada--A Monkish
+  Miracle--Catholic Shrines--Military Cherubs--The Royal Chapel--The Tombs
+  of Ferdinand and Isabella--Chapel of San Juan de Dios--The
+  Albaycin--View of the Vega--The Generalife--The Alhambra--Torra de la
+  Vela--The Walls and Towers--A Visit to Old Mateo--The Court of the
+  Fish-pond--The Halls of the Alhambra--Character of the
+  Architecture--Hall of the Abencerrages--Hall of the Two Sisters--The
+  Moorish Dynasty in Spain.
+
+
+  "Who has not in Granada been,
+  Verily, he has nothing seen."
+
+  _Andalusian Proverb_.
+
+
+Granada, _Wednesday, Nov._ 17, 1852.
+
+Immediately on reaching here, I was set upon by an old gentleman who
+wanted to act as guide, but the mozo of the hotel put into my hand a card
+inscribed "Don Mateo Ximenez, Guide to the celebrated Washington Irving,"
+and I dismissed the other applicant. The next morning, as the mozo brought
+me my chocolate, he said; "Senor, _el chico_ is waiting for you." The
+"little one" turned out to be the son of old Mateo, "honest Mateo," who
+still lives up in the Alhambra, but is now rather too old to continue his
+business, except on great occasions. I accepted the young Mateo, who spoke
+with the greatest enthusiasm of Mr. Irving, avowing that the whole family
+was devoted to him, in life and death. It was still raining furiously,
+and the golden Darro, which roars in front of the hotel, was a swollen
+brown flood. I don't wonder that he sometimes threatens, as the old
+couplet says, to burst up the Zacatin, and bear it down to his bride, the
+Xenil.
+
+Towards noon, the clouds broke away a little, and we sallied out. Passing
+through the gate and square of Vivarrambla (may not this name come from
+the Arabic _bob er-raml,_ the "gate of the sand?"), we soon reached the
+Cathedral. This massive structure, which makes a good feature in the
+distant view of Granada, is not at all imposing, near at hand. The
+interior is a mixture of Gothic and Roman, glaring with whitewash, and
+broken, like that of Seville, by a wooden choir and two grand organs,
+blocking up the nave. Some of the side chapels, nevertheless, are splendid
+masses of carving and gilding. In one of them, there are two full-length
+portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, supposed to be by Alonzo Cano. The
+Cathedral contains some other good pictures by the same master, but all
+its former treasures were carried off by the French.
+
+We next went to the Picture Gallery, which is in the Franciscan Convent.
+There are two small Murillos, much damaged, some tolerable Alonzo Canos, a
+few common-place pictures by Juan de Sevilla, and a hundred or more by
+authors whose names I did not inquire, for a more hideous collection of
+trash never met my eye. One of them represents a miracle performed by two
+saints, who cut off the diseased leg of a sick white man, and replace it
+by the sound leg of a dead negro, whose body is seen lying beside the bed.
+Judging from the ghastly face of the patient, the operation is rather
+painful, though the story goes that the black leg grew fast, and the man
+recovered. The picture at least illustrates the absence of "prejudice of
+color" among the Saints.
+
+We went into the adjoining Church of Santo Domingo, which has several very
+rich shrines of marble and gold. A sort of priestly sacristan opened the
+Church of the Madonna del Rosario---a glittering mixture of marble, gold,
+and looking-glasses, which has rather a rich effect. The beautiful yellow
+and red veined marbles are from the Sierra Nevada. The sacred Madonna--a
+big doll with staring eyes and pink cheeks--has a dress of silver, shaped
+like an extinguisher, and encrusted with rubies and other precious stones.
+The utter absence of taste in most Catholic shrines is an extraordinary
+thing. It seems remarkable that a Church which has produced so many
+glorious artists should so constantly and grossly violate the simplest
+rules of art. The only shrine which I have seen, which was in keeping with
+the object adored, is that of the Virgin, at Nazareth, where there is
+neither picture nor image, but only vases of fragrant flowers, and
+perfumed oil in golden lamps, burning before a tablet of spotless marble.
+
+Among the decorations of the chapel, there are a host of cherubs frescoed
+on the ceiling, and one of them is represented in the act of firing off a
+blunderbuss. "Is it true that the angels carry blunderbusses?" I asked the
+priest. He shrugged his shoulders with a sort of half-smile, and said
+nothing. In the Cathedral, on the plinths of the columns in the outer
+aisles, are several notices to the effect that "whoever speaks to women,
+either in the nave or the aisles, thereby puts himself in danger of
+excommunication." I could not help laughing, as I read this monkish and
+yet most _un_monk-like statute. "Oh," said Mateo, "all that was in the
+despotic times; it is not so now."
+
+A deluge of rain put a stop to my sight-seeing until the next morning,
+when I set out with Mateo to visit the Royal Chapel. A murder had been
+committed in the night, near the entrance of the Zacatin, and the
+paving-stones were still red with the blood of the victim. A _funcion_ of
+some sort was going on in the Chapel, and we went into the sacristy to
+wait. The priests and choristers were there, changing their robes; they
+saluted me good-humoredly, though there was an expression in their faces
+that plainly said: "a heretic!" When the service was concluded, I went
+into the chapel and examined the high altar, with its rude wood-carvings,
+representing the surrender of Granada. The portraits of Ferdinand and
+Isabella, Cardinal Ximenez, Gonzalvo of Cordova, and King Boabdil, are
+very curious. Another tablet represents the baptism of the conquered
+Moors.
+
+In the centre of the chapel stand the monuments erected to Ferdinand and
+Isabella, and their successors Philip L, and Maria, by Charles V. They are
+tall catafalques of white marble, superbly sculptured, with the full
+length effigies of the monarchs upon them. The figures are admirable; that
+of Isabella, especially, though the features are settled in the repose of
+death, expresses all the grand and noble traits which belonged to her
+character. The sacristan removed the matting from a part of the floor,
+disclosing an iron grating underneath, A damp, mouldly smell, significant
+of death and decay, came up through the opening. He lighted two long waxen
+tapers, lifted the grating, and I followed him down the narrow steps into
+the vault where lie the coffins of the Catholic Sovereigns. They were
+brought here from the Alhambra, in 1525. The leaden sarcophagi, containing
+the bodies of Ferdinand and Isabella, lie, side by side, on stone slabs;
+and as I stood between the two, resting a hand on each, the sacristan
+placed the tapers in apertures in the stone, at the head and foot. They
+sleep, as they wished, in their beloved Granada, and no profane hand has
+ever disturbed the repose of their ashes.
+
+After visiting the Church of San Jeronimo, founded by Gonzalvo of Cordova,
+I went to the adjoining Church and Hospital of San Juan de Dios. A fat
+priest, washing his hands in the sacristy, sent a boy to show me the
+Chapel of San Juan, and the relics. The remains of the Saint rest in a
+silver chest, standing in the centre of a richly-adorned chapel. Among the
+relics is a thorn from the crown of Christ, which, as any botanist may
+see, must have grown on a different plant from the other thorn they show
+at Seville; and neither kind is found in Palestine. The true _spina
+christi_, the nebbuk, has very small thorns; but nothing could be more
+cruel, as I found when riding through patches of it near Jericho. The boy
+also showed me a tooth of San Lorenzo, a crooked brown _bicuspis_, from
+which I should infer that the saint was rather an ill-favored man. The
+gilded chapel of San Juan is in singular contrast with one of the garments
+which he wore when living--a cowl of plaited reeds, looking like an old
+fish basket--which is kept in a glass case. His portrait is also to be
+seen--a mild and beautiful face, truly that of one who went about doing
+good. He was a sort of Spanish John Howard, and deserved canonization, if
+anybody ever did.
+
+I ascended the street of the Darro to the Albaycin, which we entered by
+one of the ancient gates. This suburb is still surrounded by the original
+fortifications, and undermined by the capacious cisterns of the Moors. It
+looks down on Granada; and from the crumbling parapets there are superb
+views over the city, the Vega, and its inclosing mountains. The Alhambra
+rose opposite, against the dark-red and purple background of the Sierra
+Nevada, and a canopy of heavy rain-clouds rested on all the heights. A
+fitful gleam of sunshine now and then broke through and wandered over the
+plain, touching up white towers and olive groves and reaches of the
+winding Xenil, with a brilliancy which suggested the splendor of the whole
+picture, if once thus restored to its proper light. I could see Santa Fe
+in the distance, toward Loxa; nearer, and more eastward, the Sierra de
+Elvira, of a deep violet color, with the woods of the Soto de Roma, the
+Duke of Wellington's estate, at its base; and beyond it the Mountain of
+Parapanda, the weather-guage of Granada, still covered with clouds. There
+is an old Granadian proverb which says:--"When Parapanda wears his bonnet,
+it will rain whether God wills it or no." From the chapel of San Miguel,
+above the Albaycin, there is a very striking view of the deep gorge of the
+Darro, at one's feet, with the gardens and white walls of the Generalife
+rising beyond, and the Silla del Moro and the Mountain of the Sun towering
+above it. The long, irregular lines of the Alhambra, with the huge red
+towers rising here and there, reminded me somewhat of a distant view of
+Karnak; and, like Karnak, the Alhambra is picturesque from whatever point
+it is viewed.
+
+We descended through wastes of cactus to the Darro, in whose turbid stream
+a group of men were washing for gold. I watched one of them, as he
+twirled his bowl in precisely the California style, but got nothing for
+his pains. Mateo says that they often make a dollar a day, each. Passing
+under the Tower of Comares and along the battlements of the Alhambra, we
+climbed up to the Generalife. This charming villa is still in good
+preservation, though its exquisite filigree and scroll-work have been
+greatly injured by whitewash. The elegant colonnades surround gardens rich
+in roses, myrtles and cypresses, and the fountains that lulled the Moorish
+Kings in their summer idleness still pour their fertilizing streams. In
+one of the rooms is a small and bad portrait gallery, containing a
+supposed portrait of Boabdil. It is a mild, amiable face, but wholly lacks
+strength of character.
+
+To-day I devoted to the Alhambra. The storm, which, as the people say, has
+not been equalled for several years, showed no signs of breaking up, and
+in the midst of a driving shower I ascended to the Vermilion Towers, which
+are supposed to be of Phoenician origin. They stand on the extremity of a
+long, narrow ledge, which stretches out like an arm from the hill of the
+Alhambra. The _paseo_ lies between, and is shaded by beautiful elms, which
+the Moors planted.
+
+I entered the Alhambra by the Gate of Justice, which is a fine specimen of
+Moorish architecture, though of common red brick and mortar. It is
+singular what a grace the horse-shoe arch gives to the most heavy and
+lumbering mass of masonry. The round arches of the Christian edifices of
+Granada seem tame and inelegant, in comparison. Over the arch of the
+vestibule of this gate is the colossal hand, and over the inner entrance
+the key, celebrated in the tales of Washington Irving and the
+superstitions of the people. I first ascended the Torre de la Vela, where
+the Christian flag was first planted on the 2d of January, 1492. The view
+of the Vega and City of Granada was even grander than from the Albaycin.
+Parapanda was still bonneted in clouds, but patches of blue sky began to
+open above the mountains of Loxa. A little boy accompanied us, to see that
+I did not pull the bell, the sound of which would call together all the
+troops in the city. While we stood there, the funeral procession of the
+man murdered two nights before came up the street of Gomerez, and passed
+around the hill under the Vermilion Towers.
+
+I made the circuit of the walls before entering the Palace. In the Place
+of the Cisterns, I stopped to take a drink of the cool water of the Darro,
+which is brought thither by subterranean channels from the hills. Then,
+passing the ostentatious pile commenced by Charles V., but which was never
+finished, and never will be, nor ought to be, we walked along the southern
+ramparts to the Tower of the Seven Floors, amid the ruins of winch I
+discerned the top of the arch by which the unfortunate Boabdil quitted
+Granada, and which was thenceforth closed for ever. In the Tower of the
+Infantas, a number of workmen were busy restoring the interior, which has
+been cruelly damaged. The brilliant _azulejo_, or tile-work, the delicate
+arches and filigree sculpture of the walls, still attest its former
+elegance, and give some color to the tradition that it was the residence
+of the Moorish Princesses.
+
+As we passed through the little village which still exists among the ruins
+of the fortress, Mateo invited me to step in and see his father, the
+genuine "honest Mateo," immortalized in the "Tales of the Alhambra." The
+old man has taken up the trade of silk-weaving, and had a number of
+gay-colored ribbons on his loom. He is more than sixty years old and now
+quite gray-headed, but has the same simple manners, the same honest face
+that attracted his temporary master. He spoke with great enthusiasm of Mr.
+Irving, and brought out from a place of safety the "Alhambra" and the
+"Chronicles of the Conquest," which he has carefully preserved. He then
+produced an Andalusian sash, the work of his own hands, which he insisted
+on binding around my waist, to see how it would look. I must next take off
+my coat and hat, and put on his Sunday jacket and jaunty sombrero. "_Por
+Dios_!" he exclaimed: "_que buen mozo_! Senor, you are a legitimate
+Andalusian!" After this, of course, I could do no less than buy the sash.
+"You must show it to Washington Irving," said he, "and tell him it was
+made by Mateo's own hands;" which I promised. I must then go into the
+kitchen, and eat a pomegranate from his garden--a glorious pomegranate,
+with kernels of crimson, and so full of blood that you could not touch
+them but it trickled through your fingers. El Marques, a sprightly dog,
+and a great slate-colored cat, took possession of my legs, and begged for
+a share of every mouthful I took, while old Mateo sat beside me, rejoicing
+in the flavor of a Gibraltar cigar which I gave him. But my time was
+precious, and so I let the "Son of the Alhambra" go back to his loom, and
+set out for the Palace of the Moorish Kings.
+
+This palace is so hidden behind the ambitious shell of that of Charles V.
+that I was at a loss where it could be. I thought I had compassed the
+hill, and yet had seen no indications of the renowned magnificence of the
+Alhambra. But a little door in a blank wall ushered me into a true Moorish
+realm, the Court of the Fishpond, or of the Myrtles, as it is sometimes
+called. Here I saw again the slender pillars, the fringed and embroidered
+arches, and the perforated, lace-like tracery of the fairy corridors.
+Here, hedges of roses and myrtles still bloomed around the ancient tank,
+wherein hundreds of gold-fish disported. The noises of the hill do not
+penetrate here, and the solitary porter who admitted me went back to his
+post, and suffered me to wander at will through the enchanted halls.
+
+I passed out of this court by an opposite door, and saw, through the
+vistas of marble pillars and the wonderful fret-work which seems a thing
+of air rather than of earth, the Fountain of the Lions. Thence I entered
+in succession the Hall of the Abencerrages, the Hall of the Two Sisters,
+the apartments of the Sultanas, the Mosque, and the Hall of the
+Ambassadors. These places--all that is left of the renowned palace--are
+now well kept, and carefully guarded. Restorations are going on, here and
+there, and the place is scrupulously watched, that no foreign Vandal, may
+further injure what the native Goths have done their best to destroy. The
+rubbish has been cleared away; the rents in the walls have been filled up,
+and, for the first time since it passed into Spanish hands, there seems a
+hope that the Alhambra will be allowed to stand. What has been already
+destroyed we can only partially conjecture; but no one sees what remains
+without completing the picture in his own imagination, and placing it
+among the most perfect and marvellous creations of human genius.
+
+Nothing can exceed the richness of invention which, in this series of
+halls, corridors, and courts, never repeats the same ornaments, but, from
+the simplest primitive forms and colors, produces a thousand
+combinations, not one of which is in discord with the grand design. It is
+useless to attempt a detailed description of this architecture; and it is
+so unlike anything else in the world, that, like Karnak and Baalbec, those
+only know the Alhambra who see it. When you can weave stone, and hang your
+halls with marble tapestry, you may rival it. It is nothing to me that
+these ornaments are stucco; to sculpture them in marble is only the work
+of the hands. Their great excellence is in the design, which, like all
+great things, suggests even more than it gives. If I could create all that
+the Court of Lions suggested to me for its completion, it would fulfil the
+dream of King Sheddad, and surpass the palaces of the Moslem Paradise.
+
+The pavilions of the Court of Lions, and the halls which open into it, on
+either side, approach the nearest to their original perfection. The floors
+are marble, the wainscoting of painted tiles, the walls of embroidery,
+still gleaming with the softened lustre of their original tints, and the
+lofty conical domes seem to be huge sparry crystalizations, hung with
+dropping stalactites, rather than any work of the human hand. Each of
+these domes is composed of five thousand separate pieces, and the pendent
+prismatic blocks, colored and gilded, gradually resolve themselves, as you
+gaze, into the most intricate and elegant designs. But you must study long
+ere you have won all the secret of their beauty. To comprehend them, one
+should spend a whole day, lying on his back, under each one. Mateo spread
+his cloak for me in the fountain in the Hall of the Abencerrages, over the
+blood-stains made by the decapitation of those gallant chiefs, and I lay
+half an hour looking upward: and this is what I made out of the dome. From
+its central pinnacle hung the chalice of a flower with feathery petals,
+like the "crape myrtle" of our Southern States Outside of this, branched
+downward the eight rays of a large star, whose points touched the base of
+the dome; yet the star was itself composed of flowers, while between its
+rays and around its points fell a shower of blossoms, shells, and sparry
+drops. From the base of the dome hung a gorgeous pattern of lace, with a
+fringe of bugles, projecting into eight points so as to form a star of
+drapery, hanging from the points of the flowery star in the dome. The
+spaces between the angles were filled with masses of stalactites, dropping
+one below the other, till they tapered into the plain square sides of the
+hall.
+
+In the Hall of the Two Sisters, I lay likewise for a considerable time,
+resolving its misty glories into shape. The dome was still more suggestive
+of flowers. The highest and central piece was a deep trumpet-flower, whose
+mouth was cleft into eight petals. It hung in the centre of a superb
+lotus-cup, the leaves of which were exquisitely veined and chased. Still
+further below swung a mass of mimosa blossoms, intermixed with pods and
+lance-like leaves, and around the base of the dome opened the bells of
+sixteen gorgeous tulips. These pictures may not be very intelligible, but
+I know not how else to paint the effect of this fairy architecture.
+
+In Granada, as in Seville and Cordova, one's sympathies are wholly with
+the Moors. The few mutilated traces which still remain of their power,
+taste, and refinement, surpass any of the monuments erected by the race
+which conquered them. The Moorish Dynasty in Spain was truly, as Irving
+observes, a splendid exotic, doomed never to take a lasting root in the
+soil It was choked to death by the native weeds; and, in place of lands
+richly cultivated and teeming with plenty, we now have barren and-almost
+depopulated wastes--in place of education, industry, and the cultivation
+of the arts and sciences, an enslaved, ignorant and degenerate race.
+Andalusia would be far more prosperous at this day, had she remained in
+Moslem hands. True, she would not have received that Faith which is yet
+destined to be the redemption of the world, but the doctrines of Mahomet
+are more acceptable to God, and more beneficial to Man than those of that
+Inquisition, which, in Spain alone, has shed ten times as much Christian
+blood as all the Moslem races together for the last six centuries. It is
+not from a mere romantic interest that I lament the fate of Boabdil, and
+the extinction of his dynasty. Had he been a king worthy to reign in those
+wonderful halls, he never would have left them. Had he perished there,
+fighting to the last, he would have been freed from forty years of weary
+exile and an obscure death. Well did Charles V. observe, when speaking of
+him: "Better a tomb in the Alhambra than a palace in the Alpujanas!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVI.
+
+The Bridle-Roads of Andalusia.
+
+
+  Change of Weather--Napoleon and his Horses--Departure from Granada--My
+  Guide, Jose Garcia--His Domestic Troubles--The Tragedy of the
+  Umbrella--The Vow against Aguardiente--Crossing the Vega--The Sierra
+  Nevada--The Baths of Alhama--"Woe is Me, Alhama!"--The Valley of the
+  River Velez--Velez Malaga--The Coast Road--The Fisherman and his
+  Donkey--Malaga--Summer Scenery--The Story of Don Pedro, without Fear and
+  without Care--The Field of Monda--A Lonely Venta.
+
+
+Venta de Villalon, _November_ 20, 1852.
+
+The clouds broke away before I had been two hours in the Alhambra, and the
+sunshine fell broad and warm into its courts. They must be roofed with
+blue sky, in order to give the full impression of their brightness and
+beauty. Mateo procured me a bottle of _vino rancio_, and we drank it
+together in the Court of Lions. Six hours had passed away before I knew
+it, and I reluctantly prepared to leave. The clouds by this time had
+disappeared; the Vega slept in brilliant sunshine, and the peaks of the
+Sierra Nevada shone white and cold against the sky.
+
+On reaching the hotel, I found a little man, nicknamed Napoleon, awaiting
+me. He was desirous to furnish me with horses, and, having a prophetic
+knowledge of the weather, promised me a bright sky as far as Gibraltar. "I
+furnish all the senors," said he; "they know me, and never complain of me
+or my horses;" but, by way of security, on making the bargain, I
+threatened to put up a card in the hotel at Gibraltar, warning all
+travellers against him, in case I was not satisfied. My contract was for
+two horses and a guide, who were to be ready at sunrise the next morning.
+Napoleon was as good as his word; and before I had finished an early cup
+of chocolate, there was a little black Andalusian stallion awaiting me.
+The _alforjas_, or saddle-bags, of the guide were strengthened by a stock
+of cold provisions, the leathern bota hanging beside it was filled with
+ripe Granada wine; and now behold me ambling over the Vega, accoutred in a
+gay Andalusian jacket, a sash woven by Mateo Ximenes, and one of those
+bandboxy sombreros, which I at first thought so ungainly, but now consider
+quite picturesque and elegant.
+
+My guide, a short but sinewy and well-knit son of the mountains, named
+Jose Garcia, set off at a canter down the banks of the Darro. "Don't ride
+so fast!" cried Napoleon, who watched our setting out, from the door of
+the fonda; but Jose was already out of hearing. This guide is a companion
+to my liking. Although he is only twenty-seven, he has been for a number
+of years a _correo_, or mail-rider, and a guide for travelling parties.
+His olive complexion is made still darker by exposure to the sun and wind,
+and his coal-black eyes shine with Southern heat and fire. He has one of
+those rare mouths which are born with a broad smile in each corner, and
+which seem to laugh even in the midst of grief. We had not been two hours
+together, before I knew his history from beginning to end. He had already
+been married eight years, and his only trouble was a debt of twenty-four
+dollars, which the illness of his wife had caused him. This money was
+owing to the pawnbroker, who kept his best clothes in pledge until he
+could pay it. "Senor," said he, "if I had ten million dollars, I would
+rather give them all away than have a sick wife." He had a brother in
+Puerto Principe, Cuba, who sent over money enough to pay the rent of the
+house, but he found that children were a great expense. "It is most
+astonishing," he said, "how much children can eat. From morning till
+night, the bread is never out of their mouths."
+
+Jose has recently been travelling with some Spaniards, one of whom made
+him pay two dollars for an umbrella which was lost on the road. This
+umbrella is a thorn in his side. At every venta where we stop, the story
+is repeated, and he is not sparing of his maledictions. The ghost of that
+umbrella is continually raised, and it will be a long time before he can
+shut it. "One reason why I like to travel with foreign Senors," said he to
+me, "is, that when I lose anything, they never make me pay for it." "For
+all that," I answered, "take care you don't lose my umbrella: it cost
+three dollars." Since then, nothing can exceed Jose's attention to that
+article. He is at his wit's end how to secure it best. It appears
+sometimes before, sometimes behind him, lashed to the saddle with
+innumerable cords; now he sticks it into the alforja, now carries it in
+his hand, and I verily believe that he sleeps with it in his arms. Every
+evening, as he tells his story to the muleteers, around the kitchen fire,
+he always winds up by triumphantly appealing to me with: "Well, Senor,
+have I lost _your_ umbrella yet?"
+
+Our bargain is that I shall feed him on the way, and as we travel in the
+primitive style of the country, we always sit down together to the same
+dish. To his supervision, the olla is often indebted for an additional
+flavor, and no "thorough-bred" gentleman could behave at table with more
+ease and propriety. He is as moderate as a Bedouin in his wants, and never
+touches the burning aguardiente which the muleteers are accustomed to
+drink. I asked him the reason of this. "I drink wine. Senor," he replied,
+"because that, you know, is like meat and bread; but I have made a vow
+never to drink aguardiente again. Two of us got drunk on it, four or five
+years ago, in Granada, and we quarrelled. My comrade drew his knife and
+stabbed me here, in the left shoulder. I was furious and cut him across
+the breast. We both went to the hospital--I for three months and he for
+six--and he died in a few days after getting out. It cost my poor father
+many a thousand reals; and when I was able to go to work, I vowed before
+the Virgin that I would never touch aguardiente again."
+
+For the first league, our road lay over the rich Vega of Granada, but
+gradually became wilder and more waste. Passing the long, desert ridge,
+known as the "Last Sigh of the Moor," we struck across a region of low
+hills. The road was very deep, from the recent rains, and studded, at
+short intervals, by rude crosses, erected to persons who had been
+murdered. Jose took a grim delight in giving me the history of each.
+Beyond the village of Lamala, which lies with its salt-pans in a basin of
+the hills, we ascended the mountain ridge which forms the southern
+boundary of the Vega. Granada, nearly twenty miles distant, was still
+visible. The Alhambra was dwindled to a speck, and I took my last view of
+it and the magnificent landscape which lies spread out before it. The
+Sierra Nevada, rising to the height of 13,000 feet above the sea, was
+perfectly free from clouds, and the whole range was visible at one
+glance. All its chasms were filled with snow, and for nearly half-way down
+its sides there was not a speck of any other color. Its summits were
+almost wholly devoid of shadow, and their notched and jagged outlines
+rested flatly against the sky, like ivory inlaid on a table of
+lapis-lazuli.
+
+From these waste hills, we descended into the valley of Cacia, whose
+poplar-fringed river had been so swollen by the rains that the _correo_
+from Malaga had only succeeded in passing it that morning. We forded it
+without accident, and, crossing a loftier and bleaker range, came down
+into the valley of the Marchan. High on a cliff over the stream stood
+Alhama, my resting-place for the night. The natural warm baths, on account
+of which this spot was so beloved by the Moors, are still resorted to in
+the summer. They lie in the bosom of a deep and rugged gorge, half a mile
+further down the river. The town occupies the crest of a narrow
+promontory, bounded, on all sides but one, by tremendous precipices. It is
+one of the most picturesque spots imaginable, and reminded me--to continue
+the comparison between Syria and Andalusia, which I find so striking--of
+the gorge of the Barrada, near Damascus. Alhama is now a poor,
+insignificant town, only visited by artists and muleteers. The population
+wear long brown cloaks and slouched hats, like the natives of La Mancha.
+
+I found tolerable quarters in a house on the plaza, and took the remaining
+hour of daylight to view the town. The people looked at me with curiosity,
+and some boys, walking on the edge of the _tajo_, or precipice, threw over
+stones that I might see how deep it was. The rock, in some places, quite
+overhung the bed of the Marchan, which half-girdles its base. The close
+scrutiny to which I was subjected by the crowd in the plaza called to mind
+all I had heard of Spanish spies and robbers. At the venta, I was well
+treated, but received such an exorbitant bill in the morning that I was
+ready to exclaim, with King Boabdil, "Woe is me, Alhama!" On comparing
+notes with Jose, I found that he had been obliged to pay, in addition, for
+what he received--a discovery which so exasperated that worthy that he
+folded his hands, bowed his head, made three kisses in the air, and cried
+out: "I swear before the Virgin that I will never again take a traveller
+to that inn."
+
+We left Alhama an hour before daybreak, for we had a rough journey of more
+than forty miles before us. The bridle-path was barely visible in the
+darkness, but we continued ascending to a height of probably 5,000 feet
+above the sea, and thus met the sunrise half-way. Crossing the _llano_ of
+Ace faraya, we reached a tremendous natural portal in the mountains, from
+whence, as from a door, we looked down on all the country lying between us
+and the sea. The valley of the River Velez, winding among the hills,
+pointed out the course of our road. On the left towered over us the barren
+Sierra Tejeda, an isolated group of peaks, about 8,000 feet in height. For
+miles, the road was a rocky ladder, which we scrambled down on foot,
+leading our horses. The vegetation gradually became of a warmer and more
+luxuriant cast; the southern slopes were planted with the vine that
+produces the famous Malaga raisins, and the orange groves in the sunny
+depths of the valleys were as yellow as autumnal beeches, with their
+enormous loads of fruit. As the bells of Velez Malaga were ringing noon,
+we emerged from the mountains, near the mouth of the river, and rode into
+the town to breakfast.
+
+We halted at a queer old inn, more like a Turkish khan than a Christian
+hostlery. It was kept by a fat landlady, who made us an olla of kid and
+garlic, which, with some coarse bread and the red Malaga wine, soon took
+off the sharp edge of our mountain appetites. While I was washing my hands
+at a well in the court-yard, the _mozo_ noticed the pilgrim-seal of
+Jerusalem, which is stamped indelibly on my left arm. His admiration and
+reverence were so great that he called the fat landlady, who, on learning
+that it had been made in Jerusalem, and that I had visited the Holy
+Sepulchre, summoned her children to see it. "Here, my children!" she said;
+"cross yourselves, kneel down, and kiss this holy seal; for, as long as
+you live, you may never see the like of it again." Thus I, a Protestant
+heretic, became a Catholic shrine. The children knelt and kissed my arm
+with touching simplicity; and the seal will henceforth be more sacred to
+me than ever.
+
+The remaining twenty miles or more of the road to Malaga follow the line
+of the coast, passing headlands crowned by the _atalayas_, or
+watch-towers, of the Moors. It is a new road, and practicable for
+carriages, so that, for Spain, it may be considered an important
+achievement. The late rains have, however, already undermined it in a
+number of places. Here, as among the mountains, we met crowds of
+muleteers, all of whom greeted me with: "_Vaya usted con Dios,
+caballero_!"--("May you go with God, cavalier!") By this time, all my
+forgotten Spanish had come back again, and a little experience of the
+simple ways of the people made me quite at home among them. In almost
+every instance, I was treated precisely as a Spaniard would have been,
+and less annoyed by the curiosity of the natives than I have been in
+Germany, and even America.
+
+We were still two leagues from Malaga, at sunset, The fishermen along the
+coast were hauling in their nets, and we soon began to overtake companies
+of them, carrying their fish to the city on donkeys. One stout, strapping
+fellow, with flesh as hard and yellow as a sturgeon's, was seated sideways
+on a very small donkey, between two immense panniers of fish, As he
+trotted before us, shouting, and slapping the flanks of the sturdy little
+beast, Jose and I began to laugh, whereupon the fellow broke out into the
+following monologue, addressed to the donkey: "Who laughs at this
+_burrico_? Who says he's not fine gold from head to foot? What is it that
+he can't do? If there was a mountain ever so high, he would gallop over
+it. If there was a river ever so deep, he would swim through it If he
+could but speak, I might send him to market alone with the fish, and not a
+_chavo_ of the money would he spend on the way home. Who says he can't go
+as far as that limping horse? Arrrre, burrico! punate--ar-r-r-r-r-e-e!"
+
+We reached Malaga, at last, our horses sorely fagged. At the Fonda de la
+Alameda, a new and very elegant hotel, I found a bath and a good dinner,
+both welcome things to a tired traveller. The winter of Malaga is like
+spring in other lands and on that account it is much visited by invalids,
+especially English. It is a lively commercial town of about 80,000
+inhabitants, and, if the present scheme of railroad communication with
+Madrid is carried out, must continue to increase in size and importance. A
+number of manufacturing establishments have lately been started, and in
+this department it bids fair to rival Barcelona. The harbor is small, but
+good, and the country around rich in all the productions of temperate and
+even tropical climates. The city contains little to interest the tourist.
+I visited the Cathedral, an immense unfinished mass, without a particle of
+architectural taste outwardly, though the interior has a fine effect from
+its large dimensions.
+
+At noon to-day we were again in the saddle, and took the road to the Baths
+of Caratraca. The tall factory chimneys of Malaga, vomiting forth streams
+of black smoke, marred the serenity of the sky; but the distant view of
+the city is very fine. The broad Vega, watered by the Guadaljorce, is rich
+and well cultivated, and now rejoices in the verdure of spring. The
+meadows are clothed with fresh grass, butter-cups and daisies are in
+blossom, and larks sing in the olive-trees. Now and then, we passed a
+_casa del campo_, with its front half buried in orange-trees, over which
+towered two or three sentinel palms. After two leagues of this delightful
+travel, the country became more hilly, and the groups of mountains which
+inclosed us assumed the most picturesque and enchanting forms. The soft
+haze in which the distant peaks were bathed, the lovely violet shadows
+filling up their chasms and gorges, and the fresh meadows, vineyards, and
+olive groves below, made the landscape one of the most beautiful I have
+seen in Spain.
+
+As we were trotting along through the palmetto thickets, Jose asked me if
+I should not like to hear an Andalusian story. "Nothing would please me
+better," I replied. "Ride close beside me, then," said he, "that you may
+understand every word of it." I complied, and he gave me the following,
+just as I repeat it: "There was once a very rich man, who had thousands of
+cattle in the Sierra Nevada, and hundreds of houses in the city. Well:
+this man put a plate, with his name on it, on the door of the great house
+in which he lived, and the name was this: Don Pedro, without Fear and
+without Care. Now, when the King was making his _paseo_, he happened to
+ride by this house in his carriage, and saw the plate on the door. 'Read
+me the name on that plate!' said he to his officer. Then the officer read
+the name: Don Pedro, without Fear and without Care. 'I will see whether
+Don Pedro is without Fear and without Care,' said the King. The next day
+came a messenger to the house, and, when he saw Don Pedro, said he to him;
+'Don Pedro, without Fear and without Care, the King wants you!' 'What does
+the King want with me?' said Don Pedro. 'He sends you four questions which
+you must answer within four days, or he will have you shot; and the
+questions are:--How can the Sierra Nevada be cleared of snow? How can the
+sea be made smaller? How many arrobas does the moon weigh? And: How many
+leagues from here to the Land of Heavenly Glory?' Then Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care began to sweat from fright, and knew not what he
+should do. He called some of his arrieros and loaded twenty mules with
+money, and went up into the Sierra Nevada, where his herdsmen tended his
+flocks; for, as I said, he had many thousand cattle. 'God keep you, my
+master!' said the chief herdsman, who was young, and _buen mozo_, and had
+as good a head as ever was set on two shoulders. '_Anda, hombre!_ said Don
+Pedro, 'I am a dead man;' and so he told the herdsman all that the King
+had said. 'Oh, is that all?' said the knowing mozo. 'I can get you out of
+the scrape. Let me go and answer the questions in your name, my master!'
+'Ah, you fool! what can you do?' said Don Pedro without Fear and without
+Care, throwing himself upon the earth, and ready to die.
+
+"But, nevertheless, the herdsman dressed himself up as a _caballero_, went
+down to the city, and, on the fourth day, presented himself at the King's
+palace. 'What do you want?' said the officers. 'I am Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care, come to answer the questions which the King sent to
+me.' 'Well,' said the King, when he was brought before him, 'let me hear
+your answers, or I will have you shot this day.' 'Your Majesty,' said the
+herdsman, 'I think I can do it. If you were to set a million of children
+to playing among the snow of the Sierra Nevada, they would soon clear it
+all away; and if you were to dig a ditch as wide and as deep as all Spain,
+you would make the sea that much smaller,' 'But,' said the King, 'that
+makes only two questions; there are two more yet,' 'I think I can answer
+those, also,' said the herdsman: 'the moon contains four quarters, and
+therefore weighs only one arroba; and as for the last question, it is not
+even a single league to the Land of Heavenly Glory--for, if your Majesty
+were to die after breakfast, you would get there before you had an
+appetite for dinner,' 'Well done! said the King; and he then made him
+Count, and Marquez, and I don't know how many other titles. In the
+meantime, Don Pedro without Fear and without Care had died of his fright;
+and, as he left no family, the herdsman took possession of all his
+estates, and, until the day of his death, was called Don Pedro without
+Fear and without Care."
+
+I write, sitting by the grated window of this lonely inn, looking out on
+the meadows of the Guadaljorce. The chain of mountains which rises to the
+west of Malaga is purpled by the light of the setting sun, and the houses
+and Castle of Carlama hang on its side, in full view. Further to the
+right, I see the smoke of Monda, where one of the greatest battles of
+antiquity was fought--that which overthrew the sons of Pompey, and gave
+the Roman Empire to Caesar. The mozo of the venta is busy, preparing my kid
+and rice, and Jose is at his elbow, gently suggesting ingredients which
+may give the dish a richer flavor. The landscape is softened by the hush
+of coming evening; a few birds are still twittering among the bushes, and
+the half-moon grows whiter and clearer in mid-heaven. The people about me
+are humble, but appear honest and peaceful, and nothing indicates that I
+am in the wild _Serrania de Ronda_, the country of robbers,
+contrabandistas, and assassins.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVII.
+
+The Mountains of Ronda.
+
+
+
+  Orange Valleys--Climbing the Mountains--Jose's Hospitality--El
+  Burgo--The Gate of the Wind--The Cliff and Cascades of Ronda--The
+  Mountain Region--Traces of the Moors--Haunts of Robbers--A Stormy
+  Ride--The Inn at Gaucin--Bad News--A Boyish Auxiliary--Descent from the
+  Mountains--The Ford of the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
+  Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with Jose--Travelling
+  in Spain--Conclusion.
+
+
+Gibraltar, _Thursday, November_ 25, 1852.
+
+I passed an uncomfortable night at the Venta de Villalon, lying upon a bag
+stuffed with equal quantities of wool and fleas. Starting before dawn, we
+followed a path which led into the mountains, where herdsmen and boys were
+taking out their sheep and goats to pasture; then it descended into the
+valley of a stream, bordered with rich bottom-lands. I never saw the
+orange in a more flourishing state. We passed several orchards of trees
+thirty feet high, and every bough and twig so completely laden with fruit,
+that the foliage was hardly to be seen.
+
+At the Venta del Vicario, we found a number of soldiers just setting out
+for Ronda. They appeared to be escorting a convoy of goods, for there were
+twenty or thirty laden mules gathered at the door. We now ascended a most
+difficult and stony path, winding through bleak wastes of gray rock, till
+we reached a lofty pass in the mountain range. The wind swept through the
+narrow gateway with a force that almost unhorsed us. From the other side,
+a sublime but most desolate landscape opened to my view. Opposite, at ten
+miles' distance, rose a lofty ridge of naked rock, overhung with clouds.
+The country between was a chaotic jumble of stony hills, separated by deep
+chasms, with just a green patch here and there, to show that it was not
+entirely forsaken by man. Nevertheless as we descended into it, we found
+valleys with vineyards and olive groves, which were invisible from above.
+As we were both getting hungry, Jose stopped at a ventorillo and ordered
+two cups of wine, for which he insisted on paying. "If I had as many
+horses as my master, Napoleon," said he, "I would regale the Senors
+whenever I travelled with them. I would have _puros_, and sweetmeats, with
+plenty of Malaga or Valdepenas in the bota, and they should never complain
+of their fare." Part of our road was studded with gray cork-trees, at a
+distance hardly to be distinguished from olives, and Jose dismounted to
+gather the mast, which was as sweet and palatable as chestnuts, with very
+little of the bitter quercine flavor. At eleven o'clock, we reached El
+Burgo, so called, probably, from its ancient Moorish fortress. It is a
+poor, starved village, built on a barren hill, over a stream which is
+still spanned by a lofty Moorish bridge of a single arch.
+
+The remaining three leagues to Ronda were exceedingly rough and difficult.
+Climbing a barren ascent of nearly a league in length, we reached the
+_Puerto del Viento_, or Gate of the Wind, through which drove such a
+current that we were obliged to dismount; and even then it required all my
+strength to move against it. The peaks around, far and near, faced with
+precipitous cliffs, wore the most savage and forbidding aspect: in fact,
+this region is almost a counterpart of the wilderness lying between
+Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, Very soon, we touched the skirt of a cloud,
+and were enveloped in masses of chill, whirling vapor, through which we
+travelled for three or four miles to a similar gate on the western side of
+the chain. Descending again, we emerged into a clearer atmosphere, and saw
+below us a wide extent of mountain country, but of a more fertile and
+cheerful character. Olive orchards and wheat-fields now appeared; and, at
+four o'clock, we rode into the streets of Ronda.
+
+No town can surpass this in the grandeur and picturesqueness of its
+position. It is built on the edge of a broad shelf of the mountains, which
+falls away in a sheer precipice of from six to eight hundred feet in
+height, and, from the windows of many of the houses you can look down the
+dizzy abyss. This shelf, again, is divided in the centre by a tremendous
+chasm, three hundred feet wide, and from four to six hundred feet in
+depth, in the bed of which roars the Guadalvin, boiling in foaming
+whirlpools or leaping in sparkling cascades, till it reaches the valley
+below. The town lies on both sides of the chasm, which is spanned by a
+stone bridge of a single arch, with abutments nearly four hundred feet in
+height. The view of this wonderful cleft, either from above or below, is
+one of the finest of its kind in the world. Honda is as far superior to
+Tivoli, as Tivoli is to a Dutch village, on the dead levels of Holland.
+The panorama which it commands is on the grandest scale. The valley below
+is a garden of fruit and vines; bold yet cultivated hills succeed, and in
+the distance rise the lofty summits of another chain of the Serrania de
+Honda. Were these sublime cliffs, these charming cascades of the
+Guadalvin, and this daring bridge, in Italy instead of in Spain, they
+would be sketched and painted every day in the year; but I have yet to
+know where a good picture of Ronda may be found.
+
+In the bottom of the chasm are a number of corn-mills as old as the time
+of the Moors. The water, gushing out from the arches of one, drives the
+wheel of that below, so that a single race supplies them all. I descended
+by a very steep zig-zag path nearly to the bottom. On a little point or
+promontory overhanging the black depths, there is a Moorish gateway still
+standing. The sunset threw a lovely glow over the brown cliffs and the
+airy town above; but they were far grander when the cascades glittered in
+the moonlight, and the gulf out of which they leap was lost in profound
+shadow. The window of my bed-room hung over the chasm.
+
+Honda was wrapped in fog, when Jose awoke me on the morning of the 22d. As
+we had but about twenty-four miles to ride that day, we did not leave
+until sunrise. We rode across the bridge, through the old town and down
+the hill, passing the triple lines of the Moorish walls by the original
+gateways. The road, stony and rugged beyond measure, now took to the
+mountains. From the opposite height, there was a fine view of the town,
+perched like an eagle's nest on the verge of its tremendous cliffs; but a
+curtain of rain soon fell before it, and the dense dark clouds settled
+around us, and filled up the gorges on either hand. Hour after hour, we
+toiled along the slippery paths, scaling the high ridges by rocky ladders,
+up which our horses climbed with the greatest difficulty. The scenery,
+whenever I could obtain a misty glimpse of it, was sublime. Lofty mountain
+ridges rose on either hand; bleak jagged summits of naked rock pierced
+the clouds, and the deep chasms which separated them sank far below us,
+dark and indistinct through the rain. Sometimes I caught sight of a little
+hamlet, hanging on some almost inaccessible ledge, the home of the
+lawless, semi-Moorish mountaineers who inhabit this wild region. The faces
+of those we met exhibited marked traces of their Moslem ancestry,
+especially in the almond-shaped eye and the dusky olive complexion. Their
+dialect retains many Oriental forms of expression, and I was not a little
+surprised at finding the Arabic "_eiwa_" (yes) in general use, instead of
+the Spanish "_si_."
+
+About eleven o'clock, we reached the rude village of Atajate, where we
+procured a very good breakfast of kid, eggs, and white Ronda wine. The
+wind and rain increased, but I had no time to lose, as every hour swelled
+the mountain floods and made the journey more difficult. This district is
+in the worst repute of any in Spain; it is a very nest of robbers and
+contrabandistas. At the venta in Atajate, they urged us to take a guard,
+but my valiant Jose declared that he had never taken one, and yet was
+never robbed; so I trusted to his good luck. The weather, however, was our
+best protection. In such a driving rain, we could bid defiance to the
+flint locks of their escopettes, if, indeed, any could be found, so fond
+of their trade, as to ply it in a storm
+
+  "Wherein the cub-drawn bear would crouch,
+  The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
+  Keep their furs dry."
+
+Nevertheless, I noticed that each of the few convoys of laden mules which
+we met, had one or more of the _guardia cicia_ accompanying it. Besides
+these, the only persons abroad were some wild-looking individuals, armed
+to the teeth, and muffled in long cloaks, towards whom, as they passed,
+Jose would give his head a slight toss, and whisper to me: "more
+contrabandistas."
+
+We were soon in a condition to defy the weather. The rain beat furiously
+in our faces, especially when threading the wind-blown passes between the
+higher peaks. I raised my umbrella as a defence, but the first blast
+snapped it in twain. The mountain-sides were veined with rills, roaring
+downward into the hollows, and smaller rills soon began to trickle down my
+own sides. During the last part of our way, the path was notched along
+precipitous steeps, where the storm was so thick that we could see nothing
+either above or below. It was like riding along the outer edge of the
+world, When once you are thoroughly wet, it is a great satisfaction to
+know that you can be no wetter; and so Jose and I went forward in the best
+possible humor, finding so much diversion in our plight that the dreary
+leagues were considerably shortened.
+
+At the venta of Gaucin, where we stopped, the people received us kindly.
+The house consisted of one room--stable, kitchen, and dining-room all in
+one. There was a small apartment in a windy loft, where a bed (much too
+short) was prepared for me. A fire of dry heather was made in the wide
+fire-place, and the ruddy flames, with a change of clothing and a draught
+of the amber vintage of Estepona, soon thawed out the chill of the
+journey. But I received news which caused me a great deal of anxiety. The
+River Guadiaro was so high that nobody could cross, and two forlorn
+muleteers had been waiting eight days at the inn, for the waters to
+subside. Augmented by the rain which had fallen, and which seemed to
+increase as night came on, how could I hope to cross it on the morrow? In
+two days, the India steamer would be at Gibraltar; my passage was already
+taken, and I _must_ be there. The matter was discussed for some time; it
+was pronounced impossible to travel by the usual road, but the landlord
+knew a path among the hills which led to a ferry on the Guadiaro, where
+there was a boat, and from thence we could make our way to San Roque,
+which is in sight of Gibraltar. He demanded rather a large fee for
+accompanying me, but there was nothing else to be done. Jose and I sat
+down in great tribulation to our accustomed olla, but neither of us could
+do justice to it, and the greater part gladdened the landlord's two
+boys--beautiful little imps, with faces like Murillo's cherubs.
+
+Nevertheless, I passed rather a merry evening, chatting with some of the
+villagers over a brazier of coals; and one of the aforesaid boys, who,
+although only eight years old, already performed the duties of mozo,
+lighted me to my loft. When he had put down the lamp, he tried' the door,
+and asked me: "Have you the key?" "No," said I, "I don't want one; I am
+not afraid." "But," he rejoined, "perhaps you may get afraid in the night;
+and if you do, strike on this part of the wall (suiting the action to the
+word)--_I_ sleep on that side." I willingly promised to call him to my
+aid, if I should get alarmed. I slept but little, for the wind was howling
+around the tiles over my head, and I was busy with plans for constructing
+rafts and swimming currents with a rope around my waist. Finally, I found
+a little oblivion, but it seemed that I had scarcely closed my eyes, when
+Jose pushed open the door. "Thanks be to God, senor!" said he, "it begins
+to dawn, and the sky is clear: we shall certainly get to Gibraltar
+to-day."
+
+The landlord was ready, so we took some bread and a basket of olives, and
+set out at once. Leaving Gaucin, we commenced descending the mountain
+staircase by which the Serrania of Ronda is scaled, on the side towards
+Gibraltar. "The road," says Mr. Ford, "seems made by the Evil One in a
+hanging garden of Eden." After four miles of frightfully rugged descent,
+we reached an orange grove on the banks of the Xenar, and then took a wild
+path leading along the hills on the right of the stream. We overtook a few
+muleteers, who were tempted out by the fine weather, and before long the
+_correo_, or mail-rider from Ronda to San Roque, joined us. After eight
+miles more of toilsome travel we reached the valley of the Guadiaro. The
+river was not more than twenty yards wide, flowing with a deep, strong
+current, between high banks. Two ropes were stretched across, and a large,
+clumsy boat was moored to the shore. We called to the ferrymen, but they
+hesitated, saying that nobody had yet been able to cross. However, we all
+got in, with our horses, and two of the men, with much reluctance, drew us
+over. The current was very powerful, although the river had fallen a
+little during the night, but we reached the opposite bank without
+accident.
+
+We had still another river, the Guargante, to pass, but we were cheered by
+some peasants whom we met, with the news that the ferry-boat had resumed
+operations. After this current lay behind us, and there was now nothing
+but firm land all the way to Gibraltar, Jose declared with much
+earnestness that he was quite as glad, for my sake, as if somebody had
+given him a million of dollars. Our horses, too, seemed to feel that
+something had been achieved, and showed such a fresh spirit that we
+loosened the reins and let them gallop to their hearts' content over the
+green meadows. The mountains were now behind us, and the Moorish castle of
+Gaucin crested a peak blue with the distance. Over hills covered with
+broom and heather in blossom, and through hollows grown with oleander,
+arbutus and the mastic shrub, we rode to the cork-wood forests of San
+Roque, the sporting-ground of Gibraltar officers. The barking of dogs, the
+cracking of whips, and now and then a distant halloo, announced that a
+hunt was in progress, and soon we came upon a company of thirty or forty
+horsemen, in caps, white gloves and top-boots, scattered along the crest
+of a hill. I had no desire to stop and witness the sport, for the
+Mediterranean now lay before me, and the huge gray mass of "The Rock"
+loomed in the distance.
+
+At San Roque, which occupies the summit of a conical hill, about half-way
+between Gibraltar and Algeciras, the landlord left us, and immediately
+started on his return. Having now exchanged the rugged bridle-paths of
+Ronda for a smooth carriage-road, Jose and I dashed on at full gallop, to
+the end of our journey. We were both bespattered with mud from head to
+foot, and our jackets and sombreros had lost something of their spruce
+air. We met a great many ruddy, cleanly-shaven Englishmen, who reined up
+on one side to let us pass, with a look of wonder at our Andalusian
+impudence. Nothing diverted Jose more than to see one of these Englishmen
+rising in his stirrups, as he went by on a trot. "Look, look, Senor!" he
+exclaimed; "did you ever see the like?" and then broke into a fresh
+explosion of laughter. Passing the Spanish Lines, which stretch across the
+neck of the sandy little peninsula, connecting Gibraltar with the main
+land, we rode under the terrible batteries which snarl at Spain from this
+side of the Rock. Row after row of enormous guns bristle the walls, or
+look out from the galleries hewn in the sides of inaccessible cliffs An
+artificial moat is cut along the base of the Rock, and a simple
+bridge-road leads into the fortress and town. After giving up my passport
+I was allowed to enter, Jose having already obtained a permit from the
+Spanish authorities.
+
+I clattered up the long street of the town to the Club House, where I
+found a company of English friends. In the evening, Jose made his
+appearance, to settle our accounts and take his leave of me. While
+scrambling down the rocky stair-way of Gaucin, Jose had said to me: "Look
+you, Senor, I am very fond of English beer, and if I get you to Gibraltar
+to day you must give me a glass of it." When, therefore, he came in the
+evening, his eyes sparkled at the sight of a bottle of Alsop's Ale, and a
+handful of good Gibraltar cigars. "Ah, Senor," said he, after our books
+were squared, and he had pocketed his _gratification_, "I am sorry we are
+going to part; for we are good friends, are we not, Senor?" "Yes, Jose,"
+said I; "if I ever come to Granada again, I shall take no other guide than
+Jose Garcia; and I will have you for a longer journey than this. We shall
+go over all Spain together, _mi amigo_!" "May God grant it!" responded
+Jose, crossing himself; "and now, Senor, I must go. I shall travel back to
+Granada, _muy triste_, Senor, _muy triste_" The faithful fellows eyes were
+full of tears, and, as he lifted my hand twice to his lips, some warm
+drops fell upon it. God bless his honest heart; wherever he goes!
+
+And now a word as to travelling in Spain, which is not attended with half
+the difficulties and annoyances I had been led to expect. My experience,
+of course, is limited to the provinces of Andalusia, but my route included
+some of the roughest roads and most dangerous robber-districts in the
+Peninsula. The people with whom I came in contact were invariably friendly
+and obliging, and I was dealt with much more honestly than I should have
+been in Italy. With every disposition to serve you, there is nothing like
+servility among the Spaniards. The native dignity which characterizes
+their demeanor prepossesses me very strongly in their favor. There is but
+one dialect of courtesy, and the muleteers and common peasants address
+each other with the same grave respect as the Dons and Grandees. My friend
+Jose was a model of good-breeding.
+
+I had little trouble either with passport-officers or custom-houses. My
+passport, in fact, was never once demanded, although I took the precaution
+to have it vised in all the large cities. In Seville and Malaga, it was
+signed by the American Consuls, without the usual fee of two
+dollars--almost the only instances which have come under my observation.
+The regulations of the American Consular System, which gives the Consuls
+no salary, but permits them, instead, to get their pay out of travellers,
+is a disgrace to our government. It amounts, in effect, to _a direct tax
+on travel_, and falls heavily on the hundreds of young men of limited
+means, who annually visit Europe for the purpose of completing their
+education. Every American citizen who travels in Italy pays a passport tax
+of ten dollars. In all the ports of the Mediterranean, there is an
+American Vice-Consul, who does not even get the postage paid on his
+dispatches, and to whom the advent of a traveller is of course a welcome
+sight. Misled by a false notion of economy, our government is fast
+becoming proverbial for its meanness. If those of our own citizens who
+represent us abroad only worked as they are paid, and if the foreigners
+who act as Vice-Consuls without pay did not derive some petty trading
+advantages from their position, we should be almost without protection.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With my departure from Spain closes the record of my journey in the Lands
+of the Saracen; for, although I afterwards beheld more perfect types of
+Saracenic Art on the banks of the Jumna and the Ganges, they grew up under
+the great Empire of the descendants of Tamerlane, and were the creations
+of artists foreign to the soil. It would, no doubt, be interesting to
+contrast the remains of Oriental civilization and refinement, as they
+still exist at the extreme eastern and western limits of the Moslem sway,
+and to show how that Art, which had its birth in the capitals of the
+Caliphs--Damascus and Baghdad--attained its most perfect development in
+Spain and India; but my visit to the latter country connects itself
+naturally with my voyage to China, Loo-Choo, and Japan, forming a separate
+and distinct field of travel.
+
+On the 27th of November, the Overland Mail Steamer arrived at Gibraltar,
+and I embarked in her for Alexandria, entering upon another year of even
+more varied, strange, and adventurous experiences, than that which had
+closed. I am almost afraid to ask those patient readers, who have
+accompanied me thus far, to travel with me through another volume; but
+next to the pleasure of seeing the world, comes the pleasure of telling of
+it, and I must needs finish my story.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Lands of the Saracen, by Bayard Taylor
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LANDS OF THE SARACEN ***
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