Part 5

“Having lived near a month in this manner, like a sword with ten thousand edges, to which they have been compared, upon the ruin and destruction of every vegetable substance that came in their way, they arrived at their full growth, and threw off their nympha state by casting their outward skin. To prepare themselves for this change, they clung by their hinder feet to some bush, twig, or corner of a stone; and immediately, by using an undulating motion, their heads would first break out, and then the rest of their bodies. The whole transformation was performed in seven or eight minutes; after which they lay for some time in a torpid and seemingly in a languishing condition; but as soon as the sun and the air had hardened their wings, by drying up the moisture that remained upon them after casting their sloughs, they reassumed their former voracity, with an addition both of strength and agility. Yet they continued not long in this state before they were entirely dispersed, as their parents were before, after they had laid their eggs; and as the direction of the marches and flights of them both was always to the northward, and not having strength, as they sometimes had, to reach the opposite shores of Italy, France, or Spain, it is probable they perished in the sea: a grave which, according to these people, they have in common with other winged creatures. The locust, I conjecture, was the noisome beast, or the pernicious destructive animal, as the original words may be interpreted, which, with the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, made the four sore judgments that were threatened against Jerusalem. The Jews were allowed to eat them; and, indeed, when sprinkled with salt and dried, they are not unlike in taste to our fresh-water crayfish.”

Among the fish on the coast of Barbary the most curious is the penna marina, or sea-feather, which the fishermen sometimes find entangled in the meshes of their nets; and which, during the night, is so remarkably glowing and luminous as to enable the fishermen to discover by their light the size and quantity of the other fish which may happen to be enclosed within the same net.

In his remarks upon the moral condition of the inhabitants of Tunis and Algiers, he informs us that the sciences which were formerly so assiduously cultivated by the Moors are now neglected or despised: but they have still, as of old, a passion for poetry and music, and many a wandering dervish, like the Αοιδοί ^{TN}, or chapsists of antiquity, excites the admiration and generosity of the Moorish Arabs, by his enthusiastic improvisatores, accompanied by the rude notes of the _Arabelbah_, or bladder and string. Wild nations, whose feelings and passions are allowed a freer play than ours, are far more susceptible than we are of the delights which nervous poetry and simple melody are calculated to produce; and the Moors, whose tunes our traveller describes as merely “lively and pleasant,” are so deeply affected by music, that, in the warmth of their imagination, they lend their own sensations to inanimate objects, affirming seriously that the flowers of mullein and mothwort will droop upon hearing the _mizmoune_ played.

Provisions, in the time of Dr. Shaw, were exceedingly cheap, a large piece of bread, a bundle of turnips, or a small basket of fruit, being to be purchased for less than a quarter of a farthing. A fowl might be bought for a penny or three halfpence; a sheep for three shillings and sixpence; and a cow and a calf for a guinea. The usual price of a bushel of the best wheat was fifteen pence. Bruce, whose fate it has been to have his testimony upon several important points called in question by ignorant conceited persons, has been ridiculed for asserting that the flesh of lions is commonly eaten by a tribe of African Arabs. Our traveller himself, who had been laughed at for making the assertion in conversation, introduced it timidly into the appendix of his first edition; but in the second it was restored to its place in the narrative, where it is said that “the flesh of the lion is in _great esteem_, having no small affinity with _veal_, both in colour, taste, and flavour.”

The majority of persons appear to believe, with Shakspeare, that the Moors are a black, ill-favoured people; but, on the contrary, the Moorish women would be considered beautiful even in England, and the children have the finest complexions in the world. The men, from constant exposure to the sun, are generally swarthy, but never black; and the fine olive tinge they thus acquire only renders their complexions the more agreeable to the eye, as Heber observes of the Hindoos. In these countries, as in Southern Asia, women are nubile at a very early age, being very frequently mothers at eleven, and grandmothers at twenty-two. The circumstance which renders the seclusion of women necessary in such countries is, that the age of puberty precedes the age of discretion; for the passions reaching their maturity long before the reason, they stand in need of being directed by the reason of others until their own is ripened, and when it is they have lost the habit of consulting it. The ancient custom of hiring old women, who, as the prophet Amos expresses it, “are skilful in lamentation,” to perform at funerals, still prevails in Barbary; and so powerful is the effect of this scenical representation of sorrow, that when they are ἀλαλάζοντας πολλά, or “wailing greatly,” expressing their mimic grief by sound, gestures, and contortions of countenance, they seldom fail to work up the bystanders to an ecstasy of sorrow, so that even the English, who know it to be artificial, are deeply touched by it.

The superstitious practices of the Mohammedans in general, and particularly of those inhabiting Northern Africa, are strange and numerous, many of them being apparently offshoots from pagan practices, bequeathed to their ancestors by the Grecian or Roman colonists who subdued and inhabited these coasts. They suspend upon the necks of their children, as the Romans did their _bulla_, the figure of an open hand, generally the right, which they likewise paint upon their ships and houses, to avert the effects of the evil eye. At the same time the number five is unlucky, and “five in your eyes,” meaning the five fingers, is their proverb for cursing and defiance. Adults wear small scrolls, as the Jews did their phylacteries, containing verses from the Koran, as a charm against fascination, witchcraft, sickness, and misfortune. In one particular they appear to differ from the superstitious in Europe, who generally imagine that faith in the force of the spell is necessary to its efficacy; for their horses and cattle, which can be supposed to have but little faith in such matters, have similar scrolls suspended round their necks, no doubt with equal benefit. Their belief in _jenoune_, or genii, a class of beings between angels and devils, and which, like the fairies of our ancestors, are supposed to frequent shades and fountains, is deep-rooted and universal. These equivocal beings assume, they imagine, the form of toads, worms, lizards, and other small animals, which, being offensive to man, and lying frequently in his way, are extremely liable to be injured or destroyed. Therefore, when any person falls sick, fancying he may have harmed one of the _jenoune_ lurking in some obscene shape, he immediately consults with one of those cunning-women who, like the _veneficæ_ of antiquity, are versed in all expiatory ceremonies of this nature, and at the direction of the sorceress proceeds on a Wednesday with frankincense and other perfumes to some neighbouring spring, where a cock or a hen, a ram or a ewe, according to the sex or rank of the patient, is sacrificed to these spirits.

Dr. Shaw returned to England in the year 1733. In the course of the next year he took his degree of doctor of divinity, and was shortly afterward elected fellow of the Royal Society. Having employed five years in the composition and correction of his travels, he at length, in 1731, brought out the first edition, which was attacked by Dr. Pococke in his Description of the East. The numerous coins, busts, and other antiquities which he had collected in his travels he bestowed upon the university. Upon the death of Dr. Felton in 1740, he was nominated by his college principal of St. Edmund Hall, which he raised from a ruinous state by his munificence. He was at the same time presented to the vicarage of Bramley, in Hampshire, and likewise enjoyed during the remainder of his life the honour of being regius professor of Greek at Oxford. He died in 1751, in the sixtieth year of his age, and was buried at Bramley, where a monument was erected to his memory by his widow. The _Shawia_ in botany received its name in honour of Dr. Shaw.

FREDERIC HASSELQUIST.

Born 1722.—Died 1752.

HASSELQUIST was born on the 3d of January, 1722, at Isernvall, in Eastern Gothland, in Sweden. His father, Andrew Hasselquist, who was the clergyman of the place, died in great poverty while our traveller was yet a youth; and to add still further to his misfortune, his mother likewise was shortly afterward so extremely debilitated both in mind and body as to be compelled to take refuge in the infirmary of Vastona. Hasselquist would therefore in all probability have been condemned to a life of obscurity and poverty had not M. Pontin, his maternal uncle, undertaken the care of his education, and sent him with his own children to the college of Linköping. But all the friends of Hasselquist seemed destined to be short-lived. Not long after his entrance at college the loss of this kind benefactor reduced him to the necessity of teaching for a livelihood until he should be of the proper age to enter into the university.

In 1741 he entered a student at the university of Upsal; but poverty, which when not overwhelming acts as a spur to genius, was still his faithful companion, and compelled him for a subsistence to exercise his talents in the way of all others best calculated to give them amplitude and vigour. He became a tutor. At the same time, however, he enjoyed the advantage of attending the lectures of the various professors; and the knowledge thus acquired was immediately digested, examined, and enlarged, to be transmitted in other lectures to his own humble pupils.

Physic and natural history, for which, according to Linnæus, he had an innate inclination, were his favourite studies. He had likewise, it is said, a taste and some talents for poetry. An enthusiastic devotion to the sciences, which, as the world goes, is often allowed to be, like virtue, its own reward, is sometimes advantageous, however, when it happens to be exhibited in the proper quarter. This was experienced by our traveller. His ardent passion for knowledge, which neither poverty nor a feeble constitution could subdue, at length, after a five years’ struggle, attracted the attention of the university authorities, who in 1746 obtained him a pension from the king. And in the course of next year he proved, by his “Dissertation on the Virtues of Plants,” that the progress he had made in the sciences amply justified the favour which had been shown him.

It was in the same year that he first conceived the idea of travelling in the East. Linnæus, in one of his botanical lectures, having enumerated the countries, the natural history of which was known, as well as those which were placed in the contrary predicament, happened to make mention of Palestine among the latter; for at that period it was as much a “terra incognita” to science as the most remote districts of India. He expressed his astonishment that theologians and commentators, whose business it is to understand the Scriptures, should have so long neglected the natural history of the Holy Land, by which so much light might be thrown upon them,—the more particularly as many divines had made the botany of other countries their study. These remarks were not lost upon Hasselquist. He immediately formed the design of repairing the neglect of former ages, and had no sooner taken this resolution than he communicated his intentions to Linnæus. The latter, who seems to have regarded him with something approaching to paternal affection, experienced considerable astonishment at his design, and made use of many arguments to turn him from the prosecution of it; dwelt upon the length of the way, the difficulties, the dangers, the expenses, and, worst of all, his delicate state of health and consumptive habit. But who was ever deterred by arguments from the prosecution of a favourite scheme? Hasselquist’s mind had already tried the strength of all these reasons, and found that, like the bands of flax round the limbs of Samson, they had no force when opposed to the efforts of the will. His health, he maintained, could be improved only by travelling and change of climate,—dangers he appears, like a true traveller, to have classed among imaginary obstacles; and as to the expense, why, rather than relinquish the idea he would travel on foot. In short, says Linnæus, it was clear that he was absolutely determined on travelling.

Hasselquist was not ignorant, however, that whether on foot or on horseback, moving from place to place is no easy matter without money. Not being one of that erratic race “who had no stomach but to fight,” he reflected that beefsteaks and plum-pudding, or some solid equivalents, would be no less necessary in Palestine than in Sweden; and therefore made an essay of his genius for overcoming difficulties by encountering those which beset his first step. It would seem that in Sweden there are many persons of distinction in whom the indolence sometimes superinduced by the possession of wealth extinguishes a natural passion for travelling, who, previous to entering upon that path which leads from this world to the next, lay aside a small sum which they find too heavy to take with them, for the benefit of those adventurous souls who have but slight acquaintance with those pleasures which take a man by the sleeve when he is about to put his foot in the stirrup, and smile away his resolution. For some of these whimsical legacies Hasselquist made application; but as they were not particularly burdensome to the persons in whose hands they had been placed, he applied in vain. Among his brethren of the faculty he was more successful; and in addition to the funds with which they furnished him, he obtained from the professors of civil law and theology certain small pensions which the king had placed at their disposal. And although extremely moderate, considering the object which he had in view, these resources seem to have appeared sufficient in the eyes of our traveller.

This first difficulty removed, he began to prepare himself for the proper execution of the task he had undertaken, by the study of the Arabic and other oriental languages; and that he might not interrupt his academical studies, continued to be present at the public lectures, underwent the usual examinations, and maintained the requisite theses; so that, though absent, he might yet receive the honours to which his merit entitled him. Having in the spring of 1749 acquired the degree of licentiate, he proceeded to Stockholm, where he delivered a course of lectures in botany, which procured him the patronage of all the lovers of that science. The Levant Company, moreover, in consideration of his extraordinary merit, offered him a free passage to Smyrna on board of one of their ships.

His project having succeeded thus far almost beyond his hopes, he embarked on the 7th of August, 1749, at Stockholm, and sailed down the Baltic, landing at various points on the coast of Sweden for the purpose of examining the plants and other natural productions of the country. The voyage down the Baltic was attended with storms; but the pleasure imparted by the extraordinary features of the scenery, the sandy, columnar mountains of Gothland, the dazzling peaks of Iceland, and the gloomy beech forests of Malmo caused him to attend but little to the inconvenience they occasioned. In traversing the German Ocean and the English Channel, they approached so near our shores that the chalky cliffs and hills which run along the coast were visible; and on entering the Strait of Gibraltar, they discovered on the one hand the mountains of Africa, bare of vegetation, and looking like prodigious heaps of limestone, or moving sand; and on the other those of Spain, with cloud-capped summits, and lighted up at night by numerous watchfires and limekilns. The coasts of Sicily, of the Morea, of Candia were seen in passing, and on the 15th of September they came to an anchor in the harbour of Milo.

Though Hasselquist was by no means destitute of a relish for the beauties of nature, he was not precisely travelling in search of the picturesque. His affections were fixed upon those “children of the spring,” as flowers are termed by an old poet, which in the country where he now was long survive their parent; and was exceedingly delighted, on landing, to observe that numerous plants were still in flower, though others had already been deprived of their beauty by autumn. Among the former were the autumnal dandelion, the anemone coronaria, both white and blue, and the oleander, with a species of rhamnus with small white flowers.

The harbour of Milo is almost wholly surrounded by high mountains, upon one of which stand an ancient castle and village in a position singularly picturesque. On arriving at the town, over a road formed of flint and limestone, he was greatly struck by the air of poverty and misery which everywhere appeared; the houses differed in nothing from prisons, except that their inmates could go in and out when they pleased; and all around were ruins of splendid edifices, which added to their misery, by reminding them of the very different condition of their ancestors. However, poor as they were, they continued to bring up immense numbers of children, with which the whole town swarmed like a beehive. The costume of the women was extraordinary. More cynical even than the Spartan virgins, whose scanty tunic the reader may admire in Mr. Hope’s Costume of the Ancients, the women of Milo went entirely naked to the waist, from whence depended a short petticoat which was very far from reaching the knee. The crown of the head was covered with small pieces of linen, but the hair hung dishevelled to the girdle.

From Milo they sailed for Scio, which Hasselquist regarded as the most beautiful spot in the world; and, after narrowly escaping shipwreck in the gulf, reached Smyrna on the 27th of September. Here he was received and entertained with the utmost kindness and hospitality by M. Rydelius, consul of Sweden, to whom he was nearly related, and who during his stay exerted whatever influence he possessed in furtherance of his designs. M. Peyssonel, likewise, the French consul, showed him very particular attentions, and imparted to him much curious information respecting many of the natural productions of the East.

Among Hasselquist’s favourite researches was an inquiry into the state of the medical science and profession in the countries he visited. In ancient times, he had read that the professors of the healing art had been regarded as the possessors of celestial knowledge; temples had been erected and medals struck in gratitude for the benefits they had conferred on mankind; but at the period of his visit to Smyrna things had greatly changed for the worse. Some few sparks of their ancient genius still burst forth occasionally among the Greeks; but in general they had to struggle up through mountains of prejudice and ignorance; and, indeed, were it not that the love of gain rather than of science occasionally led a few adventurers into the civilized countries of Europe, in which, however, each age despises the science of the one that preceded it, scarcely a trace of medical knowledge would subsist in the Levant. One of the results of his inquiry was, that of all countries islands are the most fertile in illustrious physicians. Cos was the birthplace of Hippocrates, and England of Mead and Sydenham. Scio, too, was fertile in able physicians. He does not, however, pretend to assign any reason for the fact.

The Franks of Smyrna began their carnival with the year, during which a long series of costly balls and suppers were given. Among the musicians employed on these occasions it would be to little purpose, our traveller remarks, to seek for an Orpheus or a Linus; but the favourite dance of the Greek women, which surely could not be the Romaika, or “dull roundabout,” of the tiresomeness of which Lord Byron complains, greatly delighted our traveller. Fifteen young women arranged themselves in a half-moon, and, skilfully keeping time with the sounds of the lute and violin, performed a number of graceful movements, following their leader, who directed their steps by the waving of a scarf which she held in her hand, through various intricate figures, admirably imitating the mazes of a labyrinth. The girls accompanied their movements with songs, which Hasselquist, though a snake and beetle collector, seems to have enjoyed exceedingly. Of the dress of the dancers, he merely observes that it was in the ancient mode,—that is, if we may judge from vases and bas-reliefs, a single tunic covering only one of the breasts, and open at the sides from the girdle downwards.

With the month of February commenced the spring; and Hasselquist, who was really actuated by passion for the objects of his studies, willingly quitted the city and its amusements to ramble abroad among the fields and woods. Here the orange, the pomegranate, the fig-tree, the olive, the palm, and the cypress intermingled their foliage; and it would, perhaps, be necessary to have imbibed something of the tastes of a naturalist to conceive the pleasure with which our traveller, to whom most of them were new, beheld them put forth their blossoms, or otherwise manifest their being under the influence of spring. One of the greatest ornaments of the gardens in the environs of Smyrna, which are enclosed by hedges of willows planted along the brink of a ditch, is a species of ivy, which, when it finds a proper support, bends round into arches, or hangs from tree to tree in festoons, in so rich and beautiful a manner, that Hasselquist, who seems to have had a high notion of royalty, thought it ought to have adorned the garden of a king. Nature, however, is no respecter of persons. Kings or no kings, Turks, Jews, and gentiles are all one to her. In fact, if we may judge of her political opinions by facts, Nature abhors the foppery and rhodomontade of courts, since, when she has any magnificent or sublime spectacle to exhibit to mankind, she retires to scenes where palaces would be exceedingly out of place, and piles her eternal snows, or pours down her cataracts, or puts her terrible sand-columns in motion in barrenness and solitude.