CHAPTER IX.

First Sight of Smyrna.--Unveiled Women.--Ruins of Ephesus.--Ruin, all Ruin.--Temple of Diana.--Encounter with a Wolf.--Love at first Sight.--Gatherings on the Road.

(_Another letter._)

MY DEAR ****,

AFTER my bath I returned to my hotel, breakfasted, and sallied out for a walk. It was now about twelve o'clock, Sunday--the first Sunday after Easter--and all the Frank population was in the streets. My hotel was in an out-of-the-way quarter, and when, turning a corner, I suddenly found myself in the main street, I was not prepared for the sight that met my eye. Paris on a fête day does not present so gay and animated a scene. It was gay, animated, striking, and beautiful, and entirely different from anything I had ever seen in any European city. Franks, Jews, Greeks, Turks, and Armenians, in their various and striking costumes, were mingled together in agreeable confusion; and making all due allowance for the circumstance that I had for some time been debarred the sight of an unveiled woman, I certainly never saw so much beauty, and I never saw a costume so admirably calculated to set off beauty. At the same time the costume is exceedingly trying to a lady's pretensions. Being no better than one of the uninitiated, I shall not venture upon such dangerous ground as a lady's toilet. I will merely refer to that part which particularly struck me, and that is the headdress; no odious broad-brimmed hat; no enormous veils enveloping nose, mouth, and eyes; but simply a large gauze turban, sitting lightly and gracefully on the head, rolled back over the forehead, leaving the whole face completely exposed, and exhibiting clear dark complexions, rosy lips closing over teeth of dazzling whiteness; and then such eyes, large, dark, and rolling. It is matter of history, and it is confirmed by poetry, that

"The angelic youths of old, Burning for maids of mortal mould, Bewildered, left the glorious skies, And lost their heaven for woman's eyes."

My dear friend, this is the country where such things happened; the throne of the Thunderer, high Olympus, is almost in sight, and these are the daughters of the women who worked such miracles. If the age of passion, like the age of chivalry, were not over and for ever gone, if this were not emphatically a bank-note world, I would say of the Smyrniotes, above all others, that they are that description of women who could

"Raise a mortal to the skies, Or bring an angel down."

And they walk, too, as if conscious of their high pretensions, as if conscious that the reign of beauty is not yet ended; and, under that enchanting turban, charge with the whole artillery of their charms. It is a perfect unmasked battery; nothing can stand before it. I wonder the sultan allows it. The Turks are as touchy as tinder; they take fire as quick as any of the old demigods, and a pair of black eyes is at any time enough to put mischief in them. But the Turks are a considerate people. They consider that the Franks, or rather the Greeks, to whom I particularly refer, have periodical fits of insanity that they go mad twice a year during carnival and after Lent; and if at such a time a follower of the Prophet, accidentally straggling in the Frank quarter, should find the current of his blood disturbed, he would sooner die, nay, he would sooner cut off his beard, than hurt a hair of any one of the light heads that he sees flitting before him. There is something remarkable, by-the-way, in the tenacity with which the Grecian women have sustained the rights and prerogatives of beauty in defiance of Turkish customs and prejudices; while the men have fallen into the habits of their quondam masters, have taken to pipes and coffee, and in many instances to turbans and big trousers, the women have ever gone with their faces uncovered, and to this day one and all eschew the veil of the Turkish women.

Pleased and amused with myself and everything I saw, I moved along unnoticed and unknown, staring, observing, and admiring; among other things, I observed that one of the amiable customs of our own city was in full force here, viz., that of the young gentlemen, with light sticks in their hands, gathering around the door of the fashionable church to stare at the ladies as they came out. I was pleased to find such a mark of civilization in a land of barbarians, and immediately fell into a thing which seemed so much like home; but, in justice to the Smyrniote ladies, I must say I cannot flatter myself that I stared a single one out of countenance.

But I need not attempt to interest you in Smyrna; it is too every-day a place; every Cape Cod sailor knows it better than I do. I have done all that I could; I have waived the musty reminiscences of its history; I have waived ruins which are said to exist here, and have endeavoured to give you a faint but true picture of its living and existing beauties, of the bright and beautiful scene that broke upon me the first morning of my arrival; and now, if I have not touched you with the beauty of its women, I should despair of doing so by any description of its beautiful climate, its charming environs, and its hospitable society.

Leave, then, what is, after all, but the city of figs and raisins, and go with me where, by comparison, the foot of civilized man seldom treads; go with me into the desert and solitary places; go with me among the cities of the seven churches of Asia; and, first, to the ruins of Ephesus. I had been several days expecting a companion to make this tour with me, but, being disappointed, was obliged to set out alone. I was not exactly alone, for I had with me a Turk as guide and a Greek as cicerone and interpreter, both well mounted and armed to the teeth. We started at two o'clock in the morning, under the light of thousands of stars; and the day broke upon us in a country wild and desolate, as if it were removed thousands of miles from the habitations of men. There was little variety and little incident in our ride. During the whole day it lay through a country decidedly handsome, the soil rich and fertile, but showing with appalling force the fatal effects of misgovernment, wholly uncultivated, and almost wholly uninhabited. Indeed, the only habitations were the little Turkish coffee-houses and the black tents of the Turcomans. These are a wandering tribe, who come out from the desert, and approach comparatively near the abodes of civilization. They are a pastoral people; their riches are their flocks and herds; they lead a wandering life, free as the air they breathe; they have no local attachments; to-day they pitch their tents on the hillside, to-morrow on the plain; and wherever they sit themselves down, all that they have on earth, wife, children, and friends, are immediately around them. There is something primitive, almost patriarchal, in their appearance; indeed, it carries one back to a simple and perhaps a purer age, and you can almost realize that state of society when the patriarch sat in the door of his tent and called in and fed the passing traveller.

The general character of the road is such as to prepare one for the scene that awaits him at Ephesus; enormous burying-grounds, with thousands of headstones shaded by the mourning cypress, in the midst of a desolate country, where not a vestige of a human habitation is to be seen. They stand on the roadside as melancholy telltales that large towns or cities once existed in their immediate neighbourhood, and that the generations who occupied them have passed away, furnishing fearful evidence of the decrease of the Turkish population, and perhaps that the gigantic empire of the Ottoman is tottering to its fall.

For about three hours before reaching Ephesus, the road, crossing a rich and beautiful plain watered by the Cayster, lies between two mountains; that on the right leads to the sea, and on the left are the ruins of Ephesus. Near, and in the immediate vicinity, storks were calmly marching over the plain and building among the ruins; they moved as if seldom disturbed by human footsteps, and seemed to look upon us as intruders upon a spot for a long time abandoned to birds and beasts of prey. About a mile this side are the remains of the Turkish city of Aysalook, or Temple of the Moon, a city of comparatively modern date, reared into a brief magnificence out of the ruins of its fallen neighbour. A sharp hill, almost a mountain, rises abruptly from the plain, on the top of which is a ruined fortress, with many ruins of Turkish magnificence at the base; broken columns, baths overgrown with ivy, and the remains of a grand mosque, the roof sustained by four granite columns from the Temple of Diana; the minaret fallen, the mosque deserted; the Mussulman no more goes there to pray; bats and owls were building in its lofty roof, and snakes and lizards were crawling over its marble floor.

It was late in the afternoon when I arrived at the little coffee-house at Aysalook; a caravan had already encamped under some fine old sycamores before the door, preparatory to passing the night. I was somewhat fatigued, and my Greek, who had me in charge, was disposed to stop and wait for the morrow; but the fallen city was on the opposite hill at but a short distance, and the shades of evening seemed well calculated to heighten the effect of a ramble among its ruins. In a right line it was not more than half a mile, but we soon found that we could not go directly to it; a piece of low swampy ground lay between, and we had not gone far before our horses sank up to their saddle-girths. We were obliged to retrace our steps, and work our way around by a circuitous route of more than two miles. This, too, added to the effect of our approach. It was a dreary reflection, that a city, whose ports and whose gates had been open to the commerce of the then known world; whose wealth had invited the traveller and sojourner within its walls should lie a ruin upon a hillside, with swamps and morasses extending around it, in sight but out of reach, near but unapproachable. A warning voice seemed to issue from the ruins, "_Procul, procul, este profani_," my day is past, my sun is set, I have gone to my grave; pass on, stranger, and disturb not the ashes of the dead.

But my Turk did not understand Latin, and we continued to advance. We moved along in perfect silence, for besides that my Turk never spoke, and my Greek, who was generally loquacious enough, was out of humour at being obliged to go on, we had enough to do in picking our lonely way. But silence best suited the scene; the sound of the human voice seemed almost a mockery of fallen greatness. We entered by a large and ruined gateway into a place distinctly marked as having been a street, and, from the broken columns strewed on each side, probably having been lined with a colonnade. I let my reins fall upon my horse's neck; he moved about in the slow and desultory way that suited my humour; now sinking to his knees in heaps of rubbish, now stumbling over a Corinthian capital, and now sliding over a marble pavement. The whole hillside is covered with ruins to an extent far greater than I expected to find, and they are all of a kind that tends to give a high idea of the ancient magnificence of the city. To me, these ruins appeared to be a confused and shapeless mass; but they have been examined by antiquaries with great care, and the character of many of them identified with great certainty. I had, however, no time for details; and, indeed, the interest of these ruins in my eyes was not in the details. It mattered little to me that this was the stadium and that a fountain; that this was a gymnasium and that a market-place; it was enough to know that the broken columns, the mouldering walls, the grass-grown streets, and the wide-extended scene of desolation and ruin around me were all that remained of one of the greatest cities of Asia, one of the earliest Christian cities in the world. But what do I say? Who does not remember the tumults and confusion raised by Demetrius the silversmith, "lest the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence be destroyed;" and how the people, having caught "Caius and Aristarchus, Paul's companions in travel," rushed with one accord into the theatre, crying out, "great is Diana of the Ephesians." My dear friend, I sat among the ruins of that theatre; the stillness of death was around me; far as the eye could reach, not a living soul was to be seen save my two companions and a group of lazy Turks smoking at the coffee-house in Aysalook. A man of strong imagination might almost go wild with the intensity of his own reflections; and do not let it surprise you, that even one like me, brought up among the technicalities of declarations and replications, rebutters and surrebutters, and in nowise given to the illusions of the senses, should find himself roused, and irresistibly hurried back to the time when the shapeless and confused mass around him formed one of the most magnificent cities in the world; when a large and busy population was hurrying through its streets, intent upon the same pleasures and the same business that engage men now; that he should, in imagination, see before him St. Paul preaching to the Ephesians, shaking their faith in the gods of their fathers, gods made with their own hands; and the noise and confusion, and the people rushing tumultuously up the very steps where he sat; that he should almost hear their cry ringing in his ears, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians;" and then that he should turn from this scene of former glory and eternal ruin to his own far-distant land; a land that the wisest of the Ephesians never dreamed of; where the wild man was striving with the wild beast when the whole world rang with the greatness of the Ephesian name; and which bids fair to be growing greater and greater when the last vestige of Ephesus shall be gone and its very site unknown.

But where is the temple of the great Diana, the temple two hundred and twenty years in building; the temple of one hundred and twenty-seven columns, each column the gift of a king? Can it be that the temple of the "Great goddess Diana," that the ornament of Asia, the pride of Ephesus, and one of the seven wonders of the world, has gone, disappeared, and left not a trace behind? As a traveller, I would fain be able to say that I have seen the ruins of this temple; but, unfortunately, I am obliged to limit myself by facts. Its site has of course engaged the attention of antiquaries. I am no skeptic in these matters, and am disposed to believe all that my cicerone tells me. You remember the countryman who complained to his minister that he never gave him any Latin in his sermons; and when the minister answered that he would not understand it, the countryman replied that he paid for the best, and ought to have it. I am like that honest countryman; but my cicerone understood himself better than the minister; he knew that I paid him for the best; he knew what was expected from him, and that his reputation was gone for ever if, in such a place as Ephesus, he could not point out the ruins of the great temple of Diana. He accordingly had _his_ temple, which he stuck to with as much pertinacity as if he had built it himself; but I am sorry to be obliged to say, in spite of his authority and my own wish to believe him, that the better opinion is, that now not a single stone is to be seen.

Topographers have fixed the site on the plain, near the gate of the city which opened to the sea. The sea, which once almost washed the walls, has receded or been driven back for several miles. For many years a new soil has been accumulating, and all that stood on the plain, including so much of the remains of the temple as had not been plundered and carried away by different conquerors, is probably now buried many feet under its surface.

It was dark when I returned to Aysalook. I had remarked, in passing, that several caravans had encamped there, and on my return found the camel-drivers assembled in the little coffee-house in which I was to pass the night. I soon saw that there were so many of us that we should make a tight fit in the sleeping part of the khan, and immediately measured off space enough to fit my body, allowing turning and kicking room. I looked with great complacency upon the light slippers of the Turks, which they always throw off, too, when they go to sleep, and made an ostentatious display of a pair of heavy iron-nailed boots, and, in lying down, gave one or two preliminary thumps to show them that I was restless in my movements, and, if they came too near me these iron-nailed boots would be uncomfortable neighbours.

And here I ought to have spent half the night in musing upon the strange concatenation of circumstances which had broken up a quiet practising attorney, and sent him a straggler from a busy, money-getting land, to meditate among the ruins of ancient cities, and sleep pellmell with turbaned Turks. But I had no time for musing; I was amazingly tired; I looked at the group of Turks in one corner, and regretted that I could not talk with them; thought of the Tower of Babel and the wickedness of man, which brought about a confusion of tongues; of camel-drivers, and Arabian Nights' Entertainments; of home, and my own comfortable room in the third story; brought my boot down with a thump that made them all start, and in five minutes was asleep.

In the morning I again went over to the ruins. Daylight, if possible, added to their effect; and a little thing occurred, not much in itself, but which, under the circumstances, fastened itself upon my mind in such a way that I shall never forget it. I had read that here, in the stillness of the night, the jackal's cry was heard; that, if a stone was rolled, a scorpion or lizard slipped from under it; and, while picking our way slowly along the lower part of the city, a wolf of the largest size came out above, as if indignant at being disturbed in his possessions. He moved a few paces toward us with such a resolute air that my companions both drew their pistols; then stopped, and gazed at us deliberately as we were receding from him, until, as if satisfied that we intended to leave his dominions, he turned and disappeared among the ruins. It would have made a fine picture; the Turk first, then the Greek, each with a pistol in his hand, then myself, all on horseback, the wolf above us, the valley, and the ruined city. I feel my inability to give you a true picture of these ruins. Indeed, if I could lay before you every particular, block for block, fragment for fragment, here a column and there a column, I could not convey a full idea of the desolation that marks the scene.

To the Christian, the ruins of Ephesus carry with them a peculiar interest; for here, upon the wreck of heathen temples, was established one of the earliest Christian churches; but the Christian church has followed the heathen temple, and the worshippers of the true God have followed the worshippers of the great goddess Diana; and in the city where Paul preached, and where, in the words of the apostle, "much people were gathered unto the Lord," now not a solitary Christian dwells. Verily, in the prophetic language of inspiration, the "candlestick is removed from its place;" a curse seems to have fallen upon it, men shun it, not a human being is to be seen among its ruins; and Ephesus, in faded glory and fallen grandeur, is given up to birds and beasts of prey, a monument and a warning to nations.

From Ephesus I went to Scala Nova, handsomely situated on the shore of the sea, and commanding a fine view of the beautiful Island of Samos, distant not more than four miles. I had a letter to a Greek merchant there, who received me kindly, and introduced me to the Turkish governor. The governor, as usual, was seated upon a divan, and asked us to take seats beside him. We were served with coffee and pipes by two handsome Greek slaves, boys about fourteen, with long hair hanging down their necks, and handsomely dressed; who, after serving us, descended from the platform, and waited with folded arms until we had finished. Soon after a third guest came, and a third lad, equally handsome and equally well dressed, served him in the same manner. This is the style of the Turkish grandees, a slave to every guest. I do not know to what extent it is carried, but am inclined to think that, in the present instance, if one or two more guests had happened to come in, my friend's retinue of slaves would have fallen short. The governor asked me from what country I came, and who was my king; and when I told him that we had no king, but a president, he said, very graciously, that our president and the grand seignior were very good friends; a compliment which I acknowledged with all becoming humility. Wanting to show off a little, I told him that we were going to fight the French, and he said we should certainly whip them if we could get the grand seignior to help us.

I afterward called on my own account upon the English consul. The consuls in these little places are originals. They have nothing to do, but they have the government arms blazoned over their doors, and strut about in cocked hats and regimentals, and shake their heads, and look knowing, and talk about their government; they do not know what the government will think, &c., when half the time their government hardly knows of the existence of its worthy representatives. This was an old Maltese, who spoke French and Italian. He received me very kindly, and pressed me to stay all night. I told him that I was not an Englishman, and had no claim upon his hospitality; but he said that made no difference; that he was consul for all civilized nations, among which he did me the honour to include mine.

At three o'clock I took leave of the consul. My Greek friend accompanied me outside the gate, where my horses were waiting for me; and, at parting, begged me to remember that I had a friend, who hardly knew what pleasure was except in serving me. I told him that the happiness of my life was not complete before I met him; we threw ourselves into each other's arms, and, after a two hours' acquaintance, could hardly tear away from each other's embraces. Such is the force of sympathy between congenial spirits. My friend was a man about fifty, square built, broad shouldered, and big mustached; and the beauty of it was, that neither could understand a word the other said; and all this touching interchange of sentiment had to pass through my mustached, big-whiskered, double-fisted, six-feet interpreter.

At four o'clock we set out on our return; at seven we stopped in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains, and on the sides of the mountains were a number of Turcomans tents. The khan was worse than any I had yet seen. It had no floor and no mat. The proprietor of the khan, if such a thing, consisting merely of four mud walls with a roof of branches, which seemed to have been laid there by the winds, could be said to have a proprietor, was uncommonly sociable; he set before me my supper, consisting of bread and yort--a preparation of milk--and appeared to be much amused at seeing me eat. He asked my guide many questions about me; examined my pistols, took off his turban, and put my hat upon his shaved head, which transformed him from a decidedly bold, slashing-looking fellow, into a decidedly sneaking-looking one. I had certainly got over all fastidiousness in regard to eating, drinking, and sleeping; but I could not stand the vermin at this khan. In the middle of the night I rose and went out of doors; it was a brilliant starlight night, and, as the bare earth was in any case to be my bed, I exchanged the mud floor of my khan for the greensward and the broad canopy of heaven. My Turk was sleeping on the ground, about a hundred yards from the house, with his horse grazing around him. I nestled close to him, and slept perhaps two hours. Toward morning I was awakened by the cold, and, with the selfishness of misery, I began punching my Turk under the ribs to wake him. This was no easy matter; but, after a while, I succeeded, got him to saddle the horses, and in a few minutes we were off, my Greek not at all pleased with having his slumbers so prematurely disturbed.

At about two o'clock we passed some of the sultan's _volunteers_. These were about fifty men chained together by the wrists and ankles, who had been chased, run down, and caught in some of the villages, and were now on their way to Constantinople, under a guard, to be trained as soldiers. I could but smile as I saw them, not at them, for, in truth, there was nothing in their condition to excite a smile, but at the recollection of an article I had seen a few days before in a European paper, which referred to the new levies making by the sultan, and the spirit with which his subjects entered into the service. They were a speaking comment upon European insight into Turkish politics. But, without more ado, suffice it to say, that at about four o'clock I found myself at the door of my hotel, my outer garments so covered with creeping things that my landlord, a prudent Swiss, with many apologies, begged me to shake myself before going into the house; and my nether garments so stained with blood, that I looked as if a corps of the sultan's regulars had pricked me with their bayonets. My enthusiasm on the subject of the seven churches was in no small degree abated, and just at that moment I was willing to take upon trust the condition of the others, that all that was foretold of them in the Scriptures had come to pass. I again betook me to the bath, and, in thinking of the luxury of my repose, I feel for you, and come to a full stop.

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