Part 11

Leaving this haunt of hypochondriacal drones, he proceeded along the shores of the Gulf of Contessa, and took the road to Salonica. The road along the northern shores of the Thermaic Gulf was beset with too many dangers to be attempted, and he therefore embarked for Caritza in Thessaly, and, arriving next day, took up his quarters for the night at the foot of Mount Ossa. Next morning he proceeded to the banks of the Peneus, which constitute the Vale of Tempé, celebrated by ancient poets as the most beautiful spot in Greece; but either the valley had lost its charms, or our traveller all taste for the picturesque, for he passes it over with still greater coolness than the poetical scenes of Cyprus. However, his mind was at this time so full of the battle of Pharsalia, Cæsar, and Pompey, that it would have been wonderful indeed if he had paused a moment to admire the pastoral scenes of Tempé. Having then reached the blood-stained spot where the greater tyrant triumphed over the lesser, and paved the way for the glorious Ides of March, our traveller examined with attention the various positions said to have been occupied by the contending armies. From thence he descended towards the Maliac Bay through Phthiotis, the native country of Achilles, which was situated in the Thessalian Thebes, the inhabitants of which, according to Strabo, obtained the name of ants on account of their industrious habits.

On his arrival at Zeitoun, which appears to occupy the site of the ancient Lamia, he took lodgings in a caravansary, where, in order to enjoy a cooler air, and escape the vermin which usually abound in such places, he spread out his carpet in an open gallery, and fell asleep. He had not been long in the enjoyment of repose, however, before he was awakened by a fearful noise; when, starting up, he saw by the light of the moon that a large portion of the building had been overthrown, and beheld the terrified horses bursting out of the stables and flying away with the utmost rapidity. Amazed and confounded, he was at first unable to comprehend what had happened; but his servant informed him it was an earthquake, which doubly increased his consternation. They now began to think of effecting their escape, but the building had been so shattered, and such immense heaps of ruins choked up the passages, that although they were apprehensive a second shock might follow and bury them beneath the tottering walls, they were some time in making their way into the street. Here they found that a poor Turk, who had thrown himself down before the door to sleep, had been buried under the ruins; but by prompt assistance he was dug out uninjured. Though there was a beautiful moonlight, so thick a cloud of dust arose from the houses which had fallen down, or were still falling all around, that it was impossible to discern any object at the distance of ten paces; and from amid this dense canopy, which hung suspended over the whole city, shrieks, groans, and sobs, wild lamentations for the dead, the moans of the crushed and wounded, yells of agony, and exclamations of terror were heard on all sides. Humanity, however, in the midst of this awful scene was busy at the work of salvation. Men, goaded on by the sting of affection, rushed desperately in between the threatening ruins in search of the objects of their love,—their wives, their parents, their children,—and returned, some joyously with their living friends in their arms, others with livid and ghastly looks bearing the corpses of those in whom all their earthly happiness had centred. The earth still continued agitated, rocking and heaving like the sea. Pococke caused his baggage to be transported to a spot which was at a distance from all buildings, where in the course of two hours he counted nearly twenty shocks, some of which were exceedingly terrible. The whole scene was tremendous. A multitude of human beings standing in darkness, fearful that the earth would open beneath their feet and ingulf them; not daring to fly, lest they should tumble into chasms already formed around them; incapable of aiding each other; a prey to every terrible idea, to every horrible foreboding. But at length the earth became still, and while the inhabitants were preparing to bury their dead, our traveller obtained horses and fled away from the city.

Crossing the ancient Sperchius, the stream to which Achilles had vowed his golden hair, and proceeding along the shore of the Maliac Gulf, he soon discovered in the distance the famous pass of Thermopylæ,—a spot which men will tread with a holy pride and triumph so long as a sympathy for heroic valour and patriotism shall remain upon earth. Such are the places to which men should go in pilgrimage,—places sanctified by the dust of the glorious and the great, whose names are rendered eternal by Providence, that even in the basest and most degenerate times mankind might never be reduced to a disbelief of virtue.

From Thermopylæ Pococke proceeded through the country of the Opuntian Locrians to the Euripus, into which Aristotle is absurdly reported by vulgar tradition to have thrown himself, from a despair of discovering the cause of its manifold tides. The ancients relate that the tide here ebbs and flows seven times in the day; but our traveller learned that the motions of the Euripus are irregular, sometimes ebbing and flowing as often as fourteen times in the day, and at others not more than twice. He next directed his course to the shores of the Copaic Lake, the eels of which Aristophanes seems to have so passionately longed for during the Peloponnesian war, visited Thebes, and then crossed Mount Pentelicus into Attica. The ruins of Athens were then far less imperfect than they are at present, and he examined them with the eye of a learned antiquary; but extensive as was his learning, he does not seem to have possessed that sort of reading which would have enabled him thoroughly to enjoy a tour through Greece. It is for those who have entered deeply into the private history, literature, and philosophy of the Greeks that Attica has real charms. He should be able to determine or imagine the exact spot where Socrates sat under the plane-tree with Phædrus in order to discuss the merits of Lysias’s style; he should be interested in discovering where the house of Callias stood, to which the impatient Hippocrates would have led Socrates before day, that he might lose no time in being introduced to Protagoras; he should walk up and down the banks of the Ilyssus, that he might be sure of having visited the spot where Sophocles nestled all night among the reeds to enjoy the song of the nightingale: this is the sort of traveller who should visit Greece. Otherwise, with Strabo, Pausanias, and Vitruvius in hand, he may determine the sites of cities and measure the height of columns to a hair; our feelings go not along with him, and his researches become tiresome in proportion as they are circumstantial and exact.

From Athens Pococke proceeded westward, crossed the ancient territories of Megara, visited Corinth, and continuing his journey along the southern shores of the Gulf of Lepanto, arrived at Patras, where he embarked for Sicily. He then crossed over into Italy, and hurried on through Germany, Switzerland, and France, to England, and arrived in London on the 30th of August, 1741, exactly eight years from the day of his first departure for the Continent.

Being now happily arrived in port, with a prodigious quantity of materials, Pococke, anxious to enjoy the reputation to which he aspired, immediately commenced the compilation of his travels, the first volume of which appeared in 1743, under the title of “A Description of the East,” &c. Two years afterward the second volume, divided into two parts, was published; and shortly afterward he added to his travels a large collection of Greek and Latin inscriptions, which are said by M. St. Martin to be so exceedingly incorrect as to be almost unintelligible. As Pococke can very well dispense with the credit arising from “this kind of researches,” I have not thought it necessary to examine whether the reproach of the Frenchman be well founded or not; but I cannot help congratulating that writer upon the felicitous manner in which he commences his account of our traveller, “the obscure and insignificant particulars of whose life,” he tells us, “are scarcely worth relating;” which is certainly a peculiarly ingenious application of those rules of rhetoric that teach us how to vivify and adorn a barren subject. The readers of the “Biographie Universelle” may perhaps suspect, however, that M. St. Martin was deterred from seeking for the “obscure and insignificant particulars” of Pococke’s life, by the vast bulk of his volumes, through which they lie scattered at wide intervals; but few who have perused those volumes, replete with interest and information, will allow that their author deserved no more than one little page in an unwieldy collection, where so many obscure scribblers, whose very names are forgotten by the public, are commemorated at such disproportionate length.

Pococke, whose reputation was quickly diffused throughout Europe, having taken orders, was promoted, in 1756, to the archdeaconry of Ossory, in Ireland; and in 1765 was made bishop of Elphin. This honour he was not destined long to enjoy, however, for in the month of September, of the same year, he died of apoplexy, in the 61st year of his age. Besides his travels, he was the author of several memoirs in the Philosophical Transactions, and in the Archæologia; and there still remain a number of his smaller pieces in manuscript at the British Museum. No popular or well-conceived edition of his works has hitherto been published, though few travellers are deserving of more credit, or were more competent to describe the countries through which they journeyed.

JOHN BELL.

Born 1690.—Died about 1780.

BELL seems to have been born about the year 1690, at Antermony, in Scotland. He was possessed, even from his earliest years, by a strong passion for travel; but his passion, together with a large portion of shrewdness and sagacity, constituting the better part of his inheritance, he judiciously applied himself to the study of medicine and surgery, a knowledge of which, in all semi-barbarous countries, is frequently of more avail to the traveller even than wealth. It does not appear whether Bell was directed in the choice of his scene by preference or by chance. However, as all Europe was at that period filled with admiration of the projects of Peter the First, whose reputation for munificence drew crowds of adventurers by a species of magnetic attraction towards the north, it is probable that a desire of personal aggrandizement united with a thirst of knowledge in urging our traveller in the direction of Petersburg. But be this as it may, having obtained from several respectable persons recommendatory letters to Dr. Areskine, chief physician and privy counsellor to the czar Peter the First, he embarked at London in July, 1714, for St. Petersburg. On his arrival he was received in a very friendly manner by Dr. Areskine, to whom he communicated his intentions of availing himself of the first opportunity which should offer of visiting some portions of Asia. The desired occasion soon presented itself. The czar, preparing at this period to send an embassy into Persia, appointed Aremy Petrovich Valensky, a captain of the guards, to conduct the mission; and this gentleman applying to Dr. Areskine to recommend him a medical attendant, Bell was immediately brought forward by his countryman, and received, on his favourable testimony, into the ambassador’s suite. Through the same interest, he was likewise at once formally introduced into the service of the czar.

Bell set out from Petersburg on the 15th of July, 1715, accompanied by a part of the ambassador’s suite, and for some time directing his course along the western bank of the Neva, encamped in the evening on a small stream which falls into that river, and passed the night in a wagon. Next day they embarked on the Volchovu, the banks of which were covered with villages and fruitful cornfields, interspersed with woods, and continued their journey by water until they approached Novogorod, where they quitted their “moving road,” as Pascal terms a river, and proceeded on horseback. At Iver, Bell beheld the mighty stream of the Volga, the navigation of which from this town to the Caspian Sea is interrupted by no cataract, and whose waters abound with an extraordinary variety of the finest fish in the world.

From this place they proceeded towards the ancient capital of the empire, through a plain but agreeable country, covered with rich harvests, which infallibly produce a pleasing effect upon the mind, and dotted with small tufted groves, the verdure of which contrasted admirably with the yellow grain waving at their feet. On reaching the village from which the first view of Moscow was obtained, Bell observes, that “at this distance few cities in the world make a finer appearance, for it stands on a rising ground, and contains many stately churches and monasteries, whose steeples and cupolas are generally covered either with copper gilt or tin plates, which shine like gold and silver in the sun.”

The Kremlin, to which Bishop Heber was fond of comparing some of the old Mohammedan edifices of Hindostan, appears to have excited no very particular admiration in Bell, who merely observes that it was compounded of a number of buildings added to one another at different times, and that some of the apartments were remarkably spacious. Here they embarked on the Moskwa, and dropping slowly down the stream, entered the Volga a little below Nishna. The river at this place is of very great breadth, and, the wind blowing from the north, they were driven along with prodigious velocity. Signs of the approach of winter now began to appear, for it was the latter end of October; the Volga was suddenly filled with floating ice, which, united with its powerful current, and the force of the wind, rendered their position exceedingly dangerous. They, however, continued their voyage, and arrived on the 3d of November at Zabackzar, a considerable town on the right bank of the river, a little above Kazan.

In this part of Russia, according to Bell, the best and largest falcons in the world are caught, which being highly valued for their strength and beauty, particularly by the Turks and Persians, are sold to those nations at extravagant prices. They are not, as might have been expected, taken from the nest; but after they are full grown, when their natural instincts have been developed by exercise, and their physical powers have acquired, by struggling with storms and tempests, their utmost maturity and vigour. They are then taught to fly at swans, geese, herons, hares, and even antelopes; and our traveller saw one of them take a wild duck out of the water when nothing but her bill, which she had put up for air, could be perceived. Many of these falcons are as white as doves. Bell afterward saw in Kûdistan the beautiful species of hawk called _cherkh_, which the Persians and Arabs train for antelope hunting. This is done by stuffing the skin of one of these animals, and placing the food of the hawk between its horns, which afterward, when the bird comes to be employed in the chase, induces it to pounce upon the head of the antelope, and either strike it to the ground, or retard its movements until the greyhounds come up. Sir John Malcolm, who witnessed this singular sport at Abusheher, observes that “the huntsmen proceed to a large plain, or rather desert, near the seaside; they have hawks and greyhounds, the former carried in the usual manner on the hand of the huntsman, the latter led in a leash by a horseman, generally the same who carries the hawk. When the antelope is seen they endeavour to get as near as possible; but the animal, the moment it observes them, goes off at a rate that seems swifter than the wind; the horses are instantly at full speed, having slipped the dogs. If it is a single deer they at the same time fly the hawks; but if a herd, they wait till the dogs have fixed upon a particular antelope. The hawks, skimming along near the ground, soon reach the deer, at whose head they pounce in succession, and sometimes with a violence that knocks it over.”

The Persian style of hare hunting, which few travellers have noticed, is scarcely less interesting, and is thus described by Sir John Malcolm. “When at Shirez the elchee (ambassador) had received a present of a very fine shâh-bâz, or royal falcon. Before going out I had been amused at seeing Nuttee Beg, our head falconer, a man of great experience in his department, put upon this bird a pair of leathers, which he fitted to its thighs with as much care as if he had been the tailor of a fashionable horseman. I inquired the reason of so unusual a proceeding. ‘You will learn that,’ said the consequential master of the hawks, ‘when you see our sport;’ and I was convinced, at the period he predicted, of the old fellow’s knowledge of his business. The first hare seized by the falcon was very strong, and the ground rough. While the bird kept the claws of one foot fastened in the back of its prey, the other was dragged along the ground, till it had an opportunity to lay hold of a tuft of grass, by which it was enabled to stop the course of the hare, whose efforts to escape, I do think, would have torn the hawk asunder, if it had not been provided with the leathern defences which have been mentioned. The next time the falcon was flown gave us proof of that extraordinary courage which its whole appearance, and particularly its eye, denoted. It had stopped and quite disabled the second hare by the first pounce, when two greyhounds, which had been slipped by mistake, came up, and endeavoured to seize it. They were, however, repulsed by the falcon, whose boldness and celerity in attacking the dogs, and securing its prey, excited our admiration and astonishment.” Bell was informed of a circumstance, while travelling in Kûrdistan, which raises still higher our admiration of the falcon’s courage; for it is trained by the Tartars to fly at foxes and even wolves.

But to return to the Volga: On arriving on the 5th of November at Kazan, they found that the winter had set in, that the Volga was filled with floating ice, and that, therefore, since the nations inhabiting both banks of the river were hostile to Russia, or extremely barbarous in their manners, it would be necessary to defer the prosecution of their journey until the following spring. This afforded Bell ample leisure for the conducting of his researches into the manners, character, and religion of the neighbouring tribes. Here he found two Swedish generals, Hamilton and Rosen, taken prisoners at the battle of Pultowa, and exiled by the barbarous policy of the czar to these remote regions; but, excepting that they were exiles, they had no great reason to complain of their treatment, for they were allowed to share in whatever amusements and pleasures the place afforded, and were by no means subjected to a rigorous confinement.

It was not until the beginning of June that they were enabled to continue their voyage. They then began once more to descend the stream, which they did with great velocity; and making a short stay at Samara and Astrakhan, proceeded on their voyage, entered the Caspian, and on the 30th of August arrived at Niezabad, where, there being neither harbour nor creek, they hauled up their flat-bottomed vessels on the beach. Here an accident occurred to one of Bell’s companions, which strikingly illustrates the facility with which the imagination, when strongly excited, overthrows the other faculties of the mind. The ship in which the secretary of the embassy was embarked did not arrive until several hours after the others had been drawn on shore, by which time the wind had begun to blow with great violence, while the sea broke tremendously upon the beach. Not being able, under such circumstances, to reach the land, they at first cast anchor in the open road; but the gale increasing, even this position was considered dangerous, so that they quickly slipped their cable and put out to sea. The secretary and the other gentlemen on board, however, not greatly admiring their situation, and willing, from their extreme impatience to be once more on terra firma, to run even a considerable risk in endeavouring to effect their purpose, ordered the master of the ship, a Dutchman in the service of the czar, to run her ashore at all hazards, engaging themselves to be accountable for the consequences. But when the ship had approached within a certain distance of the land, the sea ran so high that no boat could be hoisted out. The secretary’s fear of the sea increasing with the obstacles to his landing, he at length prevailed upon a sailor, at the peril of his life, to carry him ashore on his back, which, in spite of all difficulties, the man actually performed; “but his clothes being drenched with salt water, and the road lying through deep sands, he was soon fatigued, and therefore retired nearer to the woods, in hopes of finding a more smooth and easy path. He discovered what he sought; but instead of leading him to the ships, it carried him away from the shore and the right course, into thick encumbered wood; and in these circumstances night overtook him, utterly ignorant of the dismal and dangerous wild into which he had wandered. Thus destitute of all assistance, he climbed a tree to save himself from the wild beasts with which these woods abound; and in this situation continued all the night, and till noon next day; for the people in his own ship never doubted of his having safely reached our tents; while we, on the contrary, had not the least suspicion of his having come on shore. At last, however, about noon, his servant came, inquiring for his master, who, he told us, left the ship the night before. This account filled us all with anxiety and apprehension; as we certainly concluded he would be torn to pieces by the wild beasts, or murdered by the savages who inhabit this coast. Immediate order was given for all our people to repair to the woods in search of him. He was at last found wandering from path to path, without knowing one direction from another. When he came to the tents he looked ghastly and wild, and related many strange stories of what he had heard in the night. All possible care was taken to alleviate his distress. During his sleep, which was very discomposed, he often started, groaned, and spoke; and even after he awaked, he persisted in affirming that there were numbers of people round the tree in the night, talking different languages. The imagination, no doubt, will naturally have a strong effect on any man in such uncommon circumstances; for, though the secretary was a man of penetration and sound judgment, in vain did we endeavour to undeceive him, by representing that it was nothing but the jackals which made the noise he had heard.” In fact, he never recovered his former sagacity and soundness of mind: and the accident may even be supposed to have hastened his death, which took place not long afterward.