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 Eothen 
 
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 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028519076 
 
ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE 
 From a photograph by Elliott & Pry, London. 
 
Zbc Genturi? (Tladdfcs 
 
 EOTHEN 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER WILLIAM 
 KINGLAKE 
 
 Uphs >7« re kol ijXiov ai/aroAa9 CTrotecTO rriv oSov. 
 
 HKBOB. vii, 58. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 JAMES BRYCE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 Ube Centura? Co* 
 
 MOM 
 
 Tm 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter XI 162 
 
 Galilee. 
 
 Chapter XII 168 
 
 My first bivouac. 
 
 Chapter XIII 181 
 
 The Dead Sea. 
 
 Chapter XIV 190 
 
 The black tents. 
 
 Chapter XV 195 
 
 Passage of the Jordan. 
 
 Chapter XVI 205 
 
 Terra Santa. 
 
 Chapter XVII 232 
 
 The desert. 
 
 Chapter XVIII 269 
 
 Cairo and the plague. 
 
 Chapter XIX 309 
 
 The Pyramids. 
 
 Chapter XX 315 
 
 The Sphinx. 
 
 Chapter XXI 317 
 
 Cairo to Suez. 
 
 Chapter XXII 329 
 
 Suez. 
 
 Chapter XXni , 338 
 
 Suez to Gaza, 
 
 Chapter XXIV 349 
 
 Gaza to Nablus. 
 
 vi 
 
 t 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter XXV 357 
 
 Mariam. 
 
 Chapter XXVI 371 
 
 The prophet Damoor. 
 
 Chapter XXVH 379 
 
 Damascus. 
 
 Chapter XXVin 391 
 
 Pass of the Lebanon. 
 
 Chapter XXIX 398 
 
 Surprise of Satalieh. 
 
 'Vii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 FEW books of travel deserve a place in 
 a series of modern classics, but " Eo- 
 then" is one of them. Fifty-five 
 years have elapsed since it was first pub- 
 lished, and in that long space the countries 
 it deals with have changed, and the public 
 taste has changed, and many books have 
 been written on the same countries; yet its 
 freshness and its charm have suffered no 
 decline. Its author spent the later years 
 of his life in producing an elaborate and, 
 indeed, a monumental work on the history 
 of the Crimean War, a work of infinite re- 
 search, and containing many brilliant pas- 
 sages. But it is still as the author of 
 "Eothen" that Kinglake is known; it is 
 as the author of "Eothen" that he will 
 probably be longest remembered. 
 
 Writing a book of travels is like playing 
 golf: nothing looks so easy until you try it. 
 How simple it seems to describe just what 
 one has seen, to recount the incidents that 
 amused the traveler, to sketch the customs 
 of the people, to set down from day to day 
 
 IX 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 those impressions which flow in upon the 
 mind with such delightful abundance as 
 one passes from city to city! Any one can 
 understand that to compose a first-rate 
 book of poetry, or metaphysics, or history, 
 or mathematics, may require powerful 
 faculties and strenuous labor. But to 
 record the things one has one's self seen 
 and heard seems within the reach of every 
 sensible man who can write grammatical 
 English. 
 
 Nevertheless real excellence is as rare 
 in books of travel as in other kinds of 
 literature. Few have been the conspicu- 
 ous successes among books of this class; 
 that is to say, few have been the books 
 which continue to be read for the sake of 
 their style and form after the transient in- 
 terest of their substance has passed away^ 
 as with travels, most perhaps of all kinds 
 of books, it soon tends to do. " Eothen '' is 
 one of the successes. Its author is as dis- 
 tinctly in the front rank of authors of his 
 own kind as Montaigne is in the front rank 
 among essayists, or Boswell among biogra- 
 phers, or Gibbon among historians, or 
 Adam Smith among economists, or Darwin 
 among naturalists. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is worth while to inquire to what this 
 success, this permanent hold on the taste 
 of a later generation, is to be ascribed. 
 
 There are as many ways of writing a book 
 of travels as there are points of view from 
 which a country or a people may be studied 
 and described. There is the statistical way, 
 and the political, and the commercial, and 
 the historical, and the anecdotical. In all 
 of these ways the writer's aim is to tell the 
 reader what he wants, or ought to want, to 
 know about the land and its inhabitants, to 
 give him the information he would need if 
 he were going to trade with the country, or 
 to examine its government and institutions, 
 or to compare its social and economic con- 
 dition with that of his own country. But, 
 besides all these methods, and differing 
 profoundly from them, there is another 
 method. It is the method of personal im- 
 pressions—the method which takes for its 
 subject not so much the country or the 
 people as the traveler himself, recording 
 what he thought and felt as he moved on 
 his way through the scenes of a strange 
 land and the men of another speech. So 
 far from desiring to be systematic or ex- 
 haustive, this method seeks to present 
 
 xi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 things simply as they touched and aflEected 
 the traveler's thoughts. So far from at- 
 tempting to supply all the information 
 which an intelligent reader would expect, 
 this method omits everything that did not 
 raise some emotion or start some train 
 of reverie in the writer's mind. It serves 
 none of the purposes, it satisfies none of 
 the needs, of the man of science, or the 
 statistician, or the politician, or the mer- 
 chant. But it may succeed, if skilfully 
 handled, in conveying a kind of truth which 
 can be conveyed in no other way, the capa- 
 city of the places or the people seen by the 
 traveler to play upon his mind as the musi- 
 cian plays on his instrument, or rather, 
 perhaps, for the process is a natural one, as 
 the wind draws sounds from the waving 
 tree-tops. Impressions given by this 
 method may go nearer to the heart of 
 things than the most accurate and careful 
 description of details. Such a presentation 
 may sum up more for the reader and leave 
 a deeper and more enduring imprint on his 
 mind than he could ever have drawn from 
 the most carefully selected mass of facts. 
 
 This is the method which has produced 
 '^ Eothen.'' One calls it a method, but in 
 
 xu 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 truth its merit lies in its being thoroughly 
 unmethodical. It wins us by its wayward- 
 ness, giving what we have not expected, neg- 
 lecting what we have expected. It has the 
 vivid inconsequence of a dream. There is 
 nothing in this record of an Eastern journey 
 of all those things which one looks for in 
 a well regulated and conventional book of 
 travels— no figures of population, no men- 
 tion of distances, no heights of mountains, 
 no accounts of institutions, no remarks on 
 possible openings for trade. 'l^ 
 
 You are taken to Jerusalem, and hear 
 not a word about the position of the city, 
 nor the streets, nor the buildings, nor the 
 environs, nor the composition of the popula- 
 tion. Only one impression is given: that 
 made by the pilgrims and the Easter cere- 
 monies in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 
 You spend three weeks in Cairo, and you 
 depart, having been told nothing about the 
 chief sights of the place. For the plague 
 was in Cairo, and it is of the plague that 
 the author speaks. It, and it alone, broods 
 over the reader's mind as it brooded over 
 the stricken city, and you realize more forci- 
 bly than ever before what it is to live under 
 the shadow of death. 
 
 • « • 
 XIU 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The apparent absence of plan in '^ Eothen'' 
 gives it a singular air of naturalness, and, 
 indeed, it purports to be a series of letters 
 loosely strung together. Yet, as must al- 
 most of necessity be the case with any book 
 produced in a time like ours, this naturalness 
 is the outcome of a finished art. The gen- 
 eration that is now quitting the stage saw 
 no more assiduous and painstaking literary 
 workman than Kinglake; and in this book 
 he fortunately avoided that portentous copi- 
 ousness which has confined his history of 
 the Crimean War, interesting as it is in 
 substance and polished as it is in style, to a 
 comparatively narrow circle of readers. All 
 his art, however, and all his diligence, 
 would not have made " Eothen '' what it is 
 had he not possessed two admirable gifts. 
 He had a keen sensitiveness to impressions, 
 both physical and intellectual, with a no 
 less keen interest in human character. He 
 had also a large fund of humor —humor with 
 a subacid flavor. The contrast between 
 the East and the West, between Syria and 
 England, between ancient semi-barbarism 
 and modern civilization, is a good theme 
 for the humorist, and is treated with a dry 
 yet not altogether unkindly cynicism which 
 
 yiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 gives to the book one of its most character- 
 istic notes. The first few pages strike this 
 note in the famous conversation with the 
 Turkish Pasha at Belgrade. It is heard fre- 
 quently throughout, but the forms it takes 
 are so various that it never becomes weari- 
 some. It is an eminently English note, as 
 indeed the whole book is English to the core. 
 Even the upper-class Englishman, self-con- 
 scious, cultivated, imperturbable, a man of 
 the world if ever there was one, permits 
 himself an occasional gush of sentiment, 
 for he, too, is human. But the author of 
 "Eothen'' quickly represses such weak- 
 nesses and returns to his normal pose of 
 well-bred dignity. Religious feeling, his- 
 torical enthusiasm, even the love of nature, 
 are kept well in hand by this impassive 
 Briton, who never lets you forget, as he 
 wanders by the Jordan, that he is return- 
 ing to Piccadilly and the House of Com- 
 mons. An impressionist record of travel 
 is necessarily a record of the traveler as 
 well as of what he has seen; and that 
 contrast of East and West which has been 
 above referred to comes out in no way better 
 than in the contrast between the writer and 
 those of whom he writes. 
 
 XV 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The half-century that has passed since 
 "Eothen'' appeared has wrought great 
 changes even on the unchanging East. 
 Turkish dominion has receded from Bel- 
 grade to the other side of the Balkans. Ser- 
 via, Bosnia, Bulgaria have all been restored 
 to Christendom. The Sultan has now but 
 a precarious hold on Europe, and the final 
 extinction of his rule even in Asia seems 
 happily not far off. Cairo has become a half- 
 French city, and Egypt a half-English coun- 
 try. Asia Minor is traversed by railroads, 
 and ocean steamers pass from the Mediter- 
 ranean to the Red Sea. In another half-cen- 
 tury all western Asia may have passed under 
 the control of one or more European powers. 
 The most characteristic features of Oriental 
 life, its immobility, its cruelty, its kindly 
 hospitality, its mixture of simplicity and 
 cunning, its social equality strangely joined 
 to political tyranny, are already beginning to 
 vanish from many places, and before the 
 year 2000 A.D. is reached may have disap- 
 peared. Much that is picturesque and 
 beautiful, much that is winning and pathetic, 
 much that carries us back to the early 
 world, to the world of Abraham and Moses 
 and Solomon, of Alexander the Great and 
 
 xvi 
 
 ..■■.'>?;: 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Zenobia, of Mohammed and Saladin, will 
 have perished forever. Thus a picture of 
 the East as it stood before the effacing fin- 
 ger of our civilization had begun to pass 
 over it will be even more precious to our 
 descendants than it is to us; and among the 
 books that have given such a picture in 
 clear and vivid colors, none will survive 
 longer than "Eothen." 
 
 James Bryce. 
 
 xvu 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ADDRESSED BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 TO ONE OP HIS FRIENDS 
 
 WHEN you first entertained the idea of 
 traveling in the East, you asked me 
 to send you an outline of the tour 
 which I had made, in order that you might the 
 better be able to choose a route for yourself. 
 In answer to this request I gave you a large 
 French map, on which the course of my jour- 
 ney had been carefully marked; but I did not 
 conceal from myself that this was rather a dry 
 mode for a man to adopt, when he wished to 
 impart the results of his experience to a dear 
 and intimate friend. Now, long before the 
 period of your planning an Oriental tour, I had 
 intended to write some account of my Eastern 
 travels. I had, indeed, begun the task, and had 
 failed ; I had begun it a second time, and failing 
 again, had abandoned my attempt with a sensa- 
 tion of utter distaste. I was unable to speak out, 
 and chiefly, I think, for this reason — that I knew 
 not to whom I was speaking, s It might be you, or, 
 perhaps, our Lady of Bitterness, who would read 
 my story ; or it might be some member of the 
 Royal Statistical Society, and how on earth was I 
 to write in a way that would do for all three ? 
 
 -^ell — your request for a sketch of my tour 
 suggested to me the idea of complying with your 
 wish by a revival of my twice-abandoned attempt. 
 I tried ; and the pleasure and confidence which 
 
EOTHEN [Preface 
 
 I felt in speaking to you soon made my task 
 so easy and even amusing that after a while 
 (though not in time for your tour) I completed 
 the scrawl from which this book was originally 
 printed. 
 
 The very feeling, however, which enabled me 
 to write thus freely prevented me from robing 
 my thoughts in that grave and decorous style 
 which I should have maintained if I had pro- 
 fessed to lecture the public. Whilst I feigned to 
 myself that you, and you only, were listening, I 
 could not by possibility speak very solemnly. 
 Heaven forbid that I should talk to my own 
 genial friend as though he were a great and en- 
 lightened community, or any other respectable 
 aggregate I 
 
 Yet I well understood that the mere fact of my 
 professing to speak to you, rather than to the 
 public generally, could not perfectly excuse me 
 for printing a narrative too roughly worded, and 
 accordingly, in revising the proof-sheets, I have 
 struck out those phrases which seemed to be less 
 fit for a published volume than for intimate con- 
 versation. It is hardly to be expected, however, 
 that correction of this kind should be perfectly 
 complete, or that the almost boisterous tone in 
 which many parts of the book were originally 
 written should be thoroughly subdued. I ven- 
 ture, therefore, to ask that the familiarity of 
 language still possibly apparent in the work may 
 be laid to the account of our delightful intimacy, 
 rather than to any presumptuous motive. I feel, 
 as you know, much too timidly, too distantly, and 
 too respectfully toward the public to be capable 
 of seeking tp put myself on terms of easy fellow- 
 ship with strange and casual readers. 
 
 XX 
 
Preface] EOTHEN 
 
 It is right to forewarn people (and I have tried 
 to do this as well as I can by my studiously 
 unpromising title-page^) that the book is quite 
 superficial in its character. I have endeavored 
 to discard from it all valuable matter derived 
 from the works of others, and it appears to me 
 that my efforts in this toection have been at- 
 tended with great success ; I believe I may truly 
 acknowledge that from all details of geographical 
 discovery or antiquarian research, from all display 
 of "sound learning and religious knowledge," 
 from all historical and scientific illustrations, from 
 all useful statistics, from all political disquisitions, 
 and from all good moral reflections, the volume 
 is thoroughly free. 
 
 My excuse for the book is its truth : you and I 
 know a man fond of hazarding elaborate jokes, 
 who, whenever a story of his happens noi to go 
 down as wit, will evade the awkwardness of the 
 failure by bravely maintaining that all he has said 
 is pure fact. I can honestly take this decent, 
 though humble, mode of escape. My narrative 
 is not merely righteous in matters of fact (where 
 fact is in question), but it is true in this larger 
 sense : it conveys, not those impressions which 
 ought to have been produced upon any " well con- 
 stituted mind," but those which were really and 
 truly received at the time of his rambles by a 
 headstrong and not very amiable traveler, whose 
 prejudices in favor of other people's notions were 
 then exceedingly slight. As I have felt, so I have 
 written ; and the result is that there will often be 
 
 1 ** Edthen " is, I hope, almost the only hard word to be found 
 in the book ; it is written in Greek riCjOev ( AtticS, with an 
 aspirated e instead of the 17), and signifies "from the early 
 dawn," "from the East" (Donn. Lex., 4th edition). 
 
 xxi 
 
'j ^ 
 
 EOTHEN [Preface 
 
 found in my narrative a jarring discord between 
 the associations properly belonging to interesting 
 sites, and the tone in which I speak of them. 
 This seemingly perverse mode of treating the 
 subject is forced upon me by my plan of adhering 
 to sentimental truth, and really does not result 
 from any impertinent wish to tease or trifle with 
 readers. I ought, for instance, to have felt as 
 strongly in Judea as in Galilee, but it was not so 
 in fact. The religious sentiment — born in soli- 
 tude — which had heated my brain in the Sanc- 
 tuary of Nazareth was rudely chilled at the foot 
 of Zion by disenchanting scenes, and this change 
 is accordingly disclosed by the perfectly worldly 
 tone in which I speak of Jerusalem and Beth- 
 lehem. * 
 
 My notion of dwelling precisely upon those 
 matters which happened to interest me, and upon 
 none other, would, of course, be intolerable in a 
 regular book of travels. If I had been passing 
 through countries not previously explored, it 
 would have been sadly perverse to withhold care- 
 ful descriptions of admirable objects merely be- 
 cause my own feelings of interest in them may 
 have happened to flag ; but where the countries 
 which one visits have been thorougljy and ably 
 described, and even artistically illustrated, by 
 others, one is fuUy at liberty to say as little — 
 though not quite so much — as one chooses . Now, 
 a traveler is a creature not always looking at 
 sights. He remembers (how often!) the happy 
 land of his birth ; he has, too, his moments of 
 humble enthusiasm about fire and food, about 
 shade and drink ; and if he gives to these feelings 
 anything hke the prominence which really be- 
 longed to them at the time of his traveling, he 
 
 xxii 
 
Preface] EOTHEN 
 
 will not seem a very good teacher. Once having 
 determined to write the sheer truth concerning 
 the things which chiefly have interested him, he 
 must, and he will, sing a sadly long strain about 
 Self ; he will talk for whole pages together about 
 his bivouac fire, and ruin the ruins of Baalbec with 
 eight or ten cold lines. 
 
 But it seems to me that this egotism of a trav- 
 eler, however incessant, however shameless and 
 obtrusive, must still convey some true ideas of the 
 country through which he has passed. His very 
 selfishness — his habit of referring the whole ex- 
 ternal world to his own sensations — compels him, 
 as it were, in his writings to observe the laws of 
 perspective; he tells you of objects not as he 
 knows them to be, but as they seemed to him. 
 The people and the things that most concern him 
 personally, however mean and insignificant, take 
 large proportions in his picture, because they 
 stand so near to him. He shows you his drago- 
 man and the gaimt features of his Arabs, his tent, 
 his kneeling camels, his baggage strewed upon 
 the sand ; but the proper wonders of the land — the 
 cities, the mighty ruins, and monuments of by- 
 gone ages — he throws back faintly in the distance. 
 It is thus that he felt, and thus he strives to re- 
 peat, the scenes of the Elder World. You may 
 listen to him forever without learning much in the 
 way of statistics, but perhaps if you bear with him 
 long enough you may find yourself slowly and 
 faintly impressed with the realities of Eastern 
 travel. 
 
 My scheme of refusing to dwell upon matters 
 which failed to interest my own feelings has been 
 departed from in one instance — namely, in my 
 detail of the late Lady Hester Stanhope's conver- 
 
 xxiii 
 
EOTHEN [Preface 
 
 sation on supernatural topics. The truth is that 
 I have been much questioned on this subject^ and 
 I thought that my best plan would be to write 
 down at once all that I could ever have to say- 
 concerning the personage whose career has ex- 
 cited so much curiosity amongst Englishwomen. 
 The result is that my account of the lady goes to 
 a length which is not justified either by the im- 
 portance of the subject or by the extent to which 
 it interested the narrator. 
 
 You will see that I constantly speak of "my 
 people," "my party," "my Arabs," and so on, 
 using terms which might possibly seem to im- 
 ply that I moved about with a pompous retinue. 
 This, of course, was not the case. I traveled with 
 the simplicity proper to my station, as one of the 
 industrious class, who was not flying from his 
 country because of ennui, but was strengthening 
 his will and tempering the metal of his nature for 
 that life of toil and conflict in which he is now 
 engaged. But an Englishman journeying in the 
 East must necessarily have with him dragomen 
 capable of interpreting the Oriental languages ; 
 the absence of wheeled carriages obliges him to 
 use several beasts of burden for his baggage, as 
 well as for himself and his attendants ; the owners 
 of the horses or camels, with their slaves or ser- 
 vants, fall in as part of his train ; and altogether 
 the cavalcade becomes rather numerous, without, 
 however, occasioning any proportionate increase 
 of expense. When a traveler speaks of all these 
 followers in mass, he calls them his "people," or 
 his "troop," or his "party," without intending 
 to make you believe that he is therefore a sover- 
 eign prince. 
 
 You will see that I sometimes follow the custom 
 
 xxiv 
 
Preface] EOTHEN 
 
 of the Scots in describing my fellow-countrymen 
 by the names of their paternal homes. 
 
 Of course all these explanations are meant for 
 casual readers. To you, without one syllable of 
 excuse or deprecation, and in all the confidence 
 of a friendship that never yet was clouded, I give 
 the long-promised volume, and add but this one 
 "Qood-by," for I dare not stand greeting you 
 here. 
 
 r,u 
 
 XXV 
 
EOTHEN 
 
CHAPTER 
 I 
 
 Over the border. 
 
 AT Semlin I still was encompassed by 
 /\ the scenes and the sounds of f amil- 
 .aT Jl. iar life; the din of a busy world still 
 vexed and cheered me; the unveiled faces 
 of women still shone in the light of day. 
 Yet, whenever I chose to look southward, 
 I saw the Ottoman's fortress, —austere, and 
 darkly impending high over the vale of the 
 Danube,— historic Belgrade. I had come, 
 as it were, to the end of this wheel-going 
 Europe, and now my eyes would see the 
 splendor and havoc of the East. 
 
 The two frontier towns are less than 
 a gunshot apart, yet their people hold 
 no communion. The Hungarian, on the 
 north, and the Turk and Servian, on the 
 southern side of the Save, are as much 
 asunder as though there were fifty broad 
 provinces that lay in the path between 
 them. Of the men that bustled around me 
 in the streets of Semlin, there was not, 
 1 1 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter I 
 
 perhaps, one who had ever gone down to 
 look upon the stranger race dwelling under 
 the walls of that opposite castle. It is 
 the plague, and the dread of the plague, 
 that divide the one people from the other. 
 All coming and going stands forbidden by 
 the terrors of the yellow flag. If you dare 
 to break the laws of the quarantine, you 
 will be tried with military haste; the court 
 will scream out your sentence to you from 
 a tribunal some fifty yards off; the priest, 
 instead of gently whispering to you the 
 sweet hopes of religion, will console you at 
 dueling distance, and after that you will 
 find yourself carefully shot, and carelessly 
 buried in the ground of the lazaretto. 
 
 When all was in order for our departure, 
 we walked down to the precincts of the 
 quarantine establishment, and here awaited 
 us the "compromised '' ^ officer of the Aus- 
 trian government, whose duty it is to super- 
 intend the passage of the frontier, and who 
 for that purpose lives in a state of per- 
 petual excommunication. The boats, with 
 their " compromised " rowers, were also in 
 readiness. 
 
 1 A "compromised" person is one wlio has been in con- 
 tact with people or things supposed to be capable of con- 
 veying infection. As a general rule, the whole Ottoman 
 Empire lies constantly under this terrible ban. The "yel- 
 low flag" is the ensign of the quarantine establishment. 
 
 2 
 
Chapter I] EOTHEN 
 
 After coining in contact with any crea- 
 ture or thing belonging to the Ottoman 
 Empire, it would be impossible for us to 
 return to the Austrian territory without 
 undergoing an imprisonment of fourteen 
 days in the lazaretto. We felt, therefore, 
 that before we committed ourselves it was 
 important to take care that none of the ar- 
 rangements necessary for the journey had 
 been forgotten, and in our anxiety to avoid 
 such a misfortune we managed the work of 
 departure from Semlin with nearly as much 
 solemnity as if we had been departing this 
 life. Some obliging persons from whom we 
 had received civilities during our short stay 
 in the place came down to say their farewell 
 at the river's side; and now, as we stood 
 with them at the distance of three or four 
 yards from the " compromised " officer, they 
 asked if we were perfectly certain that we 
 had wound up all our affairs in Christen- 
 dom, and whether we had no parting re- 
 quests to make. We repeated the caution 
 ^to our servants, and took anxious thought 
 lest by any possibility we might be cut off 
 from some cherished object of affection:— 
 were they quite sure that nothing had been 
 forgotten— that there was no fragrant 
 dressing-case with its gold-compelling let- 
 ters of credit, from which we might be 
 
 3 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter I 
 
 parting forever? No; every one of our 
 treasures lay safely stowed in the boat;, and 
 we— we were ready to follow. Now, there- 
 fore, we shook hands with our Semlin 
 friends, and they immediately retreated for 
 three or four paces, so as to leave us in 
 the center of a space between them and 
 the " compromised " officer. The latter then 
 advanced, and asking once more if we had 
 done with the civilized world, held forth his 
 hand. I met it with mine, and there was 
 an end to Christendom for many a day to 
 come. 
 
 We soon neared the southern bank of 
 the river, but no sounds came down from 
 the blank walls above, and there was no 
 living thing that we could yet see, except 
 one great hovering bird of the vulture 
 race, flying low and intent, and wheeling 
 round and round over the pest-accused 
 city. ^ 
 
 But presently there issued from the pos- 
 tern a group of human beings— beings with 
 immortal souls, and possibly some reason- 
 ing faculties, but to me the grand point 
 was this, that they had real, substantial, 
 and incontrovertible turbans. They made 
 for the point towards which we were steer- 
 ing, and when, at last, I sprang upon the 
 shore, I heard and saw myself now first 
 
 4 
 
 \4. 
 
Chapter I] EOTHEN 
 
 surrounded by men of Asiatic blood, I have 
 since ridden through the land of the Os- 
 manlis, from the Servian border to the 
 Golden Horn, from the Gulf of Sataliah to 
 the tomb of Achilles, but never have I seen 
 such hyper-Turk looking fellows as those 
 who received me on the banks of the Save. 
 They were men in the humblest order of 
 life, having come to meet our boat in the 
 hope of earning something by carrying our 
 luggage up to the city; but, poor though 
 they were, it was plain that they were Turks 
 of the proud old school, and had not yet 
 forgotten the fierce, careless bearing of 
 their once victorious race. 
 
 Though the province of Servia generally 
 has obtained a kind of independence, yet 
 Belgrade, as being a place of strength on 
 the frontier, is still garrisoned by Turkish 
 troops, under the command of a Pasha. 
 Whether the fellows who now surrounded 
 us were soldiers or peaceful inhabitants I 
 did not understand. They wore the old Turk- 
 ish costume— vests and jackets of many and 
 brilliant colors, divided from the loose petti- 
 coat-trousers by heavy volumes of shawl, so 
 thickly folded around their waists as to 
 give the meager wearers something of the 
 dignity of true corpulence. This cincture 
 inclosed a whole bundle of weapons; no man 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter I 
 
 bore less than one brace of immensely long 
 pistols, and a yataghan (or cutlass), with a 
 dagger or two, of various shapes and sizes. 
 Most of these arms were inlaid with silver 
 highly burnished, and they shone all the 
 more lustrously for being worn along with 
 garments decayed and even tattered (this 
 carefulness of his arms is a point of honor 
 with the Osmanli; he never allows his 
 bright yataghan to suffer from his own 
 adversity): then the long, drooping mus- 
 tachios, and the ample folds of the once 
 white turbans, that lowered over the pier- 
 cing eyes and the haggard features of the 
 men, gave them an air of gloomy pride, 
 and that appearance of trying to be disdain- 
 ful under difficulties, which one almost 
 always sees in those of the Ottoman peo- 
 ple who live and remember old times. They 
 looked as if they would have thought them- 
 selves more usefully, more honorably, and 
 more piously employed in cutting our 
 throats than in carrying our portmanteaus. 
 The faithful Steel (Methley's Yorkshire ser- 
 vant) stood aghast for a moment at the 
 sight of his master's luggage upon the 
 shoulders of these warlike porters, and 
 when at last we began to move he could 
 scarcely avoid turning round to cast one 
 affectionate look towards Christendom, 
 
 6 
 
Chapter I] EOTHEN 
 
 but quickly again he marched on with the 
 steps of a man not frightened exactly, but 
 sternly prepared for death, or the Koran, 
 or even for plural wives. 
 
 The Moslem quarter of a city is lonely 
 and desolate; you go up and down, and on 
 over shelving and hillocky paths through 
 the narrow lanes walled in by blank, win- 
 do wless dwellings; you come out upon an 
 open space strewed with the black ruins 
 that some late fire has left; you pass by a 
 mountain of castaway things, the rubbish 
 of centuries, and on it you see numbers of 
 big, wolf -like dogs lying torpid under the 
 sun, with limbs outstretched to the full, as 
 if they were dead; storks or cranes, sitting 
 fearless upon the low roofs, look gravely 
 down upon you; the still air that you breathe 
 is loaded with the scent of citron and pome- 
 granate rinds scorched by the sun, or, as 
 you approach the bazaar, with the dry, dead 
 perfume of strange spices. You long for 
 some signs of life, and tread the ground 
 more heavily, as though you would wake 
 the sleepers with the heel of your boot; 
 but the foot falls noiseless upon the crum- 
 bling soil of an Eastern city, and silence 
 follows you still. Again and again you 
 meet turbans and faces of men, but they 
 have nothing for you— no welcome, no won- 
 
 7 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter I 
 
 der, no wrath, no scorn ; they look upon you 
 as we do upon a December's fall of snow— 
 as a "seasonable/' unaccountable, uncom- 
 fortable work of God, that may have been 
 sent for some good purpose, to be revealed 
 hereafter. 
 
 Some people had come down to meet us 
 with an invitation from the Pasha, and we 
 wound our way up to the castle. At the 
 gates there were groups of soldiers, some 
 smoking, and some lying flat like corpses 
 upon the cool stones. We went through 
 courts, ascended steps, passed along a cor- 
 ridor, and walked into an airy, whitewashed 
 room, with an European clock at one end of 
 it and Moostapha Pasha at the other. The 
 fine old bearded potentate looked very like 
 Jove— like Jove, too, in the midst of his 
 clouds, for the silvery fumes of the nar- 
 ghile ^ hung lightly circling round him. 
 
 The Pasha received us with the smooth, 
 kind, gentle manner that belongs to well- 
 bred Osmanlis. Then he lightly clapped 
 his hands, and instantly the sound filled all 
 the lower end of the room with slaves; a 
 syllable dropped from his lips, it bowed 
 all heads and conjured away the attendants 
 
 1 The narghile is a water-pipe upon the plan of the hooka, 
 but more gracefully fashioned ; the smoke is drawn by a very 
 long, flexible tube that winds its snake-like way from the vase 
 to the lips of the beatified smoker. 
 
 8 
 
Chapter I] EOTHEN 
 
 like ghosts. (Their coming and their going 
 was thus swift and quiet because their feet 
 were bare, and they passed through no 
 door, but only by the yielding folds of a 
 purdah.) Soon the coflfee-bearers appeared, 
 every man carrying separately his tiny cup 
 in a small metal stand, and presently to 
 each of us there came a pipe-bearer, a grave 
 and solemn functionary, who first rested the 
 bowl of the chibouk at a measured distance 
 on the floor, and then, on this axis, wheeled 
 round the long cherry tube, and gracefully 
 presented it on half -bended knee. Already 
 the fire (well kindled beforehand) was glow- 
 ing secure in the bowl, and so, when I 
 pressed the amber lip to mine, there was no 
 coyness to conquer; the willing fume came 
 up and answered my slightest sigh, and 
 followed softly every breath inspired, till it 
 touched me with some faint sense and un- 
 derstanding of Asiatic contentment. 
 
 Asiatic contentment! Yet hardly, per- 
 haps, one hour before, I had been wanting 
 my bill, and ringing for waiters in a shrill 
 and busy hotel. 
 
 In the Ottoman dominions there is 
 scarcely any hereditary influence except 
 that belonging to the family of the Sultan, 
 and wealth, too, is a highly volatile bless- 
 ing, not easily transmitted to the descen- 
 
 9 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter I 
 
 dants of the owner. From these causes it 
 results that the people standing in the 
 place of nobles and gentry are official per- 
 sonages, and though many— indeed, the 
 greater number— of these potentates are 
 humbly born and bred, you will seldom, I 
 think, find them wanting in that polished 
 smoothness of manner and those well- 
 undulating tones which belong to the best 
 Osmanlis- The truth is that most of the 
 men in authority have risen from their 
 humble station by the arts of the courtier, 
 and they keep in their high estate those 
 gentle powers of fascination to which they 
 owe their success. Yet, unless you can con- 
 trive to learn a little of the language, you 
 will be rather bored by your visits of cere- 
 mony. The intervention of the dragoman is 
 fatal to the spirit of conversation. I think 
 I should mislead you if I were to attempt 
 to give the substance of any particular con- 
 versation with Orientals. A traveler may 
 write and say that "the Pasha of So-and- 
 so was particularly interested in the vast 
 progress which has been made in the ap- 
 plication of steam, and appeared to under- 
 stand the structure of our machinery; that 
 he remarked upon the gigantic results of 
 our manufacturing industry; showed that 
 he possessed considerable knowledge of our 
 
 10 
 
Chapter I] EOTHEN 
 
 Indian affairs and of the constitution of 
 the Company, and expressed a lively ad- 
 miration of the many sterling qualities for 
 which the people of England are distin- 
 guished." But the heap of commonplaces 
 thus quietly attributed to the Pasha will 
 have been founded perhaps on some such 
 talking as this: 
 
 Pasha. The Englishman is welcome; 
 most blessed among hours is this, the 
 hour of his coming. 
 
 Dragoman {to the Traveler). The Pasha 
 pays you his compliments. 
 
 Traveler. Give him my best compli- 
 ments in return, and say I 'm delighted to 
 have the honor of seeing him. 
 
 Dragoman (to the Pasha). His Lordship, 
 this Englishman, Lord of London, Scorner 
 of Ireland, Suppressor of France, has quitted 
 his governments, and left his enemies to 
 breathe for a moment, and has crossed the 
 broad waters in strict disguise, with a small 
 but eternally faithful retinue of followers, 
 in order that he might look upon the bright 
 countenance of the Pasha among Pashas— 
 the Pasha of the everlasting Pashalic of 
 Karagholookoldour. 
 
 Traveler {to his Dragoman). What on 
 earth have you been saying about London? 
 The Pasha will be taking me for a mere 
 
 11 
 
 
 i 41 1 « 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter I 
 
 cockney. Have not I told you always to 
 say that I am from a branch of the family 
 of Mudcombe Park, and that I am to be a 
 magistrate for the county of Bedfordshire, 
 only I ''ve not qualified, and that I should 
 have been a Deputy Lieutenant if it had 
 not been for the extraordinary conduct of 
 Lord Mountpromise, and that I was a can- 
 didate for Boughton-Soldborough at the last 
 election, and that I should have won easy 
 if my committee had not been bribed? I 
 wish to heaven that if you do say any- 
 thing about me, you 'd tell the simple truth. 
 
 Dragoman (is silent). 
 
 Pasha. What says the friendly Lord of 
 London? Is there aught that I can grant 
 him within the Pashalic of Karagholook- 
 oldour? 
 
 Dragoman {growing sulky and literal). 
 This friendly Englishman, this branch of 
 Mudcombe, this head purveyor of Bough- 
 ton-Soldborough, this possible policeman of 
 Bedfordshire, is recounting his achieve- 
 ments and the number of his titles. 
 
 Pasha. The end of his honors is more 
 distant than the ends of the earth, and the 
 catalogue of his glorious deeds is brighter 
 than the firmament of heaven ! 
 
 Dragoman {to the Traveler). The Pasha 
 congratulates your Excellency. 
 
 12 
 

 ■■ Ar 
 
 Chapter I] EOTHEN 
 
 Traveler. About Boughton-Soldbor- 
 ough? The deuce he does! But I want to 
 get at his views in relation to the present 
 state of the Ottoman Empire, Tell him the 
 Houses of Parliament have met, and that 
 there has been a speech from the Throne 
 pledging England to maintain the integrity 
 of the Sultan's dominions. 
 
 Dragoman (to the Pasha). This branch 
 of Mudcombe, this possible policeman of 
 Bedfordshire, informs your Highness that 
 in England the talking houses have met, 
 and that the integrity of the Sultan's 
 dominions has been assured for ever and 
 ever by a speech from the velvet chair. 
 
 Pasha. Wonderful chair! wonderful 
 houses ! — whir ! whir ! all by wheels ! —whizz ! 
 whizz! all by steam!— wonderful chair! 
 wonderful houses! wonderful people!— 
 whir! whir! all by wheels!— whizz! whizz I 
 all by steam ! 
 
 Traveler (to the Dragoman). What does 
 the Pasha mean by that whizzing? He 
 does not mean to say, does he, that our 
 Government will ever abandon their pledges 
 to the Sultan? 
 
 Dragoman. No, your Excellency, but he 
 says the English talk by wheels and by 
 steam. 
 
 Traveler. That 's an exaggeration; but 
 
 13 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter I 
 
 say that the Enghsh really have carried ma- 
 chinery to great perfection. Tell the Pasha 
 —he '11 be struck with that— that when- 
 ever we have any disturbances to put down, 
 even at two or three hundred miles from 
 London, we can send troops by the thou- 
 sand to the scene of action in a few hours. 
 
 Dragoman (recovering his temper and 
 freedom of speech). His Excellency, this 
 Lord of Mudcombe, observes to your High- 
 ness that whenever the Irish or the 
 French or the Indians rebel against the 
 English, whole armies of soldiers and bri- 
 gades of artillery are dropped into a mighty 
 chasm called Euston Square, and in the bit- 
 ing of a cartridge they rise up again in 
 Manchester or Dublin or Paris or Delhi, and 
 utterly exterminate the enemies of England 
 from the face of the earth. 
 
 Pasha. I know it— I know all; the par- 
 ticulars have been faithfully related to me, 
 and my mind comprehends locomotives. 
 The armies of the English ride upon the 
 vapors of boiling caldrons, and their horses 
 are flaming coals!— whir! whir! all by 
 wheels!— whizz! whizz! all by steam! 
 
 Traveler (to his dragoman). I wish to 
 have the opinion of an unprejudiced Otto- 
 man gentleman as to the prospects of our 
 English commerce and manufactures. Just 
 
 14 
 
Chapter I] EOTHEN 
 
 ask the Pasha to give me his views on the 
 subject. 
 
 Pasha {after having received the eorrnnuni" 
 cation of the dragoman). The ships of the 
 EngUsh swarm hke flies; their printed cah- 
 coes cover the whole earth; and by the side 
 of their swords the blades of Damascus are 
 blades of grass. All India is but an item 
 in the ledger-books of the merchants, 
 whose lumber-rooms are filled with an- 
 cient thrones!— whir! whir! all by wheels! 
 —whizz! whizz! all by steam! 
 
 Dragoman. The Pasha compliments the 
 cutlery of England, and also the East India 
 Company. 
 
 Traveler. The Pasha 's right about the 
 cutlery. (I tried my simitar with the 
 common officers' swords belonging to our 
 fellows at Malta, and they cut it like the 
 leaf of a novel.) Well {to the dragoman), 
 tell the Pasha I am exceedingly gratified to 
 find that he entertains such a high opinion 
 of our manufacturing energy, but I should 
 like him to know, though, that we have got 
 something in England besides that. These 
 foreigners are always fancying that we 
 have nothing but ships and railways and 
 East India Companies. Do just tell the 
 Pasha that our rural districts deserve his 
 attention, and that even within the last 
 
 15 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter I 
 
 two hundred years there has been an evi- 
 dent improvement in the culture of the 
 turnip, and if he does not take any interest 
 about that, at all events, you can explain 
 that we have our virtues in the country— 
 that we are a truth-telling people, and, like 
 the Osmanlis, are faithful in the perform- 
 ance of our promises. Oh, and by the by, 
 whilst you are about it, you may as well just 
 say, at the end, that the British yeoman is 
 still, thank God! the British yeoman. 
 
 Pasha {after hearing the dragoman). It 
 is true, it is true. Through all Feringhis- 
 tan the English are foremost and best; for 
 the Russians are drilled swine, and the 
 Germans are sleeping babes, and the Ital- 
 ians are the servants of songs, and the 
 French are the sons of newspapers, and 
 the Greeks are the weavers of lies. But 
 the English and the Osmanlis are brothers 
 together in righteousness, for the Osman- 
 lis believe in one only God, and cleave to 
 the Koran, and destroy idols; so do the 
 English worship one God, and abominate 
 graven images, and tell the truth, and be- 
 lieve in a book, and though they drink the 
 juice of the grape, yet to say that they 
 worship their prophet as God, or to say 
 that they are eaters of pork, these are lies 
 —lies born of Greeks and nursed by Jews! 
 
 16 
 
•'I 
 
 Chapter I] EOTHEN 
 
 Dragoman. The Pasha compliments the 
 English. 
 
 Traveler (rising). Well, I 've had 
 enough of this. Tell the Pasha I am 
 greatly obliged to him for his hospitality, 
 and still more for his kindness in furnish- 
 ing me with horses, and say that now I 
 must be off. 
 
 Pasha (after hearing the dragoman, and 
 standing up on his divan)} Proud are the 
 sires and blessed are the dams of the 
 horses that shall carry his Excellency to 
 the end of his prosperous journey. May 
 the saddle beneath him glide down to the 
 gates of the happy city like a boat swim- 
 ming on the third river of Paradise. May 
 he sleep the sleep of a child, when his friends 
 are around him, and the while that his 
 enemies are abroad, may his eyes flame 
 red through the darkness— more red than 
 the eyes of ten tigers! Farewell! 
 
 Dragoman. The Pasha wishes your Ex- 
 cellency a pleasant journey. 
 
 So ends the visit. 
 
 1 That is, if tie stands up at all. Oriental etiquette would not 
 warrant his rising^ unless his visitor were supposed to be at 
 least his equal in point of rank and station. 
 
 17 
 
CHAPTER 
 II 
 
 Turkish traveling. 
 
 IN two or three hours our party was 
 ready. The servants, the Tatar, the 
 mounted Suridgees, and the baggage- 
 horses all together made up a strong caval- 
 cade. The accomplished Mysseri, of whom 
 you have heard me speak so often, and who 
 served me so faithfully throughout my 
 Oriental journeys, acted as our inter- 
 preter, and was, in fact, the brain of our 
 corps. The Tatar, you know, is a govern- 
 ment courier properly employed in carrying 
 despatches, but also sent with travelers to 
 speed them on their way, and answer with 
 his head for their safety. The man whose 
 head was thus pledged for our precious lives 
 was a glorious-looking fellow, with that 
 regular and handsome cast of countenance 
 which is now characteristic of the Ottoman 
 race.^ His features displayed a good deal 
 
 1 The continual marriages of these people with the chosen 
 beauties of Georgia and Circassia have overpowered the ori- 
 gfinal ugliness of their Tatar ancestors. 
 
 18 
 
Chapter II] EOTHEN 
 
 of serene pride, self-respect, fortitude, a 
 kind of ingenuous sensuality, and some- 
 thing of instinctive wisdom without any 
 sharpness of intellect. He had been a 
 Janizary,— as I afterwards found,— and he 
 still kept up the old pretorian strut which 
 used to affright the Christians in former 
 times— a strut so comically pompous that 
 any close imitation of it, even in the broad- 
 est farce, would be looked upon as a very 
 rough overacting of the character. It is 
 occasioned, in part, by dress and accoutre- 
 ments. The weighty bundle of weapons 
 carried upon the chest throws back the body 
 so as to give it a wonderful portliness, and, 
 moreover, the immense masses of clothes 
 that swathe his limbs force the wearer in 
 walking to swing himself heavily round 
 from left to right, and from right to left. 
 In truth, this great edifice of woolen and 
 cotton and silk and silver and brass and 
 steel is not at all fitted for moving on foot. 
 It cannot even walk without frightfully dis- 
 composing its fair proportions, and as to 
 running— our Tatar ran once (it was in or- 
 der to pick up a partridge that Methley had 
 winged with a pistol-shot), and the attempt 
 was one of the funniest misdirections of hu- 
 man energy that wondering man ever saw. 
 But put him in his stirrups, and then is the 
 
 19 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter n 
 
 Tatar himself again. There he lives at his 
 pleasure, reposing in the tranquillity of that 
 true home (the home of his ancestors) which 
 the saddle seems to afford him, and draw- 
 ing from his pipe the calm pleasures of his 
 " own fireside,'' or else dashing sudden over 
 the earth, as though for a moment he felt 
 the mouth of a Turkoman steed, and saw 
 his own Scythian plains lying boundless 
 and open before him. 
 
 It was not till his subordinates had nearly 
 completed their preparations for the march 
 that our Tatar, " commanding the forces,'' 
 arrived. He came sleek and fresh from the 
 bath (for so is the custom of the Ottomans 
 when they start upon a journey), and was 
 carefully accoutred at every point. From 
 his thigh to his throat he was laden with 
 arms and other implements of a campaign- 
 ing life. There is no scarcity of water along 
 the whole road from Belgrade to Stamboul, 
 but the habits of our Tatar were formed by 
 his ancestors, and not by himself, so he 
 took good care to see that his leathern 
 water-flask was amply charged and properly 
 strapped to the saddle along with his blessed 
 chibouk. And now at last he has cursed 
 the Suridgees, in all proper figures of speech, 
 and is ready for a ride of a thousand miles; 
 but before he comforts his soul in the 
 
 20 
 
;:^. 
 
 /A. 
 
 Chapter II ] EOTHEN 
 
 marble baths of Stamboul he will be an- 
 other and a lesser man: his sense of re- 
 sponsibility, his too strict abstemiousness, 
 and his restless energy, disdainful of sleep, 
 will have worn him down to a frax^tion of 
 the sleek Moostapha who now leads out 
 our party from the gates of Belgrade. 
 
 The Suridgees are the men employed to 
 lead the baggage-horses. They are most 
 of them Gipsies. Their lot is a sad one. 
 They are the last of the human race, and 
 all the sins of their superiors— including the 
 horses— can safely be visited on them. But 
 the wretched look often more picturesque 
 than their betters, and though all the world 
 despise these poor Suridgees, their tawny 
 skins and their grisly beards will gain them 
 honorable standing in the foreground of a 
 landscape. We had a couple of these fel- 
 lows with us, each leading a baggage-horse, 
 to the tail of which last another baggage- 
 horse was attached. There was a world of 
 trouble in persuading the stiff, angular 
 portmanteaus of Europe to adapt them- 
 selves to their new condition, and sit 
 quietly on pack-saddles; but all was right 
 at last, and it gladdened my eyes to see our 
 little troop file off through the winding 
 lanes of the city, and show down brightly 
 in the plain beneath. The one of our party 
 
 21 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter II 
 
 most out of keeping with the rest of the 
 scene was Methley's Yorkshire servant, 
 who always rode doggedly on in his pantry 
 jacket, looking out for "gentlemen's seats." 
 
 Methley and I had English saddles, but I 
 think we should have done just as well (I 
 should certainly have seen more of the 
 country) if we had adopted saddles like 
 that of our Tatar, who towered so loftily 
 over the scraggy little beast that carried 
 him. In taking thought for the East 
 whilst in England, I had made one capital 
 hit which you must not forget. I had 
 brought with me a pair of common spurs; 
 these were a great comfort to me through- 
 out my horseback travels by keeping up the 
 cheerfulness of the many unhappy nags 
 that I had to bestride. The angle of that 
 Oriental stirrup is a very poor substitute 
 for spurs. 
 
 The Ottoman horseman, raised by his 
 saddle to a great height above the humble 
 level of the back that he bestrides, and using 
 a very sharp bit, is able to lift the crest of 
 his nag, and force him into a strangely fast 
 shuffling walk, the orthodox pace for the 
 journey. My comrade and I, using English 
 saddles, could not easily keep our beasts up 
 to this peculiar amble: besides, we thought 
 it a bore to be followed by our attendants 
 
 22 
 
Chapter II] EOTHEN 
 
 for a thousand miles, and we generally, 
 therefore, did duty as the rear-guard of our 
 " grand army." We used to walk our horses 
 till the party in front had got into the dis- 
 tance, and then retrieve the lost ground by 
 a gallop. 
 
 We had ridden on for some two or three 
 hours, the stir and bustle of our commen- 
 cing journey had ceased, the liveliness of 
 our little troop had worn off with the de- 
 clining day, and the night closed in as we 
 entered the great Servian forest. Through 
 this our road was to last for more than 
 a hundred miles. Endless and endless now 
 on either side the tall oaks closed in their 
 ranks, and stood gloomily lowering over us, 
 as grim as an army of giants with a thou- 
 sand years' pay in arrear. One strived with 
 listening ear to catch some tidings of that 
 forest world within,— some stirring of 
 beasts, some night-bird's scream,— but all 
 was quite hushed, except the voice of the 
 cicalas that peopled every bough, and filled 
 the depths of the forest through and 
 through with one same hum everlasting 
 —more stilling than very silence. 
 
 At first our way was in darkness, but 
 after a while the moon got up and touched 
 the glittering arms and tawny faces of our 
 men with light so pale and mystic that the 
 
 23 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter n 
 
 watchful Tatar felt bound to look out for 
 demons, and take proper means for keep- 
 ing them off. Forthwith he determined 
 that the duty of frightening away our 
 ghostly enemies (like every other trouble- 
 some work) should fall upon the poor 
 Suridgees: they, accordingly, lifted up their 
 voiced, and burst upon the dreaded stillness 
 of the forest with shrieks and dismal howls. 
 These precautions were kept up incessantly, 
 and were followed by the most complete 
 success, for not one demon came near us. 
 
 Long before midnight we reached the 
 hamlet in which we were to rest for the 
 night. It was made up of about a dozen 
 clay huts standing upon a small tract of 
 ground hardly won from the forest. The 
 peasants living there spoke a Slavonic dia- 
 lect, and Mysseri's knowledge of the Rus- 
 sian tongue enabled him to talk with them 
 freely. We took up our quarters in a square 
 room with white walls and an earthen floor, 
 quite bare of furniture, and utterly void of 
 women. They told us, however, that these 
 Servian villagers lived in happy abundance, 
 but that they were careful to conceal their 
 riches, as well as their wives. 
 
 The burdens unstrapped from the pack- 
 saddles very quickly furnished our den. A 
 couple of quilts spread upon the floor, with 
 
 24 
 
Chapter n] EOTHEN 
 
 a carpet-bag at the head of each, became 
 capital sofas. Portmanteaus and hat-boxes 
 and writing-cases and books and maps and 
 gleaming arms soon lay strewed around 
 us in pleasant confusion. Mysseri's can- 
 teen, too, began to yield up its treasures; 
 but we relied upon finding some provisions 
 in the village. At first the natives declared 
 that their hens were mere old maids, and 
 all their cows unmarried; but our Tatar 
 swore such a grand, sonorous oath, and 
 fingered the hilt of his yataghan with such 
 persuasive touch, that the land soon flowed 
 with milk, and mountains of eggs arose. 
 
 And soon there was tea before us, with 
 all its welcome fragrance; and as we re- 
 clined on the floor, we found that a port- 
 manteau was just the right height for a 
 table. The duty of candlesticks was ably 
 performed by a couple of intelligent natives. 
 The rest of the villagers stood by the open 
 doorway at the lower end of the room, 
 and watched our banquet with grave and 
 devout attention. 
 
 The first night of your first campaign 
 (though you be but a mere peaceful cam- 
 paigner) is a glorious time in your life. It 
 is so sweet to find one's self free from the 
 stale civilization of Europe! Oh, my dear 
 ally, when first you spread your carpet in 
 
 25 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter H 
 
 the midst of these Eastern scenes, do think 
 for a moment of those your fellow-crea- 
 tures that dwell in squares and streets, and 
 even (for such is the fate of many!) in 
 actual country houses; think of the people 
 that are "presenting their compliments,'^ 
 and "requesting the honor,'' and "much 
 regretting," of those that are pinioned at 
 dinner-tables, or stuck up in ball-rooms, or 
 cruelly planted in pews; aye, think of these, 
 and so remembering how many poor devils 
 are living in a state of utter respectability, 
 you will glory the more in your own delight- 
 ful escape. 
 
 But, with all its charms, a mud floor (like 
 a mercenary match) does certainly promote 
 early rising. Long before daybreak we were 
 up and had breakfasted. Afterwards there 
 was nearly a whole tedious hour to endure, 
 whilst the horses were laden by torch-light; 
 but this had an end, and then our day's 
 journey began. Cloaked and somber, at 
 first we made our sullen way through the 
 darkness with scarcely one barter of words; 
 but soon the genial morn burst down from 
 heaven, and stirred the blood so gladly 
 through our veins that the very Suridgees, 
 with all their troubles, could now look up 
 for an instant, and almost seem to believe 
 in the temporary goodness of God. 
 
 26 
 
 . ' M*- 
 
 
Chapter II] EOTHEN 
 
 The actual movement from one place to 
 another, in Europeanized countries, is a pro- 
 cess so temporary— it occupies, I mean, so 
 small a proportion of the traveler's entire 
 time— that his mind remains unsettled so 
 long as the wheels are going. He may be 
 alive enough to external objects of interest 
 and to the crowding ideas which are often 
 invited by the excitement of a changing 
 scene, but he is still conscious of being in a 
 provisional state, and his mind is forever 
 recurring to the expected end of his journey. 
 His ordinary ways of thought have been in- 
 terrupted, and before any new mental habits 
 can be formed he is quietly fixed in his hotel. 
 It will be otherwise with you when you jour- 
 ney in the East. Day after day, perhaps 
 week after week and month after month, 
 your foot is in the stirrup. To taste the 
 cold breath of the earliest morn, and to lead 
 or follow your bright cavalcade till sunset 
 through forests and mountain passes, 
 through valleys and desolate plains— all 
 this becomes your MODE OF life, and you 
 ride, eat, drink, and curse the mosquitos, as 
 systematically as your friends in England 
 eat, drink, and sleep. If you are wise, you 
 will not look upon the long period of time 
 thus occupied in actual movement as the 
 mere gulf dividing you from the end of your 
 
 27 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter U 
 
 journey, but rather as one of those rare and 
 plastic seasons of your hf e from which, per- 
 haps, in after times, you may love to date the 
 molding of your character— that is, your 
 very identity. Once feel this, and you will 
 soon grow happy and contented in your 
 saddle home. As for me and my comrade, 
 however, in this part of our journey we 
 often forgot Stamboul, forgot all the Ot- 
 toman Empire, and only remembered old 
 times. We went ^back, loitering on the 
 banks of the Thames— not grim old Thames 
 of " after lif e,'^ that washes the Parliament 
 Houses, and drowns despairing girls, but 
 Thames, the "old Eton fellow'' that 
 wrestled with us in our boyhood till he 
 taught us to be stronger than he. We 
 bullied Keate, and scoffed at Larrey Miller 
 and Okes; we rode along loudly laughing, 
 and talked to the grave Servian forest as 
 though it were the " Brocas clump." 
 
 Our pace was commonly very slow, for 
 the baggage-horses served us for a drag, 
 and kept us to a rate of little more than 
 five miles in the hour; but now and then, 
 and chiefly at night, a spirit of movement 
 would suddenly animate the whole party. 
 The baggage-horses would be teased into a 
 gallop, and when once this was done, there 
 would be such a banging of portmanteaus, 
 
 28 
 
Chapter n] EOTHEN 
 
 and such convulsions of carpet-bags upon 
 their panting sides, and the Suridgees would 
 follow them up with such a hurricane of 
 blows and screams and curses, that stop- 
 ping or relaxing was scarcely possible. 
 Then the rest of us would put our horses 
 into a gallop, and so all shouting cheerily 
 would hunt and drive the sumpter-beasts 
 like a flock of goats, up hill and down dale, 
 right on to the end of their journey. 
 
 The distances between our relays of 
 horses varied greatly. Some were not more 
 than fifteen or twenty miles, but twice, I 
 think, we performed a whole day's journey 
 of more than sixty miles with the same 
 beasts. 
 
 When at last we came out from the for- 
 est, our road lay through scenes like those 
 of an English park. The greensward, un- 
 f enced and left to the free pasture of cattle, 
 was dotted with groups of stately trees, and 
 here and there darkened over with larger 
 masses of wood, that seemed gathered to- 
 gether for bounding the domain, and shut- 
 ting out some infernal fellow-creature in 
 the shape of a newly made squire. In one 
 or two spots the hanging copses looked 
 down upon a lawn below with such shelter- 
 ing mien that, seeing the like in England, 
 you would have been tempted almost to ask 
 
 29 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter II 
 
 the name of the spendthrift or the madman 
 who had dared to pull down the old hall. 
 
 There are few countries less infested by 
 " lions " than the provinces on this part of 
 your route. You are not called upon to 
 "drop a tear" over the tomb of "the once 
 brilliant'' anybody, or to pay your "tribute 
 of respect" to anything dead or alive; there 
 are no Servian or Bulgarian litterateurs with 
 whom it would be positively disgraceful not 
 to form an acquaintance; you have no star- 
 ing, no praising to get through. The only 
 public building of any interest that lies 
 on the road is of modern date, but is sai'd 
 to be a good specimen of Oriental architec- 
 ture. It is of a pyramidical shape, and is 
 made up of thirty thousand skulls contrib- 
 uted by the rebellious Servians in the early 
 part (I believe) of this century. I am not 
 at all sure of my date, but I fancy it was in 
 the year 1806 that the first skull was laid. 
 I am ashamed to say that in the darkness 
 of the early morning we unknowingly went 
 by the neighborhood of this triumph of art, 
 and so basely got off from admiring "the 
 simple grandeur of the architect's concep- 
 tion," and "the exquisite beauty of the 
 fretwork." 
 
 There being no " lions," we ought at least 
 to have met with a few perils, but the only 
 
 30 
 
Chapter H] EOTHEN 
 
 robbers we saw anything of had been long 
 since dead and gone. The poor fellows had 
 been impaled upon high poles, and so 
 propped up by the transverse spokes be- 
 neath them that their skeletons, clothed 
 with some white, wax-like remains of flesh, 
 still sat up lolling in the sunshine, and list- 
 lessly stared without eyes. 
 
 One day it seemed to me that our path 
 was a little more rugged than usual, and I 
 found that I was deserving for myself the 
 title of Sabalkansky, or "Transcender of 
 the Balkan." The truth is that, as a mili- 
 tary barrier, the Balkan is a fabulous moun- 
 tain Such seems to be the view of Major 
 Keppell, who looked on it towards the east 
 with the eye of a soldier, and certainly, in 
 the Sofia Pass, there is no narrow defile and 
 no ascent sufficiently difficult to stop, or de- 
 lay for a long time, a train of siege artillery. 
 
 Before we reached Adrianople, Methley 
 had been seized with we knew not what 
 ailment, and when we had taken up our 
 quarters in the city, he was cast to the very 
 earth by sickness. Adrianople enjoyed an 
 English consul, and I feit sure that, in 
 Eastern phrase, his house would cease to 
 be his house, and would become the house 
 of my sick comrade. I should have judged 
 rightly under ordinary circumstances, but 
 
 31 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter H 
 
 the leveling plague was abroad, and the 
 dread of it had dominion over the consular 
 mind. So now (whether dying or not, one 
 could hardly tell), upon a quilt stretched 
 out along the floor, there lay the best hope 
 of an ancient line, without the material aids 
 to comfort of even the humblest sort, and 
 (sad to say) without the consolation of a 
 friend or even a comrade worth having. I 
 have a notion that tenderness and pity are 
 affections occasioned, in some measure, by 
 living within doors. Certainly, at the time 
 I speak of, the open-air life which I had 
 been leading, or the wayfaring hardships of 
 the journey, had so strangely blunted me 
 that I felt intolerant of illness, and looked 
 down upon my companion as if the poor 
 fellow, in falling ill, had betrayed a want of 
 spirit! I entertained, too, a most absurd 
 idea— an idea that his illness was partly 
 affected. You see that I have made a con- 
 fession. This I hope— that I may hereafter 
 look charitably upon the hard, savage acts 
 of peasants and the cruelties of a "brutal" 
 soldiery. God knows that I strived to melt 
 myself into common charity, and to put on 
 a gentleness which I could not feel; but this 
 attempt did not cheat the keenness of the 
 sufferer. He could not have felt the less 
 deserted because that I was with him. 
 
 32 
 
Chapter n] EOTHEN 
 
 We called to aid a solemn Armenian (I 
 think he was), half soothsayer, half hakim, 
 or doctor, who, all the while counting his 
 beads, fixed his eyes steadily upon the pa- 
 tient, and then suddenly dealt him a violent 
 blow on the chest. Methley bravely dis- 
 sembled his pain, for he fancied that the 
 blow was meant to try whether or not the 
 plague were on him. 
 
 Here was really a sad embarrassment— 
 no bed, nothing to offer the invalid, in the 
 shape of food, save a piece of thin, tough, 
 flexible drab-colored cloth made of flour 
 and mill-stones in equal proportions, and 
 called by the name of "bread.'' Then the 
 patient, of course, had no "confidence in 
 his medical man,'' and, on the whole, the 
 best chance of saving my comrade seemed 
 to lie in taking him out of the reach of his 
 doctor, and bearing him away to the neigh- 
 borhood of some more genial consul. But 
 how was this to be done? Methley was 
 much too ill to be kept in his saddle, and 
 wheel-carriages, as means of traveling, were 
 unknown. There is, however, such a thing 
 as an " araba," a vehicle drawn by oxen, in 
 which the wives of a rich man are some- 
 times dragged four or five miles over the 
 grass by way of recreation. The carriage 
 is rudely framed, but you recognize in the 
 3 33 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter II 
 
 simple grandeur of its design a likeness to 
 things majestic. In short, if your carpen- 
 ter's son were to make a "Lord Mayor^s 
 coach'' for little Amy, he would build a 
 carriage very much in the style of a Turk- 
 ish araba. No one had ever heard of horses 
 being used for drawing a carriage in this 
 part of the world, but necessity is the 
 mother of innovation as well as of inven- 
 tion. I was fully justified, I think, in argu- 
 ing that there were numerous instances of 
 horses being used for that purpose in our 
 own country; that the laws of nature are 
 uniform in their operation over all the world 
 (except Ireland); that that which was true 
 in Piccadilly must be true in Adrianople; 
 that the matter could not fairly be treated 
 as an ecclesiastical question, for that the 
 circumstance of Methley's going on to 
 Stamboul in an araba drawn by horses, 
 when calmly and dispassionately con- 
 sidered, would appear to be perfectly con- 
 sistent with the maintenance of the 
 Mohammedan religion, as by law estab- 
 lished. Thus poor, dear, patient Reason 
 would have fought her slow battle against 
 Asiatic prejudice, and I am convinced that 
 she would have established the possibility 
 (and, perhaps, even the propriety) of har- 
 nessing horses in a hundred and fifty years; 
 
 34 
 
Chapter II] EOTHEN 
 
 but, in the meantime, Mysseri, well seconded 
 by our Tatar, contrived to bring the con- 
 troversy to a premature end by having the 
 horses put to. 
 
 It was a sore thing for me to see my poor 
 comrade brought to this, for, young though 
 he was, he was a veteran in travel. When 
 scarcely yet of age, he had invaded India 
 from the frontiers of Russia, and l^that so 
 swiftly that, measuring by the time of his 
 flight, the broad dominions of the king of 
 kings were shriveled up to a dukedom; and 
 now, poor fellow, he was to be poked into 
 an araba, like a Georgian girl ! He suffered 
 greatly, for there were no springs for the 
 carriage, and no road for the wheels, and 
 so the concern jolted on over the open 
 country, with such twists and jerks and 
 jumps as might almost dislocate the supple 
 tongue of Satan. 
 
 All day the patient kept himself shut up 
 within the latticework of the araba, and I 
 could hardly know how he was faring until 
 the end of the day's journey, when I found 
 that he was not worse, and was buoyed up 
 with the hope of some day reaching Con- 
 stantinople. 
 
 I was always conning over my maps, and 
 fancied that I knew pretty well my line, 
 but after Adrianople I had made more 
 
 35 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter H 
 
 southing than I knew for, and it was with 
 unbelieving wonder and delight that I came 
 suddenly upon the shore of the sea. A lit- 
 tle while, and its gentle billows were flow- 
 ing beneath the hoofs of my beast. But the 
 hearing of the ripple was not enough com- 
 munion, and the seeing of the blue Pro- 
 pontis was not to know and possess it— I 
 must needs plunge into its depth, and 
 quench my longing love in the palpable 
 waves; and so when old Moostapha (de- 
 fender against demons) looked round for 
 his charge, he saw with horror and dismay 
 that he for whose life his own life stood 
 pledged, was possessed of some devil who 
 had driven him down into the sea— that the 
 rider and the steed had vanished from 
 earth, and that out among the waves was 
 the gasping crest of a post-horse and the 
 ghostly head of the Englishman moving 
 upon the face of the waters. 
 
 We started very early indeed on the last 
 day of our journey, and from the moment 
 of being off until we gained the shelter of 
 the imperial walls, we were struggling face 
 to face with an icy storm that swept right 
 down from the steppes of Tartary, keen, 
 fierce, and steady as a northern conqueror. 
 Methley's servant, who was the greatest 
 sufferer, kept his saddle until we reached 
 
 36 
 
Chapter II] EOTHEN 
 
 Stamboul, but was then found to be quite 
 benumbed in limbs, and his brain was so 
 much affected that when he was lifted 
 from his horse, he fell away in a state of 
 unconsciousness, the first stage of a danger- 
 ous fever. 
 
 Our Tatar, worn down by care and toil, 
 and carrying seven heavens full of water 
 in his manifold jackets and shawls, was a 
 mere weak and vapid dilution of the sleek 
 Moostapha who scarce more than one fort- 
 night before came out like a bridegroom 
 from his chamber to take the command of 
 our party. 
 
 Mysseri seemed somewhat over-wearied, 
 but he had lost none of his strangely quiet 
 energy. He wore a grave look, however, 
 for he now had learnt that the plague 
 was prevailing at Constantinople, and he 
 was fearing that our two sick men, and the 
 miserable looks of our whole party, might 
 make us unwelcome at Pera. 
 
 We crossed the Golden Horn in a caique. 
 As soon as we had landed, some woebegone- 
 looking fellows were got together and laden 
 with our baggage. Then on we went, drip- 
 ping and sloshing, and looking very like men 
 that had been turned back by the Royal Hu- 
 mane Society for being incurably drowned. 
 Supporting our sick, we climbed up shelving 
 
 37 
 
EOTHEN [Chapteb II 
 
 steps and threaded many windings, and at 
 last came up into the main street of Pera, 
 humbly hoping that we might not be judged 
 guilty of the plague, and so be cast back with 
 horror from the doors of the shuddering 
 Christians. 
 
 Such was the condition of the little troop, 
 which fifteen days before had filed away so 
 gaily from the gates of Belgrade. A couple 
 of fevers and a northeasterly storm had 
 thoroughly spoiled our looks. 
 
 The interest of Mysseri with the house of 
 Giuseppini was too powerful to be denied, 
 and at once, though not without fear and 
 trembling, we were admitted as guests. 
 
 38 
 
CHAPTER 
 III 
 
 Constantinop le. 
 
 EVEN if we don't take a part in the 
 chant about "Mosques and Mina- 
 rets," we can still yield praises to 
 StambouL We can chant about the har- 
 bor. We can say and sing that nowhere else 
 does the sea come so home to a city. There 
 are no pebbly shores, no sand-bars, no slimy 
 river-beds, no black canals, no locks, nor 
 docks to divide the very heart of the place 
 from the deep waters. If, being in the noisi- 
 est mart of Stamboul, you would stroll to 
 the quiet side of the way amidst those cy- 
 presses opposite, you will cross the fathom- 
 less Bosporus; if you would go from your 
 hotel to the bazaars, you must pass by the 
 bright blue pathway of the Golden Horn, 
 that can carry a thousand sail of the line. 
 You are accustomed to the gondolas that 
 glide among the palaces of St. Mark, but 
 here at Stamboul it is a hundred-and-twen- 
 ty-gun ship that meets you in the street. 
 
 39 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter in 
 
 Venice strains out from the steadfast landy 
 and in old times would send forth the Chief 
 of the State to woo and wed the reluctant 
 sea; but the stormy bride of the Doge is 
 the bowing slave of the Sultan; she comes 
 to his feet with the treasures of the world; 
 she bears him from palace to palace; by 
 some unfailing witchcraft, she entices the 
 breezes to follow her,^ and fan the pale 
 cheek of her lord; she lifts his armed navies 
 to the very gates of his garden; she watches 
 the walls of his serail; she stifles the in- 
 trigues of his ministers; she quiets the 
 scandals of his court; she extinguishes his 
 rivals, and hushes his naughty wives all one 
 by one. So vast are the wonders of the deep ! 
 All the while that I stayed at Constanti- 
 nople the plague was prevailing, but not 
 with any violence; its presence, however, 
 lent a mysterious and exciting though not 
 very pleasant interest to my first know- 
 ledge of a great Oriental city; it gave tone 
 and color to all I saw and all I felt— a tone 
 and a color somber enough, but true, and 
 well befitting the dreary monuments of past 
 power and splendor. With all that is most 
 truly Oriental in its character the plague 
 
 1 There is almost always a breeze, either from the Marmora or 
 from the Black Sea, that passes along the course of the 
 Bosporus. 
 
 40 
 
Chapter Hi] EOTHEN 
 
 is associated; it dwells with the faithful in 
 the holiest quarters of their city. The coats 
 and the hats of Pera are held to be nearly 
 as innocent of infection as they are ugly in 
 shape and fashion; but the rich furs and the 
 costly shawls, the broidered slippers and 
 the gold-laden saddle-cloths, the fragrance 
 of burning aloes and the rich aroma of 
 patchouli— these are the signs that mark 
 the familiar home of plague. You go out 
 from your queenly London, the center of 
 the greatest and strongest amongst all 
 earthly dominions— you go out thence and 
 travel on to the capital of an Eastern prince; 
 you find but a waning power and a faded 
 splendor that inclines you to laugh and 
 mock; but let the infernal angel of plague 
 beat hand, and he, more mighty than armies, 
 more terrible than Suleyman in his glory, 
 can restore such pomp and majesty to the 
 weakness of the imperial city that if, when 
 HE is thereby on must still go prying amongst 
 the shades of this dead empire, at least you 
 will tread the path with seemly reverence 
 
 and awe. 
 
 It is the firm faith of almost all the Eu- 
 ropeans living in the East that plague is 
 conveyed by the touch of infected sub- 
 stances, and that the deadly atoms espe- 
 cially lurk in all kinds of clothes and furs. 
 
 41 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter III 
 
 It is held safer to breathe the same air with 
 a man sick of the plague, and even to come 
 in contact with his skin, than to be touched 
 by the smallest particle of woolen or of 
 thread which may have been within the 
 reach of possible infection. If this be a 
 right notion, the spread of the malady must 
 be materially aided by the observance of a 
 custom prevailing amongst the people of 
 Stamboul. It is this: when an Osmanli dies, 
 one of his dresses is cut up, and a small 
 piece of it is sent to each of his friends as a 
 memorial of the departed— a fatal present, 
 according to the opinion of the Franks, for 
 it too often forces the living not merely to 
 remember the dead man, but to follow and 
 bear him company. 
 
 The Europeans, during the prevalence of 
 the plague, if they are forced to venture 
 into the streets, will carefully avoid the 
 touch of every human being whom they 
 pass; their conduct in this respect shows 
 them strongly in contrast Avith the "true 
 believers '' ; the Moslem stalks on serenely, 
 as though he were under the eye of his 
 God, and were "equal to either fate"; the 
 Franks go crouching and slinking from 
 death, and some (those chiefly of French 
 extraction) will fondly strive to fence out 
 destiny with shining capes of oilskin. 
 
 42 
 
Chapter III] EOTHEN 
 
 For some time you may manage by great 
 care to thread your way through the streets 
 of Stamboul without incurring contact, for 
 the Turks, though scornful of the terrors 
 felt by the Franks, are generally very cour- 
 teous in yielding to that which they hold 
 to be a useless and impious precaution, and 
 will let you pass safe if they can. It is im- 
 possible, however, that your immunity can 
 last for any length of time if you move 
 about much through the narrow streets 
 and lanes of a crowded city. 
 
 As for me, I soon got *^ compromised." 
 After one day of rest, the prayers of my 
 hostess began to lose their power of keep- 
 ing me from the pestilent side of the Golden 
 Horn. Faithfully promising to shun the 
 touch of all imaginable substances, how- 
 ever enticing, I set off very cautiously, and 
 held my way uncompromised till I reached 
 the water's edge; but before my caique was 
 quite ready some rueful-looking fellows 
 came rapidly shambling down the steps with 
 a plague-stricken corpse, which they were 
 going to bury amongst the faithful on the 
 other side of the water. I contrived to be so 
 much in the way of this brisk funeral that I 
 was not only touched by the men bearing 
 the body, but also, I believe, by the foot of 
 the dead man, as it hung lolling out of the 
 
 43 
 
EOTHEN [CHAPTER III 
 
 bier. This accident gave me such a strong 
 interest in denying the soundness of the con- 
 tagion theory that I did in fact deny and 
 repudiate it altogether; and from that time, 
 acting upon my own convenient view of the 
 matter, I went wherever I chose, without 
 taking any serious pains to avoid a touch. 
 It seems to me now very Hkely that the 
 Europeans are right, and that the plague 
 may be really conveyed by contagion; but 
 during the whole time of my remaining in 
 the East my views on this subject more 
 nearly approached to those of the fatalists; 
 and so, when afterwards the plague of 
 Egypt came dealing his blows around me, 
 I was able to live amongst the dying with- 
 out that alarm and anxiety which would in- 
 evitably have pressed upon my mind if I 
 had allowed myself to believe that every 
 passing touch was really a probable death- 
 stroke. 
 
 And perhaps, as you make your difficult 
 way through a steep and narrow alley shut 
 in between blank walls, and little frequented 
 by passers, you meet one of those coffin- 
 shaped bundles of white linen that implies 
 an Ottoman lady. Painfully struggling 
 against the obstacles to progression inter- 
 posed by the many folds of her clumsy dra- 
 pery, by her big mud-boots, and especially by 
 
 44 
 
Chapter ni] EOTHEN 
 
 her two pairs of slippers, she works her 
 way on full awkwardly enough; but yet 
 there is something of womanly conscious- 
 ness in the very labor and effort with which 
 she tugs and lifts the burden of her charms; 
 she is closely followed by her women slaves. 
 Of her very self you see nothing except the 
 dark, luminous eyes that stare against your 
 face, and the tips of the painted fingers de- 
 pending like rose-buds from out of the blank 
 bastions of the fortress. She turns, and 
 turns again, and carefully glances around 
 her on all sides to see that she is safe from 
 the eyes of Mussulmans, and then suddenly 
 withdrawing the yashmak,^ she shines upon 
 your heart and soul with all the pomp and 
 might of her beauty. And this, it is not the 
 light, changeful grace that leaves you to 
 doubt whether you have fallen in love with 
 a body or only a soul ; it is the beauty that 
 dwells secure in the perfectness of hard, 
 downright outlines, and in the glow of gen- 
 erous color. There is fire, though, too— high 
 courage and fire enough in the untamed 
 mind, or spirit, or whatever it is, which 
 drives the breath of pride through those 
 scarcely parted lips. 
 
 1 The yashmak, you know, is not a mere semi-transparent 
 veil, but rather a good substantial petticoat applied to the 
 face ; it thoroughly conceals all the features except the eyes ; 
 the way of withdrawing it is by pulling it down. 
 
 45 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter HI 
 
 You smile at pretty women; you turn 
 pale before the beauty that is great enough 
 to have dominion over you. She sees, and 
 exults in your giddiness; she sees, and 
 smiles; then presently, with a sudden move- 
 ment, she lays her blushing fingers upon 
 your arm, and cries out: "Yumourdjak!'' 
 ("Plague!'' meaning, "There is a present of 
 the plague for you!") This is her notion of 
 a witticism. It is a very old piece of fun, no 
 doubt— quite an Oriental Joe Miller; but 
 the Turks are fondly attached, not only to 
 the institutions, but also to the jokes of 
 their ancestors; so the lady's silvery laugh 
 rings joyously in your ears, and the mirth 
 of her women is boisterous and fresh, as 
 though the bright idea of giving the plague 
 to a Christian had newly lit upon the 
 earth. 
 
 Methley began to rally very soon after 
 we had reached Constantinople, but there 
 seemed at first to be no chance of his re- 
 gaining strength enough for traveling dur- 
 ing the winter, and I determined to stay 
 with my comrade until he had quite recov- 
 ered; so I bought me a horse, and a pipe of 
 tranquillity,^ and took a Turkish phrase- 
 
 1 The "pipe of tranquillity " is a chibouk too long to be con- 
 veniently carried on a journey ; the possession of it therefore 
 implies that its owner is stationary, or at all events that he is 
 enjoying a long repose from travel. 
 
 46 
 
Chapter in] EOTHEN 
 
 master. I troubled myself a great deal with 
 the Turkish tongue, and gained at last some 
 knowledge of its structure. It is enriched, 
 perhaps overladen, with Persian and Arabic 
 words imported into the language chiefly for 
 the purpose of representing sentiments and 
 religious dogmas, and terms of art and lux- 
 ury, entirely unknown to the Tatar ances- 
 tors of the present Osmanlis; but the body 
 and the spirit of the old tongue are yet alive, 
 and the smooth words of the shopkeeper at 
 Constantinople can still carry understand- 
 ing to the ears of the untamed millions who 
 rove over the plains of northern Asia. The 
 structure of the language, especially in its 
 more lengthy sentences, is very like to the 
 Latin; the subject-matters are slowly and 
 patiently enumerated, without disclosing 
 the purpose of the speaker until he reaches 
 the end of his sentence, and then at last 
 there comes the clenching word which gives 
 a meaning and connection to all that has 
 gone before. If you listen at all to speak- 
 ing of this kind, your attention, rather than 
 be suffered to flag, must grow more and 
 more lively as the phrase marches on. 
 
 The Osmanlis speak well. • In countries 
 civilized according to the European plan, 
 the work of trying to persuade tribunals is 
 almost all performed by a set of men who 
 
 47 
 
m 
 
 EOTHEN [Chapter III 
 
 seldom do anything else; but in Turkey this 
 division of labor has never taken place, and 
 every man is his own advocate. The impor- 
 tance of the rhetorical art is immense, for a 
 bad speech may endanger the property of the 
 speaker, as well as the soles of his feet and 
 the free enjoyment of his throat. So it re- 
 sults that most of the Turks whom one sees 
 have a lawyer-like habit of speaking con- 
 nectedly and at length. Even the treaties 
 continually going on at the bazaar for the 
 buying and selling of the merest trifles are 
 carried on by speechifying rather than by 
 mere colloquies, and the eternal uncertainty 
 as to the market value of things in constant 
 sale gives room enough for discussion. The 
 seller is forever demanding a price im- 
 mensely beyond that for which he sells at 
 last, and so occasions unspeakable disgust in 
 many Englishmen, who cannot see why an 
 honest dealer should ask more for his goods 
 than he will really take. The truth is, how- 
 ever, that an ordinary tradesman of Con- 
 stantinople has no other way of finding out 
 the fair market value of his property. His 
 difficulty is easily shown by comparing the 
 mechanism of the commercial system in 
 Turkey with that of our own people. In 
 England, or in any other great mercantile 
 country, the bulk of the things bought and 
 
 48 
 
Chapter in] EOTHEN 
 
 sold goes through the hands of a wholesale 
 dealer, and it is he who higgles and bargains 
 with an entire nation of purchasers, by en- 
 tering into treaty with retail sellers. The 
 labor of making a few large contracts is suf- 
 ficient to give a clue for finding the fair 
 market value of the goods sold throughout 
 the country. But in Turkey, from the primi- 
 tive habits of the people, and partly from the 
 absence of great capital and great credit, the 
 importing merchant, the warehouseman, 
 the wholesale dealer, the retail dealer, and 
 the shopman, are all one person. Old Moos- 
 tapha,or Abdallah,or Hadgi Mohammed wad- 
 dles up from the water's edge with a small 
 packet of merchandise, which he has bought 
 out of a Greek brigantine, and when at last 
 he has reached his nook in the bazaar, he 
 puts his goods before the counter, and him- 
 self upon it; then laying fire to his chi- 
 bouk, he "sits in permanence," and pa- 
 tiently waits to obtain "the best price 
 that can be got in an open market." This 
 is his fair right as a seller, but he has no 
 means of finding out what that best price is, 
 except by actual experiment. He cannot 
 know the intensity of the demand, or the 
 abundance of the supply, otherwise than by 
 the offers which may be made for his little 
 bundle of goods; so he begins by asking a 
 4 49 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter III 
 
 perfectly hopeless price, and then descends 
 the ladder until he meets a purchaser, 
 forever 
 
 " striving to attain 
 By shadowing out the unattainable." 
 
 This is the struggle which creates the con- 
 tinual occasion for debate. The vender, per- 
 ceiving that the unfolded merchandise has 
 caught the eye of a possible purchaser, com- 
 mences his opening speech. He covers his 
 bristling broadcloths and his meager silks 
 with the golden broidery of Oriental praises, 
 and as he talks, along with the slow and 
 graceful waving of his arms, he lifts his un- 
 dulating periods, upholds and poises them 
 well till they have gathered their weight and 
 their strength, and then hurls them bodily 
 forward, with grave, momentous swing. The 
 possible purchaser listens to the whole 
 speech with deep and serious attention; 
 but when it is over, his turn arrives. He 
 elaborately endeavors to show why he 
 ought not to buy the things at a price 
 twenty times larger than their value. By- 
 standers, attracted to the debate, take a 
 part in it as independent members; the 
 vender is heard in reply, and, coming down 
 with his price, furnishes the materials for a 
 new debate. Sometimes, however, the dealer, 
 
 50 
 
Chapter ni ] EOTHEN 
 
 if he is a very pious Mussulman and suffi- 
 ciently rich to hold back his ware, will take 
 a more dignified part, maintaining a kind of 
 judicial gravity, and receiving the appli- 
 cants who come to his stall as if they were 
 rather suitors than customers. He will 
 quietly hear to the end some long speech 
 that concludes with an offer, and will an- 
 swer it all with that bold monosyllable 
 " Yok,'' which means distinctly " No." 
 
 I caught one glimpse of the old heathen 
 world. My habits of studying military sub- 
 jects had been hardening my heart against 
 poetry. Forever staring at the flames of 
 battle, I had blinded myself to the lesser 
 and finer lights that are shed from the 
 imaginations of men. In my reading at 
 this time, I delighted to follow from out of 
 Arabian sands the feet of the armed be- 
 lievers, and to stand in the broad, manifest 
 storm-tract of Tatar devastation; and thus, 
 though surrounded at Constantinople by 
 scenes of much interest to the "classical 
 scholar," I had cast aside their associations 
 like an old Greek grammar, and turned my 
 face to the " shining Orient," forgetful of old 
 Greece and all the pure wealth she left 
 to this matter-of-fact-ridden world. But 
 it happened to me one day to mount the 
 high grounds overhanging the streets of 
 
 51 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter III 
 
 Pera. I sated my eyes with the pomps of 
 the city, and its crowded waters, and then 
 I looked over where Scutari lay, half veiled 
 in her mournful cypresses; I looked yet 
 farther and higher, and saw in the heavens 
 a silvery cloud that stood fast and still 
 against the breeze; it was pure and dazzling 
 white as might be the veil of Cytherea, yet 
 touched with such fire as though, from be- 
 neath, the loving eyes of an immortal were 
 shining through and through. I knew the 
 bearing, but had enormously misjudged its 
 distance and underrated its height, and so 
 it was as a sign and a testimony— almost 
 as a call from the neglected gods— that now 
 I saw and acknowledged the snowy crown 
 of the Mysian Olympus. 
 
 52 
 
CHAPTER 
 IV 
 
 The Troad. 
 
 METTHLEY recovered almost sud- 
 denly, and we determined to go 
 through the Troad together. 
 My comrade was a capital Grecian; it is 
 true that his singular mind so ordered and 
 disposed his classic lore as to impress it 
 with something of an original and barbarous 
 character— with an almost Gothic quaint- 
 ness more properly belonging to a rich na- 
 tive ballad than to the poetry of Hellas. 
 There was a certain impropriety in his 
 knowing so much Greek— an unfitness in 
 the idea of marble fauns and satyrs, and 
 even Olympian gods, lugged in under the 
 oaken roof and the painted light of an odd 
 old Norman hall. But Methley, abounding 
 in Homer, really loved him (as I believe) in 
 all truth, without whim or fancy; moreover, 
 he had a good deal of the practical sagacity 
 
 "of a YorksMreman hippodamoio,'^ 
 
 and this enabled him to apply his knowledge 
 
 53 . 
 
BOTH EN [Chapter IV 
 
 with much more tact than is usually shown 
 by people so learned as he. 
 
 I, too, loved Homer, but not with a schol- 
 ar's love. The most humble and pious 
 among women was yet so proud a mother 
 that she could teach her first-born son, no 
 Watts's hymns, no collects for the day: she 
 could teach him in earliest childhood no 
 less than this— to find a home in his sad- 
 dle, and to love old Homer and all that 
 Homer sung. True it is that the Greek 
 was ingeniously rendered into English,— the 
 English of Pope,— but not even a mesh like 
 that can screen an earnest child from the 
 fire of Homer's battles. 
 
 I pored over the Odyssey as over a story- 
 book, hoping and fearing for the hero 
 whom yet I partly scorned. But the Iliad 
 —line by line I clasped it to my brain with 
 reverence as well as with love. As an old 
 woman deeply trustful sits reading her 
 Bible because of the world to come, so, as 
 though it would fit me for the coming strife 
 of this temporal world, I read and read the 
 Iliad. Even outwardly it was not like other 
 books; it was throned in towering folios. 
 There was a preface or dissertation printed 
 in type still more majestic than the rest of 
 the book; this I read, but not till my en- 
 thusiasm for the Iliad had already run high. 
 
 54 
 
Chapter IV] EOTHEN 
 
 The writer, compiling the opinions of many- 
 men, and chiefly of the ancients, set forth, 
 I know not how quaintly, that the Iliad was 
 all in all to the human race— that it was 
 history, poetry, revelation; that the works 
 of men's hands were folly and vanity, and 
 would pass away like the dreams of a child, 
 but that the kingdom of Homer would en- 
 dure for ever and ever. 
 
 I assented with all my soul. I read, and 
 still read; I came to know Homer. A 
 learned commentator knows something of 
 the Greeks in the same sense as an oil-and- 
 color man may be said to know something 
 of painting; but take an untamed child and 
 leave him alone for twelve months with 
 any translation of Homer, and he will be 
 nearer by twenty centuries to the spirit of 
 old Greece; he does not stop in the ninth 
 year of the siege to admire this or that 
 group of words; he has no books in his tent: 
 but he shares in vital counsels with the 
 " King of men," and knows the inmost souls 
 of the impending gods. How profanely he 
 exults over the powers divine when they 
 are taught to dread the prowess of mortals! 
 and most of all, how he rejoices when the 
 God of War flies howling from the spear of 
 Diomed, and mounts into heaven for safety! 
 Then, the beautiful episode of the sixth 
 
 55 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter IV 
 
 book ! The way to feel this is not to go cast- 
 ing about and learning from pastors and 
 masters how best to admire it. The impa- 
 tient child is not grubbing for beauties, but 
 pushing the siege; the women vex him with 
 their delays and their talking; the mention 
 of the nurse is personal, and little sympathy 
 has he for the child that is young enough to 
 be frightened at the nodding plume of a hel- 
 met: but all the while that he thus chafes 
 at the pausing of the action, the strong 
 vertical light of Homer's poetry is blazing 
 so full upon the people and things of the 
 Iliad that soon, to the eyes of the child, 
 they grow familiar as his mother's shawl; 
 yet of this great gain he is unconscious, 
 and on he goes, vengefully thirsting for the 
 best blood of Troy, and never remitting 
 his fierceness till almost suddenly it is 
 changed for sorrow— the new and generous 
 sorrow that he learns to feel when the 
 noblest of all his foes lies sadly dying at the 
 Scaean gate. 
 
 Heroic days are these, but the dark ages 
 of school-boy life come closing over them. 
 I suppose it 's all right in the end, yet, at 
 first sight it does seem a sad intellectual 
 fall from your mother's dressing-room to a 
 buzzing school. You feel so keenly the 
 delights of early knowledge! You form 
 
 56 
 
 , ; A '' 
 
 ■^ "■ 
 
Chapter IV ] EOTHEN 
 
 strange, mystic friendships with the mere 
 names of mountains and seas and continents 
 and mighty rivers; you learn the ways of the 
 planets, and transcend their narrow limits, 
 and ask for the end of space; you vex the 
 electric cylinder till it yields you, for your 
 toy to play with, that subtle fire in which 
 our earth was forged; you know of the na- 
 tions that have towered high in the world, 
 and the lives of the men who have saved 
 whole empires from oblivion. What more 
 will you ever learn ? Yet the dismal change is 
 ordained, and then, thin meager Latin (the 
 same for everybody), with small shreds and 
 patches of Greek, is thrown like a pauper's 
 pall over all your early lore; instead of sweet 
 knowledge, vile, monkish, doggerel gram- 
 mars and graduses, dictionaries and lexi- 
 cons, and horrible odds and ends of dead 
 languages are given you for your portion, 
 and down you fall from Roman story to a 
 three-inch scrap of ^^Scriptores Romani," 
 from Greek poetry, down, down to the cold 
 rations of " Poetae Graeci,'' cut up by com- 
 mentators and served out by schoolmasters! 
 It was not the recollection of school nor 
 college learning, but the rapturous and 
 earnest reading of my childhood, which 
 made me bend forward so longingly to the 
 plains of Troy. 
 
 57 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter IV 
 
 Away from our people and our horses, 
 Methley and I went loitering along by the 
 willowy banks of a stream that crept in 
 quietness through the low, even plain. 
 There was no stir of weather overhead, no 
 sound of rural labor, no sign of life in the 
 land, but all the earth was dead and still, 
 as though it had lain for thrice a thousand 
 years under the leaden gloom of one un- 
 broken Sabbath. 
 
 Softly and sadly the poor, dumb, patient 
 stream went winding and winding along 
 through its shifting pathway; in some places 
 its waters were parted, and then again, lower 
 down, they would meet once more. I could 
 see that the stream from year to year was 
 finding itself new channels, and flowed no 
 longer in its ancient track; but I knew that 
 the springs which fed it were high on Ida— 
 the springs of Simois and Scamander ! 
 
 It was coldly and thanklessly, and with 
 vacant, unsatisfied eyes, that I watched the 
 slow coming and the gliding away of the 
 waters; I tell myself now, as a profane fact, 
 that I did indeed stand by that river (Meth- 
 ley gathered some seeds from the bushes 
 that grew there), but since that I am away 
 from his banks, "divine Scamander'' has 
 recovered the proper mystery belonging to 
 him as an unseen deity: a kind of indis- 
 
 58 
 
Chapter IV] EOTHEN 
 
 tinctness, like that which belongs to far 
 antiquity, has spread itself over my memory 
 of the winding stream that I saw with these 
 very eyes. One's mind regains in absence 
 that dominion over earthly things which 
 has been shaken by their rude contact; you 
 force yourself hardily into the material 
 presence of a mountain or a river whose 
 name belongs to poetry and ancient religion, 
 rather than to the external world; your 
 feelings, wound up and kept ready for some 
 sort of half -expected rapture, are chilled 
 and borne down for the time under all this 
 load of real earth and water; but let these 
 once pass out of sight, and then again the 
 old fanciful notions are restored, and the 
 mere realities which you have just been 
 looking at are thrown back so far into dis- 
 tance that the very event of your intrusion 
 upon such scenes begins to look dim and 
 uncertain, as though it belonged to my- 
 thology. 
 
 It is not over the plain before Troy that 
 the river now flows; its waters have edged 
 away far towards the north since the day 
 that "divine Scamander" (whom the gods 
 call Xanthus) went down to do battle for 
 Ilion, "with Mars, and Phoebus, and Latona, 
 and Diana glorying in her arrows, and 
 Venus, the lover of smiles." 
 
 59 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter IV 
 
 And now, when I was vexed at the migra- 
 tion of Scamander, and the total loss or ab- 
 sorption of poor, dear Simois, how happily 
 Methley reminded me that Homer himself 
 had warned us of some such changes! The 
 besiegers, in beginning their wall, had neg- 
 lected the hecatombs due to the gods, and 
 so, after the fall of Troy, Apollo turned the 
 paths of the rivers that flow from Ida, and 
 sent them flooding over the wall till all the 
 beach was smooth and free from the un- 
 hallowed works of the Greeks. It is true I 
 see now, on looking to the passage, that 
 Neptune, when the work of destruction was 
 done, turned back the rivers to their an- 
 cient ways: 
 
 Kap' poov "rjTiEp irpoo6ev tev xoXXcppoov 68ajp. 
 
 But their old channels passing through that 
 light, pervious soil would have been lost in 
 the nine days' flood, and perhaps the god, 
 when he willed to bring back the rivers to 
 their ancient beds, may have done his work 
 but ill; it is easier, they say, to destroy than 
 it is to restore. 
 
 We took to our horses again, and went 
 southward towards the very plain between 
 Troy and the tents of the Greeks, but we 
 rode by a line at some distance from the 
 
 60 
 
Chapter IV] EOTHEN 
 
 shore. Whether it was that the lay of the 
 ground hindered my view towards the sea, or 
 that I was all intent upon Ida, or whether 
 my mind was in vacancy, or whether, as is 
 most like, I had strayed from the Dardan 
 plains all back to gentle England, there is 
 now no knowing nor caring, but it was— 
 not quite suddenly, indeed, but rather, as it 
 were, in the swelling and falling of a single 
 wave, that the reality of that very sea 
 view which had bounded the sight of the 
 Greeks now visibly acceded to me and 
 rolled full in upon my brain. C!onceive how 
 deeply that eternal coast-line, that fixed 
 horizon, those island rocks, must have 
 graven their images upon the minds of the 
 Grecian warriors by the time that they had 
 reached the ninth year of the siege! Con- 
 ceive the strength and the fanciful beauty 
 of the speeches with which a whole army 
 of imagining men must have told their 
 weariness, and how the sauntering chiefs 
 must have whelmed that daily, daily scene 
 with their deep Ionian curses! 
 
 And now it was that my eyes were greeted 
 with a delightful surprise. Whilst we were 
 at Constantinople, Methley and I had pored 
 over the map together; we agreed that 
 whatever may have been the exact site of 
 Troy, the Grecian camp must have been 
 
 61 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter IV 
 
 nearly opposite to the space betwixt the 
 islands of Imbros and Tenedos: 
 
 But Methley reminded me of a passage in 
 the Iliad in which Neptune is represented as 
 looking at the scene of action before Ilion 
 from above the island of Samothrace. Now, 
 Samothrace, according to the map, appeared 
 to be not only out of all seeing distance from 
 the Troad, but to be entirely shut out from 
 it by the intervening Imbros, a larger island 
 which stretches its length right athwart the 
 line of sight from Samothrace to Troy. 
 Piously allowing that the dread Commotor of 
 our globe might have seen all mortal doings, 
 even from the depths of his own cerulean 
 kingdom, I still felt that if a station were 
 to be chosen from which to see the fight, 
 old Homer, so material in his ways of 
 thought, so averse from all haziness and 
 overreaching, would have meant to give the 
 god for his station some spot within reach 
 of men's eyes from the plains of Troy. I 
 think that this testing of the poet's words 
 by map and compass may have shaken a 
 little of my faith in the completeness of his 
 knowledge. Well, now I had come; there 
 to the south was Tenedos, and here at my 
 side was Imbros, all right and according to 
 
 62 
 
Chapter IV] EOTHEN 
 
 the map; but aloft over Imbros, aloft in a 
 far-away heaven, was Samothrace, the 
 watch-tower of Neptune ! 
 
 So Homer had appointed it, and so it was; 
 the map was correct enough, but could not, 
 like Homer, convey the whole truth. Thus 
 vain and false are the mere human sur- 
 mises and doubts which clash with Homeric 
 writ! 
 
 Nobody whose mind had not been reduced 
 to the most deplorably logical condition 
 could look upon this beautiful congruity 
 betwixt the Iliad and the material world, 
 and yet bear to suppose that the poet may 
 have learned the features of the coast from 
 mere hearsay; now, then, I believed; now I 
 knew that Homer hadyrassed along here— 
 that this vision of Samothrace overtower- 
 ing the nearer island was common to him 
 and to me. 
 
 After a journey of some few days by the 
 route of Adramiti and Pergamo, we reached 
 Smyrna. The letters which Methley here 
 received obliged him to return to England. 
 
 63 
 
CHAPTER 
 V 
 
 Infidel Smyrna. 
 
 SMYRNA, or Giaour Izmir, "Infidel 
 Smyrna '' as the Mussulmans call it, is 
 the main point of commercial contact 
 betwixt Europe and Asia; you are there sur- 
 rounded by the people and the confused 
 customs of many and various nations; you 
 see the fussy European adopting the East 
 and calming his restlessness with the long 
 Turkish pipe of tranquillity; you see Jews 
 offering services and receiving blows; -^ on 
 one side you have a f ell6w whose dress and 
 
 1 The Jews of Smyrna are poor, and having little merchan- 
 dise of their own to dispose of, they are sadly importunate in 
 offering their services as intermediaries. Their troublesome 
 conduct has led to the custom of beating them in the open 
 streets. It is usual for Europeans to carry long sticks with 
 them, for the express purpose of keeping off the chosen peo- 
 ple. I always felt ashamed to strike the poor fellows myself, 
 but I confess to the amusement with which I witnessed the 
 observance of this custom by other people. The Jew seldom 
 got hurt much, for he was always expecting the blow, and 
 was ready to recede from it the moment it came ; one could 
 not help being rather gratified at seeing him bound away so 
 nimbly, with his long robes floating out in the air, and then 
 again wheel round, and return with fresh importunities. 
 
 64 
 
Chapter V] EOTHEN 
 
 beard would give you a good idea of the 
 true Oriental if it were not for the gobe- 
 mouche expression of countenance with 
 which he is swallowing an article in a 
 French newspaper, and there, just by, is 
 a genuine Osmanli, smoking away with all 
 the majesty of a Sultan; but before you 
 have time to admire sufficiently his tran- 
 quil dignity and his soft Asiatic repose, the 
 poor old fellow is ruthlessly " run down '^ by 
 an English midshipman who has set sail 
 on a Smyrna hack. Such are the incongru- 
 ities of the "infidel city '' at ordinary times; 
 but when I was there our friend Carrigaholt 
 had imported himself and his oddities, as 
 an accession to the other and inferior won- 
 ders of Smyrna. 
 
 I was sitting alone in my room one day, 
 at Constantinople, when I heard Methley 
 approaching my door with shouts of 
 laughter and welcome, and presently I 
 recognized that peculiar cry by which our 
 friend Carrigaholt expresses his emotions. 
 He soon explained to us the final causes by 
 which the Fates had worked out their won- 
 derful purpose of bringing him to Constan- 
 tinople. He was always, you know, very 
 fond of sailing; but he had got into such 
 sad scrapes (including, I think, a lawsuit) 
 on account of his last yacht that he took 
 
 5 65 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter V 
 
 it into his head to have a cruise in a mer- 
 chant vessel. So he went to Liverpool and 
 looked through the craft lying ready to sail 
 till he found a smart schooner that per- 
 fectly suited his taste. The destination of 
 the vessel was the last thing he thought of, 
 and when he was told that she was bound 
 for Constantinople, he merely assented to 
 that as a part of the arrangement to which 
 he had no objection. As soon as the vessel 
 had sailed, the hapless passenger discovered 
 that his skipper carried on board an enor- 
 mous wife with an inquiring mind and an 
 irresistible tendency to impart her opinions. 
 She looked upon her guest as upon a piece of 
 waste intellect /that ought to be carefully 
 tilled. She tilled him accordingly. If the 
 Dons at Oxford could have seen poor Car- 
 rigaholt thus absolutely "attending lec- 
 tures" in the Bay of Biscay, they would 
 surely have thought him sufficiently pun- 
 ished for all the wrongs he did them whilst 
 he was preparing himself under their care 
 for the other and more boisterous univer- 
 sity. The voyage did not last more than 
 six or eight weeks, and the philosophy in- 
 flicted on Carrigaholt was not entirely fatal 
 to him. Certainly he was somewhat ema- 
 ciated, and, for aught I know, he may have 
 subscribed too largely to the "Feminine- 
 
 66 
 
Chapter V] EOTHEN 
 
 right-of -reason Society"; but it did not 
 appear that his health had been seriously 
 affected. There was a scheme on foot, it 
 would seem, for taking the passenger back 
 to England in the same schooner— a scheme, 
 in fact, for keeping him perpetually afloat, 
 and perpetually saturated with arguments; 
 but when Carrigaholt found himself ashore, 
 and remembered that the skipperina (who 
 had imprudently remained on board) was 
 not there to enforce her suggestions, he 
 was open to the hints of his servant (a very 
 sharp fellow), who arranged a plan for es- 
 caping, and finally brought off his master 
 to Giuseppini's hotel. 
 
 Our friend afterwards went by sea to 
 Smyrna, and there he now was in his glory. 
 He had a good or at all events a gentleman- 
 like judgment in matters of taste, and as 
 his great object was to surround himself 
 with all that his fancy could dictate, he lived 
 in a state of perpetual negotiation; he 
 was forever on the point of purchasing, not 
 only the material productions of the place, 
 but all sorts of such fine ware as " intelli- 
 gence," "fidelity," and so on. He was most 
 curious, however, as the purchaser of the 
 *^ affections." Sometimes he would imagine 
 that he had a marital aptitude, and his fancy 
 would sketch a graceful picture, in which 
 
 67 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter V 
 
 he appeared reclining on a divan, with a 
 beautiful Greek woman fondly couched at 
 his feet, and soothing him with the witch- 
 ery of her guitar. Having satisfied himself 
 with the ideal picture thus created, he 
 'would pass into action : the guitar he would 
 buy instantly, and would give such intima- 
 tions of his wish, to be wedded to a Greek 
 as could not fail to produce great excite- 
 ment in the families of the beautiful Smyr- 
 niotes. Then again— and just in time, 
 perhaps, to save him from the yoke— his 
 dream would pass away, and another would 
 come in its stead. He would suddenly feel 
 the yearnings of a father's love, and willing 
 by force of gold to transcend all natural 
 preliminaries, he would issue instructions 
 for the purchase of some dutiful child that 
 could be warranted to love him as a parent. 
 Then at another time he would be con- 
 vinced that the attachment of menials 
 might satisfy the longings of his affection- 
 ate heart, and thereupon he would give 
 orders to his slave-merchant for something 
 in the way of eternal fidelity. You may 
 well imagine that this anxiety of Carriga- 
 holt to purchase, not only the scenery, but 
 the many dramatis personse belonging to 
 his dreams, with all their goodness and 
 graces complete, necessarily gave an im- 
 
 68 
 
Chapter V] EOTHEN 
 
 mense stimulus to the trade and intrigue 
 of Smyrna, and created a demand for human 
 virtues which the moral resources of the 
 place were totally inadequate to supply. 
 Every day, after breakfast, this lover of 
 the Good and the Beautiful held a levee. In 
 his anteroom there would be not only the 
 sellers of pipes and slippers and shawls, and 
 such like Oriental merchandise, not only 
 embroiderers and cunning workmen pa- 
 tiently striving to realize his visions of 
 Albanian dresses, not only the servants 
 offering for places, and the slave-dealer 
 tendering his sable ware, but there would 
 be the Greek master waiting to teach his 
 pupil the grammar of the soft Ionian 
 tongue in which he was to delight the 
 wife of his imagination, and the music- 
 master who was to teach him some sweet 
 replies to the anticipated tones of the 
 fancied guitar; and then, above all, and 
 proudly eminent with undisputed prefer- 
 ence of entree, and fraught with the mys- 
 terious tidings on which the realization of 
 the whole dream might depend, was the 
 mysterious match-maker,^ enticing and 
 postponing the suitor, yet ever keeping 
 alive in his soul the love of that pictured 
 
 1 Marriages in the East are arranged by professed match- 
 makers ; many of these, I believe, are Jewesses. 
 
 69 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter V 
 
 virtue whose beauty (unseen by eyes) was 
 half revealed to the imagination. 
 
 You would have thought that this prac- 
 tical dreaming must have soon brought 
 Carrigaholt to a bad end, but he was in 
 much less danger than might be supposed: 
 for besides that the new visions of happi- 
 ness almost always came in time to coun- 
 teract the fatal completion of the preceding 
 scheme, his high breeding and his delicately 
 sensitive taste almost always befriended 
 him at times when he was left without any 
 other protection, and the efficacy of these 
 qualities in keeping a man out of harm's 
 way is really immense. In all baseness and 
 imposture there is a coarse, vulgar spirit 
 which, however artfully concealed for a 
 time, must sooner or later show itself in 
 some little circumstance sufficiently plain 
 to occasion an instant jar upon the minds 
 of those whose taste is lively and true; to 
 such men a shock of this kind, disclosing 
 the ugliness of a cheat, is more effectively 
 convincing than any mere proofs could be. 
 
 Thus guarded from isle to isle, and 
 through Greece and through Albania, this 
 practical Plato, with a purse in his hand, 
 carried on his mad chase after the Good 
 and the Beautiful, and yet returned in safety 
 to his home. But now, poor fellow, the 
 
 70 
 
Chapter V] EOTHEN 
 
 lowly grave that is the end of men's ro- 
 mantic hopes has closed over all his rich 
 fancies and all his high aspirations. He is 
 utterly married! No more hope, no more 
 change, for him; no more relays: he must 
 go on Vetturiniwise to the appointed end 
 of his journey! 
 
 Smyrna, I think, may be called the chief 
 town and capital of that Grecian race against 
 which you will be cautioned so carefully as 
 soon as you touch the Levant. You will 
 say that I ought not to confound as one 
 people the Greeks living under a constitu- 
 tional government with the unfortunate 
 Rayas who "groan under the Turkish 
 yoke," but I can't see that political events 
 have hitherto produced any strongly 
 marked difference of character. If I could 
 venture to rely (this I feel that I cannot 
 at all do) upon my own observation, I 
 should tell you that there were more heart- 
 iness and strength in the Greeks of the 
 Ottoman Empire than in those of the new 
 kingdom; the truth is that there is a greater 
 field for commercial enterprise, and even for 
 Greek ambition, under the Ottoman scep- 
 ter than is to be found in the dominions of 
 Otho. Indeed, the people, by their frequent 
 migrations from the limits of the constitu- 
 tional kingdom to the territories of the 
 
 71 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter V 
 
 Porte, seem to show that, on the whole, 
 they prefer "groaning under the Turkish 
 yoke '' to the honor of " being the only true 
 source of legitimate power" in their own 
 land. 
 
 For myself, I love the race; in spite of all 
 their vices, and even in spite of all their 
 meannesses^ I remember the blood that is in 
 them, and still love the Greeks. The Os- 
 manlis are, of course, by nature, by religion, 
 and by politics, the strong foes of the 
 Hellenic people; and as the Greeks, poor 
 fellows! happen to be a little deficient in 
 some of the virtues which facilitate the 
 transaction of commercial business (such 
 as veracity, fidelity, etc.), it naturally follows 
 that they are highly unpopular with the 
 European merchants. Now, these are the 
 persons through whom, either directly or 
 indirectly, is derived the greater part of the 
 information which you gather in the Levant, 
 and therefore you must make up your mind 
 to hear an almost universal and unbroken 
 testimony against the character of the 
 people whose ancestors invented virtue. 
 And strange to say, the Greeks themselves 
 do not attempt to disturb this general una- 
 nimity of opinion by any dissent on their 
 part. Question a Greek on the subject, and 
 he will tell you at once that the people are 
 
 72 
 
Chapter V] EOTHEN 
 
 ^*traditori/' and will then, perhaps, endeavor 
 to shake off his fair share of the imputation 
 by asserting that his father had been drago- 
 man to some foreign embassy, and that he 
 (the son), therefore, by the law of nations, 
 had ceased to be Greek. 
 
 "E dunque no siete traditore?'' 
 
 "Possibile, signor, ma almeno To no sono 
 Greco.'' 
 
 Not even the diplomatic representatives 
 of the Hellenic kingdom are free from the 
 habit of depreciating their brethren. I 
 recollect that at one of the ports in Syria 
 a Greek vessel was rather unfairly kept in 
 quarantine by order of the Board of Health, 
 a board which consisted entirely of Euro- 
 peans. A consular agent from the kingdom 
 of Greece had lately hoisted his flag in the 
 town, and the captain of the vessel drew up 
 a remonstrance, and requested his consul 
 to lay it before the Board. 
 
 "Now, is this reasonable?" said the con- 
 sul. "Is it reasonable that I should place 
 myself in collision with all the principal 
 European gentlemen of the place for the 
 sake of you, a Greek?" The skipper was 
 greatly vexed at the failure of his applica- 
 tion, but he scarcely even questioned the 
 justice of the ground which his consul had 
 taken. Well, it happened some time after- 
 
 73 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter V 
 
 wards that I found myself at the same port, 
 having gone thither with the view of em- 
 barking for the port of Syra. I was anxious, 
 of course, to elude as carefully as possible 
 the quarantine detentions which threatened 
 me on my arrival, and hearing that the 
 Greek consul had a brother who was a man 
 in authority at Syra, I got myself presented 
 to the former, and took the liberty of ask- 
 ing him to give me such a letter of intro- 
 duction to his relative at Syra as might 
 possibly have the effect of shortening the 
 term of quarantine. He acceded to this re- 
 quest with the utmost kindness and cour- 
 tesy; but when he replied to my thanks by 
 saying that " in serving an Englishman he 
 was doing no more than his strict duty 
 commanded," not even my gratitude could 
 prevent me from calling to mind his treat- 
 ment of the poor captain who had the mis- 
 fortune of not being an alien in blood to his 
 consul and appointed protector. 
 
 I think that the change which has taken 
 place in the character of the Greeks has 
 been occasioned, in great measure, by the 
 doctrines and practice of their religion. 
 The Greek Church has animated the Mus- 
 covite peasant, and inspired him with hopes 
 and ideas which, however humble, are still 
 better than none at all; but the faith and 
 
 74 
 
•'^ 
 
 Chapter V] EOTHEN 
 
 the forms and the strange ecclesiastical 
 literature which act so advantageously upon 
 the mere clay of the Russian serf seem to 
 hang like lead upon the ethereal spirit of 
 the Greek. Never, in any part of the world, 
 have I seen religious performances so pain- 
 ful to witness as those of the Greeks. The 
 horror, however, with which one shudders 
 at their worship is attributable, in some 
 measure, to the mere effect of costume. In 
 all the Ottoman dominions, and very fre- 
 quently, too, in the kingdom of Otho, the 
 Greeks wear turbans or other head-dresses, 
 and shave their heads, leaving only a rat's 
 tail at the crown of the head. They, of course, 
 keep themselves covered within doors, as 
 well as abroad, and they never remove their 
 head-gear merely on account of being in a 
 church: but when the Greek stops to wor- 
 ship at his proper shrine, then, and then 
 only, he always uncovers; and as you see him 
 thus with shaven skull, and savage tail de- 
 pending from his crown, kissing a thing of 
 wood and glass, and cringing with base 
 prostrations and apparent terror before a 
 miserable picture, you see superstition in a 
 shape which, outwardly at least, is sadly 
 abject and repulsive. 
 
 The fasts, too, of the Greek Church pro- 
 duce an ill effect upon the character of the 
 
 75 
 

 EOTHEN [Chapter V 
 
 people, for they are not a mere farce, but are 
 carried to such an extent as to bring about a 
 real mortification of the flesh. The febrile 
 irritation of the frame, operating in con- 
 junction with the depression of the spirits 
 occasioned by abstinence, will so far answer 
 the objects of the rite as to engender some 
 religious excitement; but this is of a morbid 
 and gloomy character, and it seems to be 
 certain that, along with the increase of sanc- 
 tity, there comes a fiercer desire for the per- 
 petration of dark crimes. The number of 
 murders committed during Lent is greater, 
 I am told, than at any other time of the year. 
 A man under the influence of a bean dietary 
 —for this is the principal food of the Greeks 
 during their fasts— will be in an apt humor 
 for enriching the shrine of his saint and 
 passing a knife through his next-door neigh- 
 bor. The moneys deposited upon the shrines 
 are appropriated by priests; the priests 
 are married men, and have families to pro- 
 vide for; they "take the good with the bad/' 
 and continue to recommend fasts. 
 
 Then, too, the Greek Church enjoins her 
 followers to keep holy such a vast number 
 of saints' days as practically to shorten the 
 lives of the people very materially. I be- 
 lieve that one third out of the number of 
 days in the year are " kept holy," or rather 
 
 76 
 
Chapter V] EOTHEN 
 
 kept stupid, in honor of the saints. No great 
 portion of the time thus set apart is spent 
 in rehgious exercises, and the people don't 
 betake themselves to any such animating 
 pastimes as might serve to strengthen the 
 frame, or invigorate the mind, or exalt the 
 taste. On the contrary, the saints' days of 
 the Greeks in Smyrna are passed in the same 
 manner as the Sabbaths of well-behaved 
 Protestant housemaids in London— that is 
 to say, in a steady and serious contempla- 
 tion of street scenery. The men perform 
 this duty at the doors of their houses, the 
 women at the mindows. Windows, indeed, 
 by the custom of Greek towns, are so 
 decidedly appropriated to the gentle sex 
 that a man would be looked upon as utterly 
 effeminate if he ventured to choose such 
 a position for the keeping of his saints' 
 days. I was present one day at a treaty for 
 the hire of some apartments at Smyrna, 
 which was carried on between Carrigaholt 
 and the Greek woman to whom the rooms 
 belonged. Carrigaholt objected that the 
 windows commanded no view of the street. 
 Immediately the brow of the majestic ma- 
 tron was clouded, and with all the scorn of 
 a Spartan mother she coolly asked Carriga- 
 holt and said : ^' Art thou a tender damsel, 
 that thou wouldst sit and gaze from win- 
 
 77 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter V 
 
 dows?" The man whom she addressed, 
 however, had not gone to Greece with any 
 intention of placing himself under the laws 
 of Lycurgus, and was not to be diverted 
 from his views by a Spartan rebuke, so he 
 took care to find himself windows after his 
 own heart, and there, I believe, for many a 
 month he kept the saints' days, and all the 
 days intervening, after the fashion of Gre- 
 cian women. 
 
 Oh, let me be charitable to all who write, 
 and to all who lecture, and to all who preach, 
 since even I, a layman not forced to write 
 at all, can hardly avoid chiming in with 
 some tuneful cant! I have had the heart 
 to talk about the pernicious effects of the 
 Greek holidays; and yet to these I owe most 
 gracious and beautiful visions! I will let the 
 words stand, as a humbling proof that I am 
 subject to that nearly immutable law which 
 compels a man with a pen in his hand to be 
 uttering every now and then some senti- 
 ment not his own. It seems as though the 
 power of expressing regrets and desires by 
 written symbols were coupled with a con- 
 dition that the writer should from time to 
 time express the regrets and desires of 
 other people— as though, like a French 
 peasant under the old regime, he were 
 bound to perform a certain amount of work 
 
 78 
 
Chapter V] EOTHEN 
 
 upon the public highways. I rebel as stoutly 
 as I can against this horrible corvee; I try 
 not to deceive you; I try to set down the 
 thoughts which are fresh within me, and 
 not to pretend any wishes or griefs which I 
 do not really feel: but no sooner do I cease 
 from watchfulness in this regard than my 
 right hand is, as it were, seized by some 
 false angel, and even now, you see, I have 
 been forced to put down such words and 
 sentences as I ought to have written if 
 really and truly I had wished to disturb the 
 saints' days of the beautiful Smyrniotes! 
 
 Disturb their saints' days? Oh, no! for as 
 you move through the narrow streets of 
 the city, at these times of festival, the tran- 
 som-shaped windows suspended over your 
 head on either side are filled with the beau- 
 tiful descendants of the old Ionian race; 
 all (even yonder empress throned at the 
 window of that humblest mud cottage) are 
 attired with seeming magnificence. Their 
 classic heads are crowned with scarlet and 
 laden with jewels or coins of gold— the 
 whole wealth of the wearers;^ their fea- 
 tures are touched with a savage pencil, 
 
 1 A Greek woman wears her whole fortune upon her per- 
 son, in the shape of jewels or gold coins. I believe that this 
 mode of investment is adopted in great measure for safety's 
 sake. It has the advantage of enabling a suitor to reckon as 
 well as to admire the objects of his affection. 
 
 79 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter V 
 
 ■ — ■ ' — ' 
 
 hardening the outline of eyes and eye- 
 brows, and lending an unnatural fire to the 
 stern, grave looks with which they pierce 
 your brain. Endure their fiery eyes as best 
 you may, and ride on slowly and reverently, 
 for, facing you from the side of the transom 
 that looks longwise through the street, 
 you see the one glorious shape transcendent 
 in its beauty; you see the massive braid of 
 hair as it catches a touch of light on its 
 jetty surface, and the broad, calm, angry 
 brow; the large eyes, deeply set and self- 
 relying, as the eyes of a conqueror, with 
 all their rich shadows of thought lying 
 darkly around them; you see the thin, fiery 
 nostril, and the bold line of the chin and 
 throat, disclosing all the fierceness and all 
 the pride, passion, and power that can live 
 along with the rare womanly beauty of 
 those sweetly turned lips. But then there 
 is a terrible stillness in this breathing 
 image; it seems like the stillness of a sav- 
 age that sits intent and brooding day by 
 day upon some one fearful scheme of ven- 
 geance; and yet more like it seems to the 
 stillness of an immortal, whose will must be 
 known and obeyed without sign or speech. 
 Bow down ! bow down and adore the young 
 Persephone, transcendent Queen of Shades! 
 
 80 
 
CHAPTER 
 VI 
 
 Greek mariners. 
 
 I SAILED from Smyrna in the Amphitrite, 
 a Greek brigantine which was confidently 
 said to be bound for the coast of Syria; 
 but I knew that this announcement was not 
 to be rehed upon with positive certainty, for 
 the Greek mariners are practically free from 
 the stringency of ship's papers, and where 
 they will, there they go. However, I had 
 the whole of the cabin for myself and my 
 attendant Mysseri, subject only to the so- 
 ciety of the captain at the hour of dinner; 
 being at ease in this respect, being fur- 
 nished, too, with plenty of books, and find- 
 ing an unfailing source of interest in the 
 thorough Greekness of my captain and my 
 crew, I felt less anxious than most people 
 would have been about the probable length 
 of the cruise. I knew enough of Greek navi- 
 gation to be sure that our vessel would cling 
 to earth like a child to its mother's knee, and 
 that I should touch at many an isle before 
 6 81 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VI 
 
 I set foot upon the Syrian coast; but I had no 
 invidious preference for Europe, Asia, or Af- 
 rica (I was safe from all danger of America), 
 and I felt that I could defy the winds to blow 
 me upon a coast that was blank and void of in- 
 terest. My patience was extremely useful to 
 me, for the cruise altogether endured some 
 forty days, and that in the midst of winter. 
 According to me, the most interesting of 
 all the Greeks (male Greeks) are the mari- 
 ners, because their pursuits and their social 
 condition are so nearly the same as those of 
 their famous ancestors. You will say that 
 the occupation of commerce must have 
 smoothed down the salience of their minds; 
 and this would be so, perhaps, if their mer- 
 cantile affairs were conducted according to 
 the fixed, businesslike routine of Euro- 
 peans: but the ventures of the Greeks are 
 surrounded by such a multitude of ima- 
 gined dangers and (from the absence of 
 regular marts, in which the true value of 
 merchandise can be ascertained), are so 
 entirely speculative, and besides are con- 
 ducted in a manner so wholly determined 
 upon by the wayward fancies and wishes of 
 the crew, that they belong to enterprise 
 rather than to industry, and are very far 
 indeed from tending to deaden any fresh- 
 ness of character. 
 
 82 
 
Chapter VI] EOTHEN 
 
 The vessels in which war and piracy were 
 carried on during the years of the Greek 
 Revolution became merchantmen at the 
 end of the war; but the tactics of the Greeks 
 as naval warriors were so exceedingly cau- 
 tious, and their habits as commercial mari- 
 ners are so wild, that the change has been 
 more slight than you might imagine. The 
 first care of Greeks (Greek Rayas), when 
 they undertake a shipping enterprise, is 
 to procure for their vessel the protection 
 of some European power; this is easily 
 managed by a little intriguing with the drag- 
 oman of one of the embassies at Constan- 
 tinople, and the craft soon glories in the 
 ensign of Russia, or the dazzling tricolor, 
 or the Union Jack; thus, to the great de- 
 light of her crew, she enters upon the ocean 
 world with a flaring lie at her peak. But the 
 appearance of the vessel does no discredit 
 to the borrowed flag; she is frail, indeed, but 
 is gracefully built and smartly rigged; she 
 always carries guns, and, in short, gives 
 good promise of mischief and speed. 
 
 The privileges attached to the vessel and 
 her crew by virtue of the borrowed flag are 
 so great as to imply a liberty wider even 
 than that which is often enjoyed in our 
 more strictly civilized countries, so that 
 there is no good ground for saying that 
 
 83 
 
: ■ . «. > ; 
 
 EOTHEN [Chapter VI 
 
 the development of the true character 
 belonging to Greek mariners is prevented 
 by the dominion of the Ottoman. These 
 men are free, too, from the power of the 
 great capitalist— a power more withering 
 than despotism itself to the enterprises of 
 humble venturers. The capital employed 
 is supplied by those whose labor is to 
 render it productive. The crew receive 
 no wages, but have all a share in the 
 venture, and in general, I believe, they 
 are the owners of the whole freight: they 
 choose a captain to whom they intrust just 
 power enough to keep the vessel on her 
 course in fine weather, but not quite enough 
 for a gale of wind; they also elect a cook 
 and a mate. The cook whom we had on board 
 was particularly careful about the ship's 
 reckoning, and when, under the influence of 
 the keen sea-breezes, we grew fondly ex- 
 pectant of an instant dinner, the great 
 author of pilaf s would be standing on deck 
 with an ancient quadrant in his hands, 
 calmly affecting to take an observation. 
 But then, to make up for this, the captain 
 would be exercising a controlling influence 
 over the soup, so that all in the end went 
 well. Our mate was a Hydriot, a native of 
 that island rock which grows nothing but 
 mariners and mariners' wives. His char- 
 
 84 
 
Chapter VI] EOTHEN 
 
 acter seemed to be exactly that which is 
 generally attributed to the Hydriot race: he 
 was fierce and gloomy and lonely in his 
 ways. One of his principal duties seemed 
 to be that of acting as counter-captain, or 
 leader of the opposition, denouncing the 
 first symptoms of tyranny, and protecting 
 even the cabin-boy from oppression. Be- 
 sides this, when things went smoothly he 
 would begin to prognosticate evil, in order 
 that his more light-hearted comrades might 
 not be puffed up with the seeming good 
 fortune of the moment. 
 
 It seemed to me that the personal free- 
 dom of these sailors, who own no superiors 
 except those of their own choice, is as like as 
 may be to that of their seafaring ancestors. 
 And even in their mode of navigation they 
 have admitted no such an entire change as 
 you would suppose probable; it is true that 
 they have so far availed themselves of 
 modern discoveries as to look to the com- 
 pass instead of the stars, and that they 
 have superseded the immortal gods of their 
 forefathers by St. Nicholas in his glass case,^ 
 but they are not yet so confident, either in 
 their needle or their saint, as to love an 
 
 1 St. Nicholas is the great patron of Greek sailors ; a small 
 picture of him inclosed in a glass case is hung up like a ba- 
 rometer at one end of the cabin. | 
 
 85 
 
BOTH EN [Chapter VI 
 
 open sea, and they still hug their shores as 
 fondly as the Argonauts of old. Indeed, they 
 have a most unsailor-like love for the land, 
 and I really believe that in a gale of wind 
 they would rather have a rock-bound coast 
 on their lee than no coast at all. Accord- 
 ing to the notions of an English seaman, 
 this kind of navigation would soon bring the 
 vessel on which it might be practised to an 
 evil end. The Greek, however, is unac- 
 countably successful in escaping the con- 
 sequences of being "jammed in," as it is 
 called, upon a lee shore. 
 
 These seamen, like their forefathers, rely 
 upon no winds unless they are right astern 
 or on the quarter; they rarely go on a wind 
 if it blows at all fresh; and if the adverse 
 breeze approaches to a gale, they at once 
 fumigate St. Nicholas and put up the helm. 
 The consequence, of course, is that under 
 the ever-varying winds of the JEgean they 
 are blown about in the most whimsical 
 manner. I used to think that Ulysses, with 
 his ten years' voyage, had taken his time in 
 making Ithaca, but my experience in Greek 
 navigation soon made me understand that 
 he had haxi, in point of fact, a pretty good 
 " average passage." 
 
 Such are now the mariners of the JEgean; 
 free, equal amongst themselves, navigating 
 
 86 
 
Chapter VI] EOTHEN 
 
 the seas of their forefathers with the same 
 heroic and yet childhke spirit of venture, 
 the same half-trustful reliance upon hea- 
 venly aid, they are the liveliest images of 
 true old Greeks that time and the new re- 
 ligion have spared to us. 
 
 With one exception, our crew were "a 
 solemn company," and yet, sometimes, 
 if all things went well, they would relax 
 their austerity, and show a disposition to 
 fun, or rather to quiet humor. When this 
 happened, they invariably had recourse to 
 one of their number who went by the name 
 of " Admiral Nicolou." He was an amusing 
 fellow, the poorest, I believe, and the least 
 thoughtful of the crew, but full of rich hu- 
 mor. His oft-told story of the events by 
 which he had gained the sobriquet of " Ad- 
 miral '' never failed to delight his hearers, 
 and when he was desired to repeat it for my 
 benefit, the rest of the crew crowded round 
 with as much interest as if they were listen- 
 ing to the tale for the first time. The tale 
 was this: A number of Greek brigs and brig- 
 antines were at anchor in the bay at Beirut; 
 a festival of some kind, particularly attrac- 
 tive to the sailors, was going on in the 
 town, and whether with or without leave I 
 know not, the crews of all the craft, except 
 that of Nicolou, had gone ashore; on board 
 
 87 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VI 
 
 his vessel (she carried dollars) there was, 
 it would seem, a more careful or more in- 
 fluential captain— a man who was able to 
 enforce his determination that at least one 
 of the crew should be left on board. Nicolou's 
 good nature was with him so powerful an 
 impulse that he could not resist the delight 
 of volunteering to stay with the vessel 
 whilst his comrades went ashore; his propo- 
 sal was accepted, and the crew and captain 
 soon left him alone on the deck of his ves- 
 sel. The sailors, gathering together from 
 their several ships, were amusing them- 
 selves in the town, when suddenly there 
 came down from betwixt the mountains 
 one of those sudden hurricanes which some- 
 times occur in southern climes. Nicolou's 
 vessel, together with four of the craft which 
 had been left unmanned, broke from her 
 moorings, and all five of the vessels were 
 carried out seaward. The town is on a salient 
 point at the southern side of the bay, so 
 that the " Admiral '' was close under the 
 eyes of the inhabitants and the shore-gone 
 sailors when he gallantly drifted out at the 
 head of his little fleet. If Nicolou could not 
 entirely control the manoeuvers of the 
 squadron, there was at least no human 
 power to divide his authority, and thus it 
 was that he took rank as " Admiral." Nico- 
 
 88 
 
Chapter VI] EOTHEN 
 
 lou cut his cable, and so, for the time, 
 saved his vessel; the rest of the fleet un- 
 der his command were quickly wrecked, 
 whilst the " Admiral " got away clear to the 
 open sea. The violence of the squall soon 
 passed off, but Nicolou felt that his chance 
 of one day resigning his high duties as an 
 admiral for the enjoyments of private life on 
 the steadfast shore mainly depended upon 
 his success in working the brig with his 
 own hands; so after calling on his name- 
 sake, the saint (not for the first time, I take 
 it), he got up some canvas and took the 
 helm; he became equal, he told us, to a 
 score of Nicolous, and the vessel, as he said, 
 was " manned with his terrors.'' For two 
 days, it seems, he cruised at large; but at 
 last, either by his seamanship or by the 
 natural instinct of the Greek mariners for 
 finding land, he brought his craft close to 
 an unknown shore that promised well for 
 his purpose of running in the vessel, and 
 he was preparing to give her a good berth 
 on the beach when he saw a gang of fero- 
 cious-looking fellows coming down to the 
 point for which he was making. Poor Nico- 
 lou was a perfectly unlettered and untu- 
 tored genius, and for that reason, perhaps, 
 a keen listener to tales of terror; his mind 
 had been impressed with some horrible 
 
 89 
 
 ■•:# 
 
EOTHEN . [Chapter VI 
 
 legend of cannibalism, and he now did not 
 doubt for a moment that the men awaiting 
 him on the beach were the monsters at 
 whom he had shuddered in the days of his 
 childhood. The coast on which Nicolou was 
 running his vessel was somewhere, I fancy, 
 at the foot of the Anzairie Mountains, and 
 the fellows who were preparing to give him 
 a reception were probably very rough speci- 
 mens of humanity; it is likely enough that 
 they might have given themselves the trou- 
 ble of putting the "Admiral'' to death, for 
 the purpose of simplifying their claim to 
 the vessel and preventing litigation, but the 
 notion of their cannibalism was, of course, 
 utterly unfounded. Nicolou's terror had, 
 however, so graven the idea on his mind 
 that he could never after dismiss it. 
 Having once determined the character of 
 his expectant hosts, the "Admiral" natu- 
 rally thought that it would be better to 
 keep their dinner waiting any length of 
 time than to attend their feast in the char- 
 acter of a roasted Greek, so he put about 
 his vessel and tempted the deep once more. 
 After a farther cruise the lonely commander 
 ran his vessel upon some rocks at another 
 part of the coast; there she was lost with 
 all her treasures, and Nicolou was but too 
 glad to scramble ashore, though without one 
 
 90 
 
Chapter VI] EOTHEN 
 
 dollar in his girdle. These adventures seem 
 flat enough as I repeat them, but the hero 
 expressed his terrors by such odd terms of 
 speech and such strangely humorous ges- 
 tures that the story came from his lips with 
 an unfailing zest, so that the crew who had 
 heard the tale so often could still enjoy to 
 their hearts the rich fright of the "Ad- 
 miral," and still shuddered with unabated 
 horror when he came to the loss of the 
 dollars. 
 
 The power of listening to long stories (and 
 for this, by the by, I am giving you large 
 credit) is common, I fancy, to most sailors, 
 and the Greeks have it to a high degree, 
 for they can be perfectly patient under a 
 narrative of two or three hours' duration. 
 These long stories are mostly founded upon 
 Oriental topics, and in one of them I recog- 
 nized with some alteration an old friend 
 of the "Arabian Nights." I inquired as to 
 the source from which the story had been 
 derived, and the crew all agreed that it had 
 been handed down unwritten from Greek to 
 Greek; their account of the matter does not, 
 perhaps, go very far towards showing the 
 real origin of the tale, but when I afterwards 
 took up the "Arabian Nights," I became 
 strongly impressed with a notion that they 
 must have sprung from the brain of a Greek. 
 
 91 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VI 
 
 It seems to me that these stories,whilst they 
 disclose a complete and habitual knowledge 
 of things Asiatic, have about them so much 
 of freshness and life, so much of the stir- 
 ring and volatile European character, that 
 they cannot have owed their conception to 
 a mere Oriental, who, for creative purposes, 
 is a thing dead and dry— a mental mummy 
 that may have been a live king just after 
 the flood, but has since lain balmed in 
 spice. 
 
 At the time of the Califate the Greek 
 race was familiar enough to Bagdad; they 
 were the merchants, the peddlers, the bar- 
 bers, and intriguers-general, of south- 
 western Asia, and therefore the Oriental 
 materials with which the Arabian tales were 
 wrought must have been completely at the 
 command of the inventive people to whom 
 I would attribute their origin. 
 
 We were nearing the isle of Cyprus, when 
 there arose half a gale of wind, with a 
 heavy, chopping sea. My Greek seamen 
 considered that the weather amounted not 
 to a half but to an integral gale of wind at 
 the very least; so they put up the helm, and 
 scudded for twenty hours. When we neared 
 the mainland of Anadoli, the gale ceased, 
 and a favorable breeze springing up, soon 
 brought us off Cyprus once more. After- 
 
 92 
 
Chapter VI] EOTHEN 
 
 wards the wind changed again, but we were 
 still able to lay our course by sailing close- 
 hauled. 
 
 We were, at length, in such a position 
 that by holding on our course for about 
 half an hour we should get under the lee 
 of the island and find ourselves in smooth 
 water; but the wind had been gradually 
 freshening; it now blew hard, and there was 
 a heavy sea running. 
 
 As the grounds for alarm arose, the crew 
 gathered together in one close group; they 
 stood pale and grim under their hooded 
 capotes, like monks awaiting a massacre, 
 anxiously looking by turns along the path- 
 way of the storm, and then upon each other, 
 and then upon the eye of the captain, who 
 stood by the helmsman. Presently the 
 Hydriot came aft, more moody than ever, 
 the bearer of fierce remonstrance against 
 the continuing of the struggle; he received 
 a resolute answer, and still we held our 
 course. Soon there came a heavy sea, that 
 caught the bow of the brigantine as she lay 
 jammed in betwixt the waves. She bowed 
 her head low under the waters, and shud- 
 dered through all her timbers, then gal- 
 lantly stood up again over the striving sea 
 with bowsprit entire. But where were the 
 crew? It was a crew no longer, but rather 
 
 93 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VI 
 
 a gathering of Greek citizens; the shout of 
 the seamen was changed for the murmuring 
 of the people— the spirit of the old demos 
 was alive. The men came aft in a body 
 and loudly asked that the vessel should 
 be put about, and that the storm be no 
 longer tempted. Now, then, for speeches :— 
 the captain, his eyes flashing fire, his frame 
 all quivering with emotion, wielding his 
 every limb like another and a louder voice, 
 pours forth the eloquent torrent of his 
 threats and his reasons, his commands and 
 his prayers; he promises, he vows, he swears 
 that there is safety in holding on— safety if 
 Greeks will he brave! The men hear, and 
 are moved; but the gale rouses itself once 
 more, and again the raging sea comes 
 trampling over the timbers that are the 
 life of all. The fierce Hydriot advances 
 one step nearer to the captain, and the 
 angry growl of the people goes floating 
 down the wind, but they listen; they waver 
 once more, and once more resolve, then 
 waver again, thus doubtfully hanging be- 
 tween the terrors of the storm and the 
 persuasion of glorious speech, as though it 
 were the Athenian that talked, and Philip 
 of Macedon that thundered on the weather 
 bow. 
 
 Brave thoughts winged on Grecian words 
 
 94 
 
Chapter VI] EOTHEN 
 
 gained their natural mastery over terror; 
 the brigantine held on her course, and 
 reached smooth water at last. I landed at 
 Limesol, the westernmost port of Cyprus, 
 leaving the brigantine to sail for Larnecca, 
 and there await my arrival. 
 
 95 
 
CHAPTER 
 VII 
 
 Cyprus. 
 
 THERE was a Greek at Limesol who 
 hoisted his flag as an English vice- 
 consul, and he insisted upon my ac- 
 cepting his hospitality; with some difficulty,' 
 and chiefly by assuring him that I could not 
 delay my departure beyond an early hour in 
 the afternoon, I induced him to allow my 
 dining with his family instead of banqueting 
 all alone with the representative of my 
 sovereign, in consular state and dignity. 
 The lady of the house, it seemed, had never 
 sat at table with an European. She was 
 very shy about the matter, and tried hard 
 to get out of the scrape; but the husband, 
 I fancy, reminded her that she was theoret- 
 ically an Englishwoman by virtue of the 
 flag that waved over her roof, and that 
 she was bound to show her nationality by 
 sitting at meat with me. Finding herself 
 inexorably condemned to bear with the 
 dreaded gaze of European eyes, she tried 
 to save her innocent children from the 
 
 96 
 
Chapter VH] EOTHEN 
 
 hard fate awaiting herself; but I obtained 
 that all of them (and I think there were 
 four or five) should sit at the table. You 
 will meet with abundance of stately recep- 
 tions and of generous hospitality, too, in 
 the East, but rarely, very rarely in those 
 regions (or even, so far as I know, in any 
 part of southern Europe), does one gain an 
 opportunity of seeing the familiar and in- 
 door life of the people. 
 
 This family party of the good consul's (or 
 rather of mine, for I originated the idea, 
 though he furnished the materials) went off 
 very well. The mama was shy at first, 
 but she veiled her awkwardness by affect- 
 ing to scold the children; these had all 
 immortal names— names, too, which they 
 owed to tradition, and certainly not to 
 any classical enthusiasm of their parents. 
 Every instant I was delighted by some such 
 phrases as these: "Themistocles, my love, 
 don't fight." "Alcibiades, can't you sit 
 still?" "Socrates, put down the cup." 
 "Oh, fie! Aspasia, don't; oh, don't be 
 naughty ! " It is true that the names were 
 pronounced Socrahtie, Aspahsie— that is, 
 according to accent, and not according to 
 quantity, but I suppose it is scarcely now 
 to be doubted that they were so sounded 
 in ancient times. 
 
 7 97 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VII 
 
 To me it seems that of all the lands I 
 know (you will see in a minute how I con- 
 nect this piece of prose with the isle of 
 Cyprus) there is none in which mere wealth, 
 mere unaided wealth, is held half so cheaply 
 —none in which a poor devil of a millionaire 
 without birth or ability occupies so humble 
 a place— as in England. My Greek host was 
 chatting with me, I think upon the roof of 
 the house (for that is the lounging-place in 
 Eastern climes), when suddenly he assumed 
 a serious air, and intimated a wish to talk 
 over the British Constitution, a subject 
 with which, as he assured me, he was thor- 
 oughly acquainted. He presently, however, 
 remarked that there was one anomalous 
 circumstance attendant upon the practical 
 working of our political system which he 
 had never been able to hear explained in a 
 manner satisfactory to himself. From the 
 fact of his having found a difficulty in his 
 subject, I began to think that my host might 
 really know rather more of it than his an- 
 nouncement of a thorough knowledge had 
 led me to expect; I felt interested at being 
 about to hear from the lips of an intelligent 
 Greek, quite remote from the influence of 
 European opinions, what might seem to him 
 the most astonishing and incomprehensible 
 of all those results which have followed from 
 
 98 
 
Chapter VII ] EOTHEN 
 
 the action of our political institutions. The 
 anomaly —the only anomaly which had been 
 detected by the vice-consular wisdom— con- 
 sisted in the fact that Rothschild (the late 
 money-monger) had never been the Prime 
 Minister of England! I gravely tried to 
 throw some light upon the mysterious 
 causes that had kept the worthy Israelite 
 out of the Cabinet; but I think I could see 
 that my explanation was not satisfactory. 
 Go and argue with the flies of summer 
 that there is a Power divine yet greater 
 than the sun in the heavens, but never dare 
 hope to convince the people of the South 
 that there is any other God than Gold. 
 
 My intended journey was to the site of 
 the Paphian temple. I take no antiquarian 
 interest in ruins, and care little about them, 
 unless they are either striking in them- 
 selves, or else serve to mark some spot very 
 dear to my fancy. I knew that the ruins 
 of Paphos were scarcely, if at all, discerni- 
 ble; but there was a will and a longing more 
 Imperious than mere curiosity that drove 
 me thither. 
 
 For this just then was my pagan soul's 
 desire : that (not forfeiting my inheritance 
 for the life to come) it had yet been given 
 me to live through this world— to live a fa- 
 vored mortal under the old Olympian dis- 
 
 99 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VH 
 
 pensation ; to speak out my resolves to the 
 listening Jove, and hear him answer with 
 approving thunder; to be blessed with di- 
 vine counsels from the lips of Pallas Athene; 
 to believe, aye, only to believe— to believe 
 for one rapturous moment that in the 
 gloomy depths of the grove by the moun- 
 tain's side there were some leafy pathway 
 that crisped beneath the glowing sandal of 
 Aphrodite— Aphrodite, not coldly disdain- 
 ful of even a mortal's love ! And this vain, 
 heathenish longing of mine was father to 
 the thought of visiting the scene of the 
 ancient worship. 
 
 The isle is beautiful; from the edge of the 
 rich, flowery fields on which I trod, to 
 the midway sides of the snowy Oljmipus, 
 the ground could only here and there show 
 an abrupt crag, or a high, straggling ridge, 
 that up-shouldered itself from out of the 
 wilderness of myrtles, and of a thousand 
 bright-leaved shrubs that twined their arms 
 together in lovesome tangles. The air that 
 came to my lips was warm and fragrant as 
 the ambrosial breath of the goddess, infect- 
 ing me, not, of course, with a faith in the 
 old religion of the isle, but with a sense 
 and apprehension of its mystic power— a 
 power that was still to be obeyed— obeyed 
 by me ; for why otherwise did I toil on with 
 
 100 
 
Chapter VH] EOTHEN 
 
 sorry horses to "where, for HER, the hun- 
 dred altars glowed with Arabian Incense, 
 and breathed with the fragrance of garlands 
 ever fresh ''?^ 
 
 I passed a sadly disenchanting night in the 
 cabin of a Greek priest— not a priest of the 
 goddess, but of the Greek Church. There 
 was but one humble room, or rather shed, 
 for man and priest and beast. The next 
 morning I reached Baff a (Paphos), a village 
 not far distant from the site of the temple; 
 there was a Greek husbandman there who 
 (not for emolument, but for the sake of the 
 protection and dignity which it afforded) 
 had got leave from the man at Limesol to 
 hoist his flag as a sort of deputy-provision- 
 ary-sub-vice-pro-acting-consul of the Brit- 
 ish sovereign; the poor fellow instantly 
 changed his Greek head-gear for the cap of 
 consular dignity, and insisted upon accom- 
 panying me to the ruins. I would not have 
 stood this if I could have felt the faintest 
 gleam of my yesterday's pagan piety, but I 
 had^' ceased to dream, and had nothing to 
 dread from any new disenchanters. 
 
 The ruins (the fragments of one or two 
 prostrate pillars) lie upon a promontory, 
 
 1 " . . . ubi templum illi, centumque Sabaeo 
 
 Thure calent arae, sertisque recentibus halant." 
 
 <^neid, i. 415. 
 
 101 
 
 k 
 < 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VII 
 
 bare, and unmystified by the gloom of sur- 
 rounding groves. My Greek friend in his 
 consular cap stood by, respectfully waiting 
 to see what turn my madness would take, 
 now that I had come at last into the pres- 
 ence of the old stones. If you have no 
 taste for research, and can't affect to look 
 for inscriptions, there is some awkwardness 
 in coming to the end of a merely sentimental 
 pilgrimage, when the feeling which impelled 
 you has gone. In such a strait you have 
 nothing to do but to laugh the thing off 
 as well as you can, and, by the by, it is not 
 a bad plan to turn the conversation (or 
 rather allow the natives to turn it) to- 
 wards the subject of hidden treasures; this 
 is a topic on which they will always speak 
 with eagerness, and if they can fancy that 
 you, too, take an interest in such matters, 
 they will not only begin to think you per- 
 fectly sane, but will even, perhaps, give 
 you credit for some more than human 
 powers of forcing dark earth to show you 
 its hoards of gold. 
 
 When we returned to Baffa, the vice-con- 
 sul seized a club, with the quietly deter- 
 mined air of a brave man resolved to do 
 some deed of note. He went into the yard 
 adjoining his cottage, where there were 
 some thin, thoughtful, canting cocks, and 
 
 102 
 
Chapter VII ] EOTHEN 
 
 serious, Low-Church-looking hens, respect- 
 fully listening, and chickens of tender 
 years so well brought up as scarcely to 
 betray in their conduct the careless levity 
 of youth. The vice-consul stood for a mo- 
 ment quite calm— collecting his strength; 
 then suddenly he rushed into the midst of 
 the congregation, and began to deal death 
 and destruction on all sides; he spared 
 neither sex nor age. The dead and dying 
 were immediately removed from the field 
 of slaughter, and in less than an hour, 
 I think, they were brought to the table, 
 deeply buried in mounds of snowy rice. 
 
 My host was in all respects a fine, gener- 
 ous fellow; I could not bear the idea of 
 impoverishing him by my visit, and my 
 faithful Mysseri not only assured me that 
 I might safely offer money to the vice-con- 
 sul, but recommended that I should give 
 no more to him than to "the others," 
 meaning any other peasant. I felt, how- 
 ever, that there was something about the 
 man, besides the flag and cap, which made 
 me shrink from offering coin, and as I 
 mounted my horse on departing, I gave him 
 the only thing fit for a present that I hap- 
 pened to have with me, a rather handsome 
 clasp-dagger, brought from Vienna, The 
 poor fellow was ineffably grateful, and I 
 
 103 
 
 / 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VII 
 
 had some difficulty in tearing myself from 
 out of the reach of his thanks. At last I 
 gave him what I supposed to be the last 
 farewell, and rode on; but I had not gained 
 more than about a hundred yards, when 
 my host came bounding and shouting after 
 me, with a goat's-milk cheese in his hand, 
 and this (it was rather a burdensome gift) 
 hp fondly implored me to accept. In old 
 times the shepherd of Theocritus, or (to 
 speak less dishonestly) the shepherd of 
 the "Poetae Graeci," sang his best song; I 
 in this latter age presented my best dag- 
 ger: and both of us received the same 
 rustic reward. 
 
 It had been known that I should return 
 to Limesol, and when I arrived there I 
 found that a noble old Greek had been hos- 
 pitably plotting to have me for his guest. 
 I willingly accepted his offer. The day of 
 my arrival happened to be my host's birth- 
 day, and during all the morning there was 
 a constant influx of visitors who came to 
 offer their congratulations. A few of these 
 were men, but most of them were young, 
 graceful girls. Almost all of them went 
 through the ceremony with the utmost pre- 
 cision and formality: each in succession 
 spoke her blessing, in the tone of a person 
 repeating a set formula, then deferentially 
 
 104 
 
Chapter vn] EOTHEN 
 
 accepted the invitation to sit, partook of 
 the proffered sweetmeats, and the cold, 
 glittering water, remained for a few min- 
 utes, either in silence or engaged in very 
 thin conversation, then arose, delivered a 
 second benediction, followed by an elabo- 
 rate farewell, and departed. 
 
 The bewitching power attributed at this 
 day to the women of Cyprus is curious in 
 connection with the worship of the sweet 
 goddess who called their isle her own; the 
 Cypriote is not, I think, nearly so beautiful 
 in face as the Ionian queens of Izmir, but 
 she is tall, and slightly formed; there is a 
 high-souled meaning and expression, a 
 seeming consciousness of gentle empire, that 
 speaks in the wavy lines of the shoulder, 
 and winds itself like Cytherea's own cestus 
 around the slender waist; then, the richly 
 abounding hair (not enviously gathered to- 
 gether under the head-dress) descends the 
 neck, and passes the waist in sumptuous 
 braids. Of all other women with Grecian 
 blood in their veins, the costume is gra- 
 ciously beautiful; but these, the maidens of 
 Limesol— their robes are more gently, more 
 sweetly imagined, and fall like Julia's cash- 
 mere in soft, luxurious folds. The common 
 voice of the Levant allows that in face the 
 women of Cyprus are less beautiful than 
 
 105 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VH 
 
 their majestic sisters of Smyrna; and yet, 
 says the Greek, he may trust himself to one 
 and all of the bright cities of the JEgean^ and 
 may still weigh anchor with a heart entire, 
 but that so surely as he ventures upon the 
 enchanted isle of Cyprus, so surely will he 
 know the rapture or the bitterness of love. 
 The charm, they say, owes its power to that 
 which the people call the astonishing " pol- 
 itics '^ (TToXtTiKT}) of the women, meaning, I 
 fancy, their tact and their witching ways. 
 The word, however, plainly fails to express 
 one half of that which the speakers would 
 say. I have smiled to hear the Greek, with 
 all his plenteousness of fancy, and all the 
 wealth of his generous language, yet vainly 
 struggling to describe the ineffable spell 
 which the Parisians dispose of in their own 
 smart way by a summary " Je ne sais quoi." 
 I went to Larnecca, the chief city of the 
 isle, and over the water at last to Beirut. 
 
 106 
 
CHAPTER 
 VIII 
 
 Lady Hester Stanhope, 
 
 BEIRUT on its land side is hemmed 
 in by mountains. There dwell the 
 Druses. 
 
 Often enough I saw the ghostly images 
 of the women, with their exalted horns, 
 stalking through the streets, and I saw, too, 
 in traveling, the affrighted groups of the 
 mountaineers as they fled before me, under 
 the fear that my troop might be a company 
 of income-tax commissioners, or a press- 
 gang enforcing the conscription for Me- 
 hemet Ali; but nearly all my knowledge of 
 the people, except in regard of their mere 
 costume and outward appearance, is drawn 
 from books and despatches;^ to these last I 
 have the honor to refer you. 
 
 I received hospitable welcome at Beirut, 
 from the Europeans as well as from the 
 Syrian Christians, and I soon discovered that 
 
 1 The papers laid before Parliament by the Foreign Oflfice in 
 1840 and 1841. 
 
 107 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIH 
 
 in all society the standing topic of interest 
 was an Englishwoman, Lady Hester Stan- 
 hope, who lived in an old convent on the 
 Lebanon range, at the distance of about a 
 day's journey from the town. The lady's 
 habit of refusing to see Europeans added 
 the charm of mystery to a character which, 
 even without that aid, was sufficiently dis- 
 tinguished to command attention. 
 
 Many years of Lady Hester's early wo- 
 manhood had been passed with Lady Chat- 
 ham at Burton Pynsent, and during that 
 inglorious period of the heroine's life, her 
 commanding character, and (as they would 
 have called it in the language of those days) 
 her "condescending kindness" towards my 
 mother's family, had increased in them 
 those strong feelings of respect and attach- 
 ment which her rank and station alone 
 would have easily won from people of the 
 middle class. You may suppose how deeply 
 the quiet women in Somersetshire must 
 have been interested when they slowly 
 learned by vague and uncertain tidings 
 that the intrepid girl who had been used to 
 break their vicious horses for them was 
 reigning in sovereignty over the wandering 
 tribes of western Asia! I know that her 
 name was made almost as familiar to me 
 in my childhood as the name of Robinson 
 
 108 
 
Chapter VIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 Crusoe; both were associated with the spirit 
 of adventure, but whilst the imagined life 
 of the castaway mariner never failed to 
 seem glaringly real, the true story of the 
 Englishwoman ruling over Arabs always 
 sounded to me like a fable. I never had 
 heard, nor indeed, I believe, had the rest of 
 the world ever heard, anything like a cer- 
 tain account of the heroine's adventures. 
 All I knew was that in one of the drawers, 
 the delight of my childhood, along with 
 the attar of roses and fragrant wonders 
 from Hindustan, there were letters care- 
 fully treasured, and trifling presents which 
 I was taught to think valuable because 
 they had come from the Queen of the 
 Desert— a Queen who dwelt in tents and 
 reigned over wandering Arabs. 
 
 The subject, however, died away, and 
 from the ending of my childhood up to the 
 period of my arrival in the Levant, I had 
 seldom even heard a mentioning of the 
 Lady Hester Stanhope; but now wherever 
 I went I was met by the name so familiar 
 in sound, and yet so full of mystery from 
 the vague, fairy-tale sort of idea which it 
 brought to my mind. I heard it, too, con- 
 nected with fresh wonders; for it was said 
 that the woman was now acknowledged as an 
 inspired being by the people of the moun- 
 
 109 
 
 \ 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIII 
 
 tains, and it was even hinted with horror 
 that she claimed to be more than a prophet. 
 
 I felt at once that my mother would be 
 sorry to hear that I had been within a day's 
 ride of her early friend without offering to 
 see her, and I therefore despatched a let- 
 ter to the recluse, mentioning the maiden 
 name of my mother (whose marriage was 
 subsequent to Lady Hester's departure), 
 and saying that if there existed on the 
 part of her Ladyship any wish to hear of 
 her old Somersetshire acquaintance, I should 
 make a point of visiting her. My letter was 
 sent by a foot messenger, who was to take 
 an unlimited time for his journey, so that 
 it was not, I think, until either the third or 
 the fourth day that the answer arrived. A 
 couple of horsemen covered with mud sud- 
 denly dashed into the little court of the 
 loeanda, in which I was staying, bearing 
 themselves as ostentatiously as though they 
 were carrying a cartel from the Devil to the 
 angel Michael. One of these (the other 
 being his attendant) was an Italian by birth, 
 (though now completely Orientalized), who 
 lived in my lady^s establishment as doctor 
 nominally, but practically as an upper ser- 
 vant. He presented me a very kind and 
 appropriate letter of invitation. 
 
 It happened that I was rather unwell at 
 
 110 
 
 
Chapter VIII] EOTHEN 
 
 this time, so that I named a more distant 
 day for my visit than I should otherwise 
 have done, and after all, I did not start at 
 the time fixed. Whilst still remaining at 
 Beirut I received another letter from Lady 
 Hester; this I will give you, for it shows 
 that whatever the eccentricities of the 
 writer may have been, she could at least 
 be thoughtful and courteous: 
 
 Sir: I hope I shall be disappointed in seeing 
 you on Wednesday, for the late rains have ren- 
 dered the river Damoor, if not dangerous, at least 
 very unpleasant to pass for a person who has been 
 lately indisposed, for if the animal swims you 
 would be immerged in the waters. The weather 
 will probably change after the 21st of the moon, 
 and after a couple of days the roads and the river 
 wiU be passable; therefore I shall expect you 
 either Saturday or Monday. 
 
 It will be a great satisfaction to me to have an 
 opportunity of inquiring after your mother, who 
 was a sweet, lovely girl when I knew her. 
 
 Believe me, sir. 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Hester Lucy Stanhope. 
 
 Early one morning I started from Bei- 
 rut. There are no established relays of 
 horses in Syria, at least not in the line 
 which I took, and you therefore hire your 
 cattle for the whole journey, or at all 
 events for your journey to some large town. 
 
 Ill 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIH 
 
 Under these circumstances you don't, of 
 course, require a functionary empowered to 
 compel the supply of horses, and you can 
 therefore dispense with a Tatar. In other 
 respects the mode of traveling through 
 Syria differs very little from that which I 
 have described as prevailing in Turkey. I 
 hired my horses and mules for the whole 
 of the journey from Beirut to Jerusalem. 
 The owner of the beasts (he had a couple 
 of fellows under him) was the most digni- 
 fied member of my party; he was, indeed, 
 a magnificent old man, and was called she^ 
 reef, or "holy"— a title of honor, which, 
 with the privilege of wearing the green tur- 
 ban, he well deserved, not only from the 
 blood of the Prophet that glowed in his 
 veins, but from the well-known sanctity of 
 his life and the length of his blessed beard. 
 Mysseri, of course, still traveled with me; 
 but the Arabic was not one of the seven 
 languages which he spoke so perfectly, and 
 I was therefore obliged to hire another in- 
 terpreter. I had no difficulty in finding a 
 proper man for the purpose— one Deme- 
 trius, or, as he was always called, Dthe- 
 metri, a native of Zante, who had been 
 tossed about by fortune in all directions. 
 He spoke the Arabic well, and communi- 
 cated with me in Italian. The man was a 
 
 112 
 
Chapter vni] EOTHEN 
 
 very zealous member of the Greek Church. 
 He had been a tailor. He had a thoroughly- 
 Tatar countenance— a countenance so odd 
 and ugly that it expressed all his griefs of 
 body and mind in the most ludicrous man- 
 ner imaginable; he embellished the natural 
 caricature of his person by suspending about 
 his neck and shoulders and waist quantities 
 of little bundles and bags filled with trea- 
 sures which he thought too valuable to be 
 intrusted to the jerking of pack-saddles. 
 The mule that fell to his lot on this journey 
 every now and then, forgetting that his rider 
 was a saint, and remembering that he was 
 a tailor, took a quiet roll upon the ground, 
 and stretched his limbs calmly and lazily, 
 like a good man awaiting a sermon. Dthe- 
 metri never got seriously hurt, but the sub- 
 version and dislocation of his bundles made 
 him for the moment a sad spectacle of ruin, 
 and when he regained his legs, his wrath 
 with the mule was sure to be very amusing. 
 He always addressed the beast in language 
 implying that he, a Christian and saint, 
 had been personally insulted and oppressed 
 by a Mohammedan mule. Dthemetri, how- 
 ever, on the whole, proved to be a most able 
 and capital servant; I suspected him of now 
 and then leading me out of my way in order 
 that he might have the opportunity of visit- 
 8 113 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIII 
 
 ing the shrine of a saint, and on one occa- 
 sion, as you will see by and by, he was 
 induced, by religious motives, to commit a 
 gross breach of duty; but putting these 
 pious faults out of the question (and they 
 were faults of the right side), he was always 
 faithful and true to me. 
 
 I left Saide (the Sidon of ancient times) 
 on my right, and about an hour, I think, 
 before sunset, began to ascend one of the 
 many low hills of Lebanon. On the sum- 
 mit before me was a broad, gray mass of 
 irregular building, which from its position, 
 as well as from the gloomy blankness of 
 its walls, gave the idea of a neglected for- 
 tress; it had, in fact, been a convent of great 
 size, and, like most of the religious houses 
 in this part of the world, had been made 
 strong enough for opposing an inert resis- 
 tance to any mere casual band of assailants 
 who might be unprovided with regular 
 means of attack; this was the dwelling- 
 place of Chatham's fiery granddaughter. 
 
 The aspect of the first court I entered 
 was such as to keep one in the idea of 
 having to do with a fortress rather than 
 a mere peaceable dwelling-place. A num- 
 ber of fierce-looking and ill-clad Albanian 
 soldiers were hanging about the place 
 inert, and striving as well as they could to 
 
 114 
 
Chapter VIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 bear the curse of tranquillity; two or three 
 of them were smoking their chibouks, 
 but the rest were lying torpidly upon the 
 flat stones, like the bodies of departed brig- 
 ands. I rode on to an inner part of the 
 building, and at last, quitting my horses, 
 was conducted through a doorway that 
 led me at once from an open court into an 
 apartment on the ground floor* As I en- 
 tered, an Oriental figure in male costume 
 approached me from the farther end of the 
 room with many and profound bows, but 
 the growing shades of evening prevented 
 me from distinguishing the features of the 
 personage who was receiving me with this 
 solemn welcome. I had always, however, 
 understood that Lady Hester Stanhope wore 
 the male attire, and I began to utter in Eng- 
 lish the common civilities that seemed to be 
 proper on the commencement of a visit by 
 an uninspired mortal to a renowned prophet- 
 ess; but the figure which I addressed only 
 bowed so much the more, prostrating itself 
 almost to the ground, but speaking to me 
 never a word. I feebly strived not to be 
 outdone in gestures of respect, put pres- 
 ently my bowing opponent saw the error 
 under which I was acting, and suddenly 
 convinced me that, at all events, I was not 
 yet in the presence of a superhuman being 
 
 115 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter Vni 
 
 by declaring that he was far from being 
 " Miladi/' and was, in fact, nothing more or 
 less godlike than the poor doctor who had 
 brought his mistress's letters to Beirut. 
 
 Lady Hester, in the right spirit of hos- 
 pitality, now sent and commanded me to 
 repose for a while after the fatigues of my 
 journey, and to dine. 
 
 The cuisine was of the Oriental kind, 
 highly artificial, and, as I thought, very good. 
 I rejoiced, too, in the wine of the Lebanon. 
 
 After dinner the doctor arrived with 
 Miladi's compliments, and an intimation 
 that she would be happy to receive me if I 
 were so disposed. It had now grown dark, 
 and the rain was falling heavily, so that I 
 got rather wet in following my guide through 
 the open courts that I had to pass in order 
 to reach the presence-chamber. At last I 
 was ushered into a small chamber, protected 
 from the drafts of air passing through the 
 doorway by a folding-screen; passing this, 
 I came alongside of a common European 
 sofa; there sat the Lady Prophetess. She 
 rose from her seat very formally, spoke to 
 me a few words of welcome, pointed to a 
 chair,— one already placed exactly opposite 
 to her sofa, at a couple of yards' distance,— 
 and remained standing up to the full of 
 her majestic height, perfectly still and 
 
 116 
 
 ;'>.|('f'' 
 
Chapter vni] EOTHBN 
 
 motionless, until I had taken my appointed 
 place. She then resumed her seat, not pack- 
 ing herself up according to the mode of the 
 Orientals, but allowing her feet to rest on 
 the floor, or the footstool; at the moment 
 of seating herself she covered her lap with 
 a mass of loose white drapery. It occurred 
 to me at the time that she did this in order 
 to avoid the awkwardness of sitting in man- 
 ifest trousers under the eye of an European, 
 but I can hardly fancy now that, with her 
 wilful nature, she would have brooked such 
 a compromise as this. 
 
 The woman before me had exactly the 
 person of a prophetess— not, indeed, of the 
 divine sibyl imagined by Domenichino, so 
 sweetly distracted betwixt love and mys- 
 tery, but of a good, businesslike, practical 
 prophetess, long used to the exercise of her 
 sacred calling. I have been told by those 
 who knew Lady Hester Stanhope in her 
 youth that any notion of a resemblance 
 betwixt her and the great Chatham must 
 have been fanciful; but at the time of my 
 seeing her, the large, commanding features 
 of the gaunt woman, then sixty years old 
 or more, certainly reminded me of the 
 statesman that lay dying ^ in the House of 
 
 1 Historically "fainting " ; the death did not occur untU long 
 afterwards. 
 
 117 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIH 
 
 Lords, according to Copley's picture. Her 
 face was of the most astonishing white- 
 ness; ^ she wore a very large turban, made 
 seemingly of pale cashmere shawls, and so 
 disposed as to conceal the hair; her dress, 
 from the chin down to the point at which 
 it was concealed by the drapery on her lap, 
 was a mass of white linen loosely folding— 
 an ecclesiastical sort of affair, more like a 
 surplice than any of those blessed crea- 
 tions which our souls love under the names 
 of "dress," and "frock,'' and "bodice," 
 and "collar," and "habit-shirt," and sweet 
 " chemisette." 
 
 Such was the outward seeming of the 
 personage that sat before me, and indeed 
 she was almost bound by the fame of her 
 actual achievements, as well as by her sub- 
 lime pretensions, to look a little differently 
 from the rest of womankind. There had 
 been something of grandeur in her career. 
 After the death of Lady Chatham, which 
 happened in 1803, she lived under the roof 
 of her uncle, the second Pitt, and when he 
 resumed the government in 1804, she be- 
 came the dispenser of much patronage, and 
 sole Secretary of State, for the department 
 of Treasury banquets. Not having seen 
 the lady until late in her life, when she 
 
 1 I am told that in youth she was exceedingly sallow. 
 
 118 
 
 .^; 
 
Chapter vm] EOTHEN 
 
 was fired with spiritual ambition, I can 
 hardly fancy that she could have performed 
 her political duties in the saloons of the 
 minister with much of feminine sweetness 
 and patience; I am told, however, that she 
 managed matters very well indeed. Perhaps 
 it was better for the lofty-minded leader of 
 the House to have his reception-rooms 
 guarded by this stately creature than by a 
 merely clever and managing woman; it was 
 fitting that the wholesome awe with which 
 he filled the minds of the country gentle- 
 men should be aggravated by the presence 
 of his majestic niece. But the end was ap- 
 proaching; the sun of Austerlitz showed 
 the Czar madly sliding his splendid army, 
 like a weaver's shuttle, from his right hand 
 to his left, under the very eyes— the deep, 
 gray, watchful eyes— of Napoleon. Before 
 night came the coalition was a vain thing, 
 meet for history, and the heart of its great 
 author when the terrible tidings came to his 
 ears was wrung with grief —fatal grief. In 
 the bitterness of his despair, he cried out to 
 his niece, and bid her, " ROLL UP THE MAP OF 
 Europe ! " There was a little more of suf- 
 fering; and at last, with his swollen tongue 
 (so they say) still muttering something 
 for England, he died by the noblest of all 
 sorrows. 
 
 119 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VEH 
 
 Lady Hester, meeting the calamity in her 
 own fierce way, seems to have scorned the 
 poor island that had not enough of God's 
 grace to keep the "heaven-sent" minister 
 alive. I can hardly tell why it should be, 
 but there is a longing for the East very 
 commonly felt by proud people when goaded 
 by sorrow. Lady Hester Stanhope obeyed 
 this impulse. For some time, I believe, she 
 was at Constantinople, and there her mag- 
 nificence as well as her near alliance to the 
 late minister gained her great influence. 
 Afterwards she passed into Syria. The 
 people of that country, excited by the 
 achievements of Sir Sydney Smith, had be- 
 gun to imagine the possibility of their land 
 being occupied by the English, and many of 
 them looked upon Lady Hester as a prin- 
 cess who came to prepare the way for the 
 expected conquest. I don't know it from her 
 own lips, or indeed from any certain author- 
 ity, but I have been told that she began her 
 connection with the Bedouins by making a 
 large present of money (five hundred pounds, 
 immense in piasters) to the sheik whose 
 authority was recognized in the desert be- 
 tween Damascus and Palmyra. The pres- 
 tige created by the rumors of her high and 
 undefined rank, as well as of her wealth and 
 corresponding magnificence, was well sus- 
 
 120 
 
Chapter VIII] EOTHEN 
 
 tained by her imperious character and her 
 dauntless bravery. Her influence increased. 
 I never heard anything satisfactory as to 
 the real extent or duration of her sway, but 
 I understood that, for a time at least, she 
 certainly exercised something like sov- 
 ereignty amongst the wandering tribes.^ 
 And now that her earthly kingdom had 
 passed away, she strove for spiritual power, 
 and impiously dared, as it was said, to boast 
 some mystic union with the very God of 
 very God! 
 
 A couple of black slave girls came at a 
 signal, and supplied their mistress, as well 
 as myself, with lighted chibouks and coffee. 
 
 The custom of the East sanctions and al- 
 most commands some moments of silence 
 whilst you are inhaling the first few breaths 
 of the fragrant pipe. The pause was broken, 
 I think, by my lady, who addressed to me 
 some inquiries respecting my mother, and 
 particularly as to her marriage; but before 
 I had communicated any great iamount of 
 family facts the spirit of the prophetess 
 
 1 This was my impression at the time of writing the above 
 passage an — impression created by the popular and uncon- 
 tradicted accounts of the matter, as well as by the tenor of 
 Lady Hester's conversation. I have now some reason to 
 think that I was deceived, and that her sway in the desert 
 was much more limited than I had supposed. She seems 
 to have had from the Bedouins a fair five hundred pounds' 
 worth of respect, and not much more. [In third Edition.] 
 
 121 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter Vin 
 
 kindled within her, and presently (though 
 with all the skill of a woman of the world) 
 she shuffled away the subject of poor, dear 
 Somersetshire, and bounded onward into 
 loftier spheres of thought. 
 
 My old acquaintance with some of "the 
 twelve " enabled me to bear my part (of 
 course a very humble one) in a conversa- 
 tion relative to occult science. Milnes once 
 spread a report that every gang of Gipsies 
 was found, upon inquiry, to have come last 
 from a place to the westward, and to be 
 about to make the next move in an eastern 
 direction; either, therefore, they were to 
 be all gathered together towards the rising 
 of the sun by the mysterious finger of 
 Providence, or else they were to revolve 
 round the globe for ever and ever. Both 
 of these suppositions were highly grati- 
 fying, because they were both marvel- 
 ous; and though the story on which they 
 were founded plainly sprang from the in- 
 ventive brain of a poet, no one had ever 
 been so odiously statistical as to attempt 
 a contradiction of it. I now mentioned the 
 story as a report to Lady Hester Stanhope, 
 and asked her if it were true. I could not 
 have touched upon any imaginable subject 
 more deeply interesting to my hearer— 
 more closely akin to her habitual train of 
 
 122 
 
Chapter VIII] EOTHEN 
 
 thinking. She immediately threw off all the 
 restraint belonging to an interview with a 
 stranger; and when she had received a few 
 more similar proofs of my aptness for the 
 marvelous, she went so far as to say that 
 she would adopt me as her eleve in occult 
 science. 
 
 For hours and hours this wondrous white 
 woman poured forth her speech, for the 
 most part concerning sacred and profane 
 mysteries; but every now and then she 
 would stay her lofty flight and swoop down 
 upon the world again. Whenever this hap- 
 pened I was interested in her conversation. 
 
 She adverted more than once to the 
 period of her lost sway amongst the Arabs, 
 and mentioned some of the circumstances 
 that aided her in obtaining influence with 
 the wandering tribes. The Bedouin, so 
 often engaged in irregular warfare, strains 
 his eyes to the horizon in search of a com- 
 ing enemy just as habitually as the sailor 
 keeps his "bright lookout" for a strange 
 sail. In the absence of telescopes a far- 
 reaching sight is highly valued, and Lady 
 Hester had this power. She told me that 
 on one occasion, when there was good rea- 
 son to expect hostilities, a far-seeing Arab 
 created great excitement in the camp by 
 declaring that he could distinguish some 
 
 123 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIII 
 
 moving objects upon the very farthest point 
 within the reach of his eyes. Lady Hester 
 was consulted, and she instantly assured her 
 comrades in arms that there were, indeed, a 
 number of horses within sight, but that 
 they were without riders. The assertion 
 proved to be correct, and from that time 
 forth her superiority over all others in 
 respect of far sight remained undisputed. 
 
 Lady Hester related to me this other an- 
 ecdote of her Arab life. It was when the 
 heroic qualities of the Englishwoman were 
 just beginning to be felt amongst the people 
 of the desert that she was marching, one 
 day, along with the forces of the tribe to 
 which she had allied herself. She perceived 
 that preparations for an engagement were 
 going on, and upon her making inquiry as 
 to the cause, the sheik at first affected 
 mystery and concealment, but at last con- 
 fessed that war had been declared against 
 his tribe on account of his alliance with the 
 English princess, and that they were now, 
 unfortunately, about to be attacked by a 
 very superior force. He made it appear that 
 Lady Hester was the sole cause of hostility 
 betwixt his tribe and the impending enemy, 
 and that his sacred duty of protecting the 
 Englishwoman whom he had admitted as 
 his guest was the only obstacle which pre- 
 
 124 
 
'-'i./ >,aL.; 
 
 Chapter VIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 vented an amicable settlement of the dis- 
 pute. The sheik hinted that his tribe was 
 likely to sustain an almost overwhelm- 
 ing blow, but, at the same time, declared 
 that no fear of the consequences, however 
 terrible to him and his whole people, should 
 induce him to dream of abandoning his illus- 
 trious guest. The heroine instantly took 
 her part; it was not for her to be a source 
 of danger to her friends, but rather to her 
 enemies, so she resolved to turn away from 
 the people, and trust for help to none save 
 only her haughty self. The sheiks affected 
 to dissuade her from so rash a course, and 
 fairly told her that although they (having 
 been freed from her presence) would be 
 able to make good terms for themselves, 
 yet that there were no means of allaying 
 the hostility felt towards her, and that the 
 whole face of the desert would be swept by 
 the horsemen of her enemies so carefully 
 as to make her escape into other districts 
 almost impossible. The brave woman was 
 not to be moved by terrors of this kind, 
 and bidding farewell to the tribe which had 
 honored and protected her, she turned her 
 horse's head and rode straight away, with- 
 out friend or follower. Hours had elapsed, 
 and for some time she had been alone in 
 the center of the round horizon, when her 
 
 125 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIII 
 
 quick eye perceived some horsemen in the 
 distance. The party came nearer and nearer ; 
 soon it was plain that they were making 
 towards her, and presently some hundreds 
 of Bedouins, fully armed, gaWoped up to her, 
 ferociously shouting, and apparently in- 
 tending to take her life at the instant with 
 their pointed spears. Her face at the time 
 was covered with the yashmak, according 
 to Eastern usage; but at the moment when 
 the foremost of the horsemen had all but 
 reached her with their spears, she stood up 
 in her stirrups, withdrew the yashmak that 
 veiled the terrors of her countenance, waved 
 her arm slowly and disdainfully, and cried 
 out with a loud voice, "Avaunt!''^ The 
 horsemen recoiled from her glance, but not 
 in terror. The threatening yells of the as- 
 sailants were suddenly changed for loud 
 shouts of joy and admiration at the bravery 
 of the stately Englishwoman, and festive 
 gunshots were fired on all sides around her 
 honored head. The truth was that the party 
 belonged to the tribe with which she had 
 allied herself, and that the threatened at- 
 tack, as well as the pretended apprehension 
 of an engagement, had been contrived for 
 
 1 She spoke it, I dare say, in English ; the words would not 
 be the less effective for being spoken in an unknown tongue. 
 Lady Hester, I believe, never learned to speak the Arabic with 
 a perfect accent. 
 
 126 
 
Chapter VHI] EOTHEN 
 
 the mere purpose "of testing her courage. 
 The day ended in a great feast prepared to 
 do honor to the heroine, and from that time 
 her power over the minds of the people grew 
 rapidly. Lady Hester related this story with 
 great spirit, and I recollect that she put up 
 her yashmak for a moment, in order to give 
 me a better idea of the effect which she pro- 
 duced by suddenly revealing the awf ulness 
 of her countenance. 
 
 With respect to her then present mode 
 of life, Lady Hester informed me that for 
 her sin she had subjected herself during 
 many years to severe penance, and that her 
 self-denial had not been without its reward. 
 " Vain and false," said she, " is all the pre- 
 tended knowledge of the Europeans. Their 
 doctors will tell you that the drinking of 
 milk gives yellowness to the complexion; 
 milk is my only food, and you see if my 
 face be not white." Her abstinence from 
 food intellectual was carried as far as her 
 physical fasting; she never, she said, looked 
 upon a book nor a newspaper, but trusted 
 alone to the stars for her sublime know- 
 ledge; she usually passed the nights in 
 communing with these heavenly teachers, 
 and lay at rest during the daytime. She 
 spoke with great contempt of the frivolity 
 and benighted ignorance of the modern 
 
 127 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIH 
 
 Europeans, and mentioned, in proof of this, 
 that they were not only untaught in astrol- 
 ogy, but were unacquainted with the com- 
 mon and every-day phenomena produced 
 by magic art. She spoke as if she would 
 make me understand that all sorcerous 
 spells were completely at her command, 
 but that the exercise of such powers would 
 be derogatory to her high rank in the 
 heavenly kingdom. She said that the spell 
 by which the face of an absent person is 
 thrown upon a mirror was within the reach 
 of the humblest and most contemptible 
 magicians, but that the practice of such 
 like arts was unholy as well as vulgar. 
 
 We spoke of the bending twig by which 
 it is said precious metals may be discov- 
 ered. In relation to this the prophetess 
 told me a story rather against herself, and 
 inconsistent with the notion of her being 
 perfect in her science; but I think that she 
 mentioned the facts as having happened be- 
 fore she attained to the great spiritual au- 
 thority which she now arrogated. She told 
 me that vast treasures were known to exist 
 in a situation which she mentioned, if I 
 rightly remember, as being near Suez; that 
 Napoleon, profanely brave, thrust his arm 
 into the cave containing the coveted gold, 
 and that instantly his flesh became palsied; 
 
 128 
 
Chapter VHI] EOTHEN 
 
 but the youthful hero (for she said he was 
 great in his generation) was not to be thus 
 daunted. He fell back characteristically 
 upon his brazen resources, and ordered up 
 his artillery. Yet man could not strive with 
 demons, and Napoleon was foiled. In latter 
 years came Ibrahim Pasha, with heavy guns 
 and wicked spells to boot; but the infernal 
 guardians of the treasure were too strong 
 for him. It was after this that Lady Hester 
 passed by the spot, and she described, with 
 animated gesture, the force and energy 
 with which the divining-twig had suddenly 
 leaped in her hands. She ordered excava- 
 tions, and no demons opposed her enter- 
 prise; the vast chest in which the treasure 
 had been deposited was at length discov- 
 ered, but, lo and behold! it was full of 
 pebbles! She said, however, that the 
 times were approaching in which the 
 hidden treasures of the earth would be- 
 come available to those who had true 
 knowledge. 
 
 Speaking of Ibrahim Pasha, Lady Hester 
 said that he was a bold, bad man, and was 
 possessed of some of those common and 
 wicked magical arts upon which she looked 
 down with so much contempt; she said, for 
 instance, that Ibrahim's life was charmed 
 against balls and steel, and that after a 
 9 129 
 

 EOTHEN [Chapter VIH 
 
 battle he loosened the folds of his shawl 
 and shook out the bullets like dust. 
 
 It seems that the St. Simonians once 
 made overtures to Lady Hester; she told 
 me that the Pere Enf antin (the chief of the 
 sect) had sent her a service of plate, but 
 that she had declined to receive it; she de- 
 livered a prediction as to the probability of 
 the St. Simonians finding the ^^ mystic mo- 
 ther/' and this she did in a way which 
 would amuse you; unfortunately I am not 
 at liberty to mention this part of the wo- 
 man's prophecies; why, I cannot tell, but so 
 it is, that she bound me to eternal secrecy. 
 
 Lady Hester told me that since her resi- 
 dence at Djoun she had been attacked by 
 an illness so severe as to render her for a 
 long time perfectly helpless; all her atten- 
 dants fled, and left her to perish. Whilst 
 she lay thus alone, and quite unable to rise, 
 robbers came, and carried away her prop- 
 erty; ^ she told me that they actually un- 
 roofed a great part of the building, and 
 employed engines with pulleys for the pur- 
 pose of hoisting out such of her valuables 
 as were too bulky to pass through doors. 
 It would seem that before this catastrophe 
 
 1 The proceedings thiis described to me by Lady Hester as 
 having taken place during her illness were afterwards re- 
 enacted at the time of her death. Since I wrote the words to 
 which this note is appended, I received from Warbnrton an 
 
 130 
 
Chapter VIH] EOTHEN 
 
 Lady Hester had been rich in the possession 
 of Eastern luxuries, for she told me that 
 when the chiefs of the Ottoman force took 
 refuge with her after the fall of Acre, they 
 brought their wives also in great numbers; 
 to all of these Lady Hester, as she said, 
 presented magnificent dresses, but her gen- 
 erosity occasioned strife only instead of 
 gratitude, for every woman who fancied 
 her present less splendid than that of an- 
 other with equal or less pretension became 
 absolutely furious; all these audacious 
 guests had now been got rid of, but the 
 Albanian soldiers who had taken refuge 
 with Lady Hester at the same time still 
 remained under her protection. 
 / In truth, this half-ruined convent, 
 
 guarded by the proud heart of an English 
 gentlewoman, was the only spot through- 
 out all Syria and Palestine in which the 
 will of Mehemet Ali and his fierce lieuten- 
 ant was not the law. More than once had 
 
 interesting account of the heroine's death, or rather of the 
 circumstances attending the discovery of the event ; and I 
 caused it to he printed in the former editions of this work. 
 I must now give up the borrowed ornament, and omit my 
 extract from my friend's letter, for the rightful owner has 
 reprinted it in "The Crescent and the Cross." I know what 
 a sacrifice I am making, for in noticing the first edition of 
 this book, reviewers turned aside from the text to the note, 
 and remarked upon the interesting information which War- 
 burton's letter contained, and the descriptive force with which 
 it was written. 
 
 131 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter vni 
 
 the Pasha of Egypt commanded that Ibra- 
 him should have the Albanians delivered 
 up to him, but this white woman of the 
 mountain (grown classical, not by books, 
 but by very pride) answered only with a 
 disdainful invitation to "come and take 
 them." Whether it was that Ibrahim was 
 acted upon by any superstitious dread of 
 interfering with the prophetess (a notion 
 not at all incompatible with his character 
 as an able Oriental commander), or that he 
 feared the ridicule of putting himself in 
 collision with a gentlewoman, he certainly 
 never ventured to attack the sanctuary, 
 and so long as Chatham's granddaughter 
 breathed a breath of life, there was always 
 this one hillock, and that, too, in the midst 
 of a most populous district, which stood out 
 and kept its freedom. Mehemet Ali used to 
 say, I am told, that the Englishwoman had 
 given him more trouble than all the insur- 
 gent people of Syria and Palestine. 
 
 The prophetess announced to me that 
 we were upon the eve of a stupendous con- 
 vulsion, which would destroy the then rec- 
 ognized value of all property upon earth, 
 and declaring that those only who should 
 be in the East at the time of the great 
 change could hope for greatness in the 
 new life that was then close at hand, she 
 
 132 
 
Chapter VIH] EOTHEN 
 
 advised me, whilst there was yet time, to 
 dispose of my property in poor, frail Eng- 
 land, and gain a station in Asia; she told me 
 that, after leaving her, I should go into 
 Egypt, but that in a little while I should re- 
 turn into Syria. I secretly smiled at this 
 last prophecy as a " bad shot,'^ because I had 
 fully determined, after visiting the Pyra- 
 mids, to take ship from Alexandria for 
 Greece. But men struggle vainly in the 
 meshes of their destiny; the unbelieved Cas- 
 sandra was right, after all; the plague came, 
 and the necessity of avoiding the quarantine 
 detention to which I should have been sub- 
 jected if I had sailed from Alexandria forced 
 me to alter my route; I went down into 
 Egypt, and stayed there for a time, and 
 then crossed the desert once more, and came 
 back to the mountains of the Lebanon ex- 
 actly as the prophetess had foretold. 
 
 Lady Hester talked to me long and ear- 
 nestly on the subject of religion, announ- 
 cing that the Messiah was yet to come; she 
 strived to impress me with the vanity and 
 the falseness of all European creeds, as 
 well as with a sense of her own spiritual 
 greatness: throughout her conversation 
 upon these high topics she carefully insin- 
 uated, without actually asserting, her hea- 
 venly rank. 
 
 133 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIII 
 
 Amongst other much more marvelous 
 powers, the lady claimed one which most 
 women have, more or less— namely, that of 
 reading men's characters in their faces; she 
 examined the line of my features very atten- 
 tively, and told me the result: this, however, 
 I mean to keep hidden. 
 
 One favored subject of discourse was that 
 of " race " : upon this she was very diffuse 
 and yet rather mysterious; she set great 
 value upon the ancient French ^ (not Nor- 
 man blood, for that she vilified), but pro- 
 fessed to despise our English notion of " an 
 old family." She had a vast idea of the 
 Cornish miners, on account of their race, 
 and said if she chose she could give me 
 the means of rousing them to the most 
 tremendous enthusiasm. 
 
 Such are the topics on which the lady 
 mainly conversed, but very often she 
 would descend to more worldly chat, and 
 then she was no longer the prophetess, 
 but the sort of woman that you some- 
 
 1 In a letter which I afterwards received from Lady Hester, 
 she mentioned incidentally Lord Hardwlcke, and said that he 
 was *' the kindest-hearted man existing, — a most manly, firm 
 character. He comes from a good breed,— all the Yorkes 
 excellent, with ancient French blood in their veins." The 
 underscoring of the word " ancient " is by the writer of the 
 letter, who had certainly no great love or veneration for 
 the French of the present day : she did not consider them as 
 descended from her favorite stock. 
 
 134 
 
Chapter VHI] EOTHEN 
 
 times see, I am told, in London drawing- 
 rooms— cool, decisive in manner, unsparing 
 of enemies, full of audacious fun, and say- 
 ing the downright things that the sheepish 
 society around her is afraid to utter. I am 
 told that Lady Hester was in her youth 
 a capital mimic, and she showed me that 
 not all the queenly dullness to which she 
 had condemned herself, not all her fast- 
 ing and solitude, had destroyed this terrible 
 power. The first whom she crucified in my 
 presence was poor Lord Byron; she had seen 
 him, it appeared, I know not where, soon 
 after his arrival in the East, and was vastly 
 amused at his little affectations; he had 
 picked up a few sentences of the Romaic, 
 and with these he aflfected to give orders to 
 his Greek servant in a ton d'apameibomenos 
 style; I can't tell whether Lady Hester's 
 mimicry of the bard was at all close, but 
 it was amusing; she attributed to him a 
 curiously coxcombical lisp. 
 
 Another person whose style of speaking 
 the lady took off very amusingly was one 
 who would scarcely object to suffer by the 
 side of Lord Byron— I mean Lamartine. 
 The peculiarity which attracted her ridicule 
 was an over-refinement of manner. Accord- 
 ing to my lady's imitation of Lamartine (I 
 have never seen him myself), he had none of 
 
 135 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter vni 
 
 the violent grimace of his countrymen, and 
 not even their usual way of talking, but 
 rather bore himself mincingly, like the 
 humbler sort of English dandy.^ 
 
 Lady Hester seems to have heartily de- 
 spised everything approaching to exqui- 
 siteness; she told me, by the by (and her 
 opinion upon that subject is worth having), 
 that a downright manner, amounting even 
 to brusqueness, is more effective than any 
 other with the Oriental; and that amongst 
 the English, of all ranks and all classes, there 
 is no man so attractive to the Orientals, no 
 man who can negotiate with them half so 
 effectively, as a good, honest, open-hearted, 
 and positive naval officer of the old school. 
 
 I have told you, I think, that Lady Hester 
 could deal fiercely with those she hated; 
 one man above all others (he is now up- 
 rooted from society) she blasted with her 
 wrath; you would have thought that in the 
 scornfulness of her nature she must have 
 
 J It is said that deaf people can hear what is said concerning 
 themselves, and it would seem that those who live without 
 books or newspapers know all that is written about them. 
 Lady Hester Stanhope, though not admitting a book or news- 
 paper into her fortress, seems to have known the way in 
 which M. Lamartine mentioned her in his book, for in a letter 
 which she wrote to me after my return to England she says : 
 "Although neglected, as Monsieur Le M." (referring, as I be- 
 lieve, to M. Lamartine) "describes, and without books, yet 
 my head is organized to supply the want of them, as well as 
 acquired knowledge." 
 
 136 
 
Chapter VIH] EOTHEN 
 
 sprung upon her foe with more of fierceness 
 than of skill, but this was not so, for with 
 all the force and vehemence of her invective, 
 she displayed a sober, patient, and minute 
 attention to the details of vituperation, which 
 contributed to its success a thousand times 
 more than mere violence. 
 
 During the hours that this sort of con- 
 versation, or rather discourse, was going 
 on our chibouks were from time to time 
 replenished, and the lady as well as I con- 
 tinued to smoke with little or no intermis- 
 sion till the interview ended. I think that 
 the fragrant fumes of the latakia must have 
 helped to keep me on my good behavior as a 
 patient disciple of the prophetess. 
 
 It was not till after midnight that my visit 
 for the evening came to an end; when I 
 quitted my seat the lady rose and stood up 
 in the same formal attitude (almost that of 
 a soldier in a state of " attention '0 which 
 she had assumed on my entrance; at the 
 same time she pushed the loose drapery 
 ■ from her lap and let it fall down upon the 
 floor. 
 
 The next morning, after breakfast, I was 
 visited by my lady's secretary— the only 
 European, except the doctor, whom she re- 
 tained in her household. This secretary, 
 like the doctor, was Italian, but he pre- 
 
 137 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIII 
 
 served more signs of European dress and 
 European pretensions than his medical fel- 
 low-slave. He spoke little or no English, 
 though he wrote it pretty well, having been 
 formerly employed in a mercantile house 
 connected with England. The poor fellow 
 was in an unhappy state of mind. In order 
 to make you understand the extent of his 
 spiritual anxieties, I ought to have told you 
 that the doctor (who had sunk into the 
 complete Asiatic, and had condescended ac- 
 cordingly to the performance of even menial 
 services) had adopted the common faith of 
 all the neighboring people, and had become 
 a firm and happy believer in the divine 
 power of his mistress. Not so the secre- 
 tary: when I had strolled with him to such 
 a distance from the building as rendered 
 him safe from being overheard by human 
 ears, he told me in a hollow voice, trembling 
 with emotion, that there were times at 
 which he doubted the divinity of Miladi. 
 I said nothing to encourage the poor fellow 
 in his frightful state of skepticism, for I 
 saw that, if indulged, it might end in posi- 
 tive infidelity. Lady Hester, it seemed, had 
 rather arbitrarily abridged the amusements 
 of her secretary, and especially she had 
 forbidden him from shooting small birds on 
 the mountain side. This oppression had 
 
 138 
 
Chapter Vni] BOTH EN 
 
 aroused in him a spirit of inquiry that 
 might end fatally— perhaps for himself, 
 perhaps for the " religion of the place/' 
 
 The secretary told me that his mistress 
 was strongly disliked by the surrounding peo- 
 ple, and that she oppressed them a good deal 
 by her exactions. I know not whether this 
 statement had any truth in it; but whether 
 it was or was not well founded, it is certain 
 that in Eastern countries hate and venera- 
 tion are very commonly felt for the same 
 object, and the general belief in the super- 
 human power of this wonderful white lady, 
 her resolute and imperious character, and 
 above all, perhaps, her fierce Albanians (not 
 backward to obey an order for the sacking of 
 a village), inspired sincere respect amongst 
 the surrounding inhabitants. Now the being 
 "respected" amongst Orientals is not an 
 empty or merely honorary distinction, but 
 carries with it a clear right to take your 
 neighbor's corn, his cattle, his eggs, and his 
 honey, and almost anything that is his, ex- 
 cept his wives. This law was acted upon 
 by the Princess of Djoun, and her establish- 
 ment was supplied by contributions appor- 
 tioned amongst the nearest of the villages. 
 
 I understood that the Albanians (re- 
 strained, I suppose, by the dread of being 
 delivered up to Ibrahim) had not given any 
 
 139 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter VIH 
 
 very troublesome proofs of their unruly na- 
 tures. The secretary told me that their ra- 
 tions, including a small allowance of coffee 
 and tobacco, were served out to them with 
 tolerable regularity. 
 
 I asked the secretary how Lady Hester 
 was off for horses, and said that I would 
 take a look at the stable; the man did not 
 raise any opposition to my proposal, and af- 
 fected no mystery about the matter, but 
 said that the only two steeds which then 
 belonged to Miladi were of a very hum- 
 ble sort; this answer, and a storm of rain 
 then beginning to descend, prevented me 
 at the time from undertaking my journey 
 to the stables, and I don't know that I ever 
 thought of the matter afterwards until my 
 return to England, when I saw Lamartine's 
 eye-witnessing account of the strange horse 
 saddled, as he pretends, by the hands of his 
 Maker ! 
 
 When I returned to my room (this, as my 
 hostess told me, was the only one in the 
 whole building that kept out the rain) 
 Lady Hester sent to say she would be 
 glad to receive me again; I was rather sur- 
 prised at this, for I had understood that she 
 reposed during the day, and it was now 
 little later than noon. "Really,'' said she, 
 when I had taken my seat and my pipe, 
 
 140 
 
Chapter VIII] EOTHEN 
 
 " we were together for hours last night, and 
 still I have heard nothing at all of my old 
 friends; now do tell me something of your 
 dear mother and ,her sister; I never knew 
 your father— it was after I left Burton Pyn- 
 sent that your mother married." I began 
 to make slow answer, but my questioner 
 soon went off again to topics more sublime, 
 so that this second interview, though it 
 lasted two or three hours, was all occu- 
 pied by the same sort of varied discourse 
 as that which I have been describing. 
 
 In the course of the afternoon the cap- 
 tain of an English man-of-war arrived at 
 Djoun, and Lady Hester determined to re- 
 ceive him for the same reason as that 
 which had induced her to allow my visit- 
 namely, an early intimacy with his family. 
 I and the new visitor— he was a pleasant, 
 amusing man— dined together, and we 
 were afterwards invited to the presence of 
 my lady, and with her we sat smoking 
 till midnight. The conversation turned 
 chiefly, I think, upon magical science. I 
 had determined to be off at an early hour 
 the next morning, and so at the end of this 
 interview I bade my lady farewell. With 
 her parting words she once more advised 
 me to abandon Europe and seek my reward 
 in the East, and she urged me, too, to give 
 
 141 
 
^ 
 
 EOTHEN [Chapter VIII 
 
 the like counsels to my father, and tell him 
 that "sfte had said iV^ 
 
 Lady Hester^s unholy claim to supremacy 
 in the spiritual kingdom was, no doubt, the 
 suggestion of fierce and inordinate pride 
 most perilously akin to madness; but I am 
 quite sure that the mind of the woman was 
 too strong to be thoroughly overcome by 
 even this potent feeling. I plainly saw that 
 she was not an unhesitating follower of her 
 own system, and I even fancied that I could 
 distinguish the brief moments during which 
 she contrived to believe in herself from 
 those long and less happy intervals in 
 which her own reason was too strong for 
 her. 
 
 As for the lady's faith in astrology and 
 magic science, you are not for a moment to 
 suppose that this implied any aberration of 
 intellect. She believed these things in 
 common with those around her, and it could 
 scarcely be otherwise, for she seldom spoke 
 to anybody, except crazy old dervishes, 
 who at once received her alms and fos- 
 tered her extravagances, and even when 
 (as on the occasion of my visit) she was 
 brought into contact with a person enter- 
 taining different notions, she still remained 
 uncontradicted. This entourage and the 
 habit of fasting from books and newspapers 
 
 142 
 
Chapter vm] EOTHEN 
 
 were quite enough to make her a facile re- 
 cipient of any marvelous story. 
 
 I think that in England we scarcely ac- 
 knowledge to ourselves how much we owe 
 to the wise and watchful press which pre- 
 sides over the formation of our opinions, 
 and which brings about this splendid re- 
 sult—namely, that in matters of belief the 
 humblest of us are lifted up to the level of 
 the most sagacious, so that really a simple 
 cornet in the Blues is no more likely to 
 entertain a foolish belief about ghosts, or 
 witchcraft, or any other supernatural topic, 
 than the Lord High Chancellor, or the 
 Leader of the House of Commons. How 
 different is the intellectual regime of East- 
 ern countries! In Syria and Palestine and 
 Egypt you might as well dispute the efficacy 
 of grass or grain as of magic. There is no 
 controversy about the matter. The effect 
 of this, the unanimous belief of an ignorant 
 people, upon the mind of a stranger is ex- 
 tremely curious and well worth noticing. 
 A man coming freshly from Europe is at 
 first proof against the nonsense with which 
 he is assailed; but often it happens that 
 after a little while the social atmosphere of 
 Asia will begin to infect him, and if he has 
 been unaccustomed to the cunning of fence 
 by which reason prepares the means of 
 
 143 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter vm 
 
 guarding herself against fallacy, he will 
 yield himself at last to the faith of those 
 around him, and this he will do by sym- 
 pathy, it would seem, rather than from con- 
 viction. I have been much interested in 
 observing that the mere "practical man,'' 
 however skilful and shrewd in his own 
 way, has not the kind of power that will 
 enable him to resist the gradual im- 
 pression made upon his mind by the com- 
 mon opinion of those whom he sees and 
 hears from day to day. Even amongst 
 the English, though their good sense and 
 sound religious knowledge would be likely 
 to guard them from error, I have known 
 the calculating merchant, the inquisitive 
 traveler, and the post-captain, with his 
 bright, wakeful eye of command,— I have 
 known all these surrender themselves to 
 the really magic-like influence of other 
 people's minds; their language at first is 
 that they are "staggered," leading you by 
 that expression to suppose that they had 
 been witnesses to some phenomenon which 
 it was very difficult to account for other- 
 wise than by supernatural causes; but 
 when I have questioned further, I have 
 always found that these " staggering " won- 
 ders were not even specious enough to be 
 looked upon as good "tricks." A man in 
 
 144 
 
Chapter Vin] EOTHEN 
 
 England who gained his whole livelihood 
 as a conjurer would soon be starved to 
 death if he could perform no better mira- 
 cles than those which are wrought with 
 so much effect in Syria and Egypt; some- 
 timeSf no doubt, a magician will make a 
 good hit (Sir John once said a "good 
 thing ")> but all such successes range, of 
 course, under the head of mere "tentative 
 miracles," as distinguished by the strong- 
 brained Paley, 
 
 10 145 
 
CHAPTER 
 IX 
 
 The Sanctuary. 
 
 I CROSSED the plain of Esdraelon, and 
 entered amongst the hills of beautiful 
 Galilee. It was at sunset that my path 
 brought me sharply round into the gorge 
 of a little valley, and close upon a gray 
 mass of dwellings that lay happily nestled 
 in the lap of the mountain. There was one 
 only shining point still touched with the 
 light of the sun, who had set for all besides: 
 a brave sign this to " holy '' Shereef and the 
 rest of my Moslem men, for the one glitter- 
 ing summit was the head of a minaret, and 
 the rest of the seeming village that had 
 veiled itself so meekly under the shades of 
 evening was Christian Nazareth ! 
 
 Within the precincts of the Latin con- 
 vent there stands the great Catholic church 
 which incloses the Sanctuary— the dwelling 
 of the Blessed Virgin.^ This is a grotto of 
 about ten feet either way, forming a little 
 
 ^ The Greek Church does not recognize this as the true Sanc- 
 tuary, and many Protestants look upon all the traditions by 
 
 146 
 
Chapter IX] EOTHEN 
 
 chapel or recess, and reached by descend- 
 ing steps. It is decorated with splendor; 
 on the left hand a column of granite hangs 
 from the top of the grotto to within a few 
 feet of the ground; immediately beneath an- 
 other column of the same size rises from 
 the ground as if to meet the one above; but 
 between this and the suspended pillar there 
 is an interval of more than a foot; these 
 fragments once formed a single column, 
 on which the angel leant when he spoke 
 and told to Mary the mystery of her awful 
 blessedness. Hard by, near the altar, the 
 Holy Virgin was kneeling. 
 
 I had been journeying, cheerily indeed, 
 for the voices of my followers were ever 
 within my hearing, but yet, as it were, in 
 
 which it is attempted to ascertain the holy places of Palestine 
 as utterly fabulous. For myself, I do not mean either to afl&rm 
 or deny the correctness of the opinion which has fixed upon 
 this as the true site, but merely to mention it as a belief en- 
 tertained, without question, by my brethren of the Latin 
 Church whose guest I was at the time. It would be a great 
 aggravation of the trouble of writing about these matters if 
 I were to stop in the midst of every sentence for the purpose 
 of saying "so-called," or "so it is said," and would besides 
 sound very ungraciously ; yet I am anxious to be literally true 
 in all I write. Now, thus it is that I mean to get over my 
 difiBlculty. Whenever in this great bundle of papers, or book 
 (if book it is to be ), you see any words about matters of religion 
 which would seem to involve the assertion of my own opinion, 
 you are to understand me just as if one or other of the qualify- 
 ing phrases' above mentioned had been actually inserted in 
 every sentence. My general direction for you to construe me 
 thus will render all that I write as strictly and actually true 
 as if I had every time lugged in a formal declaration of the 
 fsuct that I was merely expressing the notions of other people. 
 
 147 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter IX 
 
 solitude, for I had no comrade to whet the 
 edge of my reason or wake me from my 
 noon-day dreams. I was left all alone to 
 be taught and swayed by the beautiful cir- 
 cumstances of Palestine traveling, by the 
 clime and the land and the name of the 
 land with all its mighty import, by the glit- 
 tering freshness of the sward, and the 
 abounding masses of flowers that furnished 
 my sumptuous pathway, by the bracing and 
 fragrant air that seemed to poise me in my 
 saddle and to lift me along as a planet 
 appointed to glide through space. 
 
 And the end of my journey was Nazareth 
 —the home of the Blessed Virgin! In the 
 first dawn of my manhood the old painters 
 of Italy had taught me their dangerous 
 worship of the beauty that is more than 
 mortal, but those images all seemed shad- 
 owy now, and floated before me so dimly, 
 the one overcasting the other, that they 
 left me no one sweet idol on which I could 
 look, and look again, and say, " Maria mia! " 
 Yet they left me more than an idol— they 
 left me (for to them I am wont to trace it) 
 a faint apprehension of beauty not com- 
 passed with lines and shadows— they 
 touched me (forgive, proud Marie of Anjou!) 
 —they touched me with a faith in loveliness 
 transcending mortal shapes. 
 
 148 
 
Chapter IX] EOTHEN 
 
 I came to Nazareth and was led from the 
 convent to the Sanctuary. Long fasting 
 will sometimes heat a man's brain and draw 
 him away out of the world, will disturb his 
 judgment, confuse his notions of right and 
 wrong, and weaken his power of choosing 
 the right. I had fasted, perhaps, too long, 
 for I was fevered with the zeal of an insane 
 devotion to the Heavenly Queen of Christen- 
 dom. But I knew the feebleness of this 
 gentle malady, and knew how easily my 
 watchful reason, if ever so slightly pro- 
 voked, would drag me back to life; let there 
 but come one chilling breath of the outer 
 world, and all this loving piety would cower 
 and fly before the sound of my own bitter 
 laugh. And so as I went I trod tenderly, 
 not looking to the right nor to the left, but 
 bending my eyes to the ground. 
 
 The attending friar served me well: he 
 led me down quietly and all but silently to 
 the Virgin's home. The mystic air was so 
 burned with the consuming flames of the 
 altar, and so laden with incense, that my 
 chest labored strongly and heaved with 
 luscious pain. There— there, with beating 
 heart, the Virgin knelt and listened! I 
 strived to grasp and hold with my riveted 
 eyes some one of the feigned Madonnas, 
 but of all the heaven-lit faces imagined by 
 
 149 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter IX 
 
 men, there was none that would abide with 
 me in this the very Sanctuary. Impatient 
 of vacancy, I grew madly strong against 
 nature, and if by some awful spell, some 
 impious rite, I could— Oh! most sweet 
 religion that bid me fear God, and be pious, 
 and yet not cease from loving! Religion 
 and gracious custom commanded me that 
 I fall down loyally and kiss the rock that 
 blessed Mary pressed. With a half con- 
 sciousness, with the semblance of a thrill- 
 ing hope that I was plunging deep, deep 
 into my first knowledge of some most holy 
 mystery, or of some new, rapturous, and 
 daring sin, I knelt and bowed down my face 
 till I met the smooth rock with my lips. 
 One moment— one moment — my heart, or 
 some old pagan demon within me, woke up 
 and fiercely bounded; my bosom was lifted 
 and swung, as though I had touched her 
 warm robe. One moment— one more, and 
 then the fever had left me. I rose from 
 my knees. I felt hopelessly sane. The 
 mere world reappeared. My good old 
 monk was there, dangling his key with 
 listless patience, and as he guided me from 
 the church and talked of the refectory and 
 the coming repast, I listened to his words 
 with some attention and pleasure. 
 
 150 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 }■} 
 
 The monks of Palestine. 
 
 WHENEVER you come back to me 
 from Palestine, we will find some 
 ^' golden wine " ^ of Lebanon, that 
 we may celebrate with apt libations the 
 monks of the Holy Land, and though the 
 poor fellows be theoretically "dead to 
 the world/' we will drink to every man of 
 them a good, long life and a merry one! 
 Graceless is the traveler who forgets his 
 obligations to these saints upon earth, 
 little love has he for merry Christendom if 
 he has not rejoiced with great joy to find 
 in the very midst of water-drinking infi- 
 dels those lowly monasteries, where the 
 blessed juice of the grape is quaflfed in 
 peace. Aye, aye ! We will fill our glasses till 
 they look like cups of amber, and drink 
 profoundly to our gracious hosts in Pales- 
 tine. 
 
 Christianity permits and sanctions the 
 
 i"Vinod'oro.'» 
 151 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter X 
 
 drinking of wine, and of all the holy breth- 
 ren in Palestine there are none who hold 
 fast to this gladsome rite so strenuously 
 as the monks of Damascus; not that they 
 are more zealous Christians than the rest 
 of their fellows in the Holy Land, but that 
 they have better wine. Whilst I was at 
 Damascus I had my quarters at the Fran- 
 ciscan convent there, and very soon after 
 my arrival I asked one of the monks to let 
 me know something of the spots that 
 deserved to be seen: I made my inquiry in 
 reference to the associations with which 
 the city had been hallowed by the sojourn 
 and adventures of St. Paul. "There is 
 nothing in all Damascus/' said the good 
 man, " half so well worth seeing as our cel- 
 lars,'' and forthwith he invited me to go, 
 see, and admire the long range of liquid 
 treasure that he and his brethren had 
 laid up for themselves on earth. And 
 these, I soon found, were not as the trea- 
 sures of the miser that lie in unprofitable 
 disuse, for day by day, and hour by hour, 
 the golden juice ascended from the dark 
 recesses of the cellar to the uppermost 
 brains of the friars. Dear old fellows! in 
 the midst of that solemn land their Chris- 
 tian laughter rang loudly and merrily, 
 their eyes kept flashing with joyful fire, 
 
 152 
 

 Chapter X] EOTHEN 
 
 and their heavy woolen petticoats could no 
 more weigh down the springiness of their 
 paces than the filmy gauze of a danseuse 
 can clog her bounding step. 
 
 You would be likely enough to fancy that 
 these monastics are men who have retired 
 to the sacred sites of Palestine from an 
 enthusiastic longing to devote themselves 
 to the exercise of religion in the midst of 
 the very land on which its first seeds were 
 cast, and this is partially, at least, the case 
 with the monks of the Greek Church; but 
 it is not with enthusiasts that the Catholic 
 establishments are filled. The monks of 
 the Latin convents are chiefly persons of 
 the peasant class from Italy and Spain, who 
 have been handed over to these remote 
 asylums by order of their ecclesiastical 
 superiors, and can no more account for their 
 being in the Holy Land than men of march- 
 ing regiments can explain why they are in 
 "stupid quarters." I believe that these 
 monks are for the most part well conducted 
 men, punctual in their ceremonial duties, 
 and altogether humble-minded Christians; 
 their humility is not at all misplaced, for 
 you see at a glance (poor fellows !) that they 
 belong to the " lag remove " of the human 
 race. K the taking of the cowl does not 
 imply a complete renouncement of the 
 
 153 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter X 
 
 world, it is, at least in these days, a thor- 
 ough farewell to every kind of useful and 
 entertaining knowledge, and accordingly 
 the low bestial brow and the animal caste 
 of those almost Bourbon features show 
 plainly enough that all the intellectual vani- 
 ties of life have been really and truly aban- 
 doned. But it is hard to quench altogether 
 the spirit of inquiry that stirs in the human 
 breast, and accordingly these monks in- 
 quire,— they are always inquiring— inquir- 
 ing for "news''! Poor fellows! they could 
 scarcely have yielded themselves to the 
 sway of any passion more difficult of grati- 
 fication, for they have no means of com- 
 municating with the busy world, except 
 through European travelers; and these, 
 in consequence, I suppose, of that rest- 
 lessness and irritability that generally 
 haunt their wanderings, seem to have al- 
 ways avoided the bore of giving any infor- 
 mation to their hosts; as for me, I am more 
 patient and good-natured, and when I found 
 that the kind monks who gathered round 
 me at Nazareth were longing to know the 
 real truth about the General Bonaparte who 
 had recoiled from the siege of Acre, I soft- 
 ened my heart down to the good humor of 
 Herodotus, and calmly began to " sing his- 
 tory," telling my eager hearers of the 
 
 154 
 
Chapter X] EOTHEN 
 
 French Empire and the greatness of its 
 glory, and of Waterloo, and the fall of Na- 
 poleon! Now my story of this marvelous 
 ignorance on the part of the poor monks 
 is one upon which (though depending on 
 my own testimony) I look "with consider- 
 able suspicion"; it is quite true (how silly 
 it would be to invent anything so witless!), 
 and yet I think I could satisfy the mind of 
 a "reasonable man " that it is false. Many 
 of the older monks must have been in Eu- 
 rope at the time when the Italy and the Spain 
 from which they came were in act of tak- 
 ing their French lessons, or had parted so 
 lately with their teachers that not to know 
 of " the Emperor '' was impossible, and these 
 men could scarcely, therefore, have failed 
 to bring with them some tidings of Napo- 
 leon's career. Yet I say that that which I 
 have written is true, the one who believes 
 because I have said it will be right (she 
 always is), whilst poor Mr. "Reasonable 
 Man," who is convinced by the weight of 
 my argument, will be completely deceived. 
 In Spanish politics, however, the monks 
 are better instructed; the revenues of the 
 monasteries, which had been principally 
 supplied by the bounty of their most Catho- 
 lic Majesties, have been withheld since 
 Ferdinand's death, and the interests of 
 
 155 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter X 
 
 these establishments being thus closely in- 
 volved in the destinies of Spain, it is not 
 wonderful that the brethren should be a 
 little more knowing in Spanish affairs than 
 in other branches of history. Besides, a 
 large proportion ot the monks were natives 
 of the Peninsula; to these, I remember, 
 Mysseri's familiarity with the Spanish lan- 
 guage and character was a source of im- 
 mense delight; they were always gathering 
 around him, and it seemed to me that they 
 treasured like gold the few Castilian words 
 which he deigned to spare them. 
 
 The monks do a world of good in their 
 way, and there can be no doubting that 
 previously to the arrival of Bishop Alexan- 
 der, with his numerous young family and 
 his pretty English nursemaids, they were 
 the chief propagandists of Christianity in 
 Palestine. My old friends of the Francis- 
 can convent at Jerusalem some time since 
 gave proof of their goodness by delivering 
 themselves up to the peril of death for the 
 sake of duty. When I was their guest 
 they were forty, I believe, in number, and 
 I don't recollect that there was one of them 
 whom I should have looked upon as a de- 
 sirable life-holder of any property to which 
 I might be entitled in expectancy. Yet 
 these forty were reduced in a few days to 
 
 156 
 
Chapter X] EOTHEN 
 
 nineteen; the plague was the messenger 
 that summoned them to a taste of real 
 death, but the circumstances under which 
 they perished are rather curious, and 
 though I have no authority for the story 
 except an Italian newspaper, I harbor no 
 doubt of its truth, for the facts were de- 
 tailed with minuteness, and strictly corre- 
 sponded with all that I knew of the poor 
 fellows to whom they related. 
 
 It was about three months after the 
 time of my leaving Jerusalem that the 
 plague set his spotted foot on the Holy 
 City. The monks felt great alarm; they 
 did not shrink from their duty, but for its 
 performance they chose a plan most sadly 
 well fitted for bringing down upon them 
 the very death which they were striving to 
 ward off. They imagined themselves al- 
 most safe so long as they remained within 
 their walls; but then it was quite needful 
 that the Catholic Christians of the place, 
 who had always looked to the convent for 
 the supply of their spiritual wants, should 
 receive the aids of religion in the hour 
 of death. A single monk, therefore, was 
 chosen either by lot or by some other fair 
 appeal to Destiny; being thus singled out, 
 he was to go forth into the plague-stricken 
 city, and to perform with exactness his 
 
 157 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter X 
 
 priestly duties; then he was to return, not 
 to the interior of the convent, for fear of 
 infecting his brethren, but to a detached 
 building (which I remember) belonging to 
 the establishment, but at some little dis- 
 tance from the inhabited rooms; he was 
 provided with a bell, and at a certain hour 
 in the morning he was ordered to ring it, 
 if he could : but if no sound was heard at 
 the appointed time, then knew his brethren 
 that he was either delirious or dead, and 
 another martyr was sent forth to take his 
 place. In this way twenty-one of the 
 monks were carried off. One cannot well 
 fail to admire the steadiness with which 
 the dismal scheme was carried through; 
 but if there be any truth in the notion that 
 disease may be invited by a frightening 
 imagination, it is difficult to conceive a 
 more dangerous plan than that which was 
 chosen by these poor fellows. The anxiety 
 with which they must have expected each 
 day the sound of the bell, the silence that 
 reigned instead of it, and then the drawing 
 of the lots (the odds against death being 
 one point lower than yesterday) and the 
 going forth of the newly doomed man,— all 
 this must have widened the gulf that opens 
 to the shades below. When his victim had 
 already suffered so much of mental tor- 
 
 158 
 
Chapter X] EOTHEN 
 
 tnre, it was but easy work for big, bullying 
 pestilence to follow a forlorn monk from 
 the beds of the dying, and wrench away his 
 life from him as he lay all alone in an 
 outhouse. 
 
 In most— I believe in all— of the Holy 
 Land convents there are two personages so 
 strangely raised above their brethren in all 
 that dignifies humanity, that their bearing 
 the same habit, their dwelling under the 
 same roof, their worshiping the same 
 God (consistent as all this is with the spirit 
 of their religion), yet strikes the mind with 
 a sense of wondrous incongruity. The men 
 I speak of are the "Padre Superiore" and 
 the "Padre Missionario." The former is 
 the supreme and absolute governor of the 
 establishment over which he is appointed 
 to rule; the latter is intrusted with the 
 more active of the spiritual duties attach- 
 ing to the pilgrim church. He is the 
 shepherd of the good Catholic flock whose 
 pasture is prepared in the midst of Mussul- 
 mans and schismatics; he keeps the light 
 of the true faith ever vividly before their 
 eyes, reproves their vices, supports them 
 in their good resolves, consoles them in 
 their afflictions, and teaches them to hate 
 the Greek Church. Such are his labors, 
 and you may conceive that great tact must 
 
 159 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter X 
 
 be needed for conducting with success the 
 spiritual interests of the Church under cir- 
 cumstances so odd as those which surround 
 it in Palestine. 
 
 But the position of the Padre Superiore 
 is still more delicate: he is almost unceas- 
 ingly in treaty with the powers that be, 
 and the worldly prosperity of the whole es- 
 tablishment is in great measure dependent 
 upon the extent of diplomatic skill which 
 he can employ in its favor. I know not 
 from what class of churchmen these per- 
 sonages are chosen, for there is a mystery 
 attending their origin and the circumstance 
 of their being stationed in these convents 
 which Rome does not suffer to be pene- 
 trated: I have heard it said that they are 
 men of great note and, perhaps, of too high 
 ambition in the Catholic hierarchy, who, 
 having fallen under the grave censure of 
 the Church, are banished for fixed periods 
 to these distant monasteries. I believe 
 that the term during which they are con- 
 demned to remain in the Holy Land is from 
 eight to twelve years. By the natives of 
 the country as well as by the rest of the 
 brethren they are looked upon as superior 
 beings, and rightly, too, for nature seems 
 to have crowned them in her own true way. 
 
 The chief of the Jerusalem convent was 
 
 160 
 
'^,-;:^ -^'V^' 
 
 >, *,pij^^i^-rt ; 
 
 Chapter X] EOTHEN 
 
 a noble creature; his worldly and spiritual 
 authority seemed to have surrounded him, 
 as it were, with a kind of "court," and 
 the manly gracefulness of his bearing 
 did honor to the throne he filled. There 
 were no lords of the bedchamber, and no 
 gold sticks and stones in waiting, yet 
 everybody who approached him looked 
 as though he were being "presented." 
 Every interview which he granted wore the 
 air of an "audience "; the brethren, as often 
 as they came near, bowed low and kissed 
 his hand; and if he went out, the Catholics 
 of the place that hovered about the con- 
 vent would crowd around him with devout 
 affection, and almost scramble for the 
 blessing which his touch could give. He 
 bore his honors all serenely, as though 
 calmly conscious of his power to "bind and 
 to loose." 
 
 11 161 
 
CHAPTER 
 XI 
 
 Galilee. 
 
 NEITHER old " Sacred '^1 himself nor 
 any of his helpers knew the road 
 which I meant to take from Naza- 
 reth to the Sea of Galilee, and from thence 
 to Jerusalem, so I was forced to add another 
 to my party by hiring a guide. The associa- 
 tions of Nazareth, as well as my kind feeling 
 towards the hospitable monks, whose guest 
 I had been, inclined me to set at naught 
 the advice which I had received against 
 employing Christians. I accordingly en- 
 gaged a lithe, active young Nazarene who 
 was recommended to me by the monks, 
 and who affected to be familiar with the 
 line of country through which I intended to 
 pass. My disregard of the popular preju- 
 dices against Christians was not justified in 
 this particular instance by the result of my 
 choice. This you will see by and by. 
 
 I passed by Cana and the house of the 
 
 1 Shereef. 
 
 162 
 
Chapter XI] EOTHEN 
 
 marriage feast prolonged by miraculous 
 wine. I came to the field in which our 
 Saviour had rebuked the Scotch Sabbath- 
 keepers of that period by suffering his 
 disciples to pluck corn on the Lord's day. 
 I rode over the ground where the fainting 
 multitude had been fed, and they showed me 
 some massive fragments— the relics, they 
 said, of that wondrous banquet now turned 
 into stone. The petrifaction was most 
 complete. 
 
 I ascended the height where our Lord 
 was standing when he wrought the miracle. 
 The hill rose lofty enough to show me the 
 fairness of the land on all sides, but I have 
 an ancient love for the mere features of a 
 lake, and so, forgetting all else when I 
 reached the summit, I looked away eagerly 
 to the eastward. There she lay— the Sea of 
 Galilee. Less stern than Wastwater, less 
 fair than gentle Windermere, she had still 
 the winning ways of an English lake; she 
 caught from the smiling heavens unceasing 
 light and changeful phases of beauty, and 
 with all this brightnesajon her face, she yet 
 clung fondly to the dull he-looking mountain 
 at her side, as though she would 
 
 " Soothe Mm with her finer fancies, 
 Touch him with her lighter thought." i 
 
 1 Tennyson. 
 
 163 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XI 
 
 If one might judge of men's real thoughts 
 by their writings, it would seem that there 
 are people who can visit an interesting 
 locality and follow up continuously the 
 exact train of thought that ought to be 
 suggested by the historical associations of 
 the place. A person of this sort can go to 
 Athens and think of nothing later than the 
 age of Pericles; can live with the Scipios as 
 long as he stays in Rome. I am not thus 
 docile: it is only by snatches and for few 
 moments together that I can really associate 
 a place with its proper history. 
 
 "There at Tiberias, and along this west- 
 ern shore towards the north, and upon the 
 bosom, too, of the lake, our Saviour and his 
 disciples—" Away flew those recollections 
 and my mind strained eastward, because 
 that that farthest shore was the end of the 
 world that belongs to man the dweller— 
 the beginning of the other and veiled world 
 that is held by the strange race, whose life 
 (like the pastime of Satan) is a "going to 
 and fro upon the face of the earth." From 
 those gray hills right away to the. gates of 
 Bagdad stretched forth the mysterious 
 "Desert"— not a pale, void, sandy tract, 
 but a land abounding in rich pastures; a 
 land without cities or towns, without any 
 "respectable " people, or any "respectable " 
 
 164 / 
 
'■?,' 
 
 Chapter XI] EOTHEN 
 
 things, yet yielding its eighty thousand 
 cavalry to the beck of a few old men. But 
 once more— "Tiberias— the plain of Gen- 
 nesareth— the very earth on which I stood 
 —that the deep, low tones of the Saviour's 
 voice should have gone forth into Eter- 
 nity from out of the midst of these hills 
 and these valleys ! '' Aye, aye ! but yet again 
 the calm face of the lake was uplifted 
 and smiled upon my eyes with such fa- 
 miliar gaze that the "deep low tones" 
 were hushed, the listening multitudes all 
 passed away, and instead there came to 
 me a loving thought from over the seas in 
 England— a thought more sweet than Gos- 
 pel to a wilful mortal like this. 
 
 I went to Tiberias and soon got afloat 
 upon the water. In the evening I took up 
 my quarters in the Catholic church, and, 
 the building being large enough, the whole 
 of my people were admitted to the benefit of 
 the same shelter. With portmanteaus and 
 carpet-bags and books and maps and fra- 
 grant tea, Mysseri soon made me a home on 
 the southern side of the church. One of 
 old Shereefs helpers was an enthusiastic 
 Catholic, and was greatly delighted at hav- 
 ing so sacred a lodging. He lit up the altar 
 with a number of tapers, and when his 
 preparations were complete he began to 
 
 165 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XI 
 
 perform strange orisons: his lips muttered 
 the prayers of the Latin Church, but he 
 bowed himself down and laid his forehead to 
 the stones beneath him, after the manner of 
 a Mussulman. The universal aptness of a 
 religious system for all stages of civilization, 
 and for all sorts and conditions of men, well 
 befits its claim of divine origin. She is of 
 all nations and of all times, that wonderful 
 Church of Rome! 
 
 Tiberias is one of the four holy cities,^ 
 according to the Talmud, and it is from this 
 place, or the immediate neighborhood of it, 
 that the Messiah is to arise. 
 
 Except at Jerusalem, never think of at- 
 tempting to sleep in a "holy city." Old 
 Jews from all parts of the world go to lay 
 their bones upon the sacred soil, and since 
 these people never return to their homes, 
 it follows that any domestic vermin they 
 may bring with them are likely to become 
 permanently resident, so that the popula- 
 tion is continually increasing. No recent 
 census had been taken when I was at Tibe- 
 rias, but I know that the congregation of 
 fleas which attended at my church alone 
 must have been something enormous. It 
 was a carnal, self-seeking congregation, 
 
 1 The other three cities held holy by Jews are Jerusalem, 
 Hebron, and Safet. 
 
 166 
 
Chapter XI] ' EOTHEN 
 
 wholly inattentive to the service which was 
 going on, and devoted to the one object of 
 having my blood. The fleas of all nations 
 were there. The smug, steady, importu- 
 nate flea from Holywell street; the pert, 
 jumping "puce" from hungry France; the 
 wary, watchful "pulce," with his poisoned 
 stiletto; the vengeful "pulga" of Castile, 
 with his ugly knife; the German "floh," 
 with his knife and fork, insatiate, not ris- 
 ing from table; whole swarms from all the 
 Russias and Asiatic hordes unnumbered,— 
 all these were there, and all rejoiced in one 
 great international feast. I could no more 
 defend myself against my enemies than if I 
 had been pain a discretion in the hands of 
 a French communist. After passing a night 
 like this you are glad to gather up the re- 
 mains of your body long, long before morn- 
 ing dawns. Your skin is scorched, your 
 temples throb, your lips feel withered and 
 dried, your burning eyeballs are screwed 
 inwards against the brain. You have no 
 hope but only in the saddle and the fresh- 
 ness of the morning air. 
 
 167 
 
CHAPTER 
 XII 
 
 My first bivouac. 
 
 THE course of the Jordan is from the 
 north to the south, and in that direc- 
 tion, with very little of devious wind- 
 ing, it carries the shining waters of Galilee 
 straight down into the solitudes of the Dead 
 Sea. Speaking roughly, the river in that 
 meridian is a boundary between the people 
 living under roofs and the tented tribes 
 that wander on the farther side. And so, 
 as I_went down in my way from Tiberias 
 towards Jerusalem along the western bank 
 of the stream, my thinking all propended 
 to the ancient world of herdsmen and 
 warriors that lay so close over my bridle- 
 arm. 
 
 If a man and an Englishman be not born 
 of his mother with a Chiffney-bit in his 
 mouth, there comes to him a time for loath- 
 ing the wearisome ways of society— a time 
 for not liking tamed people— a time for not 
 sitting in pews— a time for impugning the 
 
 168 
 
Chapter Xn] EOTHEN 
 
 foregone opinions of men, and haughtily 
 dividing truth from falsehood— a time, in 
 short, for questioning, scoffing, and railing, 
 for speaking lightly of the very opera and 
 all our most cherished institutions. It is 
 from nineteen to two or three and twenty, 
 perhaps, that this war of the man against 
 men is like to be waged most sullenly. You 
 are yet in this smiling England, but you find 
 yourself bending away to the dark sides of 
 her mountains, climbing the dizzy crags, 
 exulting in the fellowship of mists and 
 clouds, and watching the storms how they 
 gather, or proving the mettle of your mare 
 upon the broad and dreary downs, because 
 that you feel congenially with the yet un- 
 parceled earth. A little while you are free 
 and unlabeled like the ground that you com- 
 pass, but Civilization is watching to throw 
 her lasso; you will be surely inclosed, and 
 sooner or later brought down to a state of 
 mere usefulness, your gray hills will be 
 curiously sliced into acres and roods and 
 perches, and you, for all you sit so wilful in 
 your saddle, you will be caught, you will be 
 taken up from travel as a colt from grass, to 
 be trained and tried and matched and run. 
 This in time, but first come Continental 
 tours and the moody longing for Eastern 
 travel: the downs and the moors of England 
 
 169 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XII 
 
 can hold you no longer; with larger stride 
 you burst away from these slips and patches 
 of free land, you thread your path through 
 the crowds of Europe, and at last on the 
 banks of Jordan you joyfully know that you 
 are upon the very frontier of all accustomed 
 respectabilities. There, on the other side 
 of the river (you can swim it with one arm), 
 there reigns the people that will be like to 
 put you to death for not being a vagrant, 
 for not being a robber, for not being armed 
 and houseless. There is comfort in that— 
 health, comfort, and strength to one who is 
 aching from very weariness of that poor, 
 dear, middle-aged, deserving, accomplished, 
 pedantic, and painstaking governess, Europe. 
 I had ridden for some hours along the 
 right bank of Jordan, when I came to the 
 Djesr el Medjame (an old Roman bridge, I 
 believe), which crossed the river. My Naza- 
 rene guide was riding ahead of the party, 
 and now, to my surprise and delight, he 
 turned leftwards and led on over the bridge. 
 I knew that the true road to Jerusalem 
 must be mainly by the right bank of Jor- 
 dan, but I supposed that my guide was 
 crossing the bridge at this spot in order to 
 avoid some bend in the river, and that he 
 knew of a ford lower down by which we 
 should regain the western bank. I made 
 
 170 
 
Chapter xn] EOTHEN 
 
 no question about the road, for I was but 
 too glad to set my horse's hoofs upon the 
 land of the wandering tribes. None of my 
 people, except the Nazarene, knew the coun- 
 try. On we went through rich pastures 
 upon the eastern side of the water. I 
 looked for the expected bend of the river, 
 but, far as I could see, it kept a straight 
 southerly course; I still left my guide un- 
 questioned. 
 
 The Jordan is not a perfectly accurate 
 boundary betwixt roofs and tents, for soon 
 after passing the bridge I came upon a clus- 
 ter of huts. Some time afterwards the guide, 
 upon being closely questioned by my ser- 
 vants, confessed that the village which we 
 had left behind was the last that we should 
 see, but he declared that he knew a spot at 
 which we should find an encampment of 
 friendly Bedouins, who would receive me 
 with all hospitality. I had long deter- 
 mined not to leave the East without see- 
 ing something of the wandering tribes, but 
 I had looked forward to this as a pleasure 
 to be found in the desert between El Arish 
 and Egypt; I had no idea that the Bedouins 
 on the east of Jordan were accessible. My 
 delight was so great at the near prospect 
 of bread and salt in the tent of an Arab 
 warrior, that I wilfully allowed my guide to 
 
 171 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter xn 
 
 go on and mislead me; I saw that he was 
 taking me out of the straight route towards 
 Jerusalem, and was drawing me into the 
 midst of the Bedouins, but the idea of his 
 betraying me seemed (I know not why) so 
 utterly absurd that I could not entertain it 
 for a moment; I fancied it possible that the 
 fellow had taken me out of my route in or- 
 der to attempt some little mercantile en- 
 terprise with the tribe for which he was 
 seeking, and I was glad of the opportunity 
 which I might thus gain of coming in con- 
 tact with the wanderers. 
 
 Not long after passing the village a 
 horseman met us; it appeared that some 
 of the cavalry of Ibrahim Pasha had crossed 
 the river for the sake of the rich pastures 
 on the eastern bank, and that this man 
 was one of the troopers; he stopped and 
 saluted; he was obviously surprised at 
 meeting an unarmed or half-armed caval- 
 cade, and at last he fairly told us that we 
 were on the wrong side of the river, and 
 that if we went on we must lay our ac- 
 count with falling amongst robbers. All 
 this while, and throughout the day, my 
 Nazarene kept well ahead of the party, and 
 was constantly up in his stirrups, straining 
 forward, and searching the distance for 
 some objects which still remained unseen. 
 
 172 
 
 
Chapter XII] EOTHEN 
 
 For the rest of the day we saw no human 
 being; we pushed on eagerly in the hope 
 of coming up with the Bedouins before 
 nightfall. Night came, and we still went 
 on in our way till about ten o'clock. Then 
 the thorough darkness of the night and 
 the weariness of our beasts (they had al- 
 ready done two good days' journey in one) 
 forced us to determine upon coming to a 
 standstill. Upon the heights to the east- 
 ward we saw lights; these shone from 
 caves on the mountain side, inhabited, as 
 the Nazarene told us, by rascals of a low 
 sort— not real Bedouins— men whom we 
 might frighten into harmlessness, but from 
 whom there was no willing hospitality to 
 be expected. 
 
 We heard at a little distance the brawl- 
 ing of a rivulet, and on the banks of this it 
 was determined to establish our bivouac; 
 we soon found the stream, and following 
 its course for a few yards, came to a spot 
 which was thought to be fit for our pur- 
 pose. It was a sharply cold night in Feb- 
 ruary, and when I dismounted I found 
 myself standing upon some wet, rank herb- 
 age that promised ill for the comfort of 
 our resting-place. I had bad hopes of a 
 fire, for the pitchy darkness of the night 
 was a great obstacle to any successful 
 
 173 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter xn 
 
 search for fuel, and, besides, the boughs of 
 trees or bushes would be so full of sap in 
 this early spring that they would not easily 
 burn. However, we were not likely to sub- 
 mit to a dark and cold bivouac without 
 an effort, and my fellows groped forward 
 through the darkness till, after advancing 
 a few paces, they were happily stopped by 
 a complete barrier of dead, prickly bushes. 
 Before our swords could be drawn to reap 
 this welcome harvest, it was found to our 
 surprise that the fuel was already hewn and 
 strewed along the ground in a thick mass. 
 A spot for the fire was found with some diffi- 
 culty, for the earth was moist and the grass 
 high and rank. At last there was a clicking 
 of flint and steel, and presently there stood 
 out from darkness one of the tawny faces 
 of my muleteers bent down to near the 
 ground, and suddenly lit up by the glowing 
 of the spark, which he courted with care- 
 ful breath. Before long there was a par- 
 ticle of dry fiber or leaf that kindled to a 
 tiny flame; then another was lit from that, 
 and then another. Then small, crisp twigs, 
 little bigger than bodkins, were laid athwart 
 the glowing fire. The swelling cheeks of 
 the muleteer, laid level with the earth, blew 
 tenderly at first, then more boldly, and the 
 young flame was daintily nursed and fed, 
 
 174 
 
Chapter XII] EOTHEN 
 
 and fed more plentifully till it gained good 
 strength. At last a whole armful of dry- 
 bushes was piled up over the Are, and pres- 
 ently, with a loud, cheery cracking and 
 crackling, a royal tall blaze shot up from 
 the earth, and showed me once more the 
 shapes and faces of my men, and the dim 
 outlines of the horses and mules that stood 
 grazing hard by. 
 
 My servants busied themselves in un- 
 packing the baggage, as though we had 
 arrived at an hotel; Shereef and his help- 
 ers unsaddled their cattle. We had left 
 Tiberias without the slightest idea that we 
 were to make our way to Jerusalem along 
 the desolate side of the Jordan, and my 
 servants (generally provident in those mat- 
 ters) had brought with them only, I think, 
 some unleavened bread and a rocky frag- 
 ment of goat's-milk cheese. These trea- 
 sures were produced. Tea and the con- 
 trivances for making it were always a 
 standing part of my baggage. My men 
 gathered in circle around the fire. The 
 Nazarene was in a false position from having 
 misled us so strangely, and he would have 
 shrunk back— poor devil!— into the cold 
 and outer darkness, but I made him draw 
 near and share the luxuries of the night. 
 My quilt and my pelisse were spread, and 
 
 175 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XII 
 
 the rest of my people had all their capotes, 
 or pelisses, or robes of some sort, which 
 furnished their couches. The men gath- 
 ered in circle, some kneeling, some sitting, 
 some lying reclined around our common 
 hearth. Sometimes on one, sometimes on 
 another, the flickering light would glare 
 more fiercely. Sometimes it was the good 
 Shereef that seemed the foremost, as he 
 sat with venerable beard, the image of 
 manly piety, unknowing of all geography, 
 unknowing where he was or whither he 
 might go, but trusting in the goodness of 
 God, and the clenching power of fate, and 
 the good star of the Englishman. Some- 
 times, like marble, the classic face of the 
 Greek Mysseri would catch the sudden 
 light, and then again, by turns, the ever- 
 perturbed Dthemetri, with his odd China- 
 man's eye and bristling, terrier-like mus- 
 tache, shone forth illustrious. 
 
 I always liked the men who attended me 
 on these Eastern travels, for they were all 
 of them brave, cheery-hearted fellows, and 
 although their following my career brought 
 upon them a pretty large share of those 
 toils and hardships which are so much 
 more amusing to gentlemen than to ser- 
 vants, yet not one of them ever uttered or 
 hinted a syllable of complaint, or even af- 
 
 176 
 
Chapter XII ] EOTHEN 
 
 fected to put on an air of resignation. I 
 always liked them, but never, perhaps, so 
 much as when they were thus grouped to- 
 gether under the light of the bivouac fire. 
 I felt towards them as my comrades rather 
 than as my servants, and took delight in 
 breaking bread with them and merrily 
 passing the cup. 
 
 The love of tea is a glad source of fellow- 
 feeling between the Englishman and the 
 Asiatic; in Persia it is drunk by all, and al- 
 though it is a luxury that is rarely within 
 the reach of the Osmanlis, there are few 
 of them who do not know and love the 
 blessed tchdi. Our camp-kettle, filled from 
 the brook, hummed doubtfully for a while, 
 then busily bubbled under the sidelong 
 glare of the flames; cups clinked and rat- 
 tled, the fragrant steam ascended, and 
 soon this little circlet in the wilderness 
 grew warm and genial as my lady's draw- 
 ing-room. 
 
 And after this there came the chibouk- 
 great comforter of those that are hungry 
 and wayworn. And it has this virtue— it 
 helps to destroy the gme and awkwardness 
 which one sometimes feels at being in com- 
 pany with one's dependents; for whilst the 
 amber is at your lips there is nothing un- 
 gracious in your remaining silent, or speak- 
 12 177 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XII 
 
 ing pithily in short, inter-whiff sentences. 
 And for us that night there was pleasant 
 and plentiful matter of talk; for the where 
 we should be on the morrow, and the where- 
 withal we should be fed, whether by some 
 ford we should regain the western bank of 
 Jordan, or find bread and salt under the tents 
 of a wandering tribe, or whether we should 
 fall into the hands of the Philistines, and so 
 come to see Death, the last and greatest 
 of all the "fine sights " that there be— these 
 were questionings not dull nor wearisome to 
 us, for we were all concerned in the an- 
 swers. And it was not an all-imagined 
 morrow that we probed with our sharp 
 guesses, for the lights of those low Philis- 
 tines—the men of the caves— still shone on 
 the rock above, and we knew by their yells 
 that the fire of our bivouac had shown us. 
 At length we thought it well to seek for 
 sleep. Our plans were laid for keeping up 
 a good watch through the night. My quilt, 
 and my pelisse, and my cloak were spread 
 out so that I might lie spokewise, with my 
 feet towards the central fire. I wrapped my 
 limbs daintily round, and gave myself 
 orders to sleep like a veteran soldier. But 
 I found that my attempt to sleep upon the 
 earth that God gave me was more new 
 and strange than I had fancied it. I had 
 
 178 
 
Chapter XH] EOTHEN 
 
 grown used to the scene which was before 
 me whilst I was sitting or reclining by the 
 side of the fire, but now that I laid myself 
 down at full length, it was the deep black 
 mystery of the heavens that hung over my 
 eyes— not an earthly thing in the way from 
 my own very forehead right up to the end of 
 all space. I grew proud of my boundless bed- 
 chamber. I might have "found sermons" 
 in all this greatness (if I had I should surely 
 have slept), but such was not then my way. 
 If this cherished self of mine had built the 
 universe, I should have dwelt with delight 
 on the "wonders of creation." As it was, I 
 felt rather the vainglory of my promotion 
 from out of mere rooms and houses into 
 the midst of that grand, dark, infinite palace. 
 And then, too, my head, far from the fire, 
 was in cold latitudes, and it seemed to me 
 strange that I should be lying so still and 
 passive, whilst the sharp night breeze 
 walked free over my cheek, and the cold 
 damp clung to my hair, as though my face 
 grew in the earth, and must bear with the 
 footsteps of the wind, and the falling of 
 the dew, as meekly as the grass of the 
 field. And so, when from time to time the 
 watch quietly and gently kept up the lan- 
 guishing fire, he seldom, I think, was un- 
 seen to my restless eyes. Yet, at last, 
 
 179 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XII 
 
 when they called me, and said that the 
 morn would soon be dawning, I rose from 
 a state of half -oblivion not much unlike to 
 sleep, though sharply qualified by a sort of 
 vegetable's consciousness of having been 
 growing still colder and colder for many 
 and many an hour. 
 
 180 
 
CHAPTER 
 XIII 
 
 The Dead Sea. 
 
 THE gray light of the morning showed 
 us for the first time the ground we 
 had chosen for our resting-place. 
 We found that we had bivouacked upon a 
 little patch of barley plainly belonging to 
 the men of the caves. The dead bushes 
 which we found so happily placed in readi- 
 ness for our fire had been strewn as a fence 
 for the protection of the little crop. This was 
 the only cultivated spot of ground which we 
 had seen for many a league, and I was rather 
 sorry to find that our night fire and our cattle 
 had spread so much ruin upon this poor, 
 solitary slip of corn-land. ' 
 
 The saddling and loading of our beasts was 
 a work which generally took nearly an hour, 
 and before this was half over daylight came. 
 We could now see the men of the caves. 
 They collected in a body, amounting, I 
 thought, to nearly fifty, and rushed down 
 towards our quarters with fierce shouts and 
 
 181 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter xm 
 
 yells* But the nearer they got the slower 
 they went; their shouts grew less resolute 
 in tone, and soon ceased altogether. The fel- 
 lows, however, advanced to a thicket within 
 thirty yards of us, and behind this " took up 
 their position.'' My men without premedi- 
 tation did exactly that which was best: they 
 kept steadily to their work of loading the 
 beasts without fuss or hurry, and whether it 
 was that they instinctively felt the wisdom 
 of keeping quiet, or that they merely obeyed 
 the natural inclination to silence which one 
 feels in the early morning, I cannot tell, 
 but I know that, except when they exchanged 
 a syllable or two relative to the work they 
 were about, not a word was said. I now be- 
 lieve that this quietness of our party created 
 an undefined terror in the minds of the cave- 
 holders, and scared them from coming on; 
 it gave them a notion that we were relying 
 on some resources which they knew not of. 
 Several times the fellows tried to lash them- 
 selviBS into a state of excitement which might 
 do instead of pluck. They would raise a great 
 shout, and sway forward in a dense body 
 from behind the thicket; but when they 
 saw that their bravery, thus gathered to 
 a head, did not even suspend the strap- 
 ping of a portmanteau or the tying of a 
 hat-box, their shout lost its spirit, and the 
 
 182 
 
Chapter XIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 whole mass was irresistibly drawn back 
 like a wave receding from the shore. 
 
 These attempts at an onset were repeated 
 several times, but always with the same re- 
 sult. I remained under the apprehension 
 of an attack for more than half an hour, 
 and it seemed to me that the work of pack- 
 ing and loading had never been done so 
 slowly. I felt inclined to tell my fellows to 
 make their best speed, but just as I was 
 going to speak, I observed that every one 
 was doing his duty already; I therefore held 
 my peace, and said not a word, till at last 
 Mysseri led up my horse, and asked me if 
 I were ready to mount. 
 
 We all marched off without hindrance. 
 
 After some time, we came across a party 
 of Ibrahim's cavalry, which had bivouacked 
 at no great distance from us. The know- 
 ledge that such a force was in the neighbor- 
 hood may have conduced to the forbearance 
 of the cave-holders. 
 
 We saw a scraggy-looking fellow, nearly 
 black, and wearing nothing but a cloth 
 round the loins; he was tending flocks. 
 Afterwards I came up with another of these 
 goatherds, whose helpmate was with him. 
 They gave us some goat's milk, a welcome 
 present. I pitied the poor devil of a goat- 
 herd for having such a very plain wife. I 
 
 183 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter xm 
 
 spend an enormous quantity of pity upon 
 that particular form of human misery. 
 
 About midday I began to examine my map, 
 and to question my guide; he at first tried to 
 elude inquiry, then suddenly fell on his knees 
 and confessed that he knew nothing of the 
 country. I was thus thrown upon my own 
 resources, and calculating that on the pre- 
 ceding day we had nearly performed a two 
 days' journey, I concluded that the Dead 
 Sea must be near. In this I was right, for 
 at about three or four o'clock in the after- 
 noon I caught a first sight of its dismal face. 
 
 I went on and came near to those waters 
 of Death. They stretched deeply into the 
 southern desert, and before me, and all 
 around, as far away as the eye could follow, 
 blank hills piled high over hills, pale, yel- 
 low, and naked, walled up in her tomb for- 
 ever the dead and damned Gomorrah. 
 There was no fly that hummed in the for- 
 bidden air, but instead a deep stillness; no 
 grass grew from the earth, no weed peered 
 through the void sand, but, in mockery of 
 all life, there were trees borne down by 
 Jordan in some ancient flood, and these, 
 grotesquely planted upon the forlorn shore, 
 spread out their grim skeleton arms, all 
 scorched and charred to blackness by the 
 heats of the long, silent years. 
 
 184 
 
Chapter xni] EOTHEN 
 
 I now struck off towards the debouchure 
 of the river; but I found that the country, 
 though seemingly quite flat, was intersected 
 by deep ravines, which did not show them- 
 selves until nearly approached. For some 
 time my progress was much obstructed; 
 but at last I came across a track leading 
 towards the river, and which might, as I 
 hoped, bring me to a ford, I found, in fact, 
 when I came to the river's side, that the 
 track reappeared upon the opposite bank, 
 plainly showing that the stream had been 
 fordable at this place. Now, however, in 
 consequence of the late rains, the river was 
 quite impracticable for baggage-horses. A 
 body of waters about equal to the Thames 
 at Eton, but confined to a narrower chan- 
 nel, poured down in a current so swift and 
 heavy that the idea of passing with laden 
 baggage-horses was utterly forbidden. I 
 could have swum across myself, and I might, 
 perhaps, have succeeded in swimming a 
 horse over. But this would have been use- 
 less, because in such case I must have 
 abandoned not only my baggage, but all 
 my attendants, for none of them were able 
 to swim, and without that resource it 
 would have been madness for them to rely 
 upon the swimming of their beasts across 
 such a powerful stream. I still hoped, 
 
 185 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XIII 
 
 however, that there might be a chance of 
 passing the river at the point of its actual 
 junction with the Dead Sea, and I therefore 
 went on in that direction. 
 
 Night came upon us whilst laboring across 
 gullies and sandy mounds, and we were 
 obliged to come to a standstill quite sud- 
 denly upon the very edge of a precipitous 
 descent. Every step towards the Dead Sea 
 had brought us into a country more and 
 more dreary; and this sand-hill which we 
 were forced to choose for our resting-place 
 was dismal enough. A few slender blades of 
 grass, which here and there singly pierced 
 the sand, mocked bitterly the hunger of 
 our jaded beasts, and with our small re- 
 maining fragment of goat's-milk rock, by 
 way of supper, we were not much better off 
 than our horses; we wanted, too, the great 
 requisite of a cheery bivouac— fire. More- 
 over, the spot on which we had been so 
 suddenly brought to a standstill was rela- 
 tively high and unsheltered, and the night 
 wind blew swiftly and cold. 
 
 The next morning I reached the debou- 
 chure of the Jordan, where I had hoped to find 
 a bar of sand that might render its passage 
 possible. The river, however, rolled its eddy- 
 ing waters fast down to the " sea,'' in a strong, 
 deep stream that shut out all hope of crossing. 
 
 186 
 
Chapter XIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 It now seemed necessary either to con- 
 struct a raft of some kind or else to retrace 
 my steps and remount the banks of the 
 Jordan. I had once happened to give some 
 attention to the subject of military bridges 
 —a branch of military science which in- 
 cludes the construction of rafts and con- 
 trivances of the like sort; and I should have 
 been very proud indeed if I could have car- 
 ried my people and my baggage across by 
 dint of any idea gathered from Sir Howard 
 Douglas or Robinson Crusoe. But we were 
 all faint and languid from want of food, 
 and, besides, there were no materials. 
 Higher up the river there were bushes and 
 river plants, but nothing like timber, and 
 the cord with which my baggage was tied 
 to the pack-saddles amounted altogether to 
 a very small quantity— not nearly enough 
 to haul any sort of craft across the stream. 
 
 And now it was, if I remember rightly, 
 that Dthemetri submitted to me a plan for 
 putting to death the Nazarene whose mis- 
 guidance had been the cause of our diffi- 
 culties. There was something fascinating 
 in this suggestion, for the slaying of the 
 guide was, of course, easy enough, and would 
 look like an act of what politicians call 
 ^^ vigor." If it were only to become known 
 to my friends in England that I had calmly 
 
 187 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XIII 
 
 killed a fellow-creature for taking me out 
 of my way, I might remain perfectly quiet 
 and tranquil for all the rest of my days, 
 quite free from the danger of being consid- 
 ered "slow"; I might ever after live on 
 upon my reputation, like "single-speech 
 Hamilton '' in the last century, or " single- 
 sin '^ in this, without being obliged to 
 
 take the trouble of doing any more harm 
 in the world. This was a great temptation 
 to an indolent person, but the motive was 
 not strengthened by any sincere feeling of 
 anger with the Nazarene. Whilst the ques- 
 tion of his life and death was debated, he 
 was riding in front of our party, and there 
 was something in the anxious writhing of 
 his supple limbs that seemed to express a 
 sense of his false position, and struck me 
 as highly comic. I had no crotchet at that 
 time against the punishment of death, but 
 I was unused to blood, and the proposed 
 victim looked so thoroughly capable of en- 
 joying life (if he could only get to the other 
 side of the river) that I thought it would 
 be hard for him to die merely in order to 
 give me a character for energy. Acting on 
 the result of these considerations, and re- 
 serving to myself a free and unfettered dis- 
 cretion to have the poor villain shot at any 
 future moment, I magnanimously decided 
 
 188 
 
Chapter XIH] EOTHEN 
 
 that for the present he should live, and 
 not die. 
 
 I bathed in the Dead Sea. The ground 
 covered by the water sloped so gradually 
 that I was not only forced to " sneak in," 
 but to walk through the water nearly a 
 quarter of a mile before I could get out of 
 my depth. When at last I was able to at- 
 tempt to dive, the salts held in solution 
 made my eyes smart so sharply that the 
 pain I thus suffered, joined with the weak- 
 ness occasioned by want of food, made me 
 giddy and faint for some moments, but I 
 soon grew better. I knew beforehand the 
 impossibility of sinking in this buoyant 
 water, but I was surprised to find that I 
 could not swim at my accustomed pace; 
 my legs and feet were lifted so high and 
 dry out of the lake that my stroke was 
 baffled, and I found myself kicking against 
 the thin air instead of the dense fluid upon 
 which I was swimming. The water is per- 
 fectly bright and clear, its taste detestable. 
 After finishing my attempts at swimming 
 and diving, I took some time in regaining 
 the shore, and before I began to dress I 
 found that the sun had already evaporated 
 the water which clung to me, and that my 
 skin was thickly incrusted with salts. 
 
 189 
 
CHAPTER 
 XIV 
 
 The black tents. 
 
 Y steps were reluctantly turned to- 
 wards the north. I had ridden some 
 way, and still it seemed that all life 
 was fenced and barred out from the desolate 
 ground over which I was journeying. On 
 the west there flowed the impassable Jor- 
 dan, on the east stood an endless range of 
 barren mountains, and on the south lay that 
 desert sea that knew not the plashing of 
 an oar; greatly, therefore, was I surprised 
 when suddenly there broke upon my ear the 
 long, ludicrous, persevering bray of a don-' 
 key. I was riding at this time some few 
 hundred yards ahead of all my party, ex- 
 cept the Nazarene (who by a wise instinct 
 kept closer to me than to Dthemetri), and I 
 instantly went forward in the direction of 
 the sound, for I fancied that where there 
 were donkeys, there, too, most surely would 
 be men. The ground on all sides of me 
 seemed thoroughly void and lifeless, but at 
 
 190 
 
Chapter XIV ] EOTHEN 
 
 last I got down into a hollow, and presently a 
 sudden tarn brought me within thirty yards 
 of an Arab encampment. The low, black 
 tents which I had so long lusted to see were 
 right before me, and they were all teeming 
 with live Arabs— men, women, and children. 
 I wished to have let my people behind 
 know where I was, but I recollected that 
 they would be able to trace me by the prints 
 of my horse's hoofs in the sand, and hav- 
 ing to do with Asiatics, I felt the danger 
 of the slightest movement which might 
 be looked upon as a sign of irresolution. 
 Therefore, without looking behind me, 
 without looking to the right or to the left, 
 I rode straight up towards the foremost 
 tent. Before it was strewed a semicircular 
 fence of dead boughs; through this and about 
 opposite to the front of the tent there was 
 a narrow opening. As I advanced, some 
 twenty or thirty of the most uncouth-look- 
 ing fellows imaginable came forward to meet 
 me. In their appearance they showed no- 
 thing of the Bedouin blood; they were of 
 many colors, from dingy brown to jet-black, 
 and some of these last had much of the 
 negro look about them. They were tall, pow- 
 erful fellows, but repulsively ugly. They 
 wore nothing but the Arab shirts, confined 
 at the waist by leather belts. 
 
 191 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XIV 
 
 I advanced to the gap left in the fence, 
 and at once alighted from my horse. The 
 chief greeted me after his fashion by alter- 
 nately touching first my hand and then his 
 own forehead, as if he were conveying the 
 virtue of the touch like a spark of electri- 
 city. Presently I found myself seated 
 upon a sheepskin, spread for me under 
 the sacred shade of Arabian canvas. The 
 tent was of a long, narrow, oblong form, 
 and contained a quantity of men, women, 
 and children so closely huddled together 
 that there was scarcely one of them who 
 was not in actual contact with his neighbor. 
 The moment I had taken my seat, the chief 
 repeated his salutations in the most enthu- 
 siastic manner, and then the people, having 
 gathered densely about me, got hold of my 
 unresisting hand and passed it round like 
 a claret jug for the benefit of everybody. 
 The women soon brought me a wooden 
 bowl full of buttermilk, and welcome indeed 
 came the gift to my hungry and thirsty 
 soul. 
 
 After some time my people, as I had ex- 
 pected, came up, and when poor Dthemetri 
 saw me on my sheepskin, "the life and 
 soul " of this ragamuffin party, he was so 
 astounded that he even failed to check his 
 cry of horror; he plainly thought that now, 
 
 192 
 
Chapter XIV] EOTHEN 
 
 at last, the Lord had dehvered me (inter- 
 preter and all) into the hands of the lowest 
 Philistines. 
 
 Mysseri carried a tobacco-pouch slung 
 at his belt, and as soon as its contents were 
 known, the whole population of the tent 
 began begging like spaniels for bits of the 
 beloved weed. I concluded, from the abject 
 manner of these people, that they could not 
 possibly be thoroughbred Bedouins, and I 
 saw, too, that they must be in the very last 
 stage of misery, for poor indeed is the man 
 in these climes who cannot command a 
 pipeful of tobacco. I began to think that I 
 had fallen amongst thorough savages, and it 
 seemed likely enough that they would gain 
 their very first knowledge of civilization by 
 seizing and studying the contents of my 
 dearest portmanteaus; but still my impres- 
 sion was that they would hardly venture 
 upon such an attempt. I observed, in- 
 deed, that they did not offer me the bread 
 and salt (the pledges of peace amongst wan- 
 dering tribes), but I fancied that they re- 
 frained from this act of hospitality, not in 
 consequence of any hostile determination, 
 but in order that the notion of robbing me 
 might remain for the present an " open ques- 
 tion." I afterwards found that the poor 
 fellows had no bread to offer. They were 
 13 193 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XIV 
 
 literally "out at grass." It is true that 
 they had a scanty supply of milk from 
 goats, but they were living almost entirely 
 upon certain grass-stems, which were just 
 in season at that time of the year. These, 
 if not highly nourishing, are pleasant enough 
 to the taste, and their acid juices come grate- 
 fully to thirsty lips. 
 
 194 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 XV 
 
 Passage of the Jordan. 
 
 A ND now Dthemetri began to enter into a 
 /\ negotiation with my hosts for a pas- 
 ^ A^ sage over the river. I never inter- 
 fered with my worthy dragoman upon these 
 occasions, because, from my entire igno- 
 rance of the Arabic, I should have been quite 
 unable to exercise any real control over his 
 words, and it would have been silly to break 
 the stream of his eloquence to no purpose. 
 I have reason to fear, however, that he lied 
 transcendently, and especially in represent- 
 ing me as the bosom friend of Ibrahim 
 Pasha. The mention of that name pro- 
 duced immense agitation and excitement, 
 and the sheik explained to Dthemetri the 
 grounds of the infinite respect which he and 
 his tribe entertained for the Pasha. Only a 
 few weeks before Ibrahim had craftily sent a 
 body of troops across the Jordan. The force 
 went warily round to the foot of the moun- 
 tains on the east, so as to cut off the re- 
 
 195 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XV 
 
 treat of this tribe, and then surrounded 
 them as they lay encamped in the vale; 
 their camels, and indeed all their posses- 
 sions worth taking, were carried off by the 
 soldiery, and moreover the then sheik, to- 
 gether with every tenth man of the tribe, 
 was brought out and shot. You would think 
 that this conduct on the part of the Pasha 
 might not procure for his " friend '' a very 
 gracious reception amongst the people whom 
 he had thus despoiled and decimated; but 
 the Asiatic seems to be animated with a 
 feeling of profound respect, almost border- 
 ing upon affection, for those who have done 
 him any bold and violent wrong, and there 
 is always, too, so much of vague and unde- 
 fined apprehension mixed up with his really 
 well-founded alarms that I can see no limit 
 to the yielding and bending of his mind 
 when it is worked upon by the idea of 
 power. 
 
 After some discussion the Arabs agreed, 
 as I thought, to conduct me to a ford, and 
 we moved on towards the river, followed 
 by seventeen of the most able-bodied of 
 the tribe, under the guidance of several 
 gray-bearded elders, and Sheik Ali Djour- 
 ban at the head of the whole detachment. 
 Upon leaving the encampment a sort of 
 ceremony was performed, for the purpose, 
 
 196 
 
Chapter XV] EOTHEN 
 
 it seemed, of insuring, if possible, a happy 
 result for the undertaking. There was an 
 uplifting of arms, and a repeating of words 
 that sounded like formulae, but there were 
 no prostrations, and I did not understand 
 that the ceremony was of a religious char- 
 acter. The tented Arabs are looked upon 
 as very bad Mohammedans. 
 
 We arrived upon the banks of the river, 
 —not at a ford, but at a deep and rapid 
 part of the stream,— and I now understood 
 that it was the plan of these men, if they 
 helped me at all, to transport me across 
 the river by some species of raft. But a 
 reaction had taken place in the opinions of 
 many, and a violent dispute arose, upon a 
 motion which seemed to have been made 
 by some honorable member with a view to 
 robbery. The fellows all gathered together 
 in circle, at a little distance from my party, 
 and there disputed with great vehemence 
 and fury for nearly two hours. I can't give 
 a correct report of the debate, for it was 
 held in a barbarous dialect of the Arabic 
 unknown to my dragoman. I recollect I 
 sincerely felt, at the time, that the argu- 
 ments in favor of robbing me must have 
 been almost unanswerable, and I gave 
 great credit to the speakers on my side for 
 the ingenuity and sophistry which they 
 
 197 
 
 "^m;:- 
 
EOTHEN [Chapteb XV 
 
 must have shown in maintaining the fight 
 so well. 
 
 During the discussion I remained lying 
 in front of my baggage, for this had been 
 already taken from the pack-saddles and 
 placed upon the ground. I was so languid 
 from want of food that I had scarcely ani- 
 mation enough to feel as deeply interested 
 as you would suppose in the result of the 
 discussion. I thought, however, that the 
 pleasantest toys to play with, during this 
 interval, were my pistols, and now and 
 then, when I listlessly visited my loaded 
 barrels with the swivel ramrods, or drew a 
 sweet, musical click from my English fire- 
 locks, it seemed to me that I exercised a 
 slight and gentle influence on the debate. 
 Thanks to Ibrahim Pasha's terrible visita- 
 tion, the men of the tribe were wholly un- 
 armed, and my advantage in this respect 
 might have counterbalanced in some mea- 
 sure the superiority of numbers. 
 
 Mysseri (not interpreting in Arabic) had 
 no duty to perform, and he seemed to 
 be faint and listless as myself. Shereef 
 looked perfectly resigned to any fate. But 
 Dthemetri (faithful terrier!) was bristling 
 with zeal and watchfulness. He could not 
 understand the debate, for it was carried 
 on at a distance too great to be easily 
 
 198 
 
Chapter XV] EOTHEN 
 
 heard, even if the language had been fa- 
 miliar; but he was always on the alert, 
 and now and then conferring with men who 
 had straggled out of the assembly. At last 
 he found an opportunity of making an 
 offer which at once produced immense 
 sensation: he proposed, on my behalf, that 
 the tribe should bear themselves loyally 
 towards me, and take my people and my 
 baggage in safety to the other bank of 
 the river, and that I on my part should 
 give such a teskeri, or written certificate 
 of their good conduct, as might avail 
 them hereafter in the hour of their direst 
 need. This proposal was received and 
 instantly accepted by all the men of the 
 tribe there present with the utmost en- 
 thusiasm. I was to give the men, too, a 
 "bakshish," that is, a present of money, 
 usually made upon the conclusion of 
 any sort of treaty; but although the peo- 
 ple of the tribe were so miserably poor, 
 they seemed to look upon the pecuniary 
 part of the arrangement as a matter 
 quite trivial in comparison with the tes- 
 keri. Indeed, the sum which Dthemetri 
 promised them was extremely small, and 
 no attempt was made to extort any fur- 
 ther reward. 
 The council broke up, and most of the men 
 
 199 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XV 
 
 rushed madly towards me, overwhelming 
 me with vehement gratulations, and kissing 
 my hands and my boots. 
 
 The Arabs then earnestly began their at- 
 tempt to effect the passage of the river. 
 They had brought with them a great num- 
 ber of skins used for carrying water in the 
 desert; these they filled with air, and fas- 
 tened several of them to small boughs cut 
 from the banks of the river. In this way 
 they constructed a raft not more than about 
 four or five feet square, but rendered buoy- 
 ant by the inflated skins. Upon this a por- 
 tion of my baggage was placed, and was 
 firmly tied to it by the cords used on my 
 pack-saddles. The little raft, with its 
 weighty cargo, was then gently lifted into 
 the water, and I had the satisfaction to see 
 that it floated well. 
 
 Twelve of the Arabs now stripped, and 
 tied inflated skins to their loins; six of the 
 men went down into the river, got in front 
 of the little raft, and pulled it off a few feet 
 from the bank. The other six then dashed 
 into the stream with loud shouts, and 
 swam along after the raft, pushing it from 
 behind. Off went the craft in capital style 
 at first, for the stream was easy on the 
 eastern side; but I saw that the tug was to 
 come, for the main torrent swept round 
 
 200 
 
Chapter XV] EOTHEN 
 
 in a bend near the western bank of the 
 river. 
 
 The old men, with their long gray grisly- 
 beards, stood shouting and cheering, pray- 
 ing and commanding. At length the raft 
 entered upon the difficult part of its course; 
 the whirling stream seized and twisted it 
 about, and then bore it rapidly downwards; 
 the swimmers flagged, and seemed to be 
 beaten in the struggle. But now the old 
 men on the bank, with their rigid arms up- 
 lifted straight, sent forth a cry and a shout 
 that tore the wide air, and then, to make 
 their urging yet more strong, they shrieked 
 out the dreadful syllables, " 'Brahim Pasha ! '' 
 The swimmers, one moment before so blown 
 and so weary, found lungs to answer the cry, 
 and shouted back the name of their great 
 destroyer; they dashed on through the tor- 
 rent, and bore the raft in safety to the 
 western bank. 
 
 Afterwards the swimmers returned with 
 the raft, and attached to it the rest of my 
 baggage. I took my seat upon the top of 
 the cargo, and the raft, thus laden, passed 
 the river in the same way, and with the 
 same struggle as before. The skins, how- 
 ever, not being perfectly air-tight, had lost 
 a great part of their buoyancy, so that I, 
 as well as the luggage that passed on this 
 
 201 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XV 
 
 last voyage, got wet in the waters of Jor- 
 dan. The raft could not be trusted for 
 another trip, and the rest of my people 
 passed the river in a different and (for 
 them) much safer way. Inflated skins were 
 fastened to their loins, and thus supported 
 they were tugged across by Arabs swim- 
 ming on either side of them. The horses 
 and mules were thrown into the water and 
 forced to swim over. The poor beasts had 
 a hard struggle for their lives in that swift 
 stream, and I thought that one of the 
 horses would have been drowned, for he 
 was too weak to gain a footing on the west- 
 ern bank, and the stream bore him down. 
 At last, however, he swam back to the side 
 from which he had come. Before night all 
 had passed the river except this one horse 
 and old Shereef . He, poor fellow, was shiv- 
 ering on the eastern bank, for his dread of 
 the passage was so great that he delayed 
 it as long as he could, and at last it be- 
 came so dark that he was obliged to wait 
 till the morning. 
 
 I lay that night on the bank of the river. 
 The Arabs at a little distance from me con- 
 trived to kindle a fire, and sat all around in 
 a circle. They were made most savagely 
 happy by the tobacco with which I supplied 
 them^ and they soon determined that the 
 
 202 
 
Chapter XV] EOTHEN 
 
 whole night should be one smoking festi- 
 val. The poor fellows had only a cracked 
 bowl, without any tube at all; but this 
 morsel of a pipe they handed round from 
 one to the other, allowing to each a fixed 
 number of whiffs. In that way they passed 
 the whole night. 
 
 The next morning old Shereef was brought 
 across. It was strange to see this solemn 
 old Mussulman, with his shaven head and 
 his sacred beard, sprawling and puffing 
 upon the surface of the water. When 
 at last he reached the bank, the peo- 
 ple told him that by his baptism in Jor- 
 dan he had surely become a mere Chris- 
 tian. Poor Shereef! the holy man! the 
 descendant of the Prophet! He was sadly 
 hurt by the taunt, and the more so as he 
 seemed to feel there was some foundation 
 for it, and that he really might have ab- 
 sorbed some Christian errors. 
 
 When all was ready for departure, I wrote 
 the teskeri in French, and delivered it 
 to Sheik Ali Djourban, together with the 
 promised bakshish. He was exceedingly 
 grateful, and I parted in a very friendly way 
 from this ragged tribe. 
 
 In two or three hours I gained Rihah, a 
 village said to occupy the site of ancient 
 Jericho. There was one building there 
 
 203 
 
EOTHEN Chapter XV 
 
 which I observed with some emotion, for 
 although it may not have been actually 
 standing in the days of Jericho, it contained 
 at this day a most interesting collection of 
 — modern loaves. 
 
 Some hours after sunset I reached the 
 convent of Santa Saba, and there remained^ 
 for the night. 
 
 204 
 
CHAPTER 
 XVI 
 
 Terra Santa. 
 
 THE enthusiasm that had glowed, or 
 seemed to glow, within me, for one 
 blessed moment, when I knelt by 
 the shrine of the Virgin at Nazareth was 
 not rekindled at Jerusalem. In the stead 
 of the solemn gloom and the deep still- 
 ness rightfully belonging to the Holy City, 
 there was the hum and the bustle of active 
 life. It was the *^ height of the season.'' 
 The Easter ceremonies drew near; the pil- 
 grims were flocking in from all quarters, 
 and although their objects were, partly at 
 least, of a religious character, yet their 
 "arrivals'' brought as much stir and liveli- 
 ness to the city as if they had come up to 
 marry their daughters. 
 
 The votaries who every year crowd to the 
 Holy Sepulcher are chiefly of the Greek and 
 Armenian churches. They are not drawn 
 into Palestine by a mere sentimental longing 
 to stand upon the ground trodden by our 
 
 205 
 
EOTHBN [Chapter XVI 
 
 Saviour, but rather they perform the pil- 
 grimage as a plain duty, strongly inculcated 
 by their religion. A very great proportion 
 of those who belong to the Greek Church 
 contrive at some time or other, in the 
 course of their lives, to achieve the enter- 
 prise. Many in their infancy and child- 
 hood are brought to the holy sites by their 
 parents, but those who have not had this 
 advantage will often make it the main ob- 
 ject of their lives to save money enough 
 for this holy undertaking. 
 
 The pilgrims begin to arrive in Palestine 
 some weeks before the Easter festival of 
 the Greek Church; they come from Egypt, 
 from all parts of Syria, from Armenia and 
 Asia Minor, from Stamboul, from Rume- 
 lia, from the provinces of the Danube, and 
 from all the Russias. Most of these people 
 bring with them some articles of merchan- 
 dise, but I myself believe (notwithstanding 
 the common taunt against pilgrims) that 
 they do this rather as a mode of paying the 
 expenses of their journey than from a spirit 
 of mercenary speculation. They generally 
 travel in families, for the women are, of 
 course, more ardent than their husbands in 
 undertaking these pious enterprises, and 
 they take care to bring with them all their 
 children, however young. They do this be- 
 
 206 
 
Chapter XVI] EOTHEN 
 
 cause the efficacy of the rites is quite inde- 
 pendent of the age of the votary, and people 
 whose careful mothers have obtained for 
 them the benefit of the pilgrimage in early 
 life are saved from the expense and trouble 
 of undertaking the journey at a later age. 
 The superior veneration so often excited by 
 objects that are distant and unknown shows 
 not, perhaps, the wrong-headedness of a 
 man, but rather the transcendent power of 
 his imagination. However this may be, and 
 whether it is by mere obstinacy that they 
 force their way through intervening dis- 
 tance, or whether they come by the winged 
 strength of fancy, quite certainly the pil- 
 grims who flock to Palestine from remote 
 homes are the people most eager in the 
 enterprise, and in number, too, they bear 
 a very high proportion to the whole mass. 
 The great bulk of the pilgrims make 
 their way by sea to the port of Jaffa. A 
 number of families will charter a vessel 
 amongst them, all bringing their own pro- 
 visions: these are of the simplest and 
 cheapest kind. On board every vessel thus 
 freighted there is, I believe, a priest, who 
 helps the people in their religious exercises, 
 and tries (and fails) to maintain something 
 like order and harmony. The vessels em- 
 ployed in the service are usually Greek 
 
 207 
 
W'V': 
 
 EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 brigs or brigantines and schooners, and the 
 number of passengers stowed in them is 
 almost always horribly excessive. The 
 voyages are sadly protracted, not only by 
 the land-seeking, storm-flying habits of the 
 Greek seamen, but also by the endless 
 schemes and speculations forever tempting 
 them to touch at the nearest port. The 
 voyage, too, must be made during winter, 
 in order that Jerusalem may be reached 
 some weeks before the Greek Easter. 
 
 When the pilgrims have landed at Jaffa, 
 they hire camels, horses, mules, or donkeys, 
 and make their way as well as they can 
 to the Holy City. The space fronting the 
 Church of the Holy Sepulcher soon becomes 
 a kind of bazaar, or rather, perhaps, reminds 
 you of an English fair. On this spot the 
 pilgrims display their merchandise, and 
 there, too, the trading residents of the place 
 offer their goods for sale. I have never, I 
 think, seen elsewhere in Asia so much com- 
 mercial animation as upon this square of 
 ground by the church door: the "money- 
 changers" seemed to be almost as brisk 
 and lively as if they had been within the 
 temple. 
 
 When I entered the church, I found a 
 Babel of worshipers. Greek, Roman, and 
 Armenian priests were performing their 
 
 208 
 
Chapter XVI] EOTHEN 
 
 different rites in various nooks and corners, 
 and crowds of disciples were rushing about 
 in all directions, some laughing and talking, 
 some begging, but most of them going 
 round in a regular and methodical way to 
 kiss the sanctified spots, and speak the ap- 
 pointed syllables, and lay down the accus- 
 tomed coin. If this kissing of the shrines 
 had seemed as though it were done at the 
 bidding of enthusiasm, or of any poor sen- 
 timent even feebly approaching to it, the 
 sight would have been less odd to English 
 eyes; but as it was, I felt shocked at the 
 sight of grown men thus steadily and care- 
 fully embracing the sticks and the stones— 
 not from love or from zeal (else God forbid 
 that I should have blamed), but from a 
 calm sense of duty. They seemed to be, not 
 "working out,'^ but transacting , the great 
 business of salvation. 
 
 Dthemetri, however (he generally came 
 with me when I went out, in order to do 
 duty as interpreter), really had in him some 
 enthusiasm. He was a zealous and almost 
 fanatical member of the Greek Church, and 
 had long since performed the pilgrimage, 
 so now, great indeed was the pride and de- 
 light with which he guided me from one 
 holy spot to another. Every now and then, 
 when he came to an unoccupied shrine, he 
 14 209 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 fell down on his knees and performed de- 
 votion. He was almost distracted by the 
 temptations that surrounded him. There 
 were so many stones absolutely requiring 
 to be kissed that he rushed about, happily 
 puzzled and sweetly teased, like "Jack 
 among the maidens.'^ 
 
 A Protestant, familiar with the Holy 
 Scriptures, but ignorant of tradition and the 
 geography of modern Jerusalem, finds him- 
 self a good deal "mazed" when he first 
 looks for the sacred sites. The Holy Sepul- 
 cher is not in a field without the walls, but 
 in the midst and in the best part of the 
 town, under the roof of the great church 
 which I have been talking about. It is a 
 handsome tomb of oblong form, partly sub- 
 terranean and partly above ground, and 
 closed in on all sides except the one by 
 which it is entered. You descend into the 
 interior by a few steps, and there find an 
 altar with burning tapers. This is the spot 
 held in greater sanctity than any other in 
 Jerusalem. When you have seen enough of 
 it, you feel perhaps weary of the busy crowd 
 and inclined for a gallop; you ask your 
 dragoman whether there will be time before 
 sunset to send for horses and take a ride to 
 Mount Calvary. "Mount Calvary, signer? 
 Eccolol it is upstairs— on the first floor J^ 
 
 210 
 
Chapter XVI ] BOTH EN 
 
 In effect you ascend, if I remember rightly, 
 just thirteen steps, and then you are shown 
 the now golden sockets in which the crosses 
 of our Lord and the two thieves were fixed. 
 All this is startling, but the truth is that the 
 city, having gathered round the Sepulcher 
 (the main point of interest), has gradually 
 crept northward, and thus in great measure 
 are occasioned the many geographical sur- 
 prises that puzzle the " Bible Christian." 
 
 The Church of the Holy Sepulcher com- 
 prises very compendiously almost all the 
 spots associated with the closing career of 
 our Lord. Just there, on your right, he 
 stood and wept; by the pillar on your left 
 he was scourged; on the spot just before 
 you he was crowned with the crown of 
 thorns; up there he was crucified, and down 
 here he was buried. A locality is assigned 
 to every the minutest event connected with 
 the recorded history of our Saviour; even 
 the spot where the cock crew when Peter 
 denied his master is ascertained, and sur- 
 rounded by the walls of an Armenian con- 
 vent. Many Protestants are wont to treat 
 these traditions contemptuously, and those 
 who distinguish themselves from their 
 brethren by the appellation of " Bible Chris- 
 tians '' are almost fierce in their denuncia- 
 tion of these supposed errors. 
 
 211 
 
'%■/. 
 
 EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 It is admitted, I believe, by everybody 
 that the formal sanctification of these spots 
 was the act of the Empress Helena, the 
 mother of Constantine, but I think it is fair 
 to suppose that she was guided by a care- 
 ful regard to the then prevailing traditions. 
 Now, the nature of the ground upon which 
 Jerusalem stands is such that the locali- 
 ties belonging to the events there enacted 
 might have been more easily and perma- 
 nently ascertained by tradition than those 
 of any city that I know of. Jerusalem, 
 whether ancient or modern, was built upon 
 and surrounded by sharp, salient rocks, in- 
 tersected by deep ravines. Up to the time 
 of the siege. Mount Calvary, of course, 
 must have been well enough known to the 
 people of Jerusalem. The destruction of the 
 mere buildings could not have obliterated 
 from any man's memory the names of those 
 steep rocks and narrow ravines in the midst 
 of which the city had stood. It seems to 
 me, therefore, highly probable that in fixing 
 the site of Calvary the Empress was rightly 
 guided. Recollect, too, that the voice of 
 tradition at Jerusalem is quite unanimous, 
 and that Romans, Greeks, Armenians, and 
 Jews, all hating each other sincerely, con- 
 cur in assigning the same localities to the 
 events told in the Gospel. I concede, how- 
 
 212 
 
Chapter XVI ] EOTHEN 
 
 ever, that the attempt of the Empress to 
 ascertain the sites of the minor events can- 
 not be safely rehed upon. With respect, 
 for instance, to the certainty of the spot 
 where the cock crew I am far from being 
 convinced. 
 
 Supposing that the Empress acted arbi- 
 trarily in fixing the holy sites, it would 
 seem that she followed the Gospel of St. 
 John, and that the geography sanctioned 
 by her can be more easily reconciled with 
 that history than with the accounts of the 
 other Evangelists. 
 
 The authority exercised by the Mussul- 
 man Government in relation to the holy 
 sites is in one view somewhat humbling 
 to the Christians, for it is almost as an ar- 
 bitrator between the contending sects (this 
 always, of course, for the sake of pecuniary 
 advantage) that the Mussulman lends his 
 contemptuous aid. He not only grants, but 
 enforces, toleration. All persons, of what- 
 ever religion, are allowed to go as they will 
 into every part of the Church of the Holy 
 Sepulcher, but in order to prevent indecent 
 contests, and also from motives arising out 
 of money payments, the Turkish Govern- 
 ment assigns the peculiar care of each sa- 
 cred spot to one of the ecclesiastic bodies. 
 Since this guardianship carries with it the 
 
 213 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 receipt of all the coins deposited by the pil- 
 grims upon the sacred shrines, it is strenu- 
 ously fought for by all the rival churches, 
 and the artifices of intrigue are busily ex- 
 erted at Stamboul in order to procure the 
 issue or revocation of the firmans by which 
 the coveted privilege is granted. In this 
 strife the Greek Church has of late years 
 signally triumphed, and the most famous of 
 the shrines are committed to the care of their 
 priesthood. They possess the golden socket 
 in which stood the cross of our Lord, whilst 
 the Latins are obliged to content them- 
 selves with the apertures in which were 
 inserted the crosses of the two thieves. 
 They are naturally discontented with that 
 poor privilege, and sorrowfully look back to 
 the days of their former glory— the days 
 when Napoleon was emperor, and Sebas- 
 tiani ambassador at the Porte. 
 
 Although the pilgrims perform their de- 
 votions at the several shrines with so little 
 apparent enthusiasm, they are driven to 
 the verge of madness by the miracle dis- 
 played before them on Easter Saturday. 
 Then it is that the heaven-sent fire issues 
 from the Holy Sepulcher. The pilgrims 
 assemble in the great church, and already, 
 long before the wonder is worked, they are 
 wrought by anticipation of God's sign, as 
 
 214 
 
Chapter XVI] EOTHEN 
 
 well as by their struggles for room and 
 breathing-space, to a most frightful state 
 of excitement. At length the Chief Pf iest 
 of the Greeks, accompanied (of all people in 
 the world) by the Turkish Governor, enters 
 the tomb. After this there is a long pause, 
 but at last and suddenly from out of the 
 small apertures on either side of the Sepul- 
 cher there issue long, shining flames. The 
 pilgrims now rush forward, madly struggling 
 to] light their tapers at the holy fire. This 
 is the dangerous moment, and many lives 
 are often lost. 
 
 The year before that of my going to Je- 
 rusalem, Ibrahim Pasha, from some whim 
 or motive of policy, chose to witness the 
 miracle. The vast church was, of course, 
 thronged, as it always is on that awful day. 
 It seems that the appearance of the fire was 
 delayed for a very long time, and that the 
 growing frenzy of the people was height- 
 ened by suspense. Many, too, had already 
 sunk, under the effect of the heat and 
 the stifling atmosphere, when at last the 
 fire flashed from the Sepulcher. Then 
 a terrible struggle ensued. Many sank and 
 were crushed. Ibrahim had taken his sta- 
 tion in one of the galleries; but now, feeling, 
 perhaps, his brave blood warmed by the 
 sight and sound of such strife, he took 
 
 215 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 upon himself to quiet the people by his 
 personal presence, and descended into the 
 body of the church with only a few guards. 
 He had forced his way into the midst of the 
 dense crowd, when, unhappily, he fainted 
 away. His guards shrieked out, and the 
 event instantly became known. A body of 
 soldiers recklessly forced their way through 
 the crowd, trampling over every obstacle 
 that they might save the life of their 
 general. Nearly two hundred people were 
 killed in the struggle. 
 
 The following year, however, the Govern- 
 ment took better measures for the preven- 
 tion of these calamities. I was not present 
 at the ceremony, having gone away from 
 Jerusalem some time before, but I after- 
 wards returned into Palestine, and I then 
 learned that the day had passed off with- 
 out any disturbance of a fatal kind. It is, 
 however, almost too much to expect that 
 so many ministers of peace can assemble 
 without finding some occasion for strife, 
 and in that year a tribe of wild Bedouins 
 became the subject of discord. These men, 
 it seems, led an Arab life in some of the 
 desert tracts bordering on the neighbor- 
 hood of Jerusalem, but were not connected 
 with any of the great ruling tribes. Some 
 whim or notion of policy had induced them 
 
 216 
 
Chapter XVI ] EOTHEN 
 
 to embrace Christianity, but they were 
 grossly ignorant of the rudiments of their 
 adopted faith, and having no priest with 
 them in their desert, they had as Uttle 
 knowledge of religious ceremonies as of re- 
 ligion itself; they were not even capable of 
 conducting themselves in a place of wor- 
 ship with ordinary decorum, but would in- 
 terrupt the service with scandalous cries 
 and warlike shouts. Such is the account the 
 Latins give of them, but I have never heard 
 the other side of the question. These wild 
 fellows, notwithstanding their entire igno- 
 rance of all religion, are yet claimed by the 
 Greeks, not only as proselytes who have 
 embraced Christianity generally, but as con- 
 verts to the particular doctrines and prac- 
 tice of their Church. The people thus alleged 
 to have concurred with the Greeks in re- 
 jecting the great Roman Catholic schism, 
 are never, I believe, within the walls of a 
 church, or even of any building at all, 
 except upon this occasion of Easter, and 
 as they then never fail to find a row of 
 some kind going on by the side of the 
 Sepulcher, they fancy, it seems, that the 
 ceremonies there enacted are funeral games 
 of a martial character, held in honor of a 
 deceased chieftain, and that a Christian 
 festival is a peculiar kind of battle fought 
 
 217 
 
 'fp.-i.i 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 between walls and without cavalry. It does 
 not appear, however, that these men are 
 guilty of any ferocious acts, or that they at- 
 tempt to commit depredations. The charge 
 against them is merely that by their way 
 of applauding the performance— by their 
 horrible cries and frightful gestures— they 
 destroy the solemnity of divine service, and 
 upon this ground the Franciscans obtained 
 a firman for the exclusion of such tumultu- 
 ous worshipers. The Greeks, however, did 
 not choose to lose the aid of their wild con- 
 verts merely because they were a little 
 backward in their religious education, and 
 they therefore persuaded them to defy the 
 firman by entering the city en masse and 
 overawing their enemies. The Franciscans, 
 as well as the Government authorities, were 
 obliged to give way, and the Arabs triumph- 
 antly marched into the church. The festi- 
 val, however, must have seemed to them 
 rather flat, for although there may have 
 been some " casualties " in the way of eyes 
 black, and noses bloody, and women ^^ miss- 
 ing," there was no return of " killed.'' 
 
 Formerly the Latin Catholics concurred 
 in acknowledging (but not, I hope, in work- 
 ing) the annual miracle of the heavenly 
 fire, but they have for many years with- 
 drawn their countenance from this exhibi- 
 
 218 
 
Chapter XVI ] EOTHEN 
 
 tion, and they now repudiate it as a trick 
 of the Greek Church. Thus, of course, the 
 violence of feeling with which the rival 
 churches meet at the Holy Sepulcher, on 
 Easter Saturday, is greatly increased, and 
 a disturbance of some kind is certain. In 
 the year I speak of, though no lives were 
 lost, there was, as it seems, a tough strug- 
 gle in the church. I was amused at hear- 
 ing of a taunt that was thrown that day 
 upon an English traveler: he had taken his 
 station in a convenient part of the church, 
 and was no doubt displaying that peculiar 
 air of serenity and gratification with which 
 an English gentleman usually looks on at a 
 row, when one of the Franciscans came by, 
 all reeking from the fight, and was so dis- 
 gusted at the coolness and placid content- 
 ment of the Englishman that he forgot his 
 monkish humility, as well as the duties of 
 hospitality (the Englishman was a guest at 
 the convent), and plainly said: "You sleep 
 under our roof, you eat our bread, you drink 
 our wine, and then, when Easter Saturday 
 comes, you don't fight for us ! '' 
 
 Yet these rival churches go on quietly 
 enough till their blood is up. The terms 
 on which they live remind one of the pe- 
 culiar relation subsisting at Cambridge 
 between " town and gown." 
 
 219 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 The contests waged by the priests and 
 friars certainly do not originate with the lay 
 pilgrims, for the great body of these are 
 quiet and inoffensive people. It is true, 
 however, that their pious enterprise is be- 
 lieved by them to operate as a counter- 
 poise for a multitude of sins, whether past 
 or future, and perhaps they exert them- 
 selves in after life to restore the balance 
 of good and evil. The Turks have a maxim 
 which, like most cynical apothegms, carries 
 with it the buzzing trumpet of falsehood, 
 as well as the small, fine " sting of truth.'' 
 "If your friend has made the pilgrimage 
 once, distrust him; if he has made the pil- 
 grimage twice, cut him dead!" The cau- 
 tion is said to be as applicable to the 
 visitants of Jerusalem as to those of Mecca; 
 but I cannot help believing that the frail- 
 ties of all the hadjis,^ whether Christian 
 or Mohammedan, are greatly exaggerated. I 
 certainly regarded the pilgrims to Palestine 
 as a well disposed, orderly body of people, 
 not strongly enthusiastic, but desirous to 
 comply with the ordinances of their re- 
 ligion, and to attain the great end of 
 salvation as quietly and economically as 
 possible. 
 
 When the solemnities of Easter are con- 
 
 1 Hadji— a pilgrim. 
 
 220 
 
Chapter XVI] EOTHEN 
 
 eluded, the pilgrims move off in a body to 
 complete their good work by visiting the 
 sacred scenes in the neighborhood of Jeru- 
 salem, including the wilderness of John 
 the Baptist, Bethlehem, and, above all, the 
 Jordan, for to bathe in those sacred waters 
 is one of the chief objects of the expedi- 
 tion. All the pilgrims— men, women, and 
 children— are submerged en chemise, and 
 the saturated linen is carefully wrapped up 
 and preserved as a burial dress that shall 
 inure for salvation in the realms of death. 
 I saw the burial of a pilgrim; he was a 
 Greek— miserably poor, and very old. He 
 had just crawled into the Holy City, and 
 had reached at once the goal of his pious 
 journey and the end of his sufferings upon 
 earth. There was no coffin, nor wrapper, 
 and as I looked full upon the face of the 
 dead, I saw how deeply it was rutted with 
 the ruts of age and misery. The priest, 
 strong and portly, fresh, fat, and alive with 
 the life of the animal kingdom, unpaid or 
 ill paid for his work, would scarcely deign 
 to mutter out his forms, but hurried over 
 the words with shocking haste. Presently 
 he called out impatiently: "Yalla! Goor!'' 
 ("Come! Look sharp !")j and then the dead 
 Greek was seized. His limbs yielded inertly 
 to the rude men that handled them, and 
 
 221 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 down he went into his grave, so roughly 
 bundled in that his neck was twisted by 
 the fall— so twisted that if the sharp 
 malady of life were still upon him, the old 
 man would have shrieked and groaned, and 
 the lines of his face would have quivered 
 with pain. The lines of his face were not 
 moved, and the old man lay still and heed- 
 less—so well cured of that tedious life- 
 ache that nothing could hurt him now. 
 His clay was itself again— cool, firm, and 
 tough. The pilgrim had found great rest. 
 I threw the accustomed handful of the 
 holy soil upon his patient face, and then, 
 and in less than a minute, the earth closed 
 coldly round him. 
 
 I did not say "Alas! '' (Nobody ever does 
 that I know of, though the word is so fre- 
 quently written.) I thought the old man 
 had got rather well out of the scrape of 
 being alive, and poor. 
 
 The destruction of the mere buildings in 
 such a place as Jerusalem would not in- 
 volve the permanent dispersion of the 
 inhabitants, for the rocky neighborhood in 
 which the town is situate abounds in caves, 
 and these would give an easy refuge to the 
 people until they gained an opportunity of 
 rebuilding their dwellings. Therefore I 
 could not help looking upon the Jews of 
 
 222 
 
Chapter XVI ] EOTHEN 
 
 Jerusalem as being in some sort the repre- 
 sentatives, if not the actual descendants, of 
 the men who crucified our Saviour. Sup- 
 posing this to be the case, I felt that there 
 would be some interest in knowing how 
 the events of the Gospel history were re- 
 garded by the Israelites of modern Jerusa- 
 lem. The result of my inquiry upon this 
 subject was, so far as it went, entirely 
 favorable to the truth of Christianity. I 
 understood that the performance of the mira- 
 cles was not doubted by any of the Jews in 
 the place. All of them concurred in attrib- 
 uting the works of our Lord to the influence 
 of magic, but they were divided as to the 
 species of enchantment from which the 
 power proceeded; the great mass of the Jew- 
 ish people believed, I fancy, that the mira- 
 cles had been wrought by aid of the 
 powers of darkness, but many, and those 
 the more enlightened, would call Jesus " the 
 good Magician." To Europeans repudiating 
 the notion of all magic, good or bad, the 
 opinion of the Jews as to the agency by 
 which the miracles were worked is a mat- 
 ter of no importance, but the circumstance 
 of their admitting that those miracles were 
 in fact performed is certainly curious, and 
 perhaps not quite immaterial. 
 
 If you stay in the Holy City long enough 
 
 223 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 to fall into anything like regular habits 
 of amusement and occupation, and to be- 
 come, in short, for the time a "man about 
 town '' at Jerusalem, you will necessarily 
 lose the enthusiasm which you may have 
 felt when you trod the sacred soil for the 
 first time, and it will then seem almost 
 strange to you to find yourself so en- 
 tirely surrounded in all your daily pur- 
 suits by the signs and sounds of religion. 
 Your hotel is a monastery, your rooms 
 are cells, the landlord is a stately abbot, 
 and the waiters are hooded monks. If you 
 walk out of the town, you find yourself on 
 the Mount of Olives, or in the Valley of 
 Jehoshaphat, or on the Hill of Evil Counsel. 
 If you mount your horse and extend your 
 rambles, you will be guided to the wilderness 
 of St. John, or the birthplace of our Saviour. 
 Your club is the great Church of the Holy 
 Sepulcher, where everybody meets every- 
 body every day. If you lounge through 
 the town, your Pall Mall is the Via Dolo- 
 rosa, and the object of your hopeless affec- 
 tions is some maid or matron all forlorn, 
 and sadly shrouded in her pilgrim's robe. 
 If you would hear music, it must be the 
 chanting of friars; if you look at pictures, 
 you see Virgins with mis-foreshortened 
 arms, or devils out of drawing, or angels 
 
 224 
 
 
Chapter XVI ] EOTHEN 
 
 tumbling up the skies in impious perspec- 
 tive. If you would make any purchases, 
 you must go again to the church doors, 
 and when you inquire for the manufactures 
 of the place, you find that they consist of 
 double-blessed beads and sanctified shells. 
 These last are the favorite tokens which 
 the pilgrims carry off with them. The shell 
 is graven or rather scratched on the white 
 side with a rude drawing of the Blessed 
 Virgin, or of the Crucifixion, or some other 
 scriptural subject; having passed this stage, 
 it goes into the hands of a priest; by him 
 it is subjected to some process for ren- 
 dering it efficacious against the schemes of 
 our ghostly enemy; the manufacture is then 
 complete, and is deemed to be fit for use. 
 
 The village of Bethlehem lies prettily 
 couched on the slope of a hill. The sanc- 
 tuary is a subterranean grotto, and is com- 
 mitted to the joint guardianship of the 
 Romans, Greeks, and Armenians: these vie 
 with each other in adorning it. Beneath 
 an altar gorgeously decorated and lit with 
 everlasting fires there stands the low slab 
 of stone which marks the holy site of the 
 Nativity; and near to this is a hollow 
 scooped out of the living rock. Here the 
 infant Jesus was laid. Near the spot of 
 the Nativity is the rock against which the 
 
 15 225 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 Blessed Virgin was leaning when she pre- 
 sented her babe to the adoring shepherds. 
 
 Many of those Protestants who are accus- 
 tomed to despise tradition consider that 
 this sanctuary is altogether unscriptural— 
 that a grotto is not a stable, and that 
 mangers are made .of wood. It is perfectly 
 true, however, that the many grottoes and 
 caves which are found among the rocks of 
 Judea were formerly used for the reception 
 of cattle; they are so used at this day. I 
 have myself seen grottoes appropriated to 
 this purpose. 
 
 You know what a sad and somber deco- 
 rum it is that outwardly reigns through 
 the lands oppressed by Moslem sway. The 
 Mohammedans make beauty their prisoner, 
 and enforce such a stern and gloomy mo- 
 rality, or, at all events, such a frightfully 
 close semblance of it, that far and long the 
 wearied traveler may go without catching 
 one glimpse of outward happiness. By a 
 strange chance in these latter days, it hap- 
 pened that, alone of all the places in the 
 land, this Bethlehem, the native village of 
 our Lord, escaped the moral yoke of the 
 Mussulmans, and heard again, after ages of 
 dull oppression, the cheering clatter of so- 
 cial freedom, and the voices of laughing 
 girls. It was after an insurrection which 
 
 226 
 
V^: 
 
 Chapter XVI ] EOTHEN 
 
 had been raised against the authority of 
 Mehemet AH that Bethlehem was freed 
 from the hateful laws of Asiatic decorum. 
 The Mussulmans of the village had taken an 
 active part in the movement, and when 
 Ibrahim had quelled it, his wrath was still 
 so hot that he put to death every one of 
 the few Mohammedans of Bethlehem who 
 had not already fled. The effect produced 
 upon the Christian inhabitants by the sud- 
 den removal of this restraint was immense. 
 The village smiled once more. It is true 
 that such sweet freedom could not long 
 endure. Even if the population of the 
 place should continue to be entirely Chris- 
 tian, the sad decorum of the Mussulmans, 
 or rather of the Asiatics, would sooner or 
 later be restored by the force of opinion 
 and custom. But for a while the sunshine 
 would last, and when I was at Bethlehem, 
 though long after the flight of the Mussul- 
 mans, the cloud of Moslem propriety had 
 not yet come back to cast its cold shadow 
 upon life. When you reach that gladsome 
 village, pray Heaven there still may be 
 heard there the voice of free, innocent 
 girls. It will sound so dearly welcome! 
 
 To a Christian and thoroughbred Eng- 
 lishman not even the licentiousness gener- 
 ally accompanying it can compensate for 
 
 227 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 the oppressiveness of that horrible outward 
 decorum which turns the cities and the 
 palaces of Asia into deserts and jails. So 
 I say, when you see and hear them, those 
 romping girls of Bethlehem will gladden 
 your very soul. Distant at first, and then 
 nearer and nearer, the timid flock will 
 gather round you, with their large burning 
 eyes gravely fixed against yours, so that 
 they see into your brain; and if you imagine 
 evil against them, they will know of your 
 ill thought before it is yet well born, and 
 will fly and be gone in the moment. But 
 presently, if you will only look virtuous 
 enough to prevent alarm, and vicious 
 enough to avoid looking silly, the blithe 
 maidens will draw nearer and nearer to 
 you, and soon there will be one, the bravest 
 of the sisters, who will venture right up 
 to your side, and touch the hem of your 
 coat, in playful defiance of the danger; and 
 then the rest will follow the daring of their 
 youthful leader, and gather close round you, 
 and hold a shrill controversy on the won- 
 drous formation that you call a hat, and 
 the cunning of the hands that clothed you 
 with cloth so fine; and then, growing more 
 profound in their researches, they will pass 
 from the study of your mere dress to a se- 
 rious contemplation of your stately height, 
 
 228 
 
Chapter XVI ] EOTHEN 
 
 and your nut-brown hair, and the ruddy 
 glow of your English cheeks. And if they 
 catch a glimpse of your ungloved Angers, 
 then again will they make the air ring with 
 their sweet screams of delight and amaze- 
 ment, as they compare the fairness of your 
 hand with the hues of your sunburnt face, 
 or with their own warmer tints. Instantly 
 the ringleader of the gentle rioters imagines 
 a new sin: with tremulous boldness she 
 touches, then grasps, your hand, and 
 smoothes it gently betwixt her own, and 
 pries curiously into its make and color, 
 as though it were silk of Damascus, or 
 shawl of Cashmere. And when they see 
 you even then still sage and gentle, the 
 joyous girls will suddenly and screamingly, 
 and all at once, explain to each other that 
 you are surely quite harmless and innocent 
 —a lion that makes no spring, a bear that 
 never hugs; and upon this faith, one after 
 the other, they will take your passive hand, 
 and strive to explain it, and make it a 
 theme and a controversy. But the one— 
 the fairest and the sweetest of all— is yet 
 the most timid ; she shrinks from the daring 
 deeds of her playmates, and seeks shelter 
 behind their sleeves, and strives to screen 
 her glowing consciousness from the eyes 
 that look upon her. But her laughing sisters 
 
 229 
 
■/Jsi^» 
 
 EOTHEN [Chapter XVI 
 
 will have none of this cowardice; they vow 
 that the fair one shall be their complice, 
 shall share their dangers, shall touch the 
 hand of the stranger; they seize her small 
 wrist, and drag her forward by force, and 
 at last, whilst yet she strives to turn away, 
 and to cover up her whole soul under the 
 folds of downcast eyelids, they vanquish 
 her utmost strength, they vanquish her 
 utmost modesty, and marry her hand to 
 yours. The quick pulse springs from her 
 fingers and throbs like a whisper upon 
 your listening palm. For an instant her 
 large, timid eyes are upon you; in an in- 
 stant they are shrouded again, and there 
 comes a blush so burning that the fright- 
 ened girls stay their shrill laughter, as 
 though they had played too perilously and 
 harmed their gentle sister. A moment, 
 and all, with a sudden intelligence, turn 
 away and fly like deer; yet soon, again like 
 deer, they wheel round and return, and 
 stand, and gaze upon the danger, until 
 they grow brave once more. 
 
 " I regret to observe that the removal of 
 the moral restraint imposed by the pres- 
 ence of the Mohammedan inhabitants has 
 led to a certain degree of boisterous though 
 innocent levity in the bearing of the Chris- 
 tians, and more especially in the demeanor 
 
 230 
 
Chapter XVI] EOTHEN 
 
 of those who belong to the younger portion 
 of the female population; but I feel assured 
 that a more thorough knowledge of the 
 principles of their own pure religion will 
 speedily restore these young people to 
 habits of propriety even more strict than 
 those which were imposed upon them by 
 the authority of their Mohammedan breth- 
 ren/' Bah! thus you might chant, if you 
 choose; but, loving the truth, you will not 
 so disown sweet Bethlehem— you will not 
 disown nor dissemble your right good hearty 
 delight when you find, as though in a desert, 
 this gushing spring of fresh and joyous girl- 
 hood. 
 
 231 
 
CHAPTER 
 XVII 
 
 The desert 
 
 GAZA stands upon the verge of the 
 . desert, and bears towards it the 
 same kind of relation as a seaport 
 bears to the sea. It is there that you char^ 
 ter your camels (" the ships of the desert ") 
 and lay in your stores for the voyage. 
 
 These preparations kept me in the town 
 for some days; disliking restraint, I declined 
 making myself the guest of the Governor 
 (as it is usual and proper to do), but took up 
 my quarters at the caravansary, or khan, 
 as they call it in that part of Asia. 
 
 Dthemetri had to make the arrangements 
 for my journey, and in order to arm him- 
 self with sufficient authority for doing all 
 that was required, he found it necessary to 
 put himself in communication with the 
 Governor. The result of this diplomatic 
 intercourse was that the Governor, with his 
 train of attendants, came to me one day at 
 my caravansary, and formally complained 
 
 232 
 
Chapter XVn] EOTHEN 
 
 that Dthemetri had grossly insulted him. 
 I was shocked at this, for the man had 
 been always attentive and civil to me, and I 
 was disgusted at the idea of his being re- 
 warded with insult. Dthemetri was pres- 
 ent when the complaint was made, and I 
 angrily asked him whether it was true that 
 he had really insulted the Governor, and 
 what the deuce he meant by it. This I 
 asked with the full certainty that Dthe- 
 metri, as a matter of course, would deny 
 the charge— would swear that a "wrong 
 construction had been put upon his words, 
 and that nothing was further from his 
 thoughts," etc., after the manner of the 
 parliamentary people; but, to my surprise, 
 he very plainly answered that he certainly 
 had insulted the Governor, and that rather 
 grossly, but, he said, it was quite necessary 
 to do this in order to "strike terror and 
 inspire respect." "Terror and respect! 
 What on earth do you mean by that non- 
 sense ? " " Yes, but without striking terror 
 and inspiring respect, he (Dthemetri) would 
 never be able to force on the arrangements 
 for my journey, and Vossignoria would be 
 kept at Gaza for a month!" This would 
 have been awkward, and certainly I could 
 not deny that poor Dthemetri had succeeded 
 in his odd plan of inspiring respect, for at 
 
 233 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVH 
 
 the very time that this explanation was 
 going on in Italian, the Governor seemed 
 more than ever and more anxiously dis- 
 posed to overwhelm me with assurances of 
 good will and proffers of his best services. 
 All this kindness, or promise of kindness, I 
 naturally received with courtesy —a cour- 
 tesy that greatly perturbed Dthemetri, for 
 he evidently feared that my civility would 
 undo all the good that his insults had 
 achieved. 
 
 You will find, I think, that one of the 
 greatest drawbacks to the pleasure of trav- 
 eling in Asia is the being obliged more or 
 less to make your way by bullying. It is 
 true that your own lips are not soiled by 
 the utterance of all the mean words that 
 are spoken for you, and that you don't even 
 know of the sham threats, and the false 
 promises, and the vainglorious boasts put 
 forth by your dragoman; but now and then 
 there happens some incident of the sort 
 which I have just been mentioning, which 
 forces you to believe, or suspect, that your 
 dragoman is habitually fighting your bat- 
 tles for you in a way that you can hardly 
 bear to think of. 
 
 A caravansary is not ill adapted to the 
 purposes for which it is meant. It forms 
 the four sides of a large quadrangular 
 
 234 
 
m 
 
 Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 court. The ground floor is used for ware- 
 houses, the first floor for guests, and the 
 open court for the temporary reception of 
 the camels, as well as for the loading and un- 
 loading of their burdens, and the transac- 
 tion of mercantile business generally. The 
 apartments used for the guests are small 
 cells opening into a kind of corridor which 
 runs through the inner sides of the court. 
 
 Whilst I lay near the opening of my cell, 
 looking down into the court below, there 
 arrived from the desert a caravan— that 
 is, a large assemblage of travelers. It con- 
 sisted chiefly of Moldavian pilgrims, who, 
 to make their good work even more than 
 complete, had begun by visiting the shrine 
 of the Virgin in Egypt, and were now going 
 on to Jerusalem. They had been over- 
 taken in the desert by a gale of wind, 
 which so drove the sand, and raised up 
 such mountains before them, that their 
 journey had been terribly perplexed and 
 obstructed, and their provisions (including 
 water, the most precious of all) had been 
 exhausted long before they reached the end 
 of their toilsome march. They were sadly 
 wayworn. The arrival of the caravan drew 
 many and various groups into the court. 
 There was the Moldavian pilgrim with his 
 sable dress, and cap of fur, and heavy 
 
 235 
 
 i^ 
 
EOTHEN ' [Chaptkb XVII 
 
 masses of bushy hair; the Turk with his 
 various and brilHant garments; the Arab 
 superbly stalking under his striped blanket, 
 that hung like royalty upon his stately 
 form; the jetty Ethiopian in his slavish 
 frock; the sleek, smooth-faced scribe with 
 his comely pelisse, and his silver ink-box 
 stuck in like a dagger at his girdle. And 
 mingled with these were the camels— some 
 standing, some kneeling and being unladen, 
 some twisting round their long necks and 
 gently stealing the straw from out of their 
 own pack-saddles. 
 
 In a couple of days I was ready to start. 
 The way of providing for the passage of the 
 desert is this: there is an agent in the town 
 who keeps himself in communication with 
 some of the desert Arabs that are hovering 
 within a day's journey of the place; a party 
 of these, upon being guaranteed against 
 seizure or other ill-treatment at the hands 
 of the Governor, come into the town, bring- 
 ing with them the number of camels which 
 you require, and then they stipulate for a 
 certain sum to take you to the place of 
 your destination in a given time; the agree- 
 ment thus made by them includes a safe- 
 conduct through their country, as well as 
 the hire of the camels. According to the 
 contract made with me, I was to reach Cairo 
 
 236 
 

 Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 within ten days from the commencement 
 of the journey. I had four camels, one for 
 my baggage, one for each of my servants, 
 and one for myself. Four Arabs, the 
 owners of the camels, came with me on 
 foot. My stores were a small soldier's tent, 
 two bags of dried bread brought from the 
 convent at Jerusalem, and a couple of bot- 
 tles of wine from the same source, two 
 goatskins filled with water, tea, sugar, a 
 cold tongue, and (of all things in the world) 
 a jar of Irish butter which Mysseri had 
 purchased from some merchant. There 
 was also a small sack of charcoal, for the 
 greater part of the desert through which 
 we were to pass is void of fuel. 
 
 The camel kneels to receive her load, and 
 for a while she will allow the packing to go 
 on with silent resignation; but when she 
 begins to suspect that her master is put- 
 ting more than a just burden upon her 
 poor hump, she turns round her supple 
 neck, and looks sadly upon the increasing 
 load, and then gently remonstrates against 
 the wrong with the sigh of a patient wife. 
 If sighs will not move you, she can weep; 
 you soon learn to pity and soon to love her 
 for the sake of her gentle and womanish 
 
 ways. 
 
 You cannot, of course, put an English or 
 
 237 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVII 
 
 any other riding-saddle upon the back of 
 the camel, but your quilt, or carpet, or 
 whatever you carry for the purpose of lying 
 on at night, is folded, and fastened on to 
 the pack-saddle upon the top of the hump, 
 and on this you ride, or rather sit. You sit 
 as a man sits on a chair when he sits 
 astride. I made an improvement on this 
 plan: I had my English stirrups strapped 
 on to the cross-bars of the pack-saddle, 
 and thus by gaining rest for my dangling 
 legs, and gaining, too, the power of varying 
 my position more easily than I could other- 
 wise have done, I added very much to my 
 
 comfort. 
 The camel, like the elephant, is one of 
 
 the old-fashioned sort of animals that still 
 walk along upon the (now nearly exploded) 
 plan of the ancient beasts that lived before 
 the flood; she moves forward both her near 
 legs at the same time, and then awkwardly 
 swings round her off shoulder and haunch, 
 so as to repeat the manoeuver on that side; 
 her pace, therefore, is an odd, disjointed, 
 and disjoining sort of movement that is 
 rather disagreeable at first, but you soon 
 grow reconciled to it. The height to which 
 you are raised is of great advantage to you 
 in passing the burning sands of the desert, 
 for the air at such a distance from the 
 
 238 
 
■^:#^. 
 
 Chapter XVH] EOTHEN 
 
 ground is much cooler, and more lively than 
 that which circulates beneath. 
 
 For several miles beyond Gaza the land, 
 freshened by the rains of the last week, was 
 covered with rich verdure, and thickly jew- 
 eled with meadow flowers so bright and fra- 
 grant that I began to grow almost uneasy— 
 to fancy that the very desert was receding 
 before me, and that the long-desired adven- 
 ture of passing its " burning sands '' was to 
 end in a mere ride across a field. But as I 
 advanced, the true character of the country 
 began to display itself with sufficient clear- 
 ness to dispel my apprehensions, and be- 
 fore the close of my first day's journey I 
 had the gratification of finding that I was 
 surrounded on all sides by a tract of real 
 sand, and had nothing at all to complain 
 of, except that there peeped forth at inter- 
 vals a few isolated blades of grass, and 
 many of those stunted shrubs which are the 
 accustomed food of the camel. 
 
 Before sunset I came up with an encamp- 
 ment of Arabs (the encampment from 
 which my camels had been brought), and 
 my tent was pitched amongst theirs. I was 
 now. amongst the true Bedouins. Almost 
 every man of this race closely resembles 
 his brethren; almost every man has large 
 and finely formed features, but his face is 
 
 239 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVn 
 
 so thoroughly stripped of flesh, and the 
 white folds from his head-gear fall down by 
 his haggard cheeks so much in the burial 
 fashion, that he looks quite sad and 
 ghastly; his large, dark orbs roll slowly 
 and solemnly over the white of his deep- 
 set eyes; his countenance shows painful 
 thought and^ long suffering— the suffering 
 of one fallen from a high estate. His gait 
 is strangely majestic, and he marches along 
 with his simple blanket as though he were 
 wearing the purple. His common talk is a 
 series of piercing screams and cries,^ very 
 painful to hear. 
 
 The Bedouin women are not treasured up 
 like the wives and daughters of other Ori- 
 entals, and indeed they seemed almost en- 
 tirely free from the restraints imposed by 
 jealousy. The feint which they made of 
 concealing their faces from me was al- 
 ways slight. When they first saw me, 
 they used to hold up a part of their 
 drapery with one hand across their faces, " 
 but they seldom persevered very steadily 
 in subjecting me to this privation. They 
 were sadly plain. The awful haggardness 
 that gave something of character to the 
 
 1 Milnes cleverly goes to the French for the exact word which 
 conveys the impression produced by the voice of the Arabs, 
 and calls them " un peuple criard." 
 
 240 
 
Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 faces of the men was sheer ugliness in 
 the poor women. It is a great shame, but 
 the truth is that, except when we refer to 
 the beautiful devotion of the mother to her 
 child, all the fine things we say and think 
 about woman apply only to those who are 
 tolerably good-looking or graceful. These 
 Arab women were not within the scope of 
 the privilege, and indeed were altogether 
 much too plain and clumsy for this vain 
 and lovesome world. They may have been 
 good women enough, so far as relates to the 
 exercise of the minor virtues, but they had 
 so grossly neglected the prime duty of look- 
 ing pretty in this transitory life that I could 
 not at all forgive them; they seemed to feel 
 the weight of their guilt, and to be truly 
 and humbly penitent. I had the complete 
 command of their affections, for at any mo- 
 ment I could make their young hearts 
 bound and their old hearts jump by offer- 
 ing a handful of tobacco; yet, believe me, 
 it was not in the first soiree that my store 
 of latakia was exhausted! 
 
 The Bedouin women have no religion. 
 This is partly the cause of their clumsiness. 
 Perhaps if from Christian girls they would 
 learn how to pray, their souls might become 
 more gentle, and their limbs be clothed 
 with grace. 
 
 16 241 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVH 
 
 You who are going into their country 
 have a direct personal interest in knowing 
 something about "Arab hospitality"; but 
 the deuce of it is that the poor fellows 
 with whom I have happened to pitch my 
 tent were scarcely ever in a condition to 
 exercise that magnanimous virtue with 
 much eclat; indeed, Mysseri's canteen gen- 
 erally enabled me to outdo my hosts in the 
 matter of entertainment. They were always 
 courteous, however, and were never back- 
 ward in offering me the youart, a kind 
 of whey, which is the principal delicacy to 
 be found amongst the wandering tribes. 
 
 Practically, I think, Childe Harold would 
 have found it a dreadful bore to make " the 
 desert his dwelling-place,'' for, at all events, 
 if he adopted the life of the Arabs he 
 would have tasted no solitude. The tents 
 are partitioned, not so as to divide the 
 Childe and the "fair spirit" who is his 
 " minister " from the rest of the world, but 
 so as to separate the twenty or thirty 
 brown men that sit screaming in the one 
 compartment from the fifty or sixty brown 
 women and children that scream and 
 squeak in the other. If you adopt the Arab 
 life for the sake of seclusion, you will be 
 horribly disappointed, for you will find your- 
 self in perpetual contact with a mass of 
 
 242 
 
Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 hot fellow-creatures. It is true that all 
 who are inmates of the same tent are re- 
 lated to each other, but I am not quite sure 
 that that circumstance adds much to the 
 charm of such a life. 
 
 In passing the desert you will find your 
 Arabs wanting to start and to rest at all 
 sorts of odd times; they like, for instance, 
 to be off at one in the morning, and to rest 
 during the whole of the afternoon. You 
 must not give way to their wishes in this 
 respect; I tried their plan once, and found 
 it very harassing and unwholesome. An 
 ordinary tent can give you very little pro- 
 tection against heat, for the fire strikes 
 fiercely through single canvas, and you 
 soon find that whilst you lie crouching and 
 striving to hide yourself from the blazing 
 face of the sun, his power is harder to bear 
 than it is when you boldly defy him from 
 the airy heights of your camel. 
 
 It had been arranged with my Arabs 
 that they were to bring with them all the 
 food which they would want for themselves 
 during the passage of the desert, but as 
 we rested, at the end of the first day's 
 journey, by the side of an Arab encamp- 
 ment, my camel-men found all that they 
 required for that night in the tents of 
 their own brethren. On the evening of the 
 
 243 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVn 
 
 second day, however, just before we en- 
 camped for the night, my four Arabs came 
 to Dthemetri, and formally announced that 
 they had not brought with them one atom 
 of food, and that they looked entirely to my 
 supplies for their daily bread. This was 
 awkward intelligence. We were now just 
 two days deep in the desert, and I had 
 brought with me no more bread than might 
 be reasonably required for myself and my 
 European attendants. I believed at the mo- 
 ment (for it seemed likely enough) that the 
 men had really mistaken the terms of the 
 arrangement, and feeling that the bore of 
 being put upon half -rations would be a less 
 evil (and even to myself a less inconve- 
 nience) than the starvation of my Arabs, I 
 at once told Dthemetri to assure them that 
 my bread should be equally shared with all. 
 Dthemetri, however, did not^approve of this 
 concession; he assured me quite positively 
 that the Arabs thoroughly understood the 
 agreement, and that if they were now with- 
 out food, they had wilfully brought them- 
 selves into this strait for the wretched 
 purpose of bettering their bargain by the 
 value of a few paras' worth of bread. This 
 suggestion made me look at the affair in a 
 new light. I should have been glad enough 
 to put up with the slight privation to which 
 
 244 
 
Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 my concession would subject me, and could 
 have borne to witness the semi-starvation 
 of poor Dthemetri with a fine, philosophical 
 calm; but it seemed to me that the scheme, 
 if scheme it were, had something of auda- 
 city in it, and was well enough calculated 
 to try the extent of my softness. I knew 
 the danger of allowing such a trial to re- 
 sult in a conclusion that I was one who 
 might be easily managed; and therefore, 
 after thoroughly satisfying myself, from 
 Dthemetri's clear and repeated assertions, 
 that the Arabs had really understood the 
 arrangement, I determined that they should 
 not now violate it by taking advantage of 
 my position in the midst of their big desert; 
 so I desired Dthemetri to tell them that 
 they should touch no bread of mine. We 
 stopped, and the tent was pitched; the 
 Arabs came to me and prayed loudly for 
 bread; I refused them. 
 
 "Then we die!" 
 
 " God's will be done." 
 
 I gave the Arabs to understand that I 
 regretted their perishing by hunger, but 
 that I should bear this calmly, like any 
 other misfortune not my own— that, in 
 short, I was happily resigned to their fate. 
 The men would have talked a great deal, 
 but they were under the disadvantage of 
 
 245 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVH 
 
 addressing me through a hostile inter- 
 preter; they looked hard upon my face, but 
 they found no hope there, so at last they 
 retired, as they pretended to lay them 
 down and die. 
 
 In about ten minutes from this time I 
 found that the Arabs were busily cooking 
 their bread! Their pretense of having 
 brought no food was false, and was only 
 invented for the purpose of saving it. They 
 had a good bag of meal which they had 
 contrived to stow away under the baggage, 
 upon one of the camels, in such a way as 
 to escape notice. In Europe the detection 
 of a scheme like this would have occasioned 
 a disagreeable feeling between the master 
 and the delinquent, but you would no more 
 recoil from an Oriental on account of a 
 matter of this sort than in England you 
 would reject a horse that had tried, and 
 failed, to throw you. Indeed, I felt quite 
 good-humoredly towards my Arabs, because 
 they had so woefully failed in their wretched 
 attempt, and because, as it turned out, I had 
 done what was right; they, too, poor fellows, 
 evidently began to like me immensely, on 
 account of the hard-heartedness which had 
 enabled me to baffle their scheme. 
 
 The Arabs adhere to those ancestral 
 principles of bread-baking which have been 
 
 246 
 
BK - 
 
 Chapter XVn] EOTHEN 
 
 sanctioned by the experience of ages. The 
 very first baker of bread that ever lived 
 must have done his work exactly as the 
 Arab does at this day. He takes some 
 meal, and holds it out in the hollow of his 
 hands, whilst his comrade pours over it a 
 few drops of water; he then mashes up the 
 moistened flour into a paste, pulls the 
 lump of dough so made into small pieces 
 and thrusts them into the embers. His 
 way of baking exactly resembles the craft 
 or mystery of roasting chestnuts as prac- 
 tised by children; there is the same pru- 
 dence and circumspection in choosing a 
 good berth for the morsel— the same enter- 
 prise and self-sacrificing valor in pulling 
 it out with the fingers. 
 
 The manner of my daily march was this: 
 At about an hour before dawn, I rose and 
 made the most of about a pint of water 
 which I allowed myself for washing. Then 
 I breakfasted upon tea and bread. As soon 
 as the beasts were loaded, I mounted my 
 camel and pressed forward. My poor Arabs, 
 being on foot, would sometimes moan with 
 fatigue, and pray for rest; but I was anxious 
 to enable them to perform their contract 
 for bringing me to Cairo within the stipu- 
 lated time, and I did not, therefore, allow a 
 halt until the evening came. About mid- 
 247 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVH 
 
 day, or soon after, Mysseri used to bring 
 up his camel alongside of mine, and supply 
 me with a piece of the dried bread softened 
 in water, and also (as long as it lasted) 
 with a piece of the tongue; after this there 
 came into my hand (how well I remember 
 it!) the little tin cup half filled with wine 
 and water. 
 
 As long as you are journeying in the in- 
 terior of the desert you have no particular 
 point to make for as your resting-place. 
 The endless sands yield nothing but small 
 stunted shrubs; even these fail after the 
 first two or three days, and from that time 
 you pass over broad plains, you pass over 
 newly reared hills, you pass through val- 
 leys dug out by the last week's storm; and 
 the hills and the valleys are sand, sand, 
 sand, still sand, and only sand, and sand, 
 and sand again. The earth is so samely 
 that your eyes turn towards heaven— 
 towards heaven, I mean, in sense of sky. 
 You look to the sun, for he is your task- 
 master, and by him you know the mea- 
 sure of the work that you have done, and 
 the measure of the work that remains for 
 you to do. He comes when you strike your 
 tent in the early morning, and then, for the 
 first hour of the day, as you move forward 
 on your camel, he stands at your near side, 
 
 248 
 
Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 and makes you know that the whole day's 
 toil is before you; then for a while, and a 
 long while, you see him no more, for you are 
 veiled, and shrouded, and dare not look upon 
 the greatness of his glory, but you know 
 where he strides overhead, by the touch of 
 his flaming sword. No words are spoken, 
 but your Arabs moan, your camels sigh, 
 your skin glows, your shoulders ache, and 
 for sights you see the pattern and the web 
 of the silk that veils your eyes, and the 
 glare of the outer light. Time labors on; 
 your skin glows, your shoulders ache, your 
 Arabs moan, your camels sigh, and you 
 see the same pattern in the silk, and the 
 same glare of light beyond; but conquer- 
 ing time marches on, and by and by the 
 descending sun has compassed the heaven, 
 and now softly touches your right arm, and 
 throws your lank shadow over the sand, 
 right along on the way for Persia. Then 
 again you look upon his face, for his power 
 is all veiled in his beauty, and the redness 
 of flames has become the redness of roses; 
 the fair, wavy cloud that fled in the morning 
 now comes to his sight once more— comes 
 blushing, yet still comes on, comes burning 
 with blushes, yet comes and clings to his 
 
 side. 
 Then begins your season of rest. The 
 
 249 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVn 
 
 world about you is all your own, and there, 
 where you will, you pitch your solitary 
 tent; there is no living thing to dispute 
 your choice. When at last the spot had 
 been fixed upon, and we came to a halt, one 
 of the Arabs would touch the chest of my 
 camel, and utter at the same time a pecu- 
 liar gurgling sound. The beast instantly 
 understood and obeyed the sign, and slowly 
 sank under me till she brought her body 
 to a level with the ground. Then gladly 
 enough I alighted. The rest of the camels 
 were unloaded, and turned loose to browse 
 upon the shrubs of the desert, where 
 shrubs there were, or, where these failed, to 
 wait for the small quantity of food that 
 was allowed them out of our stores. 
 
 My servants, helped by the Arabs, busied 
 themselves in pitching the tent and kin- 
 dling the fire. Whilst this was doing I used 
 to walk away towards the east, confiding 
 in the print of my foot as a guide for my 
 return. Apart from the cheering voices of 
 my attendants I could better know and feel 
 the loneliness of the desert. The influence 
 of such scenes, however, was not of a soft- 
 ening kind, but filled me rather with a sort 
 of childish exultation in the self-sufficiency 
 which enabled me to stand thus alone in 
 the wideness of Asia— a short-lived pride, 
 
 250 
 
. ; ''J'''.': 
 
 Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 for wherever man wanders, he still remains 
 tethered by the chain that links him to his 
 kind; and so when the night closed round 
 me I began to return— to return, as it were, 
 to my own gate. Reaching at last some 
 high ground, I could see, and see with de- 
 light, the fire of our small encampment, 
 and when at last I regained the spot, it 
 seemed a very home that had sprung up for 
 me in the midst of these solitudes. My 
 Arabs were busy with their bread, Mysseri 
 rattling tea-cups; the little kettle, with her 
 odd, old-maidish looks, sat humming away 
 old songs about England; and two or three 
 yards from the fire my tent stood prim and 
 tight, with open portal and with welcoming 
 look— a look like *^the own arm-chair'' of 
 our lyrist's " sweet Lady Anne." 
 
 Sometimes in the earlier part of my jour- 
 ney the night breeze blew coldly; when that 
 happened, the dry sand was heaped up out- 
 side round the skirts of the tent, and so the 
 wind that everywhere else could sweep as 
 he listed along those dreary plains was 
 forced to turn aside in his course, and make 
 way, as he ought, for the Englishman. 
 Then, within my tent, there were heaps 
 of luxuries— dining-rooms, dressing-rooms, 
 libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms, ora- 
 tories, all crowded into the space of a 
 
 251 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVII 
 
 hearth-rug. The first night, I remember, 
 with my books and maps about me, I 
 wanted a light. They brought me a taper, 
 and immediately from out of the silent 
 desert there rushed in a flood of life un- 
 seen before. Monsters of moths, of all 
 shapes and hues, that never before per- 
 haps had looked upon the shining of a 
 flame, now madly thronged into my tent, and 
 dashed through the fire of the candle till 
 they fairly extinguished it with their burn- 
 ing limbs. Those who had failed in attain- 
 ing this martyrdom suddenly became seri- 
 ous, and clung despondingly to the canvas. 
 
 By and by there was brought to me the 
 fragrant tea, and big masses of scorched 
 and scorching toast, and the butter that had 
 come all the way to me in this desert of 
 Asia from out of that poor, dear, starving 
 Ireland. I feasted like a king— like four 
 kings— like a boy in the fourth form. 
 
 When the cold, sullen morning dawned, 
 and my people began to load the camels, I 
 always felt loath to give back to the waste 
 this little spot of ground that had glowed 
 for a while with the cheerfulness of a 
 human dwelling. One by one, the cloaks, 
 the saddles, the baggage, the hundred 
 things that strewed the ground and made 
 it look so familiar— all these were taken 
 
 252 
 
 '■■■;V' , 
 
Chapter XVH] EOTHEN 
 
 away and laid upon the camels. A speck 
 in the broad tracts of Asia remained still 
 impressed with the mark of patent port- 
 manteaus and the heels of London boots; 
 the embers of the fire lay black and cold 
 upon the sand; and these were the signs 
 we left. 
 
 My tent was spared to the last, but when 
 all else was ready for the start, then came 
 its fall; the pegs were drawn, the canvas 
 shivered, and in less than a minute there 
 was nothing that remained of my genial 
 home but only a pole and a bundle. The 
 encroaching Englishman was off, and in- 
 stant upon the fall of the canvas, like an 
 owner who had waited and watched, the 
 Genius of the Desert stalked in. 
 
 To servants, as I suppose to any other 
 Europeans not much accustomed to amuse 
 themselves by fancy or memory, it often 
 happens that after a few days' journeying 
 the loneliness of the desert will become 
 frightfully oppressive. Upon my poor fel- 
 lows the access of melancholy came heavy 
 and all at once, as a blow from above. They 
 bent their necks and bore it as best they 
 could, but their joy was great on the fifth 
 day, when we came to an oasis called 
 Gatieh, for here we found encamped a cara- 
 van (that is, an assemblage of travelers) 
 
 253 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVII 
 
 from Cairo. The Orientals living in cities 
 never pass the desert, except in this way; 
 many will wait for weeks, and even for 
 months, until a sufficient number of per- 
 sons can be found ready to undertake the 
 journey at the same time— until the flock 
 of sheep is big enough to fancy itself a 
 match for wolves. They could not, I think, 
 really secure themselves against any seri- 
 ous danger by this contrivance; for, though 
 they have arms, they are so little accus- 
 tomed to use them, and so utterly unorgan- 
 ized, that they never could make good their 
 resistance to robbers of the slightest re- 
 spectability. It is not of the Bedouins that 
 such travelers are afraid, for the safe-con- 
 duct granted by the chief of the ruling tribe 
 is never, I believe, violated; but it is said 
 that there are deserters and scamps of 
 various sorts who hover about the skirts 
 of the desert, particularly on the Cairo side, 
 and are anxious to succeed to the property 
 of any poor devils whom they may find 
 more weak and defenseless than them- 
 selves. 
 
 These people from Cairo professed to be 
 amazed at the ludicrous disproportion be- 
 tween their numerical forces and mine. 
 They could not understand, and they 
 wanted to know, by what strange privilege 
 
 254 
 
Chapter XVn] EOTHEN 
 
 it is that an Englishman with a brace of 
 pistols and a couple of servants rides safely 
 across the desert, whilst they, the natives 
 of the neighboring cities, are forced to travel 
 in troops, or rather in herds. One of them 
 got a few minutes of private conversation 
 with Dthemetri, and ventured to ask him 
 anxiously whether the English did not 
 travel under the protection of evil demons. 
 I had previously known (from Methley, I 
 think, who had traveled in Persia) that 
 this notion, so conducive to the safety of 
 our countrymen, is generally prevalent 
 amongst Orientals; it owes its origin partly 
 to the strong wilfulness of the English gen- 
 tleman (a quality which, not being backed by 
 any visible authority, either civil or military, 
 seems perfectly superhuman to the soft 
 Asiatic), but partly, too, to the magic of 
 the banking system, by force of which the 
 wealthy traveler will make all his journeys 
 without carrying a handful of coin, and yet, 
 when he arrives at a city, will rain down 
 showers of gold. The theory is that the 
 English traveler has committed some sin 
 against God and his conscience, and that 
 for this the Evil Spirit has hold of him, and 
 drives him from his home, like a victim of 
 the old Grecian Furies, and forces him to 
 travel over countries far and strange, and 
 
 255 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVII 
 
 most chiefly over deserts and desolate 
 places, and to stand upon the sites of cities 
 that once were and are now no more, and 
 to grope among the tombs of dead men. 
 Often enough there is something of truth 
 in this notion; often enough the wandering 
 Englishman is guilty (if guilt it be) of some 
 pride or ambition, big or small, imperial or 
 parochial, which, being offended, has made 
 the lone places more tolerable than ball- 
 rooms to him, a sinner. 
 
 I can understand the sort of amazement 
 of the Orientals at the scantiness of the 
 retinue with which an Englishman passes 
 the desert, for I was somewhat struck my- 
 self when I saw one of my countrymen 
 making his way across the wilderness in 
 this simple style. At first there was a 
 mere moving speck in the horizon. My 
 party, of course, became all alive with ex- 
 citement, and there were many surmises. 
 Soon it appeared that three laden camels 
 were approaching, and that two of them 
 carried riders; in a little while we saw that 
 one of the riders wore the European dress, 
 and at last the travelers were pronounced 
 to be an English gentleman and his ser- 
 vant. By their side there were a couple of 
 Arabs on foot, and this, if I rightly remem- 
 ber, was the whole party. 
 
 253 
 
Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 You,— you love sailing,— in returning 
 from a cruise to the English coast, you see 
 often enough a fisherman's humble boat far 
 away from all shores, with an ugly, black 
 sky above, and an angry sea beneath. You 
 watch the grisly old man at the helm, car- 
 rying his craft with strange skill through 
 the turmoil of waters; and the boy, supple- 
 limbed, yet weather-worn already, and with 
 steady eyes that look through the blast— 
 you see him understanding commandments 
 from the jerk of his father's white eyebrow 
 —now belaying, and now letting go, now 
 scrunching himself down into mere ballast, 
 or bailing out death with a pipkin. Familiar 
 enough is the sight, and yet when I see it I 
 always stare anew, and with a kind of Titanic 
 exultation, because that a poor boat with 
 the brain of a man and the hands of a boy 
 on board can match herself so bravely 
 against black heaven and ocean. Well, so 
 when you have traveled for days and days 
 over an Eastern desert, without meeting the 
 likeness of a human being, and then at last 
 see an English shooting- jacket and a single 
 servant come listlessly slouching along from 
 out of the forward horizon, you stare at the 
 wide unproportion between this slender 
 company, and the boundless plains of sand 
 through which they are keeping their way. 
 17 257 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVII 
 
 This Englishman, as I afterwards found, 
 was a military man returning to his coun- 
 try from India, and crossing the desert at 
 this part in order to go through Palestine. 
 As for me, I had come pretty straight from 
 England, and so here we met in the wilder- 
 ness at about half-way from our respective 
 starting-points. As we approached each 
 other, it became with me a question 
 whether we should speak. I thought it 
 likely that the stranger would accost me, 
 and in the event of his doing so I was quite 
 ready to be as sociable and chatty as I 
 could be, according to my nature; but still I 
 could not think of anything particular that 
 I had to say to him. Of course, among civi- 
 lized people, the not having anything to say 
 is no excuse at all for not speaking, but I 
 was shy and indolent, and I felt no great 
 wish to stop and talk like a morning vis- 
 itor in the midst of those broad solitudes. 
 The traveler, perhaps, felt as I did, for, ex- 
 cept that we lifted our hands to our caps 
 and waved our arms in courtesy, we passed 
 each other quite as distantly as if we had 
 passed in Pall Mall. Our attendants, how- 
 ever, were not to be cheated of the delight 
 that they felt in speaking to new listeners 
 and hearing fresh voices once more. The 
 masters, therefore, had no sooner passed 
 
 258 
 
Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 each other than their respective servants 
 quietly stopped and entered into conversa- 
 tion. As soon as my camel found that her 
 companions were not following her, she 
 caught the social feeling and refused to go 
 on. I felt the absurdity of the situation, and 
 determined to accost the stranger, if only to 
 avoid the awkwardness of remaining stuck 
 fast in the desert whilst our servants were 
 amusing themselves. When with this in- 
 tent I turned round my camel, I found that 
 the gallant officer had passed me by about 
 thirty or forty yards, and was exactly in 
 the same predicament as myself. I put my 
 now willing camel in motion, and rode up 
 towards the stranger. Seeing this, he fol- 
 lowed my example, and came forward to 
 meet me. He was the first to speak. Too 
 courteous to address me as if he admitted 
 the possibility of my wishing to accost him 
 from any feeling of mere sociability or civil- 
 ian-like love of vain talk, he at once attrib- 
 uted my advances to a laudable wish of 
 acquiring statistical information, and, ac- 
 cordingly, when we got within speaking dis- 
 tance, he said, " I dare say you wish to know 
 how the plague is going on at Cairo? '' And 
 then he went on to say he regretted that his 
 information did not enable him to give me in 
 numbers a perfectly accurate statement of 
 
 259 
 
"'T?'! 
 
 EOTHEN [Chapter XVn 
 
 the daily deaths; he afterwards talked pleas- 
 antly enough upon other and less ghastly 
 subjects. I thought him manly and intelli- 
 gent—a worthy one of the few thousand 
 strong Englishmen to whom the Empire of 
 India is committed. 
 
 The night after the meeting with the 
 people of the caravan, Dthemetri, alarmed 
 by their warnings, took upon himself to 
 keep watch all night in the tent. No robbers 
 came, except a jackal that poked his nose 
 into my tent from some motive of rational 
 curiosity. Dthemetri did not shoot him, for 
 fear of waking me. These brutes swarm 
 in every part of Syria; and there were many 
 of them even in the midst of those void 
 sands, which would seem to give such poor 
 promise of food; I can hardly tell what prey 
 they could be hoping for, unless it were that 
 they might find, now and then, the carcass 
 of some camel that had died on the jour- 
 ney. They do not marshal themselves into 
 great packs like the wild dogs of Eastern 
 cities, but follow their prey in families, like 
 place-hunters of Europe; their voices are 
 frightfully like to the shouts and cries of 
 human beings. If you lie awake in your 
 tent at night, you are almost continually 
 hearing some hungry family as it sweeps 
 along in full cry; you hear the exulting 
 
 260 
 
Chapter XVH] EOTHEN 
 
 scream with which the sagacious dam first 
 winds the carrion, and the shrill response 
 of the unanimous cubs as they snuff the 
 tainted air: "Wha! wha! wha! wha! wha! 
 wha! Whose gift is it in, mama?'' 
 , Once, during this passage, my Arabs lost 
 their way among the hills of loose sand 
 that surrounded us, but after a while we 
 were lucky enough to recover our right line 
 of march. The same day we fell in with a 
 sheik, the head of a family, that actually 
 dwells at no great distance from this part 
 of the desert during nine months of the 
 year. The man carried a matchlock, and of 
 this he was inordinately proud on account 
 of the supposed novelty and ingenuity of 
 the contrivance. We stopped, and sat 
 down and rested awhile for the sake of a 
 little talk. There was much that I should 
 have liked to ask this man, but he could not 
 understand Dthemetri's language, and the 
 process of getting at his knowledge by 
 double interpretation through my Arabs 
 was tedious. I discovered, however (and 
 my Arabs knew of that fact), that this man 
 and his family lived habitually for nine 
 months of the year without touching or 
 seeing either bread or water. The stunted 
 shrub growing at intervals through the 
 sand in this part of the desert enables the 
 
 261 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVH 
 
 camel mares to yield a little milk, and this 
 furnishes the sole food and drink of their 
 owner and his people. During the other 
 three months (the hottest, I suppose) even 
 this resource fails, and then the sheik and 
 his people are forced to pass into another 
 district. You would ask me why the man 
 should not remain always in that district 
 which supplies him with water during three 
 months of the year, but I don't know enough 
 of Arab politics to answer the question. 
 The sheik was not a good specimen of the 
 effect produced by his way of living. He was 
 very small, very spare, and sadly shriveled 
 —a poor over-roasted snipe, a mere cinder 
 of a man. I made him sit down by my side, 
 and gave him a piece of bread and a cup of 
 water from out of my goatskins. This was 
 not very tempting drink to look at, for it 
 had become turbid, and was deeply red- 
 dened by some coloring matter contained 
 in the skins, but it kept its sweetness and 
 tasted like a strong decoction of Russian 
 leather. The sheik sipped this, drop by 
 drop, with ineffable relish, and rolled his 
 eyes solemnly round between every draught, 
 as though the drink were the drink of 
 the Prophet, and had come from the seventh 
 heaven. 
 
 An inquiry about distances led to the dis- 
 
 262 
 
Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 covery that this sheik had never heard of 
 the division of time into hours. 
 
 About this part of my journey I saw the 
 Hkeness of a fresh-water lake. I saw, as 
 it seemed, a broad sheet of calm water 
 stretching far and fair towards the south— 
 stretching deep into winding creeks, and 
 hemmed in by jutting promontories, and 
 shelving smooth off towards the shallow 
 side; on its bosom the reflected fire of the 
 sun lay playing, and seeming to float as 
 though upon deep, still waters. 
 
 Though I knew of the cheat, it was not 
 till the spongy foot of my camel had almost 
 trodden in the seeming lake that I could 
 undeceive my eyes, for the shore-line was 
 quite true and natural. I soon saw the 
 cause of the phantasm. A sheet of water, 
 heavily impregnated with salts, had gath- 
 ered together in a vast hollow between the 
 sand-hills, and, when dried up by evapora- 
 tion, had left a white saline deposit; this 
 exactly marked the space which the waters 
 had covered, and so traced out a good shore- 
 line. The minute crystals of the salt, by 
 their way of sparkling in the sun, were 
 made to seem like the dazzled face of a 
 lake that is calm and smooth. 
 
 The pace of the camel is irksome, and 
 makes your shoulders and loins ache from 
 
 263 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVH 
 
 the peculiar way in which you are obliged 
 to suit yourself to the movements of the 
 beast; but one soon, of course, becomes in- 
 ured to the work, and after my first two days 
 this way of traveling became so familiar to 
 me that (poor sleeper as I am) I now and then 
 slumbered for some moments together on 
 the back of my camel. On the fifth day of 
 my journey, the air above lay dead, and all 
 the whole earth that I could reach with my 
 utmost sight and keenest listening was 
 still and lifeless as some dispeopled and 
 forgotten world that rolls round and round 
 in the heavens through wasted floods of 
 light. The sun, growing fiercer and fiercer, 
 shone down more mightily now than ever 
 on me he shone before, and as I drooped my 
 head under his fire, and closed my eyes 
 against the glare that surrounded me, I 
 slowly fell asleep, for how many minutes 
 or moments I cannot tell; but after awhile 
 I was gently awakened by a peal of church 
 bells— my native bells— the innocent bells 
 of Marlen, that never before sent forth their 
 music beyond the Blaygon hills! My first 
 idea naturally was that I still remained fast 
 under the power of a dream. I roused my- 
 self, and drew aside the silk that covered 
 my eyes, and plunged my bare face into the 
 light. Then, at least, I was well enough 
 
 264 
 

 Chapter XVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 awakened, but still those old Marlen bells 
 rang on, not ringing for joy, but properly, 
 prosily, steadily, merrily ringing *^for 
 church." After a while the sound died 
 away slowly. It happened that neither I 
 nor any of my party had a watch by which 
 to measure the exact time of its lasting, 
 but it seemed to me that about ten minutes 
 had passed before the bells ceased. I at- 
 tributed the effect to the great heat of the 
 sun, the perfect dryness of the clear air 
 through which I moved, and the deep still- 
 ness of all around me. It seemed to me that 
 these causes, by occasioning a great tension 
 and consequent susceptibility of the hearing 
 organs, had rendered them liable to tingle 
 under the passing touch' of some mere 
 memory that must have swept across my 
 brain in a moment of sleep. Since my re- 
 turn to England it has been told me that 
 like sounds have been heard at sea, and 
 that the sailor, becalmed under a vertical 
 sun in the midst of the wide ocean, has lis- 
 tened in trembling wonder to the chime of 
 his own village bells. 
 
 During my travels I kept a journal— a 
 journal sadly meager and intermittent, but 
 one which enabled me to find out the day 
 of the month and the week, according to 
 the European calendar. Referring to this, 
 
 265 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVH 
 
 I found that the day was Sunday, and 
 roughly allowing for the diflference of longi- 
 tude, I concluded that at the moment of my 
 hearing that strange peal the church-going 
 bells of Marlen must have been actually call- 
 ing the prim congregation of the parish to 
 morning prayer. The coincidence amused 
 me faintly, but I could not allow myself a 
 hope that the effect I had experienced was 
 anything other than an illusion— an illusion 
 liable to be explained (as every illusion is 
 in these days) by some of the philosophers 
 who guess at nature's riddles. It would 
 have been sweeter to believe that my kneel- 
 ing mother, by some pious enchantment, 
 had asked and found this spell to rouse me 
 from my scandalous forgetfulness of God's 
 holy day, but my fancy was too weak to 
 carry a faith like that. Indeed, the vale 
 through which the bells of Marlen send 
 their song is a highly respectable vale, and 
 its people (save one, two, or three) are 
 wholly unaddicted to the practice of magi- 
 cal arts. 
 
 After the fifth day of my journey I no 
 longer traveled over shifting hills, but came 
 upon a dead level— a dead level bed of sand, 
 quite hard, and studded with small shining 
 pebbles. 
 
 The heat grew fierce; there was no valley 
 
 266 
 
Chapter XVH] EOTHEN 
 
 nor hollow, no hill, no mound, no shadow 
 of hill nor of mound, by which I could 
 mark the way I was making. Hour by hour 
 I advanced, and saw no change— I was still 
 the very center of a round horizon; hour by 
 hour I advanced, and still there was the 
 same, and the same, and the same— the 
 same circle of flaming sky, the same circle 
 of sand still glaring with light and fire. 
 Over all the heaven above, over all the 
 earth beneath, there was no visible power 
 that could balk the fierce will of the sun. 
 " He rejoiced as a strong man to run a race. 
 His going forth was from the end of the 
 heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: 
 and there was nothing hid from the heat 
 thereof." From pole to pole, and from the 
 east to the west, he brandished his fiery 
 scepter as though he had usurped all 
 heaven and earth. As he bid the soft Per- 
 sian in ancient times, so now, and fiercely, 
 too, he bid me bow down and worship him; 
 so now in his pride he seemed to command 
 me and say, "Thou shalt have none other 
 gods but me.'' I was all alone before him. 
 There were these two pitted together, and 
 face to face— the mighty sun for one, and 
 for the other this poor, pale, solitary self 
 of mine that I always carry about with 
 me. 
 
 267 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVn 
 
 But on the eighth day, and before I had 
 yet turned away from Jehovah for the glit- 
 tering god of the Persians, there appeared 
 a dark line upon the edge of the forward 
 horizon, and soon the line deepened into a 
 delicate fringe, that sparkled here and there 
 as though it were sown with diamonds. 
 There, then, before me were the gardens 
 and the minarets of Egypt, and the mighty 
 works of the Nile, and I (the eternal Ego 
 that I am!)— I had lived to see, and I saw 
 them. 
 
 When evening came I was still within 
 the confines of the desert, and my tent was 
 pitched as usual, but one of my Arabs 
 stalked away rapidly towards the west, 
 without telling me of the errand on which 
 he was bent. After a while he returned. 
 He had toiled on a graceful service: he had 
 traveled all the way on to the border of the 
 living world, and brought me back for a 
 token an ear of rice, full, fresh, and green. 
 
 The next day I entered upon Egypt, and 
 floated along (for the delight was as the 
 delight of bathing) through green, wavy 
 fields of rice, and pastures fresh and plenti- 
 ful, and dived into the cold verdure of 
 groves and gardens, and quenched my hot 
 eyes in shade, as though in a bed of deep 
 waters. 
 
 268 
 
CHAPTER 
 XVIII 
 
 Cairo and the plague} 
 
 CAIRO and Plague! During the whole 
 time of my stay the plague was so 
 master of the city, and stared so 
 plain in every street and every alley, that I 
 can't now affect to dissociate the two ideas. 
 When, coming from the desert, I rode 
 through a village lying near to the city 
 
 1 There is some semblance of bravado in my manner of talk- 
 ing about the plague. I have been more careful to describe 
 the terrors of other people than my own. The truth is that 
 during the whole period of my stay at Cairo I remained 
 thoroughly impressed with a sense of my danger. I may 
 almost say that I lived under perpetual apprehension, for even 
 in sleep, as I fancy, there remained with me some faint notion 
 of the peril with which I was encompassed. But fear does 
 not necessarily damp the spirits ; on the contrary, it will often 
 operate as an excitement, giving rise to unusual animation, 
 and thus it affected me. If I had not been surrounded at 
 this time by new faces, new scenes, and new sounds, the 
 eflfect produced upon my mind by one imceasing cause of 
 alarm may have been very different. As it was, the eager- 
 ness with which I pursued my rambles among the wonders 
 of Egypt was sharpened and increased by the sting of the 
 fear of death. Thus my account of the matter plainly con- 
 veys an impression that I remained at Cairo without losing my 
 cheerfulness and buoyancy of spirits. And this is the truth ; 
 but it is also true, as I have freely confessed, that my sense of 
 danger during the whole period was lively and continuous. 
 
 269 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVm 
 
 on the eastern side, there approached me, 
 with busy face and earnest gestures, a 
 personage in the Turkish dress. His long 
 flowing beard gave him rather a majestic 
 look, but his briskness of manner and his 
 visible anxiety to accost me seemed strange 
 in an Oriental. The man, in fact, was French, 
 or of French origin, and his object was to 
 warn me of the plague, and prevent me 
 from entering the city. 
 
 " Arretez-vous, monsieur, je vous en prie 
 — arretez-vous; il ne faut pas entrer dans 
 la ville; la peste y regno partout." 
 
 "Oui, je sais,^ mais— " 
 
 " Mais, monsieur, je dis la peste— la peste; 
 c'est de LA PESTE qu'il est question." 
 
 "Oui, je sais, mais— " 
 
 "Mais, monsieur, je dis encore LA PESTE— 
 LA PESTE. Je vous conjure de ne pas entrer 
 dans la ville— vous seriez dans une ville 
 empestee.'' 
 
 "Oui, je sais, mais— " 
 
 " Mais, monsieur, je dois done vous avertir 
 tout bonnement que si vous entrez dans la 
 ville, vous serez— enfin vous serez COM- 
 
 PROMIS!"^ 
 
 1 Anglich for "je le sais." These answers of mine as given 
 above are not meant as specimens of mere French, but of 
 that fine, terse, nervous Continental English with which I 
 and my compatriots make our way through Europe. 
 
 2 The import of the word "compromised," when used in 
 reference to contagion, is explained in page 2. 
 
 270 
 
Chapter XVIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 " Oui, je sais, mais— " 
 
 The Frenchman was at last convinced 
 that it was vain to reason with a mere Eng- 
 lishman, who could not understand what 
 it was to be "compromised." I thanked 
 him most sincerely for his kindly meant 
 warning; in hot countries it is very unusual 
 indeed for a man to go out in the glare of 
 the sun and give free advice to a stranger. 
 
 When I arrived at Cairo I summoned Os- 
 man Effendi, who was, as I knew, the owner 
 of several houses, and would be able to pro- 
 vide me with apartments; he had no diffi- 
 culty in doing this, for there was not one 
 European traveler in Cairo besides myself. 
 Poor Osman! he met me with a sorrowful 
 countenance, for the fear of the plague sat 
 heavily on his soul; he seemed as if he felt 
 that he was doing wrong in lending me a 
 resting-place, and he betrayed such a list- 
 lessness about temporal matters as one 
 might look for in a man who believed that 
 his days were numbered. He caught me, 
 too, soon after my arrival, coming out from 
 the public baths,^ and from that time for- 
 
 1 It is said that when a Musstilman finds himself attacked by 
 the plagne, he goes and takes a bath. The couches on which 
 the bathers recline would carry infection, according to the 
 notions of the Europeans. Whenever, therefore, I took the 
 bath at Cairo (except the first time of my doing so), I avoided 
 that part of the luxury which consists in being " put up to 
 dry " upon a kind of bed. 
 
 271 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVm 
 
 ward he was sadly afraid of me, for upon 
 the subject of contagion he held European 
 opinions. 
 
 Osman's history is a curious one. He 
 was a Scotchman born, and when very 
 young, being then a drummer-boy, he 
 landed in Egypt with Fraser^s force. He 
 was taken prisoner, and, according to Mo- 
 hammedan custom, the alternative of 
 death or the Koran was offered to him. 
 He did not choose death, and, therefore, 
 went through the ceremonies necessary 
 for turning him into a good Mohammedan. 
 But what amused me most in his history 
 was this: that very soon after having em- 
 braced Islam he was obliged in practice to 
 become curious and discriminating in his 
 new faith— to make war upon Mohamme- 
 dan dissenters, and follow the orthodox 
 standard of the Prophet in fierce cam- 
 paigns against the Wahabis, the Unita- 
 rians of the Mussulman world. The Wa- 
 habis were crushed, and Osman, returning 
 home in triumph from his holy wars, 
 began to flourish in the world; he ac- 
 quired property, and became "effendi," or 
 gentleman. At the time of my visit to 
 Cairo, he seemed to be much respected by 
 his brother Mohammedans, and gave pledge 
 of his sincere alienation from Christianity 
 
 272 
 
 |f5';'»', 
 
Chapter XVIH] EOTHEN 
 
 by keeping a couple of wives. He affected 
 the same sort of reserve in mentioning 
 them as is generally shown by Orientals, 
 He invited me, indeed, to see his harem, 
 but he made both his wives bundle out be- 
 fore I was admitted; he felt, as it seemed to 
 me, that neither of them would bear criti- 
 cism, and I think that this idea, rather 
 than any motive of sincere jealousy, in- 
 duced him to keep them out of sight. The 
 rooms of the harem reminded me of an 
 English nursery rather than a Moham- 
 medan paradise. One is apt to judge of ' 
 a woman before one sees her by the air 
 of elegance or coarseness with which she 
 surrounds her home. I judged Osman's 
 wives by this test, and condemned them 
 both. But the strangest feature in Os- 
 man's character was his inextinguishable 
 nationality. In vain they had brought him 
 over the seas in early boyhood; in vain 
 had he suffered captivity, conversion, cir- 
 cumcision; in vain they had passed him 
 through fire in their Arabian campaigns: 
 they could not cut away or burn out poor 
 Osman's inborn love of all that was Scotch. 
 In vain men called him effendi; in vain he 
 swept along in Eastern robes; in vain the 
 rival wives adorned his harem: the joy of 
 his heart still plainly lay in this, that he 
 18 273 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVni 
 
 had three shelves of books, and that the 
 books were thoroughbred Scotch— the 
 Edinburgh this, the Edinburgh that, and 
 above all, I recollect, he prided himself 
 upon the " Edinburgh Cabinet Library.'' 
 
 The fear of the plague is its forerunner. 
 It is likely enough that at the time of my 
 seeing poor Osman the deadly taint was 
 beginning to creep through his veins, but 
 it was not till after I had left Cairo that he 
 was visibly stricken. He died. 
 
 As soon as I had seen all that interested 
 me in Cairo and its neighborhood, I wished 
 to make my escape from a city that lay 
 under the terrible curse of the plague; but 
 Mysseri fell ill— in consequence, I believe, 
 of the hardships which he had been suffer- 
 ing in my service; after a while he recov- 
 ered sufficiently to undertake a journey, 
 but then there was some difficulty in pro- 
 curing beasts of burden, and it was not 
 till the nineteenth day of my sojourn that 
 I quitted the city. 
 
 During all this time the power of the 
 plague was rapidly increasing. When I first 
 arrived, it was said that the daily number of 
 " accidents " by plague, out of a population 
 of about two hundred thousand, did not ex- 
 ceed four or five hundred; but before I went 
 away, the deaths were reckoned at twelve 
 
 274 
 
Chapter XVIH] EOTHEN 
 
 hundred a day. I had no means of know- 
 ing whether the numbers (given out, as I 
 believe they were, by officials) were at all 
 correct, but I could not help knowing that 
 from day to day the number of the dead was 
 increasing. My quarters were in one of the 
 chief thoroughfares of the city, and as the 
 funerals in Cairo take place between day- 
 break and noon (a time during which I gen- 
 erally stayed in my rooms), I could form 
 some opinion as to the briskness of the 
 plague. I don't mean that I got up every 
 morning with the sun. It was not so. But 
 the funerals of most people in decent cir- 
 cumstances at Cairo are attended by singers 
 and howlers, and the performances of these 
 people woke me in the early morning, and 
 prevented me from remaining in ignorance 
 of what was going on in the street below. 
 
 These funerals were very simply con- 
 ducted. The bier was a shallow wooden 
 tray carried upon a light and weak wooden 
 frame. The tray had, in general, no lid, 
 but the body was more or less hidden from 
 view by a shawl or scarf. The whole was 
 borne upon the shoulders of men, and hur- 
 ried forward at a great pace. Two or three 
 singers generally preceded the bier; the 
 howlers (these are paid for their vocal la- 
 bors) followed after; and last of all came 
 
 275 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVm 
 
 such of the dead man's friends and relations 
 as could keep up with such a rapid proces- 
 sion; these, especially the women, would get 
 terribly blown, and would struggle back into 
 the rear; many were fairly "beaten off." I 
 never observed any appearance of mourn- 
 ing in the mourners; the pace was too 
 severe for any solemn affectation of grief. 
 
 When first I arrived at Cairo, the funerals 
 that daily passed under my windows were 
 many, but still there were frequent and 
 long intervals without a single howl. 
 Every day, however (except one, when I 
 fancied that I observed a diminution of 
 funerals), these intervals became less fre- 
 quent and shorter, and at last the passing 
 of the howlers from morn to noon was al- 
 most incessant. I believe that about one 
 half of the whole people was carried off by 
 this visitation. The Orientals, however, 
 have more quiet fortitude than Europeans 
 under afflictions of this sort, and they never 
 allow the plague to interfere with their 
 religious usages. I rode, one day, round 
 the great burial-ground. The tombs are 
 strewed over a great expanse, among the 
 vast mountains of rubbish (the accumula- 
 tions of many centuries) which surround 
 the city. The ground, unlike the Turkish 
 "cities of the dead," which are made so 
 
 276 
 
Chapter XVIH] EOTHEN 
 
 beautiful by their dark cypresses, has no- 
 thing to sweeten melancholy— nothing to 
 mitigate the hatefulness of death. Carniv- 
 orous beasts and birds possess the place by 
 night, and now in the fair morning it was 
 all alive with fresh comers— alive with 
 dead. Yet at this very time when the 
 plague was raging so furiously, and on this 
 very ground which resounded so mourn- 
 fully with the howls of arriving funerals, 
 preparations were going on for the reli- 
 gious festival called the Kourban Bairam. 
 Tents were pitched, and swings hung for 
 the amusement of children. A ghastly holi- 
 day! but the Mohammedans take a pride, 
 and a just pride, in following their ancient 
 customs undisturbed by the shadow of 
 death. 
 
 I did not hear, whilst I was at Cairo, that 
 any prayer for a remission of the plague 
 had been offered up in the mosques. I be- 
 lieve that, however frightful the ravages of 
 the disease may be, the Mohammedans re- 
 frain from approaching Heaven with their 
 complaints until the plague has endured 
 for a long space, and then at last they pray 
 God, not that the plague may cease, but 
 that it may go to another city! 
 
 A good Mussulman seems to take pride 
 in repudiating the European notion that 
 
 277 
 
..^;?-, 
 
 EOTHEN [Chapter XVIH 
 
 the will of God can be eluded by shunning 
 the touch of a sleeve. When I went to see 
 the Pyramids of Sakkara, I was the guest 
 of a noble old fellow— an Osmanli (how 
 sweet it was to hear his soft, rolling lan- 
 guage after suffering as I had suffered of 
 late from the shrieking tongue of the 
 Arabs!). This man was aware of the Euro- 
 pean ideas about contagion, and his first 
 care, therefore, was to assure me that not 
 a single instance of plague had occurred in 
 his village. He then inquired as to the prog- 
 ress of the plague at Cairo. I had but a 
 bad account to give. Up to this time my 
 host had carefully refrained from touching 
 me, out of respect to the European theory 
 of contagion; but as soon as it was made 
 plain that he, and not I, would be the per- 
 son endangered by contact, he gently laid 
 his hand upon my arm, in order to make 
 me feel sure that the circumstance of my 
 coming from an infected city did not occa- 
 sion him the least uneasiness. In that touch 
 there was true hospitality. 
 
 Very different is the faith and the prac- 
 tice of the Europeans, or rather, I mean, of 
 the Europeans settled in the East, and 
 commonly called Levantines. When I 
 came to the end of my journey over the 
 desert, I had been so long alone that the 
 
 278 
 
Chapter XVm] EOTHEN 
 
 prospect of speaking to somebody at Cairo 
 seemed almost a new excitement. I felt a 
 sort of consciousness that I had a little of 
 the wild beast about me, but I was quite in 
 the humor to be charmingly tame, and to 
 be quite engaging in my manners, if I 
 should have an opportunity of holding com- 
 munion with any of the human race whilst 
 at Cairo. I knew no one in the place, and 
 had no letters of introduction, but I carried 
 letters of credit, and it often happens, in 
 places remote from England, that those 
 ^^ advices " operate as a sort of introduction, 
 and obtain for the bearer (if disposed to re- 
 ceive them) such ordinary civilities as it 
 may be in the power of the banker to offer. 
 Very soon after my arrival, I found out 
 the abode of the Levantine to whom my cre- 
 dentials were addressed. At his door sev- 
 eral persons (all Arabs) were hanging about 
 and keeping guard. It was not till after 
 some delay, and the interchange of some 
 communications with those in the interior of 
 the citadel, that I was admitted. At length, 
 however, I was conducted through the 
 court, and up a flight of stairs, and finally 
 into the apartment where business was 
 transacted. The room was divided by a 
 good, substantial fence of iron bars, and be- 
 hind these defenses the banker had his sta- 
 
 279 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVni 
 
 tion. The truth was that from fear of the 
 plague he had adopted the course usually 
 taken by European residents, and had shut 
 himself up *^in strict quarantine "—that is 
 to say, that he had, as he hoped, cut 
 himself off from all communication with In- 
 fecting substances. The Europeans long 
 resident in the East, without any or with 
 scarcely any exception, are firmly convinced 
 that the plague is propagated by contact, 
 and by contact only— that if they can but 
 avoid the touch of an infecting substance 
 they are safe, and that if they cannot they 
 die. This belief induces them to adopt the 
 contrivance of putting themselves in that 
 state of siege which they call " quarantine." 
 It is a part of their faith that metals, and 
 hempen rope, and also, I fancy, one or two 
 other substances, will not carry the infec- 
 tion; and they likewise believe that the 
 germ of pestilence lying in an infected 
 substance may be destroyed by submersion 
 in water, or by the action of smoke. They, 
 therefore, guard the doors of their houses 
 with the utmost care against intrusion, and 
 condemn themselves, with all the mem- 
 bers of their family, including European 
 servants, to a strict imprisonment with- 
 in the walls of their dwelling. Their native 
 attendants are not allowed to enter at all, 
 
 280 
 
Chapter XVIH] EOTHEN 
 
 but they make the necessary purchases of 
 provisions; these are hauled up through 
 one of the windows by means of a rope, and 
 are afterwards soaked in water. 
 
 I knew nothing of these mysteries, and 
 was not, therefore, prepared for the sort of 
 reception I met with. I advanced to the 
 iron fence, and putting my letter between 
 the bars, politely proffered it to Mr. Ban- 
 ker. Mr. Banker received me with a sad 
 and dejected look, and not "with open 
 arms,'' or with any arms at all, but with— 
 a pair of tongs! I placed my letter between 
 the iron fingers. These instantly picked it 
 up as it were a viper, and conveyed it away to 
 be scorched and purified by fire and smoke. 
 I was disgusted at this reception, and at 
 the idea that anything of mine could carry 
 infection to the poor wretch who stood on the 
 other side of the bars— pale and trem- 
 bling, and already meet for death. I looked 
 with something of the Mohammedan's feel- 
 ing upon these little contrivances for elud- 
 ing fate; and in this instance at least they 
 were vain: a little while, and the poor 
 money-changer, who had strived to guard 
 the days of his life (as though they were 
 coins) with bolts and bars of iron— he was 
 seized by the plague, and he died. 
 
 To people entertaining such opinions as 
 
 281 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVni 
 
 these respecting the fatal effect of contact, 
 the narrow and crowded streets of Cairo 
 were terrible as the easy slope that leads 
 to Avernus. The roaring ocean and the 
 beetling crags owe something of their sub- 
 limity to this— that if they be tempted they 
 can take the warm life of a man. To the 
 contagionist, filled as he is with the dread 
 of final causes, having no faith in destiny, 
 nor in the fixed will of God, and with none 
 of the devil-may-care indifference which 
 might stand him instead of creeds— to such 
 one every rag that shivers in the breeze of 
 a plague-stricken city has this sort of sub- 
 limity. If, by any terrible ordinance, he 
 be forced to venture forth, he sees death 
 dangling from every sleeve, and as he creeps 
 forward, he poises his shuddering limbs be- 
 tween the imminent jacket that is stab- 
 bing at his right elbow, and the murderous 
 pelisse that threatens to mow him clean 
 down as it sweeps along on his left. But 
 most of all he dreads that which most of 
 all he should love— the touch of a woman's 
 dress; for mothers and wives, hurrying 
 forth on kindly errands from the bedsides 
 of the dying, go slouching along through 
 the streets more wilfully and less courte- 
 ously than the men. For a while it may 
 be that the caution of the poor Levantine 
 
 282 
 
Chapter XVm] EOTHEN 
 
 may enable him to avoid contact, but sooner 
 or later, perhaps, the dreaded chance ar- 
 rives. That bundle of linen, with the dark, 
 tearful eyes at the top of it, that labors 
 along with the voluptuous clumsiness of 
 Grisi— she has touched the poor Levantine 
 with the hem of her sleeve! From that 
 dread moment his peace is gone; his mind, 
 forever hanging upon the fatal touch, in- 
 vites the blow which he fears; he watches 
 for the symptoms of plague so carefully that, 
 sooner or later, they come in truth. The 
 parched mouth is a sign— his mouth is 
 parched. The throbbing brain— his brain 
 does throb. The rapid pulse— he touches 
 his own wrist (for he dares not ask counsel 
 of any man, lest he be deserted), he touches 
 his wrist, and feels how his frighted blood 
 goes galloping out of his heart. There is 
 nothing but the fatal swelling that is want- 
 ing to make his sad conviction complete. 
 Immediately he has an odd feel under the 
 arm— no pain, but a little straining of the 
 skin. He would to God it were his fancy that 
 were strong enough to give him that sensa- 
 tion ! This is the worst of all. It now seems 
 to him that he could be happy and con- 
 tented with his parched mouth, and his 
 throbbing brain, and his rapid pulse, if only 
 he could know that there were no swelling 
 
 283 
 

 EOTHEN [Chapter XVni 
 
 under the left arm; but dares he try? In 
 a moment of calmness and deliberation he 
 dares not, but when for a while he has 
 writhed under the torture of suspense, a 
 sudden strength of will drives him to seek 
 and know his fate. He touches the gland, 
 and finds the skin sane and sound, but under 
 the cuticle there lies a small lump, like a 
 pistol bullet, that moves as he pushes it. 
 Oh! but is this for all certainty? is this the 
 sentence of death? Feel the gland of the 
 other arm; there is not the same lump ex- 
 actly, yet something a little like it. Have 
 not some people glands naturally enlarged? 
 Would to Heaven he were one! So he 
 does for himself the work of the plague, 
 and when the Angel of Death, thus courted, 
 does indeed and in truth come, he has only 
 to finish that which has been so well begun. 
 He passes his fiery hand over the brain of 
 the victim, and lets him rave for a season, 
 but all chance-wise, of people and things 
 once dear, or of people and things indiffer- 
 ent. Once more the poor fellow is back at 
 his home in fair Provence, and sees the 
 sun-dial that stood in his childhood's gar- 
 den—sees part of his mother, and the long 
 since forgotten face of that little dear 
 sister (he sees her, he says, on a Sunday 
 morning, for all the church bells are ring- 
 
 284 
 
 
Chapter XVm] EOTHEN 
 
 ing); he looks up and down through the 
 universe, and owns it well piled with bales 
 upon bales of cotton and cotton eternal— 
 so much so that he feels— he knows— he 
 swears he could make that winning hazard, 
 if the billiard-table would not slant up- 
 wards, and if the cue were a cue worth 
 playing with; but it is not; it ^s a cue that 
 won't move— his own arm won't move. In 
 short, there 's the devil to pay in the brain 
 of the poor Levantine; and perhaps the 
 next night but one he becomes the "life 
 and the soul" of some squalling jackal 
 family, who fish him out by the foot from 
 his shallow and sandy grave. 
 
 Better fate was mine. By some happy 
 perverseness (occasioned, perhaps, by my 
 disgust at the notion of being received with 
 a pair of tongs), I took it into my pleasant 
 head that all the European notions about 
 contagion were thoroughly unfounded— 
 that the plague might be providential, or 
 " epidemic " (as they phrase it), but was not 
 contagious, and that I could not be killed 
 by the touch of a woman's sleeve, nor yet 
 by her blessed breath. I, therefore, deter- 
 mined that the plague should not alter my 
 habits and amusements in any one respect. 
 Though I came to this resolve from impulse, 
 I think that I took the course which was in 
 
 285 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVIH 
 
 effect the most prudent; for the cheerful- 
 ness of spirits which I was thus enabled 
 to retain discouraged the yellow-winged 
 angel, and prevented him from taking a 
 shot at me. I, however, so far respected 
 the opinion of the Europeans that I avoided 
 touching, when I could do so without priva- 
 tion or inconvenience. This endeavor fur- 
 nished me with a sort of amusement as 
 I passed through the streets. The usual 
 mode of moving from place to place in the 
 city of Cairo is upon donkeys. Of these 
 great numbers are always in readiness, 
 with donkey-boys attached. I had two 
 who constantly (until one of them died of 
 the plague) waited at my door upon the 
 chance of being wanted. I found this way 
 of moving about exceedingly pleasant, and 
 never attempted any other. I had only to 
 mount my beast, and tell my donkey-boy 
 the point for which I was bound, and in- 
 stantly I began to glide on at a capital pace. 
 The streets of Cairo are not paved in any 
 way, but strewed with a dry, sandy soil, so 
 deadening to sound that the footfall of my 
 donkey could scarcely be heard. There is 
 no trottoir, and as you ride through the 
 streets you mingle with the people on foot. 
 Those who are in your way, upon being 
 warned by the shouts of the donkey-boy, 
 
 286 
 
Chapter XVin] EOTHEN 
 
 move very slightly aside, so as to leave you 
 a narrow lane for your passage. Through 
 this you move at a gallop, gliding on delight- 
 fully in the very midst of crowds, without 
 being inconvenienced or stopped for a mo- 
 ment; it seems to you that it is not the 
 donkey, but the donkey-boy, who wafts you 
 along with his shouts through pleasant 
 groups and air that comes thick with the 
 fragrance of burial spice. "Eh, sheik! Eh, 
 bint! reggalek, shumalek," etc. ("O old 
 man, virgin, get out of the way on the 
 right! O virgin, O old man, get out of the 
 way on the left! This Englishman comes, 
 he comes, he comes !'0 The narrow alley 
 which these shouts cleared for my passage 
 made it possible, though difficult, to go on 
 for a long way without touching a single 
 person, and my endeavors to avoid such 
 contact were a sort of game for me in my 
 loneliness. If I got through a street with- 
 out being touched, I won; if I was touched, 
 I lost— lost a deuce of a stake, accord- 
 ing to the theory of the Europeans, but 
 that I deemed to be all nonsense; I only 
 lost that game, and would certainly win the 
 next. 
 
 There is not much in the way of public 
 buildings to admire at Cairo, but I saw one 
 handsome mosque, and to this an instructive 
 
 287 
 
■Mi' 
 
 EOTHEN [Chapter XVm 
 
 history is attached. A Hindustani mer- 
 chant, having amassed an immense fortune, 
 settled in Cairo, and soon found that his 
 riches in the then state of the political 
 world gave him vast power in the city— 
 power, however, the exercise of which was 
 much restrained by the counteracting influ- 
 ence of other wealthy men. With a view 
 to extinguish every attempt at rivalry, the 
 Hindustani merchant built this magnifi- 
 cent mosque at his own expense; when the 
 work was complete, he invited all the lead- 
 ing men of the city to join him in prayer 
 within the walls of the newly built temple, 
 and he then caused to be massacred all those 
 who were sufficiently influential to cause 
 him any jealousy or uneasiness— in short, 
 all the "respectable men" of the place. 
 After this he possessed undisputed power 
 in the city, and was greatly revered— he 
 is revered to this day. It struck me that 
 there was a touching simplicity in the 
 mode which this man so successfully 
 adopted for gaining the confidence and 
 good will of his fellow-citizens. There 
 seems to be some improbability in the story 
 (though not nearly so gross as it might ap- 
 pear to an European ignorant of the East, 
 for witness Mehemet All's destruction of 
 the Mamelukes, a closely similar act, and 
 
 288 
 
Chapter XVHI] EOTHEN 
 
 attended with the like brilliant success^); 
 but even if the story be false as a mere 
 fact, it is perfectly true as an illustration 
 —it is a true exposition of the means by 
 which the respect and affection of Orien- 
 tals may be conciliated. 
 
 I ascended, one day, to the citadel, and 
 gained from its ramparts a superb view of 
 the town. The fanciful and elaborate gilt- 
 work of the many minarets gives a light 
 and florid grace to the city as seen from 
 this height, but before you can look for 
 many seconds at such things, your eyes are 
 drawn westward— drawn westward and 
 over the Nile, till they rest upon the mas- 
 sive enormities of the Gizeh Pyramids. 
 
 I saw within the fortress many yoke of 
 men, all haggard and woebegone, and a 
 kennel of very fine lions, well fed and flour- 
 ishing; I say yoke of men, for the poor fel- 
 lows were working together in bonds; I say 
 a kennel of lions, for the beasts were not 
 inclosed in cages, but simply chained up 
 like dogs. 
 
 I went round the bazaars; it seemed to 
 me that pipes and arms were cheaper here 
 than at Constantinople, and I should advise 
 you, therefore, if you reach both places, to 
 
 i Mehemet Ali invited the Mamelukes to a feast, and mur- 
 dered them whilst preparing to enter the banquet-hall. 
 
 19 289 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVni 
 
 prefer the market of Cairo. In the open 
 slave market I saw about fifty girls exposed 
 for sale, but all of them black or " invisible " 
 brown. A slave agent took me to some 
 rooms in the upper story of the building, 
 and also into several obscure houses in the 
 neighborhood, with a view to show me some 
 white women. The owners raised various 
 objections to the display of their ware, and 
 well they might, for I had not the least no- 
 tion of purchasing; some refused on account 
 of the illegality of selling to unbelievers,^ and 
 others declared that all transactions of this 
 sort were completely out of the question as 
 long as the plague was raging. I only suc- 
 ceeded in seeing one white slave who was for 
 sale, but on this treasure the owner affected 
 to set an immense value, and raised my ex- 
 pectations to a high pitch by saying that 
 the girl was Circassian, and was "fair as 
 the full moon." There was a good deal of 
 delay, but at last I was led into a long, dreary 
 room, and there, after marching timidly 
 forward for a few paces, I descried at the 
 farther end that mass of white linen which 
 indicates an Eastern woman. She was 
 bid to uncover her face, and I presently 
 saw that, though very far from being good- 
 looking according to my notion of beauty, 
 
 1 It is not strictly lawful to sell white slaves to a Christian. 
 
 290 
 
Chapter XVHI] EOTHEN 
 
 she had not been inaptly described by the 
 man who compared her to the full moon, 
 for her large face was perfectly round and 
 perfectly white. Though very young, she 
 was nevertheless extremely fat. She gave 
 me the idea of having been got up for sale 
 —of having been fattened and whitened by 
 medicines or by some peculiar diet. I was 
 firmly determined not to see any more of 
 her than the face. She was perhaps dis- 
 gusted at this my virtuous resolve, as well 
 as with my personal appearance; perhaps 
 she saw my distaste and disappointment; 
 perhaps she wished to gain favor with her 
 owner by showing her attachment to his 
 faith; at all events, she holloed out very 
 lustily and very decidedly that "she would 
 not be bought by the infidel." 
 
 Whilst I remained at Cairo I thought it 
 worth while to see something of the magi- 
 cians, because I considered that these men 
 were in some sort the descendants of those 
 who contended so stoutly against the su- 
 perior power of Aaron. I therefore sent 
 for an old man who was held to be the 
 chief of the magicians, and desired him to 
 show me the wonders of his art. The old 
 man looked and dressed his character ex- 
 ceedingly well. The vast turban, the flowing 
 beard, and the ample robes were all that one 
 
 291 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVm 
 
 could wish in the way of appearance. The 
 first experiment (a very stale one) which he 
 attempted to perform for me was that of 
 showing the forms and faces of my absent 
 friends, not to me, but to a boy brought in 
 from the streets for the purpose, and said 
 to be chosen at random. A mangal (pan 
 of burning charcoal) was brought into my 
 room, and the magician, bending over it, 
 sprinkled upon the fire some substances 
 consisting, I suppose, of spices or sweetly 
 burning woods, for immediately a fragrant 
 smoke arose that curled around the bend- 
 ing form of the wizard the while that he 
 pronounced his first incantations. When 
 these were over, the boy was made to 
 sit down, and a common green shade was 
 bound over his brow. Then the wizard 
 took ink and, still continuing his incanta- 
 tions, wrote certain mysterious figures 
 upon the boy's palm, and directed him to 
 rivet his attention to these marks, without 
 looking aside for an instant. Again the in- 
 cantations proceeded, and after a while the 
 boy, being seemingly a little agitated, was 
 asked whether he saw anything on the palm 
 of his hand. He declared that he saw— and 
 he described it rather minutely— a kind of 
 military procession with royal flags and 
 warlike banners flying. I was then called 
 
 292 
 
Chapter XVm] EOTHEN 
 
 upon to name the absent person whose form 
 was to be made visible. I named Keate. You 
 were not at Eton, and I must tell you, there- 
 fore, what manner of man it was that I named, 
 though I think you must have some idea of 
 him already, for wherever, from utmost Can- 
 ada to Bundelcund, wherever there was the 
 whitewashed wall of an ofiHcer's room, or of 
 any other apartment in which English gen- 
 tlemen are forced to kick their heels, there, 
 likely enough (in the days of his reign), the 
 head of Keate would be seen, scratched or 
 drawn with those various degrees of skill 
 which one observes in the representation 
 of saints- Anybody without the least no- 
 tion of drawing could still draw a speaking, 
 nay, scolding likeness of Keate. If you had 
 no pencil you could draw him well enough 
 with a poker, or the leg of a chair, or the 
 smoke of a candle. He was little more (if 
 more at all) than five feet in height, and 
 was not very great in girth, but within this 
 space was concentrated the pluck of ten 
 battalions. He had a really noble voice, 
 and this he could modulate with great skill; 
 but he had also the power of quacking like 
 an angry duck, and he almost always adopted 
 this mode of communication in order to in- 
 spire respect. He was a capital scholar, but 
 his ingenuous learning had not "softened 
 
 293 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVm 
 
 his manners/' and had " permitted them to 
 be fierce "—tremendously fierce. He had 
 such a complete command over his temper 
 —I mean over his good temper— that he 
 scarcely ever allowed it to appear. You could 
 not put him out of humor— that is, out of 
 the ill humor which he thought to be fitting 
 for a head-master. His red, shaggy eye- 
 brows were so prominent that he habitu- 
 ally used them as arms and hands for the 
 purpose of pointing out any object towards 
 which he wished to direct attention. The 
 rest of his features were equally strik- 
 ing in their way, and were all and all his 
 own. He wore a fancy dress, partly resem- 
 bling the costume of Napoleon, and partly 
 that of a widow woman. I could not have 
 named anybody more decidedly differing in 
 appearance from the rest of the human race. 
 "Whom do you name?" "I name John 
 Keate." "Now, what do you see?" said 
 the wizard to the boy. "I see," answered 
 the boy, " I see a fair girl with golden hair, 
 blue eyes, pallid face, rosy lips." There was 
 a shot ! I shouted out my laughter with pro- 
 fane exultation, and the wizard, perceiving 
 the grossness of his failure, declared that 
 the boy must have known sin (for none but 
 the innocent can see truth), and accordingly 
 kicked him down-stairs. 
 
 294 
 
L ^'Aimof>tR£: i 
 
 Chapter XVIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 One or two other boys were tried, but 
 none could ** see truth." 
 
 Notwithstanding the failure of these ex- 
 periments, I wished to see what sort of 
 mummery my magician would practise if 
 I called upon him to show me some per- 
 formances of a higher order than those 
 already attempted. I therefore made a 
 treaty with him, in virtue of which he 
 was to descend with me into the tombs 
 near the Pyramids, and there evoke the 
 devil. The negotiation lasted some time, 
 for Dthemetri, as in duty bound, tried to 
 beat down the wizard as much as he could, 
 and the wizard, on his part, manfully stuck 
 up for his price, declaring that to raise the 
 devil was really no joke, and insinuating 
 that to do so was an awesome crime. I let 
 Dthemetri have his way in the negotiation, 
 but I felt in reality very indifferent about 
 the sum to be paid, and for this reason, 
 namely, that the payment (except a very 
 small present, which I might make, or not, 
 as I chose) was to be contingent on success. 
 At length the bargain was finished, and it 
 was arranged that, after a few days to be 
 allowed for preparation, the wizard should 
 raise the devil for £2 10s., play or pay— no 
 devil, no piasters. 
 
 The wizard failed to keep his appoint- 
 
 295 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVin 
 
 ment. I sent to know why the deuce he 
 had not come to raise the devil. The truth 
 was that my Mohammed had gone to the 
 mountain. The plague had seized him, 
 and he died. 
 
 Although the plague was now spreading 
 quick and terrible havoc around him, I did 
 not see very plainly any corresponding 
 change in the looks of the streets until 
 the seventh day after my arrival; I then 
 first observed that the city was silenced. 
 There were no outward signs of despair, 
 nor of violent terror, but many of the 
 voices that had swelled the busy hum of 
 men were already hushed in death, and 
 the survivors, so used to scream and 
 screech in their earnestness whenever 
 they bought or sold, now showed an un- 
 wonted indifference about the affairs of 
 this world; it was less worth while for 
 men to haggle and haggle, and crack the 
 sky with noisy bargains, when the Great 
 Commander was there, who could "pay all 
 their debts with the roll of his drum." 
 
 At this time I was informed that of 
 twenty-five thousand people at Alexan- 
 dria, twelve thousand had died already; 
 the Destroyer had come rather later to 
 Cairo, but there was nothing of weari- 
 ness in his strides. The deaths came 
 
 296 
 
Chapter XVin] EOTHEN 
 
 faster than ever they befell in the plague 
 of London; but the calmness of Orientals 
 under such visitations, and their habit of 
 using biers for interment, instead of bury- 
 ing coffins along with the bodies, rendered 
 it practicable to dispose of the dead in the 
 usual way, without shocking the people 
 by any unaccustomed spectacle of horror. 
 There was no tumbling of bodies into carts, 
 as in the plague of Florence and the plague 
 of London; every man, according to his 
 station, was properly buried, and that in 
 the accustomed way, except that he went 
 to his grave at a pace more than usually 
 rapid. 
 
 The funerals pouring through the streets 
 were not the only public evidence of 
 deaths. In Cairo this custom prevails: at 
 the instant of a man's death (if his prop- 
 erty is sufficient to justify the expense) pro- 
 fessional howlers are employed. I believe 
 that these persons are brought near to the 
 dying man when his end appears to be ap- 
 proaching, and the moment that life is 
 gone, they lift up their voices and send 
 forth a loud wail from the chamber of 
 death. Thus I knew when my near neigh- 
 bors died. Sometimes the howls were near, 
 sometimes more distant. Once I was 
 awakened in the night by the wail of death 
 
 297 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVm 
 
 in the next house, and another time by a 
 hke howl from the house opposite; and 
 there were two or three minutes, I recollect, 
 during which the howl seemed to be actu- 
 ally running along the street. 
 
 I happened to be rather teased at this 
 time by a sore throat, and I thought it would 
 be well to get it cured, if I could, before I 
 again started on my travels. I therefore 
 inquired for a Frank doctor, and was in- 
 formed that the only one then at Cairo was 
 a Bolognese refugee, a very young practi- 
 tioner, and so poor that he had not been 
 able to take flight, as the other medical 
 men had done. At such a time as this 
 it was out of the question to send for 
 an European physician; a person thus sum- 
 moned would be sure to suppose that the 
 patient was ill of the plague, and would 
 decline to come. I therefore rode to the 
 young doctor^s residence, ascended a flight 
 or two of stairs, and knocked at his door. 
 No one came immediately, but after some 
 little delay the medico himself opened 
 the door and admitted me. I, of course, 
 made him understand that I had come to 
 consult him, but before entering upon my 
 throat grievance, I accepted a chair and 
 exchanged a sentence or two of common- 
 place conversation. Now the natural com- 
 
 298 
 
Chapter XVIII] EOTHEN 
 
 monplace of the city at this season was of 
 a gloomy sort : " Comme va la peste ? " (" How 
 goes the plague? ") And this was precisely 
 the question I put. A deep sigh, and the 
 words, "Sette cento per giorno, signor" 
 (" Seven hundred a day ")j pronounced in a 
 tone of the deepest sadness and dejection, 
 were the answer I received. The day was 
 not oppressively hot, yet I saw that the 
 doctor was transpiring profusely, and even 
 the outside surface of the thick shawl 
 f dressing-gown in which he had wrapped 
 
 himself appeared to be moist. He was a 
 handsome, pleasant-looking young fellow, 
 but the deep melancholy of his tone did not 
 tempt me to prolong the conversation, and, 
 without further delay, I requested that my 
 throat might be looked at. The medico 
 held my chin in the usual way, and ex- 
 amined my throat; he then wrote me a 
 prescription, and almost immediately after- 
 wards I bade him farewell; but as he con- 
 ducted me towards the door I observed an 
 expression of strange and unhappy watch- 
 fulness in his rolling eyes. It was not the 
 next day, but the next day but one, if I 
 rightly remember, that I sent to request an- 
 other interview with my doctor. In due time 
 Dthemetri, my messenger, returned, look- 
 ing sadly aghast; he had "met the medico,'' 
 
 299 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVIH 
 
 for so he phrased it, "coming out from his 
 house— in a bier !" 
 
 It was, of course, plain that when the poor 
 Bolognese stood looking down my throat, 
 and almost mingling his breath with mine, 
 he was already stricken of the plague. I 
 suppose that his violent sweat must have 
 been owing to some medicine administered 
 by himself in the faint hope of a cure. 
 The peculiar rolling of his eyes which 
 I had remarked is, I believe, to experienced 
 observers, a pretty sure test of the plague. 
 A Russian acquaintance of mine, speaking 
 from the information of men who had 
 made the Turkish campaigns of 1828 and 
 1829, told me that by this sign the officers 
 of Sabalkansky^s force were able to make 
 out the plague-stricken soldiers with a good 
 deal of certainty. 
 
 It so happened that most of the people 
 with whom I had anything to do, during my 
 stay at Cairo, were seized with plague, and 
 all these died. Since I had been for a long 
 time en route before I reached Egypt, and 
 was about to start again for another long 
 journey over the desert, there were, of 
 course, many little matters touching my 
 wardrobe and my traveling equipments 
 which required to be attended to whilst I 
 remained in the city. It happened so many 
 
 300 
 
Chapter XVIH] EOTHEN 
 
 times that Dthemetri's orders in respect to 
 these matters were frustrated by the deaths 
 of the tradespeople and others whom he 
 employed that at last I became quite ac- 
 customed to the peculiar manner of the 
 man when he prepared to announce a new 
 death to me. The poor fellow naturally 
 supposed that I should feel some uneasi- 
 ness at hearing of the "accidents'' con- 
 tinually happening to persons employed by 
 me, and he therefore communicated their 
 deaths as though they were the deaths of 
 friends. He would cast down his eyes and 
 look like a man abashed, and then gently 
 and with a mournful gesture allow the 
 words, " Morto, signer,'' to come through his 
 lips. I don't know how many of such in- 
 stances occurred, but they were several, 
 and besides these (as I told you before), my 
 banker, my doctor, my landlord, and my 
 magician all died of the plague. A lad who 
 acted as a helper in the house I occupied 
 lost a brother and a sister within a few 
 hours. Out of my two established donkey- 
 boys one died. I did not hear of any in- 
 stance in which a plague-stricken patient 
 had recovered. 
 
 Going out one morning, I met unexpect- 
 edly the scorching breath of the khamsin 
 wind, and fearing that I should faint under 
 
 301 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVIII 
 
 'the infliction, I returned to my rooms. Re- 
 flecting, however, that I might have to 
 encounter this wind in the desert, where 
 there would be no possibiHty of avoiding 
 it, I thought it would be better to brave it 
 once more in the city, and to try whether 
 I could really bear it or not. I therefore 
 mounted my ass, and rode to old Cairo 
 and along the gardens by the banks of the 
 Nile. The wind was hot to the touch, as 
 though it came from a furnace; it blew 
 strongly, but yet with such perfect steadi- 
 ness that the trees bending under its force 
 remained fixed in the same curves without 
 perceptibly waving. The whole sky was 
 obscured by a veil of yellowish gray, that 
 shut out the face of the sun. The streets 
 were utterly silent, being indeed almost 
 entirely deserted, and not without cause, 
 for the scorching blast, whilst it fevers the 
 blood, closes up the pores of the skin, and 
 is terribly distressing, therefore, to every 
 animal that encounters it. I returned to 
 my rooms dreadfully ill. My head ached 
 with a burning pain, and my pulse bounded 
 quick and fitfully, but perhaps (as in the 
 instance of the poor Levantine whose death 
 I was mentioning) the fear and excitement 
 I felt in trying my own wrist may have 
 made my blood flutter the faster. 
 
 302 
 
Chapter XVIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 It is a thoroughly well believed theory 
 that during the continuance of the plague 
 you can't be ill of any other febrile malady. 
 An unpleasant privilege that! for ill I was, 
 and ill of fever, and I anxiously wished that 
 the ailment might turn out to be anything 
 rather than plague. I had some right to 
 surmise that my illness might have been 
 merely the effect of the hot wind, and this 
 notion was encouraged by the elasticity of 
 my spirits, and by a strong f oref eeling that 
 much of my destined life in this world was 
 yet to come and yet to be fulfilled. That 
 was my instinctive belief; but when I care- 
 fully weighed the probabilities on the one 
 side and on the other, I could not help 
 seeing that the strength of argument 
 was all against me. There was a strong 
 antecedent likelihood in favor of my being 
 struck by the same blow as the rest of the 
 people who had been dying around me. 
 Besides, it occurred to me that, after all, 
 the universal opinion of the Europeans 
 upon a medical question, such as that of 
 contagion, might probably be correct, and, 
 if it were, I was so thoroughly "compro- 
 mised," especially by the touch and breath 
 of the dying medico, that I had no right 
 to expect any other fate than that which 
 now seemed to have overtaken me. Balan- 
 
 303 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVIH 
 
 cing, then, as well as I could all the consid- 
 erations suggested by hope and fear, I 
 slowly and reluctantly came to the conclu- 
 sion that, according to all merely reasonable 
 probability, the plague had come upon me. 
 
 You might suppose that this conviction 
 would have induced me to write a few fare- 
 well lines to those who were dearest, and 
 that having done that, I should have turned 
 my thoughts towards the world to come. 
 Such, however, was not the case. I believe 
 that the prospect of death often brings 
 with it strong anxieties about matters of 
 comparatively trivial import, and certainly 
 with me the whole energy of the mind was 
 directed towards the one petty object of 
 concealing my illness until the latest pos- 
 sible moment— until the delirious stage. 
 I did not believe that either Mysseri or 
 Dthemetri, who had served me so faithfully 
 in all trials, would have deserted me (as 
 most Europeans are wont to do) when they 
 knew that I was stricken by plague, but I 
 shrank from the idea of putting them to 
 this test, and I dreaded the consternation 
 which the knowledge of my illness would 
 be sure to occasion. 
 
 I was very ill indeed at the moment when 
 my dinner was served, and my soul sick- 
 ened at the sight of the food, but I had 
 
 304 
 
Chapter XVm] EOTHEN 
 
 luckily the habit of dispensing with the at- 
 tendance of servants during my meal, and 
 as soon as I was left alone, I made a melan- 
 choly calculation of the quantity of food 
 I should have eaten if I had been in my 
 usual health, and filled my plates accord- 
 ingly, and gave myself salt, and so on, 
 as though I were going to dine. I then 
 transferred the viands to a piece of the 
 omnipresent "Times" newspaper, and hid 
 them away in a cupboard, for it was not 
 yet night, and I dared not to throw the food 
 into the street until darkness came. I did 
 not at all relish this process of fictitious 
 dining, but at length the cloth was re- 
 moved, and I gladly reclined on my divan, 
 (I would not lie down), with the "Arabian 
 Nights " in my hand. 
 
 I had a feeling that tea would be a capi- 
 tal thing for me, but I would not order it 
 until the usual hour. When at last the 
 time came, I drank deep draughts from the 
 fragrant cup. The effect was almost in- 
 stantaneous. A plenteous sweat burst 
 through my skin, and watered my clothes 
 through and through. I kept myself 
 thickly covered. The hot, tormenting 
 weight which had been loading my brain 
 was slowly heaved away. The fever was 
 extinguished. I felt a new buoyancy of 
 20 305 
 
EOTHEN [Chapteb XVin 
 
 spirits, and an unusual activity of mind. I 
 went into my bed under a load of thick 
 covering, and when the morning came, and 
 I asked myself how I was, I answered, 
 " Perfectly well." 
 
 I was very anxious to procure, if possible, 
 some medical advice for Mysseri, whose 
 illness prevented my departure. Every 
 one of the European practising doctors, of 
 whom there had been many, had either died 
 or fled; it was said, however, that there was 
 an Englishman in the medical service of 
 the Pasha who quietly remained at his 
 post, but that he never engaged in private 
 practice. I determined to try if I could ob- 
 tain assistance in this quarter. I did not 
 venture at first, and at such a time as this, 
 to ask him to visit a servant who was pros- 
 trate on the bed of sickness; but thinking 
 that I might thus gain an opportunity of 
 persuading him to attend Mysseri, I wrote 
 a note mentioning my own affair of the sore 
 throat, and asking for the benefit of his 
 medical advice. He instantly followed back 
 my messenger, and was at once shown up 
 into my room. I entreated him to stand off, 
 telling him fairly how deeply I was " com- 
 promised," and especially by my contact 
 with a person actually ill and since dead of 
 plague. The generous fellow, with a good- 
 
 306 
 
Chapter XVIH] EOTHEN 
 
 humored laugh at the terrors of the con- 
 tagionists, marched straight up to me, and 
 forcibly seized my hand and shook it with 
 manly violence. I felt grateful indeed, and 
 swelled with fresh pride of race, because 
 that my countryman could carry himself 
 so nobly. He soon cured Mysseri, as well 
 as me, and all this he did from no other 
 motives than the pleasure of doing a kind- 
 ness and the delight of braving a danger. 
 
 At length the great difficulty^ I had 
 had in procuring beasts for my depar- 
 ture was overcome, and now, too, I was to 
 have the new excitement of traveling on 
 dromedaries. With two of these beasts 
 and three camels, I gladly wound my way 
 from out of the pest-stricken city. As I 
 passed through the streets, I observed a 
 grave elder stretching forth his arms and 
 lifting up his voice in a speech which 
 seemed to have some reference to me; 
 requiring an interpretation, I found that 
 the man had said: "The Pasha seeks 
 camels, and he finds them not; the Eng- 
 lishman says, ' Let camels be brought,' and 
 behold, there they are!" 
 
 I no sooner breathed the free, wholesome 
 air of the desert than I felt that a great 
 
 1 The difficulty was occasioned by the immense exertions which 
 the Pasha was making to collect camels for military purposes. 
 
 307 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XVni 
 
 burden which I had been scarcely con- 
 scious of bearing was hf ted away from my 
 mind. For nearly three weeks I had lived 
 under peril of death; the peril ceased, and 
 not till then did I know how much alarm 
 and anxiety I had really been suffering. 
 
 308 
 
CHAPTER 
 XIX 
 
 The Pyramids, 
 
 I WENT to see and to explore the 
 Pyramids. 
 Familiar to one from the days of 
 early childhood are the forms of the Egyp- 
 tian Pyramids, and now, as I approached 
 them from the banks of the Nile, I had no 
 print, no picture before me, and yet the old 
 shapes were there; there was no change: 
 they were just as I had always known 
 them. I straightened myself in my stir- 
 rups, and strived to persuade my under- 
 standing that this was real Egypt, and that 
 those angles which stood up between me 
 and the west were of harder stuff and more 
 ancient than the paper pyramids of the 
 green portfolio. Yet it was not till I came 
 to the base of the Great Pyramid that real- 
 ity began to weigh upon my mind. Strange 
 to say, the bigness of the distinct blocks of 
 stones was the first sign by which I attained 
 to feel the immensity of the whole pile. 
 
 309 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XIX 
 
 When I came and trod, and touched with 
 my hands, and climbed, in order that by 
 climbing I might come to the top of one 
 single stone, then, and almost suddenly, a 
 cold sense and understanding of the pyra- 
 mid's enormity came down, overcasting my 
 brain. 
 
 Now try to endure this homely, sick- 
 nursish illustration of the effect produced 
 upon one's mind by the mere vastness of 
 the Great Pyramid. When I was very young 
 (between the ages, I believe, of three and 
 five years old), being then of delicate 
 health, I was often in time of night the 
 victim of a strange kind of mental oppres- 
 sion. I lay in my bed perfectly conscious 
 and with open eyes, but without power to 
 speak or to move, and all the while my brain 
 was oppressed to distraction by the pres- 
 ence of a single and abstract idea— the 
 idea of solid immensity. It seemed to me 
 in my agonies that the horror of this visi- 
 tation arose from its coming upon me with- 
 out form or shape— that the close presence 
 of the direst monster ever bred in hell 
 would have been a thousand times more 
 tolerable than that simple idea of solid 
 size; my aching mind was fixed and riveted 
 down upon the mere quality of vastness, 
 vastness, vastness, and was not permitted 
 
 310 
 
■J*i0j... 
 
 - "W. ■ 
 
 Chapter XIX ] EOTHEN 
 
 to invest with it any particular object. If 
 I could have done so, the torment would 
 have ceased. When at last I was roused 
 from this state of suffering, I could not, of 
 course, in those days (knowing no verbal 
 metaphysics, and no metaphysics at all, 
 except by the dreadful experience of an ab- 
 stract idea)— I could not, of course, find 
 words to describe the nature of my sensa- 
 tions; and even now I cannot explain why it 
 is that the forced contemplation of a mere 
 quality, distinct from matter, should be so 
 terrible. Well, now my eyes saw and knew, 
 and my hands and my feet informed my 
 understanding, that there was nothing at 
 all abstract about the Great Pyramid— it 
 was a big triangle, sufficiently concrete, 
 easy to see, and rough to the touch; it could 
 not, of course, affect me with the peculiar 
 sensation I have been talking of, but yet 
 there was something akin to that old night- 
 mare agony in the terrible completeness 
 with which a mere mass of masonry could 
 fill and load my mind. 
 
 And time, too; the remoteness of its ori- 
 gin no less than the enormity of its pro- 
 portions, screens an Egyptian pyramid from 
 the easy and familiar contact of our modern 
 minds. At its base the common earth ends, 
 and all above is a world— one not created 
 
 311 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XIX 
 
 of God, not seeming to be made by men's 
 hands, but rather the sheer giant work of 
 some old dismal age weighing down this 
 younger planet. 
 
 Fine sayings! But the truth seems to 
 be, after all, that the Pyramids are quite of 
 this world— that they were piled up into 
 the air for the realization of some kingly 
 crotchets about immortality, some priestly 
 longing for burial fees; and that as for the 
 building— they were built like coral rocks 
 by swarms of insects— by swarms of poor 
 Egyptians, who were not only the abject 
 tools and slaves of power, but who also ate 
 onions for the reward of their immortal 
 labors!^ The Pyramids are quite of this 
 world. 
 
 I of course ascended to the summit of 
 the Great Pyramid, and also explored its 
 chambers; but these I need not describe. 
 The first time that I went to the pyramids 
 of Gizeh, there were a number of Arabs 
 hanging about in its neighborhood, and 
 wanting to receive presents on various pre- 
 tenses. Their sheik was with them. There 
 was also present an ill-looking fellow in 
 soldier's uniform. This man, on my depar- 
 ture, claimed a reward, on the ground that 
 
 1 Herodotus, in an after age, stood by with his note-book, and 
 got, as he thought, the exact returns of all the rations served 
 out. 
 
 312 
 
Chapter XIX] EOTHEN 
 
 he had maintained order and decorum 
 amongst the Arabs. His claim was not 
 considered valid by my dragoman, and was 
 rejected accordingly. My donkey-boys 
 afterwards said they had overheard this 
 fellow propose to the sheik to put me to 
 death whilst I was in the interior of the 
 Great Pyramid, and to share with him the 
 booty. Fancy a struggle for life in one of 
 those burial-chambers, with acres and acres 
 of solid mstsonry between one's self and the 
 daylight! I felt exceedingly glad that I had 
 not made the rascal a present. 
 
 I visited the very ancient pyramids of 
 Abukir and Sakkara. There are many of 
 these, differing the one from the other in 
 shape as well as size; and it struck me that, 
 taken together, they might be looked upon 
 as showing the progress and perfection 
 (such as it is) of pjrramidical architecture. 
 One of the pyramids at Sakkara is almost a 
 rival for the full-grown monster at Gizeh; 
 others are scarcely more than vast heaps 
 of brick and stone; and these last suggested 
 to rne the idea that, after all, the pyramid is 
 nothing more nor less than a variety of the 
 sepulchral mound so common in most coun- 
 tries (including, I believe, Hindustan, from 
 whence the Egyptians are supposed to have 
 come). Men accustomed to raise these 
 
 313 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XIX 
 
 structures for their dead kings or con- 
 querors would carry the usage with them 
 in their migrations; but arriving in Egjrpt, 
 and seeing the impossibility of finding earth 
 sufficiently tenacious for a mound, they 
 would approximate as nearly as might be 
 to their ancient custom by raising up a 
 round heap of stones— in short, conical pyra- 
 mids. Of these there are several at Sak- 
 kara, and the materials of some are thrown 
 together without any order or regularity. 
 The transition from this simple form to 
 that of the square angular pyramid was easy 
 and natural; and it seemed to me that the 
 gradations through which the style passed 
 from infancy up to its mature enormity 
 could plainly be traced at Sakkara. 
 
 314 
 
 '-'s 
 
 '<'■ 
 
CHAPTER 
 XX 
 
 The Sphinx, 
 
 AND near the Pyramids, more won- 
 /\ drous and more awful than all else 
 ^i_\. in the land of Egypt, there sits the 
 lonely Sphinx. Comely the creature is, but 
 the comeliness is not of this world. The once 
 worshiped beast is a deformity and a mon- 
 ster to this generation; and yet you can see 
 that those lips, so thick and heavy, were 
 fashioned according to some ancient mold 
 of beauty— some mold of beauty now for- 
 gotten—forgotten because that Greece drew 
 forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of 
 the ^gean, and in her image created new 
 forms of beauty, and made it a law among 
 men that the short and proudly wreathed 
 lip should stand for the sign and the main 
 condition of loveliness through all genera- 
 tions to come. Yet still there lives on the 
 race of those who were beautiful in the 
 fashion of the Elder World; and Christian 
 girls of Coptic blood will look on you with 
 
 315 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XX 
 
 the sad, serious gaze, and kiss you your 
 charitable hand with the big pouting hps 
 of the very Sphinx. 
 
 Laugh and mock, if you will, at the wor- 
 ship of stone idols; but mark ye this, ye 
 breakers of images: that in one regard the 
 stone idol bears awful semblance of Deity 
 — unchangefulness in the midst of change, 
 the same seeming will and intent for ever 
 and ever inexorable! Upon ancient dynas- 
 ties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings, 
 upon Greek and Roman, upon Arab and Ot- 
 toman conquerors, upon Napoleon dream- 
 ing of an Eastern empire, upon battle and 
 pestilence, upon the ceaseless misery of the 
 Egyptian race, upon keen-eyed travelers, 
 —Herodotus yesterday, and Warburton to- 
 day,— upon all and more this unworldly 
 Sphinx has watched, and watched like a 
 Providence with the same earnest eyes, 
 and the same sad, tranquil mien. And we, 
 we shall die, and Islam will wither away; 
 and the Englishman, straining far over to 
 hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on 
 the banks of the Nile and sit in the seats of 
 the Faithful, and still that sleepless rock will 
 lie watching and watching the works of the 
 new busy race with those same sad, earnest 
 eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlast- 
 ing. You dare not mock at the Sphinx. 
 
 316 
 
 r 
 
CHAPTER 
 XXI 
 
 Cairo to Suez. 
 
 THE " dromedary " of Egypt and Syria 
 is not the two-humped animal de- 
 scribed by that name in books of 
 natural history, but is in fact of the same 
 family as the camel, standing towards his 
 more clumsy fellow-slave in about the same 
 relation as a racer to a cart-horse. The 
 fleetness and endurance of this creature 
 are extraordinary. It is not usual to force 
 him into a gallop, and I fancy, from his 
 make, that it would be quite impossible for 
 him to maintain that pace for any length 
 of time; but the animal is on so large a 
 scale that the jog-trot at which he is gen- 
 erally ridden implies a progress of perhaps 
 ten or twelve miles an hour, and this pace, it 
 is said, he can keep up incessantly, without 
 food or water or rest, for three whole days 
 and nights. 
 
 Of the two dromedaries which I had ob- 
 tained for this journey, I mounted one my- 
 
 317 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXI 
 
 self and put Dthemetri on the other. My 
 plan was to ride on with Dthemetri to Suez 
 as rapidly as the fleetness of the beasts 
 would allow, and to let Mysseri (then still 
 remaining weak from the effects of his late 
 illness) come quietly on with the camels and 
 baggage. 
 
 The trot of the dromedary is a pace terri- 
 bly disagreeable to the rider, until he be- 
 comes a little accustomed to it; but after 
 the first half -hour I so far schooled myself 
 to this new exercise that I felt capable of 
 keeping it up (though not without aching 
 limbs) for several hours together. Now, 
 therefore, I was anxious to dart forward 
 and annihilate at once the whole space that 
 divided me from the Red Sea. Dthemetri, 
 however, could not get on at all: every at- 
 tempt at trotting seemed to threaten the 
 utter dislocation of his whole frame; and 
 indeed I doubt whether any one of Dthe- 
 metri's age (nearly forty, I think), and unac- 
 customed to such exercise, could have borne 
 it at all easily. Besides, the dromedary 
 which fell to his lot was evidently a very 
 bad one; he every now and then came to a 
 dead stop, and coolly knelt down, as though 
 suggesting that the rider had better get off 
 at once, and abandon the experiment as 
 one that was utterly hopeless. 
 
 318 
 
Chapter XXI] EOTHEN 
 
 When for the third or fourth time I saw 
 Dthemetri thus planted, I lost my patience 
 and went on without him. For about two 
 hours, I think, I advanced without once 
 looking behind me. I then paused, and 
 cast my eyes back to the western horizon. 
 
 There was no sign of Dthemetri, nor of any 
 other living creature. This I expected, for 
 I knew that I must have far outdistanced 
 all my followers. I had ridden away from 
 my party merely by way of humoring my 
 impatience, and with the intention of stop- 
 ping as soon as I felt tired, until I was 
 overtaken. I now observed, however (this 
 I had not been able to do whilst advancing 
 so rapidly) that the track which I had been 
 following was seemingly the track of only 
 one or two camels. I did not fear that I 
 had diverged very largely from the true 
 route, but still I could not feel any reason- 
 able certainty that my party would follow 
 any line of march within sight of me. 
 
 I had to consider, therefore, whether I 
 should remain where I was upon the chance 
 of seeing my people come up, or whether I 
 should push on alone, and find my own way 
 to Suez. I had now learned that I could 
 not rely upon the continued guidance of 
 any track, but I knew that (if maps were 
 right) the point for which I was bound bore 
 
 319 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXI 
 
 just due east of Cairo, and I thought that 
 although I might miss the line leading most 
 directly to Suez, I could not well fail to find 
 my way, sooner or later, to the Red Sea. 
 The worst of it was that I had no provision 
 of food or water with me, and already I 
 was beginning to feel thirst. I deliberated 
 for a minute, and then determined that I 
 would abandon all hope of seeing my party 
 again in the desert, and would push for- 
 ward as rapidly as possible towards Suez. 
 
 It was not without a sensation of awe 
 that I swept with my sight the vacant round 
 of the horizon, and remembered that I was 
 all alone and unprovisioned in the midst of 
 the arid waste; but this very awe gave tone 
 and zest to the exultation with which I felt 
 myself launched. Hitherto in all my wan- 
 derings I had been under the care of other 
 people— sailors, Tatars, guides, and drago- 
 men had watched over my welfare; but now, 
 at last, I was here in this African desert, 
 and I myself J and no other, had charge of 
 my life. I liked the office well. I had the 
 greatest part of the day before me, a very 
 fair dromedary, a fur pelisse, and a brace 
 of pistols, but no bread, and, worst of all, no <^ 
 water; for that I must ride— and ride I did. 
 
 For several hours I urged forward my 
 beast at a rapid though steady pace, but at 
 
 320 
 
Chapter XXI] EOTHEN 
 
 length the pangs of thirst began to torment 
 me. I did not relax my pace, however, and 
 I had not suffered long when a moving 
 object appeared in the distance before me. 
 The intervening space was soon traversed, 
 and I found myself approaching a Bedouin 
 Arab, mounted on a camel, attended by an- 
 other Bedouin on foot. They stopped. I 
 saw that there hung from the pack-saddle 
 of the camel one of the large skin water- 
 flasks commonly carried in the desert, 
 and it seemed to be well filled. I steered 
 my dromedary close up alongside of the 
 mounted Bedouin, caused my beast to kneel 
 down, then alighted, and keeping the end 
 of the halter in my hand, went up to the 
 mounted Bedouin without speaking, took 
 hold of his water-flask, opened it, and drank 
 long and deep from its leathern lips. Both 
 of the Bedouins stood fast in amazement 
 and mute horror; and really, if they had 
 never happened to see an European before, 
 the apparition was enough to startle them. 
 To see for the first time a coat and a waist- 
 coat with the semblance of a white human 
 face at the top, and for this ghastly figure 
 to come swiftly out of the horizon upon a 
 fleet dromedary, approach them silently 
 and with a demoniacal smile, and drink a 
 deep draught from their water-flask— this 
 21 321 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXI 
 
 was enough to make the Bedouins stare a 
 little; they, in fact, stared a great deal— not 
 as Europeans stare, with a restless and 
 puzzled expression of countenance, but 
 with features all fixed and rigid, and with 
 still, glassy eyes. Before they had time to 
 get decomposed from their state of petri- 
 faction, I had remounted my dromedary 
 and was darting away towards the east. 
 
 Without pause or remission of pace, I 
 continued to press forward; but after a 
 while I found, to my confusion, that the 
 slight track which had hitherto guided me 
 now failed altogether. I began to fear that 
 I must have been all along following the 
 course of some wandering Bedouins, and I 
 felt that if this were the case my fate was 
 a little uncertain. 
 
 I had no compass with me, but I deter- 
 mined upon the eastern point of the horizon 
 as accurately as I could by reference to the 
 sun, and so laid down for myself a way over 
 the pathless sands. 
 
 But now my poor dromedary, by whose 
 life and strength I held my own, she began 
 to show signs of distress; a thick, clammy, 
 and glutinous kind of foam gathered about 
 her lips, and piteous sobs burst from her 
 bosom in the tones of human misery. I 
 doubted for a moment whether I would give 
 
 322 
 
Chapter XXI ] EOTHEN 
 
 her a little rest or relaxation of pace, but I 
 decided that I would not, and continued to 
 push forward as steadily as before. 
 
 The character of the country became 
 changed; I had ridden away from the level 
 tracts, and before me now, and on either 
 side, there were vast hills of sand and cal- 
 cined rocks that interrupted my progress 
 and baffled my doubtful road; but I did my 
 best. With rapid steps I swept round the 
 base of the hills, threaded the winding hol- 
 lows, and at last, as I rose in my swift 
 course to the crest of a lofty ridge, tha- 
 latta! thalatta! the sea— the sea was be- 
 fore me! 
 
 It has been given me to know the true 
 pith and to feel the power of ancient pagan 
 creeds, and so (distinctly from all mere 
 admiration of the beauty belonging to na- 
 ture's works) I acknowledge a sense of 
 mystical reverence when first I approached 
 some illustrious feature of the globe— some 
 coast-line of ocean, some mighty river or 
 dreary mountain-range, the ancient barrier 
 of kingdoms. But the Red Sea! It might 
 well claim my earnest gaze by force of the 
 great Jewish migration which connects it 
 with the history of our own religion. From 
 this very ridge, it is likely enough, the 
 panting Israelites first saw that shining 
 
 323 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXI 
 
 inlet of the sea. Aye, aye! but moreover, 
 and best of all, that beckoning sea assured 
 my eyes, and proved how well I had marked 
 out the east for my path, and gave me good 
 promise that sooner or later the time would 
 come for me to drink of water cool and 
 plenteous, and then lie down and rest. It 
 was distant, the sea, but I felt my own 
 strength, and I had heard of the strength 
 of dromedaries. I pushed forward as eager- 
 ly as though I had spoiled the Egyptians and 
 were flying from Pharaoh's police. 
 
 I had not yet been able to see any mark 
 of distant Suez, but after a while I descried 
 far away in the east a large, blank, isolated 
 building. I made towards this, and in time 
 got down to it. The building was a fort, 
 and had been built there for the protection 
 of a well contained within its precincts. A 
 cluster of small huts adhered to the fort, 
 and in a short time I was receiving the hos- 
 pitality of the inhabitants, a score or so 
 of people who sat grouped upon the sands 
 near their hamlet. To quench the fires of 
 my throat with about a gallon of muddy 
 water, and to swallow a little of the food 
 placed before me, was the work of a few 
 minutes; and before the astonishment of 
 my hosts had even begun to subside, I was 
 pursuing my onward journey. Suez, I 
 
 324 
 
Chapter XXI] EOTHEN 
 
 found, was still three hours distant, and the 
 sun going down in the west warned me 
 that I must find some other guide to keep 
 me straight. This guide I found in the 
 most fickle and uncertain of the elements. 
 For some hours the wind had been freshen- 
 ing, and it now blew a violent gale; it blew, 
 not fitfully and in squalls, but with such 
 steadiness that I felt convinced it would 
 blow from the same quarter for several 
 hours; so when the sun set, I carefully 
 looked for the point whence the wind came, 
 and found that it blew from the very west 
 —blew exactly in the direction of my route. 
 I had nothing to do, therefore, but to go 
 straight to leeward, and this I found easy 
 enough, for the gale was blowing so hard 
 that, if I diverged at all from my course, 
 I instantly felt the pressure of the blast 
 on the side towards which I had deviated. 
 Very soon after sunset there came on com- 
 plete darkness, but the strong wind guided 
 me well, and sped me, too, on my way. 
 
 I had pushed on for about, I think, a 
 couple of hours after nightfall, when I saw 
 the glimmer of a light in the distance, and 
 this, I ventured to hope, must be Suez. 
 Upon approaching it, however, I found that 
 it was only a solitary fort, and this I passed 
 by without stopping. 
 
 325 
 
i^i^: 
 
 EOTHEN [Chapter XXI 
 
 On I went, still riding down the wind; but 
 at last an unlucky misfortune befell me— a 
 misfortune so absurd that, if you like, you 
 shall have your laugh against me. I have 
 told you already what sort of lodging it is 
 that you have upon the back of a camel. 
 You ride the dromedary in the same fash- 
 ion: you are perched rather than seated on 
 a bunch of carpets or quilts upon the sum- 
 mit of the hump. It happened that my 
 dromedary veered rather suddenly from 
 her onward course. Meeting the move- 
 ment, I mechanically turned my left wrist 
 as though I were holding a bridle-rein, for 
 the complete darkness prevented my eyes 
 from reminding me that I had nothing but 
 a halter in my hand. The expected resis- 
 tance failed, for the halter was hanging upon 
 that side of the dromedary's neck towards 
 which I was slightly leaning. I toppled over, 
 head foremost, and then went falling 
 through air till my crown came whang! 
 against the ground; and the ground, too, 
 was perfectly hard (compacted sand); but 
 my thickly wadded head-gear (this I wore 
 for protection against the sun) now stood 
 me in good part and saved my life. The 
 notion of my being able to get up again 
 after falling head foremost from such an 
 immense height seemed to me at first too 
 
 326 
 
Chapter XXI ] EOTHEN 
 
 paradoxical to be acted upon, but I soon 
 found that I was not a bit hurt. My drome- 
 dary had utterly vanished. I looked round 
 me, and saw the glimmer of a light in the 
 fort which I had lately passed, and I began 
 to work my way back in that direction. 
 The violence of the gale made it hard for 
 me to force my way towards the west, but 
 I succeeded at last in regaining the fort. 
 To this, as to the other fort which I had 
 passed, there was attached a cluster of 
 huts, and I soon found myself surrounded 
 by a group of villainous, gloomy-looking 
 fellows. It was sorry work for me to 
 swagger and look big at a time when I felt 
 so particularly small on account of my 
 tumble and my lost dromedary, but there 
 was no help for it; I had no Dthemetri now 
 to " strike terror '' for me. I knew hardly 
 one word of Arabic, but somehow or other 
 I contrived to announce it as my absolute 
 will and pleasure that these fellows should 
 find me the means of gaining Suez. They 
 acceded; and having a donkey, they saddled 
 it for me, and appointed one of their num- 
 ber to attend me on foot. 
 
 I afterwards found that these fellows 
 were not Arabs, but Algerine refugees, and 
 that they bore the character of being sad 
 scoundrels. They justified this imputation 
 
 327 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXI 
 
 to some extent on the following day. They 
 
 allowed Mysseri, with my baggage and the 
 
 camels, to pass unmolested; but an Arab 
 
 lad belonging to the party happened to lag 
 
 a little way in the rear, and him (if they 
 
 were not maligned) these rascals stripped 
 
 and robbed. Low indeed is the state of 
 
 bandit morality when men will allow the 
 
 sleek traveler with well laden camels to 
 
 pass in quiet, reserving their spirit of 
 
 enterprise for the tattered turban of a 
 
 miserable boy. 
 
 I reached Suez at last. The British 
 
 agent, though roused from his midnight 
 sleep, received me in his home with the ut- 
 most kindness and hospitality. Heaven! 
 how delightful it was to lie on fair sheets, 
 and to dally with sleep, and to wake, and 
 to sleep, and to wake once more, for the 
 sake of sleeping again 1 
 
 328 
 
 ■:\il 
 
CHAPTER 
 XXII 
 
 Suez. 
 
 I WAS hospitably entertained by the 
 British consul, or agent, as he is there 
 styled; he is the employee of the East 
 India Company, and not of the home gov- 
 ernment. Napoleon, during his stay of five 
 days at Suez, had been the guest of the con- 
 sul's father; and I was told that the divan in 
 my apartment had been the bed of the great 
 commander. 
 
 There are two opinions as to the point 
 where the Israelites passed the Red Sea. 
 One is that they traversed only the very 
 small creek at the northern extremity of 
 the inlet, and that they entered the bed of 
 the water at the spot on which Suez now 
 stands; the other, that they crossed the sea 
 from a point eighteen miles down the coast. 
 The Oxford theologians who, with Milman, 
 their professor,^ believe that Jehovah con- 
 
 1 See Milman 's "History of the Jews," first edition, Family 
 Library. 
 
 329 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXII 
 
 ducteji his chosen people without disturb- 
 ing the order of nature, adopt the first 
 view, and suppose that the Israelites passed 
 during an ebb-tide aided by a violent wind. 
 One among many objections to this suppo- 
 sition is that the time of a single ebb would 
 not have been sufficient for the passage of 
 that vast multitude of men and beasts, or 
 even for a small fraction of it. Moreover, 
 the creek to the north of this point can be 
 compassed in an hour, and in two hours 
 you can make the circuit of the salt-marsh 
 over which the sea may have extended in 
 former times. If, therefore, the Israelites 
 crossed so high up as Suez, the Egyptians, 
 unless infatuated by divine interference, 
 might easily have recovered their stolen 
 goods from the encumbered fugitives by 
 making a sKght detour. The opinion which 
 fixes the point of passage at eighteen miles' 
 distance, and from thence right across the 
 ocean depths to the eastern side of the sea, 
 is supported by the unanimous tradition of 
 the people, whether Christians or Mussul- 
 mans, and is consistent with Holy Writ: 
 "The waters were a wall unto them on 
 their right hand, and on their lefV^ The 
 Cambridge mathematicians seem to think 
 that the Israelites were enabled to pass 
 over dry land by adopting a route not usu- 
 
 330 
 
Chapter XXn] EOTHEN 
 
 ally subjected to the influx of the sea. This 
 notion is plausible in a mere hydrostatical 
 point of view, but it is difficult to reconcile 
 it with the account given in Exodus, unless 
 we can suppose that the words "sea" and 
 " waters " are there used in a sense imply- 
 ing dry land. 
 
 Napoleon, when at Suez, made an attempt 
 to follow the supposed steps of Moses by 
 passing the creek at this point; but it 
 seems, according to the testimony of the 
 people of Suez, that he and his horsemen 
 managed the matter in a way more resem- 
 bling the failure of the Egyptians than the 
 success of the Israelites. According to the 
 French account. Napoleon got out of 
 the difficulty by that warrior-like presence 
 of mind which served him so well when the 
 fate of nations depended on the decision of 
 a moment: he commanded his horsemen to 
 disperse in all directions, in order to multi- 
 ply the chances of finding shallow water, 
 and was thus enabled to discover a line by 
 which he and his people were extricated. 
 The story told by the people of Suez is very 
 different: they declare that Napoleon parted 
 from his horse, got water-logged and nearly 
 drowned, and was only fished out by the 
 aid of the people on shore. 
 
 I bathed twice at the point assigned to 
 
 3e31 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXH 
 
 the passage of the Israelites, and the sec- 
 ond time that I did so, I chose the time of 
 low water and tried to walk across; but I 
 soon found myself out of my depths, or at 
 least in water so deep that I could only ad- 
 vance by swimming. 
 
 The dromedary which had bolted in the 
 desert was brought into Suez the day of 
 my arrival; but the treasures attached to 
 the saddle, including my pelisse and my 
 dearest pistols, had disappeared. These 
 things were of great importance to me at 
 that time, and I moved the Governor of the 
 town to make all possible exertions for their 
 recovery. He acceded to my wishes as well 
 as he could, and very obligingly imprisoned 
 the first seven poor fellows he could lay his 
 hands on. 
 
 At first the Governor acted in the matter 
 from no other motive than that of courtesy 
 to an English traveler; but afterwards, and 
 when he saw the value I set upon the lost 
 property, he pushed his measures with a 
 degree of alacrity and heat which seemed 
 to show that he felt a personal interest in 
 the matter. It was supposed either that 
 he expected a large present in the event of 
 succeeding, or that he was striving by all 
 means to trace the property in order that he 
 might lay his hands on it after my departure. 
 
 332 
 
Chapter XXII] EOTHEN 
 
 I went out sailing for some hours, and 
 when I returned I was horrified to find that 
 two men had been bastinadoed by order of 
 the Governor, with a view to force them to 
 a confession of their theft. It appeared, 
 however, that there really was good ground 
 for supposing them guilty, since one of the 
 holsters was actually found in their posses- 
 sion. It was said, too (but I could hardly 
 believe it), that whilst one of the men was 
 undergoing the bastinado, his comrade was 
 overheard encouraging him to bear the tor- 
 ment without peaching. Both men, if they 
 had the secret, were resolute in keeping it, 
 and were sent back to their dungeon. I of 
 course took care that there should be no 
 repetition of the torture, at least so long as 
 I remained at Suez. 
 
 The Governor was a thorough Oriental, 
 and until a comparatively recent period had 
 shared in the old Mohammedan feeling of 
 contempt for Europeans. It happened, 
 however, one day, that an English gun-brig 
 had appeared off Suez, and sent her boats 
 ashore to take in fresh water. Now fresh 
 water at Suez is a somewhat scarce and 
 precious commodity; it is kept in tanks, 
 and the largest of these is at some distance 
 from the place. Under these circum- 
 stances, the request for fresh water was re- 
 
 333 
 
EOTHEN [Chapteb XXn 
 
 fused, or at all events was not complied 
 with. The captain of the brig was a simple- 
 minded man with a strongish will, and he 
 at once declared that if his casks were not 
 filled in three hours he would destroy the 
 whole place. "A great people indeed!'' 
 said the Governor. "A wonderful people, 
 the English!" He instantly caused every 
 cask to be filled to the brim from his own 
 tank, and ever afterwards entertained for 
 our countrymen a high degree of affection 
 and respect. 
 
 The day after the abortive attempt to ex- 
 tract a confession from the prisoners, the 
 Governor, the consul, and I sat in council, I 
 know not how long, with a view of prose- 
 cuting the search for the stolen goods. The 
 sitting, considered in the light of a criminal 
 investigation, was characteristic of the 
 East. The proceedings began, as a matter 
 of course, by the prosecutor's smoking a 
 pipe and drinking coffee with the judge, 
 jury, and sheriff— that is, with the Gov- 
 ernor, for in this one personage were vested 
 almost all the functions connected with the 
 administration of injustice. I got on very 
 well with my host (this was not my first 
 interview), and he gave me the pipe from 
 his lips in testimony of his friendship. I 
 recollect, however, that my prime adviser, 
 
 334 
 
Chapter XXII ] EOTHEN 
 
 thinking me, I suppose, a great deal too shy 
 and retiring in my manner, entreated me to 
 put up my boots and to soil the Governor's 
 divan, in order to inspire respect and strike 
 terror. I thought it would be as well for me 
 to retain the right of respecting myself, and 
 that it was not quite necessary for a well- 
 received guest to strike any terror at all. 
 
 Our deliberations were assisted by the 
 numerous attendants who lined the three 
 sides of the room not occupied by the divan. 
 Any one of these who took it into his head 
 to offer a suggestion would stand forward 
 and humble himself before the Governor, and 
 then state his views; every man thus giving 
 counsel was listened to with some attention. 
 
 After a great deal of fruitless planning, 
 the Governor directed that the prisoners 
 should be brought in. I was shocked when 
 they entered, for I was not prepared to see 
 them come carried into the room upon the 
 shoulders of others. It had not occurred 
 to me that their battered feet would be too 
 sore to bear the contact of the floor. They 
 persisted in asserting their innocence. The 
 Governor wanted to recur to the torture, 
 but that I prevented, and the men were 
 lifted back to their dungeon. 
 
 One of the attendants now suggested a 
 scheme— a scheme which seemed to me 
 
 335 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXII 
 
 most childishly absurd, but nevertheless it 
 was tried. A raan went down to the dun- 
 geon with instructions to make the prison- 
 ers believe that he had gained permission 
 to see them upon some invented pretext; 
 and when the spy had thus won a little of 
 their confidence, he was to attempt a sham 
 treaty with them for the purchase of the 
 stolen goods. This shallow expedient failed. 
 
 The Governor himself had not nominally 
 the power of life and death over the people 
 in his district, but he could, if he chose, 
 send them to Cairo, and have them hanged 
 there. I proposed that the prisoners 
 should be threatened with this fate. The 
 answer of the Governor made me feel rather 
 ashamed of my effeminate suggestion. He 
 said that if I wished it he would willingly 
 threaten them with death; but he also de- 
 clared that if he threatened, he surely would 
 make his words good. 
 
 Thinking at last that nothing was to be 
 gained by keeping the prisoners any longer 
 in confinement, I requested that they might 
 be set free. To this the Governor assented, 
 though only, as he said, out of favor to me, 
 for he had a strong impression that the 
 men were guilty. I went down to see the 
 prisoners let out with my own eyes. They 
 were very grateful, and fell down to the 
 
 336 
 
Chapter XXn] EOTHEN 
 
 earth, kissing my boots. I gave them a 
 present to console them for their wounds, 
 and they seemed to be highly delighted. 
 
 Although the matter ended in a manner 
 so satisfactory to the principal sufferers, 
 there were symptoms of some angry excite- 
 ment in the place: it was said that public 
 opinion was much shocked at the fact that 
 Mohammedans had been beaten on account 
 of a loss sustained by a Christian. My 
 journey was to recommence the next day, 
 and it was hinted that if I persevered in 
 my intention of going forward into the 
 desert the people would have an easy and 
 profitable opportunity of wreaking their 
 vengeance on me. If ever they formed any 
 scheme of the kind, they at all events re- 
 frained from any attempt to carry it into 
 effect. 
 
 One of the evenings during my stay at 
 Suez was enlivened by a triple wedding. 
 There was a long and slow procession. 
 Some carried torches, and others were 
 thumping drums and firing pistols. The 
 bridegrooms came last, all walking abreast. 
 My only reason for mentioning the cere- 
 mony is that I scarcely ever in all my life 
 saw any phenomena so ridiculous as the 
 meekness and gravity of those three young 
 men whilst being "led to the altar." 
 22 337 
 
CHAPTER 
 XXIII 
 
 Suez to Gaza. 
 
 THE route over the desert from Suez 
 to Gaza is not frequented by mer- 
 chants, and is seldom passed by a 
 traveler. This part of the country is less 
 uniformly barren than the tracts of shift- 
 ing sand that lie on the El Arish route. 
 The shrubs yielding food for the camel are 
 more frequent, and in many spots the sand 
 is mingled with so much of productive soil 
 as to admit the growth of corn. The Bed- 
 ouins are driven out of this district during 
 the summer by the want of water; but be- 
 fore the time for their forced departure ar- 
 rives, they succeed in raising little crops 
 of barley from these comparatively fertile 
 patches of ground. They bury the fruit of 
 their labors, and take care so to mark the 
 spot chosen that when they return they 
 can easily find their hidden treasures. The 
 warm, dry sand stands them for a safe 
 granary. The country, at the time I passed 
 
 338 
 
'^^^i 
 
 Chapter XXIH] EOTHEN 
 
 it (in the month of April), was pretty thickly- 
 sprinkled with Bedouins expecting their 
 harvest; several times my tent was pitched 
 alongside of their encampments; but I have 
 already told you all I wanted to tell about 
 the domestic— or rather the castral— life of 
 the Arabs. 
 
 I saw several creatures of the antelope 
 kind in this part of the desert; and one day 
 my Arabs surprised in her sleep a young 
 gazelle (for so I called her), and took the 
 darling prisoner. I carried her before me 
 on my camel for the rest of the day, and 
 kept her in my tent all night. I did all I 
 could to gain her affections, but the trem- 
 bling beauty refused to touch food, and 
 would not be comforted; whenever she had 
 a seeming opportunity of escaping, she 
 struggled with a violence so painfully dis- 
 proportioned to her fine, delicate limbs that 
 I could not go on with the cruel attempt to 
 make her my own. In the morning, there- 
 fore, I set her loose, anticipating some 
 pleasure from the joyous bound with which, 
 as I thought, she would return to her native 
 freedom. She had been so stupefied, how- 
 ever, by the exciting events of the preced- 
 ing day and night, and was so puzzled as to 
 the road she should take, that she went off 
 very deliberately, and with an uncertain 
 
 339 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXIH 
 
 step. She was quite sound in limb, but she 
 looked so idiotic that I fancied her intellect 
 might have been really upset. Never, in all 
 likelihood, had she seen the form of a hu- 
 man being until the dreadful moment when 
 she woke from her sleep and found herself 
 in the gripe of an Arab. Then her pitching 
 and tossing journey on the back of a camel, 
 and, lastly, a soiree with me by candle-light! 
 I should have been glad to know, if I could, 
 that her heart was not broken. 
 
 My Arabs were somewhat excited, one 
 day, by discovering the fresh print of a foot 
 —the foot, as they said, of a lion. I had no 
 conception that the lord of the forest (bet- 
 ter known as a crest) ever stalked away 
 from his jungles to make inglorious war in 
 these smooth plains against antelopes and 
 gazelles. I supposed that there must have 
 been some error of interpretation, and that 
 the Arabs meant to speak of a tiger. It 
 appeared, however, that this was not the 
 case; either the Arabs were mistaken, or 
 the noble brute, uncooped and unchained, 
 had but lately crossed my path. 
 
 The camels with which I traversed this 
 part of the desert were very different in 
 their ways and habits from those that you 
 hire on a frequented route. They were 
 never led. There was not the slightest 
 
 340 
 
\1\ ,• 
 
 Chapter XXni] EOTHEN 
 
 sign of a track in this part of the desert, 
 but the camels never failed to choose the 
 right line. By the direction taken at start- 
 ing, they knew the point (some encamp- 
 ment, I suppose) for which they were to 
 make. There is always a leading camel 
 (generally, I believe, the eldest), who 
 marches foremost and determines the path 
 for the whole party. When it happens that 
 no one of the camels has been accustomed 
 to lead the others, there is very great diffi- 
 culty in making a start; if you force your 
 beast forward for a moment, he will con- 
 trive to wheel and draw back, at the same 
 time looking at one of the other camels 
 with an expression and gesture exactly 
 equivalent to apres vous. The responsi- 
 bility of finding the way is evidently as- 
 sumed very unwillingly. After some time, 
 however, it becomes understood that one of 
 the beasts has reluctantly consented to take 
 the lead, and he accordingly advances for 
 that purpose. For a minute or two he 
 marches with great indecision, taking first 
 one line and then another; but soon, by the 
 aid of some mysterious sense, he discovers 
 the true direction, and thenceforward keeps 
 to it steadily, going on from morning to 
 night. When once the leadership is estab- 
 lished, you cannot by any persuasion, and 
 
 341 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXHI 
 
 scarcely even by blows, induce a junior 
 camel to walk one single step in advance 
 of the chosen guide. 
 
 On the fifth day I came to an oasis, called 
 the Wady el Arish, a ravine, or rather a 
 gully. Through this during the greater part 
 of the year there runs a stream of water. 
 On the sides of the gully there were a num- 
 ber of those graceful trees which the Arabs 
 call tarfa. The channel of the stream was 
 quite dry in the part at which we arrived; 
 but at about half a mile off some water was 
 found, and this, though very muddy, was 
 tolerably sweet. Here was indeed a happy 
 discovery, for all the water we had brought 
 from the neighborhood of Suez was rapidly 
 putrefying. 
 
 The want of foresight is an anomalous 
 part of the Bedouin's character, for it does 
 not result either from recklessness or stu- 
 pidity. I know of no human being whose 
 body is so thoroughly the slave of mind as 
 the Arab. His mental anxieties seem to be 
 forever torturing every nerve and fiber of 
 his body; and yet, with all this exquisite 
 sensitiveness to the suggestions of the 
 mind, he is grossly improvident. I recol- 
 lect, for instance, that when setting out 
 upon this passage of the desert, my Arabs 
 (in order to lighten the burden of their 
 
 342 
 
 
 't. 
 
Chapter XXIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 camels) were most anxious that we should 
 take with us no more than two days' sup- 
 ply of water. They said that by the time 
 that supply was exhausted we should arrive 
 at a spring which would furnish us for the 
 rest of the journey. My servants very 
 wisely, and with much pertinacity, resisted 
 the adoption of this plan, and took care to 
 have both the large skins well filled. We 
 went on, and found no water at all, either at 
 the expected spring or for many days after- 
 wards, so that nothing but the precaution 
 of my own people saved us from the very 
 severe suffering which we should have en- 
 dured if we had entered upon the desert 
 with only a two days' supply. The Arabs 
 themselves, being on foot, would have suf- 
 fered much more than I from the conse- 
 quences of their improvidence. 
 
 This want of foresight prevents the 
 Bedouin from appreciating at a distance of 
 eight or ten days the amount of the misery 
 which he entails upon himself at the end of 
 that period. His dread of a city is one of 
 the most painful mental affections that I 
 have ever observed, and yet, when the whole 
 breadth of the desert lies between him and 
 the town you are going to, he will freely 
 enter into an agreement to land you in the 
 city for which you are bound. When, how- 
 
 343 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXm 
 
 ever, after many a day of toil, the distant 
 minarets at length appear, the poor Bedouin 
 relaxes the vigor of his pace; his steps be- 
 come faltering and undecided; every mo- 
 ment his uneasiness increases; and at 
 length he fairly sobs aloud, and, embracing 
 your knees, implores, with the most piteous 
 cries and gestures, that you will dispense 
 with him and his camels, and find some 
 other means of entering the city. This, of 
 course, one can't agree to, and the conse- 
 quence is that one is obliged to witness 
 and resist the most moving expressions 
 of grief and fond entreaty, I had to go 
 through a most painful scene of this kind 
 when I entered Cairo, and now the horror 
 which these wilder Arabs felt at the notion 
 of entering Gaza led to consequences still 
 more distressing. The dread of cities re- 
 sults partly from a kind of wild instinct 
 which has always characterized the de- 
 scendants of Ishmael, but partly, too, from 
 a well founded apprehension of ill-treat- 
 ment. So often it befalls the poor Bedouin 
 (when once entrapped between walls) to be 
 seized by the Government authorities for 
 the sake of his camels that his innate hor- 
 ror of cities becomes really justified by 
 results. 
 The Bedouins with whom I performed 
 
 344 
 
Chapter XXni] EOTHEN 
 
 this journey were wild fellows of the des- 
 ert, quite unaccustomed to let out them- 
 selves or their beasts for hire; and when 
 they found that by the natural ascendancy 
 of Europeans they were gradually brought 
 down to a state of subserviency to me, or 
 rather to my attendants, they bitterly re- 
 pented, I believe, of having placed them- 
 selves under our control. They were rather 
 difficult fellows to manage, and gave Dthe- 
 metri a good deal of trouble, but I liked 
 them all the better for that. 
 
 Selim, the chief of the party, and the man 
 to whom all our camels belonged, was a fine, 
 savage, stately fellow. There were, I think, 
 five other Arabs of the party; but when we 
 approached the end of the journey, they, 
 one by one, began to make off towards the 
 neighi)oring encampments, and by the time 
 that the minarets of Gaza were in sight, 
 Selim, the owner of the camels, was the 
 only one who remained. He, poor fellow, 
 as we neared the town, began to discover 
 the same terrors that my Arabs had shown 
 when I entered Cairo. I could not possibly 
 accede to his entreaties, and consent to let 
 my baggage be laid down on the bare sands, 
 without any means of having it brought 
 on into the city. So at length, when poor 
 Selim had exhausted all his rhetoric of 
 
 345 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXm 
 
 voice and action and tears, he fixed his de- 
 spairing eyes for a minute upon the cher- 
 ished beasts that were his only wealth, and 
 then suddenly and madly dashed away into 
 the farther desert. I continued my course, 
 and reached the city at last, but it was not 
 without immense difficulty that we could 
 constrain the poor camels to pass under 
 the hated shadow of its walls. They were 
 the genuine beasts of the desert, and it was 
 sad and painful to witness the agony they 
 suffered when thus they were forced to en- 
 counter the fixed habitations of men. They 
 shrank from the beginning of every high, 
 narrow street as though from the entrance 
 of some horrible cave or bottomless pit; 
 they sighed and wept like women. When 
 at last we got them within the courtyard 
 of the khan, they seemed to be quite 
 broken-hearted, and looked round piteously 
 for their loving master; but no Selim came. 
 I had imagined that he would enter the 
 town secretly by night, in order to carry 
 off those five fine camels, his only wealth 
 in this world, and seemingly the main ob- 
 jects of his affection. But no; his dread 
 of civilization was too strong. During the 
 whole of the three days that I remained at 
 Gaza he failed to show himself, and thus 
 sacrificed, in all probability, not only his 
 
 346 
 
Chapter XXIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 camels, but the money which I had stipu- 
 lated to pay him for the passage of the 
 desert. In order, however, to do all I could 
 towards saving him from this last misfor- 
 tune, I resorted to a contrivance frequently 
 adopted by the Asiatics. I assembled a 
 group of grave and worthy Mussulmans in 
 the courtyard of the khan, and in their 
 presence paid over the gold to a sheik well 
 known in the place and accustomed to 
 communicate with the Arabs of the desert. 
 Then all present solemnly promised that, if 
 ever Selim should come to claim his rights, 
 they would bear true witness in his favor. 
 I saw a great deal of my old friend the 
 Governor of Gaza. He had received orders 
 to send back all persons coming from Egypt, 
 and force them to perform quarantine at 
 El Arish. He knew so little of quarantine 
 regulations, however, that his dress was 
 actually in contact with mine whilst he in- 
 sisted upon the stringency of the orders 
 which he had received. He was induced to 
 make an exception in my favor, and I re- 
 warded him with a musical snuff-box— a 
 toy which I had bought at Smyrna for the 
 purpose of presenting it to any man in 
 authority who might happen to do me an 
 important service. The Governor was de- 
 lighted with the gift, and in great exulta- 
 
 347 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXm 
 
 tion and glee he carried it off to his harem. 
 Soon, however, poor fellow, he returned 
 with an altered countenance: his wives, he 
 said, had got hold of the box, and had put 
 it quite out of order. So short-lived is 
 human happiness in this frail world! 
 
 The Governor fancied that he should 
 incur less risk if I remained at Gaza for two 
 or three days more, and he wanted me to 
 become his guest. I persuaded him, how- 
 ever, that it would be better for him to let 
 me depart at once. He wanted to add to 
 my baggage a roast lamb and a quantity of 
 other cumbrous viands, but I escaped with 
 half a horse-load of leaven-bread; this was 
 very good of its kind, and proved a most 
 useful present. The air with which the 
 Governor's slaves affected to be almost 
 breaking down under the weight of the 
 gifts reminded me of the figures one sees 
 in some of the old pictures. 
 
 848 
 
CHAPTER 
 XXIV 
 
 Gaza to Nablus. 
 
 PASSING now once again through Pal- 
 estine and Syria, I retained the tent 
 which I had used in the desert, and 
 found that it added very much to my com- 
 fort in traveling. Instead of turning out a 
 family from some wretched dwelling, and 
 depriving them of rest without gaining rest 
 for myself, I now, when evening came, 
 pitched my tent upon some smiling spot 
 within a few hundred yards of the village 
 to which I looked for my supplies— that is, 
 for milk, for bread (if I had it not with me), 
 and sometimes also for eggs. The worst 
 of it was that the needful viands were not to 
 be obtained by coin, but only by intimida- 
 tion. I at first tried the usual agent- 
 money. Dthemetri, with one or two of my 
 Arabs, went into the village near which I 
 was encamped, and tried to buy the required 
 provisions, offering liberal payment; but 
 he came back empty-handed. I sent him 
 
 349 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXIV 
 
 again, but this time he held different lan- 
 guage: he required to see the elders of the 
 place, and, threatening dreadful vengeance, 
 commanded them upon their responsibility 
 to take care that my tent should be im- 
 mediately and abundantly supplied. He 
 was obeyed at once; and the provisions re- 
 fused to me as a purchaser soon arrived, 
 trebled or quadrupled, when demanded by 
 way of a forced contribution. I quickly 
 found (I think it required two experiments 
 to convince me) that this peremptory 
 method was the only one which could be 
 adopted with success; it never failed. Of 
 course, however, when the provisions have 
 been actually obtained, you can, if you 
 choose, give money exceeding the value of 
 the provisions to somebody; an English— a 
 thoroughbred English traveler will always 
 do this (though it is contrary to the custom 
 of the country) for the quiet (false quiet 
 though it be) of his own conscience: but so 
 to order the matter that the poor fellows 
 who have been forced to contribute should 
 be the persons to receive the value of their 
 supplies is not possible; for a traveler to 
 attempt anything so grossly just as that 
 would be too outrageous. The truth is that 
 the usage of the East in old times required 
 the people of the village at their own cost 
 
 350 
 
Chapter XXIV ] EOTHEN 
 
 to supply the wants of travelers; and the 
 ancient custom is now adhered to— not in 
 favor of travelers generally, but in favor of 
 those who are deemed sufficiently power- 
 ful to enforce its observance. If the villag- 
 ers, therefore, find a man waiving this right 
 to oppress them, and offering coin for that 
 which he is entitled to take without pay- 
 ment, they suppose at once that he is 
 actuated by fear (fear of them, poor fel- 
 lows!); and it is so delightful to them to 
 act upon this flattering assumption that 
 they will forego the advantage of a good 
 price for their provisions rather than the 
 rare luxury of refusing for once in their 
 lives to part with their own possessions. 
 
 The practice of intimidation thus ren- 
 dered necessary is utterly hateful to an 
 Englishman. He finds himself forced to 
 conquer his daily bread by the pompous 
 threats of the dragoman— his very subsis- 
 tence, as well as his dignity and personal 
 safety, being made to depend upon his 
 servant's assuming a tone of authority 
 which does not at all belong to him. Be- 
 sides, he can scarcely fail to see that, as he 
 passes through the country, he becomes 
 the innocent cause of much extra injus- 
 tice—many supernumerary wrongs. This 
 he feels to be especially the case when he 
 
 351 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXIV 
 
 travels with relays. To be the owner of a 
 horse or a mule within reach of an Asiatic 
 potentate is to lead the life of the hare 
 and the rabbit— hunted down and ferreted 
 out. Too often it happens that the works 
 of the field are stopped in the daytime, 
 that the inmates of the cottage are roused 
 from their midnight sleep, by the sudden 
 , coming of a Government officer; and the 
 poor husbandman, driven by threats and 
 rewarded by curses, if he would not lose 
 sight forever of his captured beasts must 
 quit all and follow them. This is done that 
 the Englishman may travel. He would 
 make his way more harmlessly if he could; 
 but horses or mules he must have, and 
 these are his ways and means. 
 
 The town of Nablus is beautiful. It lies 
 in a valley hemmed in with olive-groves, 
 and its buildings are interspersed with 
 frequent palm-trees. It is said to occupy 
 the site of the ancient Shechem. I know 
 not whether it was there, indeed, that the 
 father of the Jews was accustomed to feed 
 his flocks, but the valley is green and smil- 
 ing, and is held at this day by a race more 
 brave and beautiful than Jacob's unhappy 
 descendants. 
 
 Nablus is the very furnace of Moham- 
 medan bigotry; and I believe that only a 
 
 352 
 
 
 1;^'^^ 
 
Chapter XXIV] EOTHEN 
 
 few months before the time of my going 
 there it would have been madly rash for a 
 man, unless strongly guarded, to show 
 himself to the people of the town in a 
 Frank costume; but since their last insur- 
 rection the Mohammedans of the place 
 had been so far subdued by the severity of 
 Ibrahim Pasha that they dared not now 
 offer the slightest insult to an European., 
 It was quite plain, however, that the effort 
 with which the men of the old school re- 
 frained from expressing their opinion of a 
 hat and a coat was horribly painful to them. 
 As I walked through the streets and ba- 
 zaars a dead silence prevailed. Every man 
 suspended his employment, and gazed on 
 me with a fixed glassy look, which seemed 
 to say: "God is good; but how marvelous 
 and inscrutable are his ways, that thus he 
 permits this white-faced dog of a Chris- 
 tian to hunt through the paths of the 
 Faithful!'' 
 
 The insurrection of these people had 
 been more formidable than any other that 
 Ibrahim Pasha had to contend with; he 
 was only able to crush them at last by 
 the assistance of a fellow renowned for his 
 resources in the way of stratagem and cun- 
 ning, as well as for his knowledge of the 
 country. This personage was no other than 
 23 353 
 
EOTHEN [CiHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Aboo Goosh ("the father of hes"^). The 
 man had been suddenly taken out of prison 
 and sent into his native hill-country, with 
 orders to procreate a few choice falsehoods 
 and snares for entrapping the rebellious 
 mountaineers; and he performed his func- 
 tion so well that he quickly enabled 
 Ibrahim to hem in and extinguish the in- 
 surrection. He was rewarded with the 
 governorship of Jerusalem, and this he 
 held when I was there. I recollect, by the 
 by, that he tried one of his stratagems upon 
 me. I had not gone to see him (as I ought 
 in courtesy to have done) upon my arrival at 
 Jerusalem, but I happened to be the owner 
 of a rather handsome amber chibouk-piece; 
 this the Governor heard of, and having 
 also by some means contrived to see it, he 
 sent me a softly worded message with an 
 offer to buy the pipe at a price immensely 
 exceeding the sum I had given for it. He 
 did not add my chibouk to the rest of his 
 trophies. 
 
 There was a small number of Greek 
 Christians resident in Nablus, and over 
 these the Mussulmans held a high hand, 
 
 1 This is an appellation not implying blame, but merit; 
 the " lies " which it purports to affiliate are feints and cun- 
 ning stratagems rather than the baser kind of falsehoods. 
 The expression, in short, has nearly the same meaning as the 
 English word " Yorkshireman." 
 
 354 
 
\- 
 
 Chapter XXIV ] EOTHEN 
 
 not even allowing them to speak to each 
 other in the open streets. But if the Mos- 
 lems thus set themselves above the poor 
 Christians of the place, I, or rather my 
 servants, soon took the ascendant over 
 them. I recollect that just as we were 
 starting from the place, and at a time when 
 a number of people had gathered together 
 in the main street to see our preparations, 
 Mysseri, being provoked at some piece of 
 perverseness on the part of a true believer, 
 coolly thrashed him with his horsewhip 
 before the assembled crowd of fanatics. I 
 was much annoyed at the time, for I thought 
 that the people would probably rise against 
 us. They turned rather pale, but stood 
 still. 
 
 The day of my arrival at Nablus was a 
 fete— the New Yearns Day of the Mussul- 
 mans.^ Most of the people were amusing 
 themselves in the beautiful lawns and 
 shady groves without the city. The men 
 were all remotely apart from the other sex. 
 The women in groups were diverting them- 
 selves and their children with swings. They 
 were so handsome that they could not keep 
 up their yashmaks ; I believed that they 
 had never before looked upon a man in the 
 European dress, and when they now saw 
 
 1 The 29th of April. 
 355 
 
EOTHEN [CHAPTE3EI XXIV 
 
 in me that strange phenomenon, and saw, 
 too, how they could please the creature by 
 showing him a glimpse of beauty, they 
 seemed to think it more pleasant to do this 
 than to go on playing with swings. It was 
 always, however, with a sort of zoological 
 expression of countenance that they looked 
 on the horrible monster from Europe; and 
 whenever one of them gave me to see for 
 one sweet instant the blushing of her un- 
 veiled face, it was with the same kind. of 
 air as that with which a young, timid girl 
 will edge her way up to an elephant, and 
 tremblingly give him a nut from the tips 
 of her rosy fingers. 
 
 356 
 
CHAPTER 
 XXV 
 
 Mariam 
 
 THERE is no spirit of propagandism in 
 the Mussulmans of the Ottoman do- 
 minions. True it is that a prisoner 
 of war, or a Christian condemned to death, 
 may on some occasions save his life by 
 adopting the religion of Mohammed, but 
 instances of this kind are now exceeding- 
 ly rare, and are quite at variance with the 
 general system. Many Europeans, I think, 
 would be surprised to learn that which is 
 nevertheless quite true, namely, that an at- 
 tempt to disturb the religious repose of the 
 empire by the conversion of a Christian to 
 the Mohammedan faith is positively illegal. 
 The event which now I am going to men- 
 tion shows plainly enough that the unlaw- 
 fulness of such interference is distinctly 
 recognized even in one of the most bigoted 
 strongholds of Islam. 
 
 During my stay at Nablus I took up my 
 quarters at the house of the Greek "papa,'' 
 
 357 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXV 
 
 as he is called— that is, the Greek priest. 
 The priest himself had gone to Jerusalem 
 upon the business I am going to tell you 
 of, but his wife remained at Nablus, and 
 did the honors of her home. 
 
 Soon after my arrival, a deputation from 
 the Greek Christians of the place came to 
 request my interference in a matter which 
 had occasioned vast excitement. 
 
 And now I must tell you how it came to 
 happen, as it did continually, that people 
 thought it worth while to claim the assis- 
 tance of a mere traveler, who was totally de- 
 void of all just pretensions to authority or 
 influence of even the humblest description; 
 and especially^I must explain to you how 
 it was that the power thus attributed did 
 really in some measure belong to me, or 
 rather to my dragoman. Successive politi- 
 cal convulsions had at length fairly loosed 
 the people of Syria from their former rules 
 of conduct and from all their old habits of 
 reliance. Mehemet Ali's success in crush- 
 ing the insurrection of the Mohammedan 
 population had utterly beaten down the 
 head of Islam, and extinguished, for the 
 time at least, those virtues and vices which 
 spring from the Mohammedan faith. Suc- 
 cess so complete as Mehemet All's, if it had 
 been attained by an ordinary Asiatic poten- 
 
 358 
 
Chapter XXV ] EOTHEN 
 
 tate, would have induced a notion of stabil- 
 ity. The readily bowing mind of the Oriental 
 would have bowed low and long under the 
 feet of a conqueror whom God had thus 
 strengthened. But Syria was no field for 
 contests strictly Asiatic— Europe was in- 
 volved; and though the heavy masses of 
 Egyptian troops, clinging with strong gripe 
 to the land, might seem to hold it fast, yet 
 every peasant practically felt and knew 
 that in Vienna, or Petersburg, or London, 
 there were four or five pale-looking men 
 who could pull down the star of the Pasha 
 with shreds of paper and ink. The people 
 of the country knew, too, that Mehemet 
 Ali was strong with the strength of the 
 Europeans— strong by his French general, 
 his French tactics, and his English engines. 
 Moreover, they saw that the person, the 
 property, and even the dignity of the hum- 
 blest European was guarded with the most 
 careful solicitude. The consequence of all 
 this was that the people of Syria looked 
 vaguely but confidently to Europe for fresh 
 changes; many would fix upon some nation, 
 France or England, and steadfastly regard 
 it as the arriving sovereign of Syria. Those 
 whose minds remained in doubt equally con- 
 tributed to this new state of public opinion— 
 a state of opinion no longer depending upon 
 
 359 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXV 
 
 religion and ancient habits, but upon bare 
 hopes and fears. Every man wanted to 
 know, not who was his neighbor, but who 
 was to be his ruler; whose feet he was 
 to kiss, and by whom his feet were to be 
 ultimately beaten. Treat your friend, says 
 the proverb, as though he were one day to 
 become your enemy, and your enemy as 
 though he were one day to become your 
 friend. The Syrians went further, and 
 seemed inclined to treat every stranger as 
 though he might one day become their 
 pasha. Such was the state of circum- 
 stances and of feeling which now for the 
 first time had thoroughly opened the mind 
 of western Asia for the reception of Eu- 
 ropeans and European ideas. The credit 
 of the English especially was so great that 
 a good Mussulman flying from the conscrip- 
 tion or any other persecution would come 
 to seek from the formerly despised hat 
 that protection which the turban could no 
 longer afford; and a man high in authority 
 (as, for instance, the Governor in command 
 of Gaza) would think that he had won a 
 prize, or at all events a valuable lottery- 
 ticket, if he obtained a written approval of 
 his conduct from a simple traveler. 
 
 Still, in order that any immediate result 
 should follow from all this unwonted readi- 
 
 360 
 
Chapter XXV ] EOTHEN 
 
 ness in the Asiatic to succumb to the 
 European, it was necessary that some one 
 should be at hand who could see and would 
 push the advantage. I myself had neither 
 the inclination nor the power to do so; but 
 it happened that Dthemetri, who, as my 
 dragoman, represented me on all occasions, 
 was the very person of all others best fitted 
 to avail himself with success of this yield- 
 ing tendency in the Oriental mind. If the 
 chance of birth and fortune had made poor 
 Dthemetri a tailor during some part of his 
 life, yet religion and the literature of the 
 church which he served had made him a 
 man, and a brave man, too. The lives of 
 his honored saints were full of heroic ac- 
 tions provoking imitation; and since faith 
 in a creed involves a faith in its ultimate 
 triumph, Dthemetri was bold from a sense 
 of true strength. His education, too, though 
 not very general in its character, had been 
 carried quite far enough to justify him in 
 pluming himself upon a very decided ad- 
 vantage over the great bulk of the Mo- 
 hammedan population, including the men 
 in authority. With all this consciousness of 
 religious and intellectual superiority, Dthe- 
 metri had lived for the most part in coun- 
 tries lying under Mussulman governments, 
 and had witnessed (perhaps, too, had suf- 
 
 361 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXV 
 
 fered from) their revolting cruelties; the re- 
 sult was that he abhorred and despised the 
 Mohammedan faith and all who clung to it. 
 And this hate was not of the dry^ dull, and 
 inactive sort; Dthemetri was in his sphere 
 a true crusader, and whenever there ap- 
 peared a fair opening in the defenses of 
 Islam, he was ready and eager to make the 
 assault. Such feelings, backed by a con- 
 sciousness of understanding the people 
 with whom he had to do, made Dthemetri 
 not only firm and resolute in his constant 
 interviews with men in authority, but 
 sometimes also (as you may know al- 
 ready) very violent and even insulting. 
 This tone, which I always disliked, though 
 I was fain to profit by it, invariably 
 succeeded; it swept away all resistance; 
 there was nothing in the then depressed 
 and succumbing mind of the Mussulman 
 that could oppose a zeal so warm and 
 fierce. 
 
 As for me, I of course stood aloof from 
 Dthemetri's crusades, and did not even ren- 
 der him any active assistance when he was 
 striving (as he almost always was, poor fel- 
 low!) on my behalf; I was only the death's- 
 head and white sheet with which he scared 
 the enemy. I think, however, that I played 
 this spectral part exceedingly well, for I 
 
 362 
 
W-V'/!-: 
 
 Chapter XXV ] EOTHEN 
 
 seldom appeared at all in any discussion, 
 and whenever I did, I was sure to be white 
 and calm. 
 
 The event which induced the Christians 
 of Nablus to seek for my assistance was 
 this: A beautiful young Christian, between 
 fifteen and sixteen years old, had lately been 
 married to a man of her own creed. About 
 the same time (probably on the occasion of 
 her wedding) she was accidentally seen by 
 a Mussulman sheik of great wealth and 
 local influence. The man instantly became 
 madly enamoured of her. That strict mo- 
 rality so generally prevailing wherever the 
 Mussulmans have complete ascendancy pre- 
 vented the sheik from entertaining any such 
 sinful hopes as a Christian might have 
 ventured to cherish under the like circum- 
 stances, and he saw no chance of gratifying 
 his love except by inducing the girl to em- 
 brace his own creed. If he could get her to 
 take this step, her marriage with the Chris- 
 tian would be dissolved, and then there 
 would be nothing to prevent him from mak- 
 ing her the last and brightest of his wives. 
 The sheik was a practical man, and quickly 
 began his attack upon the theological opin- 
 ions of the bride. He did not assail her with 
 the eloquence of any imams or Mussulman 
 saints; he did not press upon her the eter- 
 
 363 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXV 
 
 nal truths of " the Cow/' ^ or the beautiful 
 morality of " the Table " ^ ; he sent her no 
 tracts— not even a copy of the holy Koran. 
 An old woman acted as missionary. She 
 brought with her a whole basketful of argu- 
 ments—jewels and shawls and scarfs and 
 all kinds of persuasive finery. Poor Mari- 
 am! she put on the jewels and took a calm 
 view of the Mohammedan religion in a little 
 hand-mirror— she could not be deaf to such 
 eloquent ear-rings, and the great truths of 
 Islam came home to her young bosom in 
 the delicate folds of the cashmere; she was 
 ready to abandon her faith. 
 
 The sheik knew very well that his attempt 
 to convert an infidel was unlawful, and that 
 his proceedings would not bear investiga- 
 tion, so he took care to pay a large sum to 
 the Governor of Nablus in order to gain his 
 connivance. 
 
 At length Mariam quitted her home, and 
 placed herself under the protection of the 
 Mohammedan authorities. These men, 
 however, refrained from delivering her into 
 the arms of her lover, and kept her safe in 
 a mosque until the fact of her real conver- 
 sion (for this had been indignantly denied 
 by her relatives) should be establishe.d. For 
 
 1 These are the names given by the Prophet to certain chap- 
 ters of the Koran, 
 
 364 
 
Chapter XXV ] EOTHEN 
 
 two or three days the mother of the young 
 convert was prevented from communicating 
 with her child by various evasive contri- 
 vances, but not, it would seem, by a flat re- 
 fusal. At length it was announced that the 
 young lady's profession of faith might be 
 heard from her own lips. At an hour ap- 
 pointed the friends of the sheik and rela- 
 tives of the damsel met in the mosque. 
 The young convert addressed her mother in 
 a loud voice, and said, "God is God, and 
 Mohammed is the Prophet of God; and 
 thou, O my mother, art an infidel feminine 
 dog!" 
 
 You would suppose that this declaration, 
 so clearly enounced, and that, too, in a 
 place where Mohammedanism is perhaps 
 more supreme than in any other part of the 
 empire, would have sufficed to confirm the 
 pretensions of the lover. This, however, 
 was not the case. The Greek priest of the 
 place was despatched on a mission to the 
 Governor of Jerusalem (Aboo Goosh), in 
 order to complain against the proceedings 
 of the sheik, and obtain a restitution of the 
 bride. Meanwhile the Mohammedan au- 
 thorities at Nablus were so conscious of 
 having acted unlawfully in conspiring to 
 disturb the faith of the beautiful infidel 
 that they hesitated to take any further 
 
 365 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXV 
 
 steps, and the girl was still detained in the 
 mosque. 
 
 Thus matters stood when the Christians 
 of the place came and sought to obtain my 
 aid, 
 
 I felt (with regret) that I had no personal 
 interest in the matter, and I also thought 
 that there was no pretense for my interfer- 
 ing with the conflicting claims of the Chris- 
 tian husband and the Mohammedan lover. 
 I declined to take any step. 
 
 My speaking of the husband, by the by, 
 reminds me that he was extremely back- 
 ward about the great work of recovering 
 his youthful bride. The kinsmen of the 
 girl (they felt themselves personally dis- 
 graced by her conduct) were vehement and 
 excited to a high pitch, but the Menelaus of 
 Nablus was exceedingly calm and com- 
 posed. 
 
 The fact that it was no duty of mine to 
 interfere in a matter of this kind was a very 
 sufficient, and yet a very unsatisfactory, 
 reason for my refusal of all assistance. 
 Until you are placed in situations of this 
 kind, you can hardly tell how painful it is to 
 refrain from intermeddling in other people's 
 affairs— to refrain from intermeddling when 
 you feel that you can do so with happy 
 effect, and can remove a load of distress by 
 
 366 
 
Chapter XXV ] EOTHEN 
 
 the use of a few small phrases. Upon this 
 occasion, however, an expression fell from 
 one of the girl's kinsmen which not only- 
 determined me to abstain from interfer- 
 ence, but made me hope that all attempts 
 to recover the proselyte would fail. This 
 person, speaking with the most savage bit- 
 terness, and with the cordial approval of all 
 the other relatives, said that the girl ought 
 to be beaten to death. I could not fail to 
 see that if the poor child were ever restored 
 to her family she would be treated with 
 the most frightful barbarity; I heartily 
 wished, therefore, that the Mussulmans 
 might be firm, and preserve their young 
 prize from any fate so dreadful as that of a 
 return to her own relations. 
 
 The next day the Greek priest returned 
 from his mission to Aboo Goosh; but "the 
 father of lies," it would seem, had been 
 well plied with the gold of the enamoured 
 sheik, and contrived to put off the prayers 
 of the Christians by cunning feints. Now, 
 therefore, a second and more numerous 
 deputation than the first waited upon me, 
 and implored my intervention with the Gov- 
 ernor. I informed the assembled Chris- 
 tians that since their last application I had 
 carefully considered the matter. The re- 
 ligious question, I thought, might be put 
 
 367 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXV 
 
 aside at once, for the excessive levity 
 which the girl had displayed proved clearly 
 that, in adopting Mohammedanism, she 
 was not quitting any other faith; her mind 
 must have been thoroughly blank upon re- 
 ligious questions, and she was not, there- 
 fore, to be treated as a Christian straying 
 from the flock, but rather as a child with- 
 out any religion at all— a child incapable of 
 imagining any truer worshipers than those 
 who would deck her with jewels and clothe 
 her in cashmere shawls. 
 
 So much for the religious part of the 
 question. Well, then, in a merely temporal 
 sense it appeared to me that (looking 
 merely to the interests of the damsel, for I 
 rather unjustly put poor Menelaus quite out 
 of the question) the advantages were all on 
 the side of the Mohammedan match. The 
 sheik was in a higher station of life than 
 the superseded husband, and had given the 
 best possible proof of his ardent affection by 
 the sacrifices made and the risks incurred 
 for the sake of the beloved object. I there- 
 fore stated fairly, to the horror and amaze- 
 ment of all my hearers, that the sheik, in 
 my view, was likely to make a capital hus- 
 band, and that I entirely "approved of the 
 match.'' 
 
 I left Nablus under the impression that 
 
 368 
 
 
Chapter XXV] EOTHEN 
 
 Mariam would soon be delivered to her 
 Mussulman lover. I afterwards found, 
 however, that the result was very different. 
 Dthemetri's religious zeal and hate had 
 been so much excited by the account of 
 these events, and by the grief and mortifi- 
 cation of his coreligionists, that when he 
 found me firmly determined to decline all 
 interference in the matter, he secretly ap- 
 pealed to the Governor in my name, and 
 (using, I suppose, many violent threats, 
 and telling, no doubt, good store of lies 
 about my station and influence) extorted a 
 promise that the proselyte should be re- 
 stored to her relatives. I did not under- 
 stand that the girl had been actually given 
 up whilst I remained at Nablus, but Dthe- 
 metri certainly did not desist from his in- 
 stances until he had satisfied himself by 
 some means or other (for mere words 
 amounted to nothing) that the promise 
 would be actually performed. It was not 
 till I had quitted Syria, and when Dthemetri 
 was no longer in my service, that this vil- 
 lainous though well-motived trick of his 
 came to my knowledge. Mysseri, who in- 
 formed me of the step which had been 
 taken, did not know it himself until some 
 time after we had quitted Nablus, when 
 Dthemetri exultingly confessed his success- 
 24 369 
 
EOTHEN [Chapteb XXV 
 
 ful enterprise. I know not whether the 
 engagement extorted from the Governor 
 was ever comphed with. I shudder to think 
 of the fate which must have befallen poor 
 Mariam if she fell into the hands of the 
 Christians. 
 
 370 
 
CHAPTER 
 XXVI 
 
 The prophet Damoor. 
 
 FOR some hours I passed along the 
 shores of the fair Lake of Gahlee; 
 then turning a Uttle to the westward, 
 I struck into a mountainous tract, and as 
 I advanced thenceforward, the features of 
 the country kept growing more and more 
 hold. At length I drew near to the city of 
 Saf ed. It sits proud as a fortress upon the 
 summit of a craggy height; yet, because of 
 its minarets and stately trees, the place 
 looks happy and beautiful. It is one of the 
 holy cities of the Talmud; and, according to 
 this authority, the Messiah will reign there 
 for forty years before he takes possession 
 of Zion. The sanctity and historical im- 
 portance thus attributed to the city by 
 anticipation render it a favorite place of 
 retirement for Israelites; of these it con- 
 tains, they say, about four thousand, a 
 number nearly balancing that of the Mo- 
 hammedan inhabitants. I knew by my 
 
 371 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVI 
 
 experience of Tabariyeh that a " holy city " 
 was sure to have a population of vermin 
 somewhat proportionate to the number of 
 its Israelites, and I therefore caused my 
 tent to be pitched upon a green spot of 
 ground at a respectful distance from the 
 walls of the town. 
 
 When it had become quite dark (for there 
 was no moon that night), I was informed 
 that several Jews had secretly come from 
 the city, in the hope of obtaining some 
 help from me in circumstances of immi- 
 nent danger. I was also informed that 
 they claimed my aid upon the ground that 
 some of their number were British sub- 
 jects. It was arranged that the two prin- 
 cipal men of the party should speak for the 
 rest, and these were accordingly admitted 
 into my tent. One of the two called him- 
 self the British vice-consul, and he had 
 with him his consular cap; but he frankly 
 said that he could not have dared to as- 
 sume this emblem of his dignity in the 
 daytime, and that nothing but the ex- 
 treme darkness of the night rendered it 
 safe for him to put it on upon this occa- 
 sion. The other of the spokesmen was a 
 Jew of Gibraltar, a tolerably well-bred per- 
 son, who spoke English very fluently. 
 
 These men informed me that the Jews of 
 
 372 
 
Chapter XXVI ] EOTHEN 
 
 the place, though exceedingly wealthy, had 
 lived peaceably and undisturbed in their 
 retirement until the insurrection of 1834; 
 but about the beginning of that year a 
 highly religious Mussulman, called Mo- 
 hammed Damoor, went forth into the mar- 
 ket-place, crying with a loud voice, and 
 prophesying that on the 15th of the fol- 
 lowing June the true believers would rise 
 up in just wrath against the Jews, and de- 
 spoil them of their gold and their silver 
 and their jewels. The earnestness of the 
 prophet produced some impression at the 
 time; but all went on as usual, until at 
 last the 15th of June arrived. When that 
 day dawned, the whole Mussulman popula- 
 tion of the place assembled in the streets 
 that they might see the result of the 
 prophecy. Suddenly Mohammed Damoor 
 rushed furious into the crowd, and the 
 fierce shout of the prophet soon insured 
 the fulfilment of his prophecy. Some of 
 the Jews fied and some remained, but they 
 who fied and they who remained alike and 
 unresistingly left their property to the 
 hands of the spoilers. The most odious of 
 all outrages, that of searching the women 
 for the base purpose of discovering such 
 things as gold and silver concealed about 
 their persons, was perpetrated without 
 
 373 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVI 
 
 shame. The poor Jews were so stricken 
 with terror that they submitted to their 
 fate even where resistance would have 
 been easy. In several instances a young 
 Mussulman boy, not more than ten or 
 twelve years of age, walked straight into 
 the house of a Jew, and stripped him of 
 his property before his face, and in the 
 presence of his whole family.^ When the 
 insurrection was put down, some of the 
 Mussulmans (most probably those who had 
 got no spoil wherewith they might buy 
 immunity) were punished, but the greater 
 part of them escaped; none of the booty 
 was restored, and the pecuniary redress 
 which the Pasha had undertaken to enforce 
 for them had been hitherto so carefully de- 
 layed that the hope of ever obtaining it had t 
 grown very faint. A new Governor had been 
 appointed to the command of the place, 
 with stringent orders to ascertain the real 
 extent of the losses, to discover the spoil- 
 ers, and to compel immediate restitution. 
 It was found that, notwithstanding the 
 urgency of his instructions, the Governor 
 did not push on the affair with any percep- 
 tible vigor; the Jews complained, and either 
 by the protection of the British consul at 
 
 1 It was after the interview which I am talking of, and not 
 from the Jews themselves, that I learned this fact. 
 
 374 
 
 *;■ 
 
Chapter XXVI ] EOTHEN 
 
 Damascus, or by some other means, had in- 
 fluence enough to induce the appointment 
 of a special commissioner— they called him 
 "the Modeer "—whose duty it was to watch 
 for and prevent anything like connivance 
 on the part of the Governor, and to push on 
 the investigation with vigor and imparti- 
 ality. 
 
 Such were the instructions with which, 
 some few weeks since, the Modeer came 
 charged; the result was that the investiga^ 
 tion had made no practical advance, and 
 that the Modeer, as well as the Governor, 
 was living upon terms of affectionate friend- 
 ship with Mohammed Damoor and the rest 
 of the principal spoilers. 
 
 Thus stood the chance of redress for the 
 past. But the cause of the agonizing ex- 
 citement under which the Jews of the place 
 now labored was recent and justly alarming: 
 Mohammed Damoor had again gone forth 
 into the market-place, and lifted up his 
 voice, and prophesied a second spoliation of 
 the Israelites. This was a grave matter; the 
 words of such a practical and clear-sighted 
 prophet as Mohammed Damoor were not to 
 be despised. I fear I must have smiled 
 visibly, for I was greatly amused, and even, 
 I think, gratified, at the account of this sec- 
 ond prophecy. Nevertheless, my heart 
 
 375 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVI 
 
 warmed towards the poor oppressed Israel- 
 ites; and I was flattered, too, in the point of 
 my national vanity, at the notion of the 
 far-reaching link by which a Jew in Syria, 
 because he had been born on the rock of Gi- 
 braltar, was able to claim me as his fellow- 
 countryman. If I hesitated at all between 
 the " impropriety " of interfering in a mat- 
 ter which was no business of mine, and the 
 " infernal shame " of refusing my aid at such 
 a conjuncture, I soon came to a very un- 
 gentlemanly decision— namely, that I would 
 be guilty of the ^impropriety," and not of 
 the "infernal shame." It seemed to me 
 that the immediate arrest of Mohammed 
 Damoor was the one thing needful to the 
 safety of the Jews, and I felt sure (for rea- 
 sons which I have already mentioned in 
 speaking of the Nablus affair) that I should 
 be able to obtain this result by making a 
 formal application to the Governor. I told 
 my applicants that I would take this step 
 on the following morning. They were very 
 grateful, and were for a moment much 
 pleased at the prospect of safety thus seem- 
 ingly opened to them; but the deliberation 
 of a minute entirely altered their views, and 
 filled them with new terror: they declared 
 that any attempt or pretended attempt on 
 the part of the Governor to arrest Mo- 
 
 376 
 
Chapter XXVI] EOTHEN 
 
 hammed Damoor would certainly produce 
 an Immediate movement of the whole Mus- 
 sulman population, and a consequent mas- 
 sacre and robbery of the Israelites. My 
 visitors went out, and remained I know not 
 how long consulting with their brethren, 
 but all at last agreed that their present 
 perilous and painful position was better 
 than a certain and immediate attack, and 
 that if Mohammed Damoor was seized their 
 second estate would be worse than their 
 first, I myself did not think that this would 
 be the case, but I could not, of course, force 
 my aid upon the people against their will ; 
 and, moreover, the day fixed for the fulfil- 
 ment of this second prophecy was not very 
 close at hand; a little delay, therefore, in 
 providing against the impending danger 
 would not necessarily be fatal. The men 
 now confessed that although they had come 
 with so much mystery and (as they thought) 
 at so great risk to ask my assistance, they 
 were unable to suggest any mode in which 
 I could aid them, except, indeed, by men- 
 tioning their grievances to the consul-gen- 
 eral at Damascus. This I promised to do, 
 and this I did. 
 
 My visitors were very thankful to me for 
 my readiness to intermeddle in their affairs, 
 and the grateful wives of the principal Jews 
 
 377 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVI 
 
 sent to me many compliments, with choice 
 wines and elaborate sweetmeats. 
 
 The course of my travels soon drew me 
 so far from Safed that I never heard how 
 the dreadful day passed off which had been 
 fixed for the accomplishment of the second 
 prophecy. If the predicted spoliation was 
 prevented, poor Mohammed Damoor must 
 have been forced, I suppose, to say that he 
 had prophesied in a metaphorical sense. 
 This would be a sad falling off from the 
 brilliant and substantial success of the first 
 experiment. 
 
 378 
 
CHAPTER 
 XXVII 
 
 Damascus. 
 
 FOR a part of two days I wound under 
 the base of the snow-crowned Djibel 
 el Sheik, and then entered upon a vast 
 and desolate plain rarely pierced at intervals 
 by some sort of withered stem. The earth 
 in its length and its breadth, and all the deep 
 universe of the sky, was steeped in light 
 and heat. On I rode through the fire, but 
 long before evening came there were strain- 
 ing eyes that saw, and joyful voices that 
 announced, the sight of Shaum Shereef — 
 the **Holy," the "Blessed"— Damascus. 
 
 But that which at last I reached with my 
 longing eyes was not a speck in the horizon, 
 gradually expanding to a group of roofs and 
 walls, but a long, low line of blackest green, 
 that ran right across in the distance from 
 east to west. And this, as I approached, 
 grew deeper— grew wavy in its outline; soon 
 forest-trees shot up before my eyes, and 
 robed their broad shoulders so freshly 
 
 379 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVn 
 
 that all the throngs of olives, as they rose 
 into view, looked sad in their proper dim- 
 ness. There were even now no houses to 
 see, but minarets peered out from the midst 
 of shade into the glowing sky, and, kindling, 
 touched the sun. There seemed to be here 
 no mere city, but rather a province, wide 
 and rich, that bounded the torrid waste. \^'. 
 Until about a year or two years before the 
 time of my going there, Damascus had kept 
 up so much of the old bigot zeal against 
 Christians, or rather against Europeans, that 
 no one dressed as a Frank could have dared 
 to show himself in the streets; but the firm- 
 ness and temper of Mr. Farren, who hoisted 
 his flag in the city as consul-general for the 
 district, had soon put an end to all intoler- 
 ance of Englishmen. Damascus was safer 
 than Oxford.^ When I entered the city, in 
 my usual dress, there was but one poor fel- 
 low that wagged his tongue, and him, in 
 the open streets, Dthemetri horsewhipped. 
 
 i An enterprising American traveler, Mr. Everett, lately con- 
 ceived the bold project of penetrating to the University of 
 Oxford, and this notwithstanding that he had been in his in- 
 fancy (they being very young, those Americana) a Unitarian 
 preacher. Having a notion, it seems, that the ambassadorial 
 character would protect him from insult, he adopted the 
 stratagem of procuring credentials from his Government 
 as minister plenipotentiary at the court of her Britannic 
 Majesty; he also wore the exact costume of a Trinitarian. 
 But all his contrivances were vain : his infantine sermons 
 were strictly remembered against him ; the enterprise failed. 
 
 380 
 
Chapteb XXVn] EOTHEN 
 
 During my stay I went wherever I chose, 
 and attended the public baths without mo- 
 lestation. Indeed, my relations with the 
 pleasanter portion of the Mohammedan 
 population were upon a much better footing 
 here than at most other places. 
 
 In the principal streets of Damascus there 
 is a path for foot-passengers raised a foot 
 or two above the bridle-road. Until the 
 arrival of the British consul-general none 
 but a Mussulman had been allowed to walk 
 upon the upper way; Mr. Parr en would not, 
 of course, suffer that the humiliation of any 
 such exclusion should be submitted to by an 
 Englishman, and I always walked upon the 
 raised path as free and unmolested as if I 
 had been in Pall Mall. The old usage was, 
 however, maintained with as much strict- 
 ness as ever against the Christian Rayas and 
 Jews: not one of these could have set his foot 
 upon the privileged path without endanger- 
 ing his life. 
 
 I was walking one day, I remember, along 
 the raised path, " the path of the Faithful," 
 when a Christian Raya from the bridle-road 
 below saluted me with such earnestness, 
 and craved so anxiously to speak and be 
 spoken to, that he soon brought me to a 
 halt. He had nothing to tell, except only 
 the glory and exultation with which he 
 
 381 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVH 
 
 saw a fellow-Christian stand level with the 
 imperious Mussulmans. Perhaps he had 
 been absent from the place for some time, 
 for otherwise I hardly know how it could 
 have happened that my exaltation was 
 the first instance he had seen. His joy 
 was great; so strong and strenuous was 
 England (Lord Palmerston reigned in 
 those days) that it was a pride and delight 
 for a Syrian Christian to look up and say 
 that the Englishman's faith was his, too. 
 If I was vexed at all that I could not give 
 the man a lift and shake hands with him on 
 level ground, there was no alloy in his plea- 
 sure. He followed me on, not looking to his 
 own path, but keeping his eyes on me; he 
 saw, as he thought and said (for he came 
 with me on to my quarters), the period of 
 the Mohammedan's absolute ascendancy— 
 the beginning of the Christian's. He had 
 so closely associated the insulting privilege 
 of the path with actual dominion that see- 
 ing it now in one instance abandoned he 
 looked for the quick coming of European 
 troops. His lips only whispered, and that 
 tremulously, but his flashing eyes spoke out 
 their triumph more fiercely: "I, too, am a 
 Christian. My foes are the foes of the Eng- 
 lish. We are all one people, and Christ is 
 our King." 
 
 382 
 
Chapter XXVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 If I poorly deserved, yet I liked this claim 
 of brotherhood. Not all the warnings I 
 heard against their rascality could hinder 
 me from feeling kindly towards my fellow- 
 Christians in the East. English travelers 
 (from a habit perhaps of depreciating sec- 
 tarians in their own country) are apt to look 
 down upon the Oriental Christians as being 
 " dissenters " from the established religion 
 of a Mohammedan empire. I never did thus. 
 By a natural perversity of disposition which 
 nursemaids call contrairiness, I felt the 
 more strongly for my creed when I saw it 
 despised among them. I quite tolerated 
 the Christianity of Mohammedan countries, 
 notwithstanding its humble aspect, and the 
 damaged character of its followers. I went 
 further, and extended some sympathy to- 
 wards those who, with all the claims of 
 superior intellect, learning, and industry, 
 were kept down under the heel of the Mus- 
 sulmans by reason of their having our faith. 
 I heard, as I fancied, the faint echo of an 
 old crusader's conscience, that whispered 
 and said, '* Common cause!" The impulse 
 was, as you may suppose, much too feeble 
 to bring me into trouble; it merely influenced 
 my actions in a way thoroughly character- 
 istic of this poor sluggish century— that is, 
 by making me speak almost as civilly to 
 
 383 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVII 
 
 the followers of Christ as I did to their 
 Mohammedan foes. 
 
 This "holy'' Damascus, this "earthly 
 Paradise'' of the Prophet, so fair to the 
 eyes that he dared not trust himself to tarry 
 in her blissful shades, she is a city of hid- 
 den palaces, of copses, and gardens, and 
 fountains, and bubbling streams. The juice 
 of her life is the gushing and ice-cold tor- 
 rent that tumbles from the snowy sides of 
 Anti-Lebanon. Close along on the river's 
 edge, through seven sweet miles of rustling 
 boughs and deepest shade, the city spreads 
 out her whole length. As a man falls flat, 
 face forward on the brook, that he may 
 drink, and drink again, so Damascus, thirst- 
 ing forever, lies down with her lips to the 
 stream, and clings to its rushing waters. 
 
 The chief places of public amusement, or 
 rather of public relaxation, are the baths 
 and the great cafe. This last is frequented 
 at night by most of the wealthy men of the 
 city, and by many of the humbler sort. It 
 consists of a number of sheds, very simply 
 framed and built in a labyrinth of running 
 streams— streams so broken and headlong 
 in their course that they foam and roar on 
 every side. The place is lit up in the sim- 
 plest manner by numbers of small pale 
 lamps, strung upon loose cords, and so sus- 
 
 384 
 
Chapter XXVH] EOTHEN 
 
 pended from branch to branch that the 
 light, though it looks so quiet amongst the 
 darkening foliage, yet leaps and brightly 
 flashes, as it falls upon the troubled waters. 
 All around, and chiefly upon the very edge 
 of the torrents, groups of people are tran- 
 quilly seated. They drink coffee, and inhale 
 the cold fumes of the narghile; they talk 
 rather gently the one to the other, or else 
 are silent. A father will sometimes have 
 two or three of his boys around him, but the 
 joyousness of an Oriental child is all of the 
 sober sort, and never disturbs the reigning 
 calm of the land. 
 
 It has been generally understood, I be- 
 lieve, that the houses of Damascus are more 
 sumptuous than those of any other city in 
 the East. Some of these— said to be the 
 most magnificent in the place— I had an 
 opportunity of seeing. 
 
 EJvery rich man's house stands detached 
 from its neighbors, at the side of a garden, 
 and it is from this cause, no doubt, that the 
 city (severely menaced by prophecy) has 
 hitherto escaped destruction. You know 
 some parts of Spain, but you have never, I 
 think, been in Andalusia; if you had, I could 
 easily show you the interior of a Damascene 
 house by referring you to the Alhambra 
 or Alcazar of Seville. The lofty rooms are 
 25 385 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVn 
 
 adorned with a rich inlaying of many colors 
 and illuminated writing on the walls. ,The 
 floors are of marble. One side of any room 
 intended for noonday retirement is generally 
 laid open to a quadrangle, and in the center 
 of this is the dancing jet of a fountain. 
 There is no furniture that can interfere with 
 the cool, palace-like emptiness of the apart- 
 ments. A divan (that is, a low and doubly 
 broad sofa) runs round the three walled 
 sides of the room; a few Persian carpets 
 (they ought to be called Persian rugs, for 
 that is the word which indicates their shape 
 and dimension) are sometimes thrown about 
 near the divan; they are placed without 
 order, the one partly lapping over the other 
 —and thus disposed, they give to the room 
 an appearance of uncaring luxury. Except 
 these, there is nothing to obstruct the wel- 
 come air; and the whole of the marble floor, 
 from one divan to the other, and from the 
 head of the chamber across to the murmur- 
 ing fountain, is thoroughly open and free. 
 
 So simple as this is Asiatic luxury! The 
 Oriental is not a contriving animal— there 
 is nothing intricate in his magnificence. 
 The impossibility of handing down property 
 from father to son for any long period con- 
 secutively seems to prevent the existence 
 of those traditions by which, with us, the 
 
 386 
 
Chapter XXVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 refined modes of applying wealth are made 
 kno)vn to its inheritors. We know that in 
 England a newly made rich man cannot, by 
 taking thought and spending money, obtain 
 even the same-looking furniture as a gen- 
 tleman. The complicated character of an 
 English establishment allows room for 
 subtle distinctions between that which is 
 comme il faut and that which is not. All 
 such refinements are unknown in the East; 
 the Pasha and the peasant have the same 
 tastes. The broad cold marble floor, the 
 simple couch, the air freshly waving 
 through a shady chamber, a verse of the 
 Koran emblazoned on the wall, the sight 
 and the sound of falling water, the cold, 
 fragrant smoke of the narghile, and a small 
 collection of wives and children in the 
 inner apartments— all these, the utmost 
 enjoyments of the grandee, are yet such as 
 to be appreciable by the humblest Mussul- 
 man in the empire. 
 
 But its gardens are the delight— the de- 
 light and the pride — of Damascus. They are 
 not the formal parterres which you might 
 expect from the Oriental taste; rather, they 
 bring back to your mind the memory of 
 some dark old shrubbery in our northern 
 isle that has been charmingly wn-"kept 
 up '' for many and many a day. When you 
 
 387 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVn 
 
 see a rich wilderness of wood in decent 
 England, it is like enough that you see it 
 with some soft regrets. The puzzled old 
 woman at the lodge can give small account 
 of "the family." She thinks it is "Italy" 
 that has made the whole circle of her 
 world so gloomy and sad. You avoid the 
 house in lively dread of a lone housekeeper; 
 but you make your way on by the stables. 
 You remember that gable, with all its 
 neatly nailed trophies of fitches and hawks 
 and owls now slowly falling to pieces; you 
 remember that stable, and that: but the 
 doors are all fastened that used to be stand- 
 ing ajar; the paint of things painted is 
 blistered and cracked; grass grows in the 
 yard. Just there, in October mornings, 
 the keeper would wait with the dogs and 
 the guns : no keeper now. You hurry away, 
 and gain the small wicket that used to 
 open to the touch of a lightsome hand; it 
 is fastened with a padlock (the only new- 
 looking thing), and is stained with thick 
 green damp; you climb it, and bury your- 
 self in the deep shade, and strive but lazily 
 with the tangling briers, and stop for long 
 minutes to judge and determine whether 
 you will creep beneath the long boughs 
 and make them your archway, or whether 
 perhaps you will lift your heel and tread 
 
 388 
 
Chapter XXVII ] EOTHEN 
 
 them down underfoot. Long doubt, and 
 scarcely to be ended, till you wake from 
 the memory of those days when the path 
 was clear, and chase that phantom of a 
 muslin sleeve that once weighed warm upon 
 your arm. 
 
 Wild as that, the nighest woodland of a 
 deserted home in England, but without its 
 sweet sadness, is the sumptuous garden of 
 Damascus. Forest-trees, tall and stately 
 enough, if you could see their lofty crests, 
 yet lead a tussling life of it below, with 
 their branches struggling against strong 
 numbers of bushes and wilful shrubs. The 
 shade upon the earth is black as night. 
 High, high above your head, and on every 
 side all down to the ground, the thicket is 
 hemmed in and choked up by the inter- 
 lacing boughs that droop with the weight 
 of roses, and load the slow air with their 
 damask breath.^ There are no other flowers. 
 Here and there, there are patches of ground 
 made clear from the cover, and these are 
 either carelessly planted with some com- 
 mon and useful vegetable, or else are left 
 free to the wayward ways of nature, and 
 bear rank weeds, moist-looking and cool to 
 your eyes, and freshening the sense with 
 
 1 The rose-trees wliich I saw were all of the kind we call 
 " damask " ; they grow to an immense height and size. 
 
 389 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVII 
 
 their earthy and bitter fragrance. There 
 is a lane opened through the thicket, so 
 broad in some places that you can pass 
 along side by side, in some so narrow (the 
 shrubs are forever encroaching) that you 
 ought, if you can, to go on the first, and 
 hold back the bough of the rose-tree. And 
 through the sweet wilderness a loud rush- 
 ing stream flows tumbling along, till it is 
 halted at last in the lowest corner of the 
 garden, and there tossed up in a fountain 
 by the side of the simple alcove. This is 
 all. 
 
 Never for an instant will the people of 
 Damascus attempt to separate the idea of 
 bliss from these wild gardens and rushing 
 waters. Even where your best affections 
 are concerned, and you— wise preachers ab- 
 stain and turn aside when they come near 
 the mysteries of the happy state, and we 
 (wise preachers, too), we will hush our 
 voices, and never reveal to finite beings 
 the joys of the ** earthly Paradise," 
 
 390 
 
CHAPTER 
 XXVIII 
 
 Pass of the Lebanon* 
 
 |HE ruins of Baalbec!" Shall I scat- 
 ter the vague solemn thoughts and 
 all the airy fantasies which gather 
 together when once those words are 
 spoken, that I may give you, instead, tall 
 columns, and measurements true, and 
 phrases built with ink? No, no; the glori- 
 ous sounds shall still float on as of yore, 
 and still hold fast upon your brain with 
 their own dim and infinite meaning. 
 
 The pass by which I crossed the Lebanon 
 is like, I think, in its features, to that of 
 the Furka in the Bernese Oberland. For 
 a great part of the way I toiled rather 
 painfully through the dazzling snow, but 
 the labor of ascending added to the excite- 
 ment with which I looked for the summit 
 of the pass. The time came. There was 
 a minute, and I saw nothing but the steep 
 white shoulder of the mountain; there was 
 another minute, and that the next, which 
 
 391 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXVin 
 
 showed me a nether heaven of fleecy clouds, 
 —clouds floating along far down in the air 
 beneath me,— and showed me, beyond, the 
 breadth of all Syria west of the Lebanon. 
 But chiefly I clung with my eyes to the dim, 
 steadfast line of the sea which closed my 
 utmost view. I had grown well used, of 
 late, to the people and the scenes of forlorn 
 Asia— well used to tombs and ruins, to 
 silent cities and deserted plains, to tran- 
 quil men, and women sadly veiled; and 
 now that I saw the even plain of the sea, I 
 leaped with an easy leap to its yonder 
 shores, and saw all the kingdoms of the 
 West in that fair path that could lead me 
 from out of this silent land straight on into 
 shrill Marseilles, or round by the pillars of 
 Hercules, to the crash and roar of London. 
 My place upon this dividing barrier was as 
 a man's puzzling station in eternity, be- 
 tween the birthless past and the future 
 that has no end. Behind me I left an old 
 and decrepit world— religions dead and 
 dying, calm tyrannies expiring in silence, 
 women hushed and swathed and turned 
 into waxen dolls, love flown, and in its 
 stead mere royal and '' Paradise " pleasures. 
 Before me there waited glad bustle and 
 strife— love itself an emulous game, re- 
 ligion a cause and a controversy, well 
 
 392 
 
Chapter XXVIH] EOTHEN 
 
 smitten and well defended, men governed 
 by reasons and suasion of speech, wheels 
 going, steam buzzing, a mortal race, and 
 a slashing pace, and the devil taking the 
 hindmost— taking me, by Jove! (for that 
 was my inner care) if I lingered too long 
 upon the difficult pass that leads from 
 thought to action. 
 
 I descended, and went towards the West. 
 
 The group of cedars remaining on this 
 part of the Lebanon is held sacred by the 
 Greek Church, on account of a prevailing 
 notion that the trees were standing at the 
 time when the Temple of Jerusalem was 
 built. They occupy three or four acres on 
 the mountain's side, and many of them are 
 gnarled in a way that implies great age; 
 but, except these signs, I saw nothing in 
 their appearance or conduct that tended to 
 prove them contemporaries of the cedars 
 employed in Solomon's Temple. The final 
 cause to which these aged survivors owed 
 their preservation was explained to me in 
 the evening by a glorious old fellow (a 
 Christian chief) who made me welcome in 
 the valley of Eden. In ancient times the 
 whole range of the Lebanon had been 
 covered with cedars; and as the fertile 
 plains beneath became more and more in- 
 fested by Government officers and tyrants 
 
 393 
 
EOTHEN . [Chapter XXVIH 
 
 of high and low estate, the people by de- 
 grees abandoned them, and flocked to the 
 rugged mountains for protection, well 
 knowing that the trouble of a walk up- 
 hill would seriously obstruct their weak 
 and lazy oppressors. The cedar forests 
 gradually shrank under the ax of the en- 
 croaching multitudes, and seemed at last 
 to be on the point of disappearing entirely, 
 when an aged chief who ruled in this dis- 
 trict, and who had witnessed the great 
 change effected even in his own lifetime, 
 chose to say that some sign or memorial 
 should be left of the vast woods with 
 which the mountains had formerly been 
 clad, and commanded accordingly that this 
 group of trees (a group probably situated 
 at the highest point to which the forest 
 had reached) should remain untouched. 
 The chief, it seems, was not moved by the 
 notion I have mentioned as prevailing in 
 the Greek Church, but rather by some 
 sentiment of veneration for a great natu- 
 ral feature— a sentiment akin, perhaps, 
 to that old and earth-born religion which 
 made men bow down to creation before 
 they had yet learned to know and worship 
 the Creator. 
 
 The chief of the valley in which I passed 
 the night was a man of large possessions, 
 
 394 
 
Chapter XXVIII ] EOTHEN 
 
 and he entertained me very sumptuously. 
 He was highly intelligent, and had had the 
 sagacity to foresee that Europe would in- 
 tervene authoritatively in the affairs of 
 Syria. Bearing this idea in mind, and with 
 a view to give his son an advantageous start 
 in the ambitious career for which he was 
 destined, he had hired for him a teacher 
 of Italian, the only accessible European 
 tongue. The tutor, however (a native of 
 Syria), either did not know, or did not 
 choose to teach, the European form of ad- 
 dress, but contented himself with instruct- 
 ing his pupil in the mere language of Italy. 
 This circumstance gave me an opportunity 
 (the only one I ever had, or was likely to 
 have^) of hearing Oriental courtesies ex- 
 pressed in a European tongue. The boy 
 was about twelve or thirteen years old, and 
 having the power of speaking to me with- 
 out the aid of an interpreter, he took a 
 prominent part in the hospitable duties of 
 the day. He did the honors of the house 
 with untiring assiduity, and with a kind .of 
 gracefulness which by mere description can 
 scarcely be made intelligible to those who 
 are unacquainted with the manners of the 
 Asiatics. The boy's address resembled a 
 
 1 A dragoman never interprets in terms the courteous lan- 
 guage of the East. 
 
 395 
 
EOTHEN ■ [Chapter XXVm 
 
 little that of a highly polished and insinu- 
 ating Roman Catholic priest, but had more 
 of girlish gentleness. It was strange to 
 hear him gravely and slowly enunciating 
 the common and extravagant compliments 
 of the East in good Italian, and in soft, per- 
 suasive tones. I recollect that I was par- 
 ticularly amused at the gracious obstinacy 
 with which he maintained that the house 
 and the surrounding estates belonged, not 
 to his father, but to me. To say this once 
 was only to use the common form of speech, 
 signifying no more than our sweet word 
 "welcome'^; but the amusing part of the 
 matter was that whenever, in the course 
 of conversation, I happened to speak of 
 his father's mansion or the surrounding 
 domain, the boy invariably interfered to 
 correct my pretended mistake, and to as- 
 sure me once again, with a gentle decisive- 
 ness of manner, that the whole property 
 was really and exclusively mine, and that 
 his father had not the most distant pre- 
 tensions to its ownership. 
 
 I received from my host some good in- 
 formation respecting the people of the 
 mountains, and their power of resisting 
 Mehemet Ali. The chief gave me very 
 plainly to understand that the moun- 
 taineers, being dependent upon others for 
 
 396 
 
Chapter XXVin] EOTHEN 
 
 bread and gunpowder (the two great neces- 
 saries of martial life), could not long hold 
 out against a power occupying the plains 
 and commanding the sea; but he also as- 
 sured me, and that very significantly, that 
 if this source of weakness were provided 
 against, the mountaineers were to be depended 
 upon. He told me that in ten or fifteen 
 days the chiefs could bring together some 
 fifty thousand fighting men. 
 
 397 
 
::€i 
 
 CHAPTER 
 XXIX 
 
 Surprise of Satalieh. 
 
 WHILST I was remaining upon the 
 coast of Syria I had the good 
 fortune to become acquainted 
 with the Russian Sataliefsky,^ a general 
 officer who in his youth had fought and 
 bled at Borodino, but was now better known 
 among diplomats by the important trust 
 committed to him at a period highly critical 
 for the affairs of eastern Europe. I must 
 not tell you his family name; my men- 
 tion of his title can do him no harm, for it 
 is I, and I only, who have conferred it, in 
 consideration of the military and diplomatic 
 services performed under my own eyes. 
 
 The general, as well as I, was bound for 
 Smyrna, and we agreed to sail together in 
 an Ionian brigantine. We did not charter 
 the vessel, but we made our arrangement 
 with the captain upon such terms that we 
 could be put ashore upon any part of the 
 
 1 A title signifying Transcender or Conqueror of Satalieh, 
 
 398 
 
Chapter XXIX ] EOTHEN 
 
 coast that we might choose. We sailed, 
 and day after day the vessel lay dawdling 
 on the sea, with calms and feeble breezes 
 for her portion. I myself was well repaid 
 for the painful restlessness occasioned by 
 slow weather, because I gained from my 
 companion a little of that vast fund of in- 
 teresting knowledge with which he was 
 stored— knowledge a thousand times the 
 more highly to be prized, since it was not 
 of the sort that is to be gathered from 
 books, but only from the lips of those who 
 have acted a part in the world. 
 
 When, after nine days of sailing, or try- 
 ing to sail, we found ourselves still hang- 
 ing by the mainland to the north of the 
 Isle of Cyprus, we determined to disembark 
 at Satalieh, and to go on thence by land. A 
 light breeze favored our purpose, and it 
 was with great delight that we neared the 
 fragrant land, and saw our anchor go down 
 in the bay of Satalieh within two or three 
 hundred yards of the shore. 
 
 The town of Satalieh ^ i^ the chief place 
 of the pashalic in which it is situate, and 
 its citadel is the residence of the Pasha. 
 We had scarcely dropped our anchor when 
 a boat from the shore came alongside with 
 
 1 Spelled "Attalia " and sometimes "Adalia" in English books 
 and maps. 
 
 399 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXIX 
 
 officers on board. These men announced 
 that strict orders had been received for 
 maintaining a quarantine of three weeks 
 against all vessels coming from Syria, and 
 they directed, accordingly, that no one from 
 the vessel should disembark. In reply we 
 sent a message to the Pasha, setting forth 
 the rank and titles of the general, and re- 
 quiring permission to go ashore. After a 
 while the boat came again alongside, and 
 the officers, declaring that the orders re- 
 ceived from Constantinople were impera- 
 tive and unexceptional, formally enjoined 
 us, in the name of the Pasha, to abstain 
 from any attempt to land. 
 
 I had been hitherto much less impatient 
 of our slow voyage than my gallant friend; 
 but this opposition made the smooth sea 
 seem to me like a prison from which I 
 must and would break out. I had an un- 
 bounded faith in the feebleness of Asiatic 
 potentates, and I proposed that we should 
 set the Pasha at defiance. The general 
 had been worked up to a state of most 
 painful agitation by the idea of being driven 
 from the shore which smiled so pleasantly 
 before his eyes, and he adopted my sug- 
 gestion with rapture. 
 
 We determined to land. 
 
 To approach the sweet shore after a te- 
 
 400 
 
Chapter XXIX] EOTHEN 
 
 dions voyage, and then to be suddenly and 
 unexpectedly prohibited from landing, this 
 is so maddening to the temper that no one 
 who had ever experienced the trial would 
 say that even the most violent impatience 
 of such restraint is wholly inexcusable. 
 I am not going to pretend, however, 
 that the course we chose to adopt on the 
 occasion can be perfectly justified. The 
 impropriety of a traveler's setting at 
 naught the regulations of a foreign state 
 is clear enough, and the bad taste of com- 
 passing such a purpose by mere gasconad- 
 ing is still more glaringly plain. I knew 
 perfectly well that if the Pasha under- 
 stood his duty, and had energy enough to 
 perform it, he would order out a file of 
 soldiers the moment we landed, and cause 
 us both to be shot upon the beach, with- 
 out allowing more contact than might be 
 absolutely necessary for the purpose of 
 making us stand fire; but I also firmly be- 
 lieved that the Pasha would not see the 
 befitting line of conduct nearly so well as 
 I did, and that even if he did know his 
 duty, he would hardly succeed in finding 
 resolution enough to perform it. 
 
 We ordered the boat to be got in readi- 
 ness, and the officers on shore, seeing these 
 preparations, gathered together a number 
 
 26 401 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXIX 
 
 of guards. These assembled upon the 
 sands; we saw that great excitement pre- 
 vailed, and that messengers were continu- 
 ally going to and fro between the shore 
 and the citadel. 
 
 Our captain, out of compliment to his 
 Excellency, had provided the vessel with a 
 Russian war flag, and during our voyage he 
 had been in the habit of hoisting it alter- 
 nately with the Union Jack. We agreed 
 that we would attempt our disembarka- 
 tion under this the Russian standard. I 
 was glad to have it so resolved, for I 
 should have been sorry to engage the 
 honored flag of England in an affair like 
 this. The Russian ensign was therefore 
 committed to one of the sailors, and the 
 man honored with this charge took his 
 station at the stern of the boat. We gave 
 particular instructions to the captain of 
 the brigantine, and when all was ready, 
 the general and I, with our respective 
 servants, got into the boat, and were 
 slowly rowed towards the shore. The 
 guards gathered together at the point for 
 which we were making, but when they 
 saw that our boat went on without alter- 
 ing her course, they ceased to stand very 
 stilL None of them ran away, or even 
 shrank back, but they looked as if the 
 
 ;^, 402 
 
Chapter XXIX] EOTHEN 
 
 pack were being shvffled, every man seem- 
 ing desirous to change places with his 
 neighbor. They were still at their post, 
 however, when our oars went in and the 
 bow of our boat ran up— well up upon the 
 beach. 
 
 The general was lame by an honorable 
 wound received at Borodino, and could not, 
 without some help, get out of the boat; I, 
 therefore, landed the first. My instructions 
 to the captain were attended to with the 
 most perfect accuracy, for scarcely had my 
 foot indented the sand when the four six- 
 pounders of the brigantine quite gravely 
 rolled out their brute thunder. Precisely 
 as I had expected, the guards, and all the 
 people who had gathered about them, gave 
 way under the shock produced by the mere 
 sound of guns, and "we were all allowed to 
 disembark without the least molestation. 
 
 We immediately formed a little column, 
 or rather, as I should have called it, a pro- 
 cession, for we had no fighting aptitude in 
 us, and were only trying, as it were, how far 
 we could go in frightening full-grown chil- 
 dren. First marched the sailor with the 
 Russian flag of war bravely flying in the 
 breeze; then came the general and I; then 
 our servants; and lastly, if I rightly recol- 
 lect, two more of the brigantine's crew. Our 
 
 403 
 
EOTHEN [Chapter XXIX 
 
 flag-bearer so exulted in his honorable office, 
 and bore the colors aloft with so much of 
 pomp and dignity, that I found it exceed- 
 ingly hard to keep a grave countenance. 
 We advanced towards the castle, but the 
 people had now had time to recover from 
 the effect of the six-pounders (only, of 
 course, loaded with powder), and they could 
 not help seeing, not only the numerical 
 weakness of our party, but the very slight 
 amount of wealth and resource which it 
 seemed to imply. They began to hang round 
 us more closely; and just as this reaction 
 was beginning, the general (he was per- 
 fectly unacquainted with the Asiatic char- 
 acter) thoughtlessly turned round in order 
 to speak to one of the servants. The effect 
 of this slight move was magical: the people 
 thought we were going to give way, and 
 instantly closed round us. In two words, 
 and with one touch, I showed my comrade 
 the danger he was running, and in the next 
 instant we were both advancing more pom- 
 pously than ever. Some minutes after- 
 wards there was a second appearance of 
 reaction, followed again by wavering and 
 indecision on the part of the Pasha's peo- 
 ple; but at length it seemed to be under- 
 stood that we should go unmolested into 
 the audience-hall. 
 
 404 
 
Chapter XXIX ] EOTHEN 
 
 Constant communication had been going 
 on between the receding crowd and the 
 Pasha, and so, when we reached the gates 
 of the citadel, we saw that preparations 
 were made for giving us an awe-striking 
 reception. Parting at once from the sailors 
 and our servants, the general and I were 
 conducted into the audience-hall; and there, 
 at least, I suppose the Pasha hoped that he 
 would confound us by his greatness. The 
 hall was nothing more than a large white- 
 washed room. Oriental potentates have a 
 pride in that sort of simplicity when they 
 can contrast it with the exhibition of power; 
 and this the Pasha was able to do, for the 
 lower end of the hall was filled with his offi- 
 cers. These men (in number, as I thought, 
 about fifty or sixty) were all handsomely, 
 though plainly, dressed in the military 
 frock-coats of Europe; they stood in mass, 
 and so as to present a hollow, semicircular 
 front towards the end of the hall at which 
 the Pasha sat. They opened a narrow lane 
 for us when we entered, and as soon as we 
 had passed they again closed up their 
 ranks. An attempt was made to induce 
 us to remain at a respectful distance from 
 his Mightiness. To have yielded in this 
 point would have been fatal to our suc- 
 cess—perhaps to our lives; but the general 
 
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EOTHEN [Chapter XXIX 
 
 and I had already determined upon the 
 place which we should take, and we rudely- 
 pushed on towards the upper end of the 
 hall. 
 
 Upon the divan, and close up against the 
 right-hand corner of the room, there sat 
 the Pasha— his limbs gathered in, the whole 
 creature coiled up like an adder. His 
 cheeks were -deadly pale, and his lips per- 
 haps had turned white, for without moving 
 a muscle the man impressed me with an 
 immense idea of the wrath within him. He 
 kept his eyes inexorably fixed as if upon 
 vacancy, and with the look of a man ac- 
 customed to refuse the prayers of those 
 who sue for life. We soon discomposed 
 him, however, from this studied fixity of 
 feature, for we marched straight up to the 
 divan, and sat down, the Russian close to 
 the Pasha, and I by the side of the Russian. 
 This act astonished the attendants, and 
 plainly disconcerted the Pasha; he could no 
 longer maintain the glassy stillness of his 
 eyes, and evidently became much agitated. 
 At the feet of the satrap there stood a 
 trembling Italian; this man was a sort of 
 medico in the potentate's service, and now, 
 in the absence of our attendants, he was to 
 act as an interpreter. The Pasha caused 
 him to tell us that we had openly defied his 
 
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Chapter XXIX ] EOTHEN 
 
 authority, and had forced our way on shore 
 in the teeth of his officers. 
 
 Up to this time I had been the planner of 
 the enterprise, but now that the moment 
 had come when all would depend upon able 
 and earnest speechifying, I felt at once the 
 immense superiority of my gallant friend, 
 and gladly left to him the whole conduct of 
 this discussion. Indeed, he had vast advan- 
 tages over me, not only by his superior com- 
 mand of language, and his far more spirited 
 style of address, but also in his conscious- 
 ness of a good cause; for, whilst I felt my- 
 self completely in the wrong, his Excellency 
 had really worked himself up to believe that 
 the Pasha's refusal to permit our landing 
 was a gross outrage and insult. Therefore, 
 without deigning to defend our conduct, he 
 at once commenced a spirited attack upon 
 the Pasha. The poor Italian doctor trans- 
 lated one or two sentences to the Pasha, 
 but he evidently mitigated their import. 
 The Russian, growing warm, insisted upon 
 his attack with redoubled energy and spirit; 
 but the medico, instead of translating, began 
 to shake violently with terror, and at last 
 he came out with his non ardiseo, and 
 fairly confessed that he dared not interpret 
 fierce words to his master. 
 
 Now, then, at a time when everything 
 
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EOTHEN [Chapter XXIX 
 
 seemed to depend upon the effect of speech, 
 we were left without an interpreter. 
 
 But this very circumstance, though at 
 first it appeared so unfavorable, turned out 
 to be advantageous. The general, finding 
 that he could not have his words trans- 
 lated, ceased to speak in Italian, and re- 
 curred to his accustomed French; he became 
 eloquent. No one present, except myself, 
 understood one syllable of what he was say- 
 ing; but he had drawn forth his passport, 
 and the energy and violence with which, as 
 he spoke, he pointed to the graven Eagle of 
 all the Russias, began to make an impres- 
 sion. The Pasha saw at his side a man, not 
 only free from every the least pang of fear, 
 but raging, as it seemed, with just indigna- 
 tion, and thenceforward he plainly began to 
 think that, in some way or other (he could 
 not tell how), he must certainly have been 
 in the wrong. In a little time he was so 
 much shaken that the Italian ventured to 
 resume his interpretation, and my comrade 
 had again the opportunity of pressing his 
 attack upon the Pasha. His argument, if I 
 rightly recollect its import, was to this 
 effect: " If the vilest Jews were to come into 
 the harbor, you would but forbid them to 
 land, and force them to perform quarantine; 
 yet this is the very course, Pasha, which 
 
 408 
 
Chapter XXIX ] EOTHEN 
 
 your rash officers dare to think of adopting 
 with us! Those mad and reckless men 
 would have actually dealt towards a Russian 
 general officer and an English gentleman as 
 if they had been wretched Israelites ! Never, 
 never will we submit to such an indignity. 
 His Imperial Majesty knows how to protect 
 his nobles from insult, and would never 
 endure that a general of his army should be 
 treated in matter of quarantine as though 
 he were a mere Eastern Jew! '' This argu- 
 ment told with great effect; the Pasha fairly 
 admitted that he felt its weight, and he now 
 only struggled to obtain such a compromise 
 as might partly save his dignity: he wanted 
 us to perform a quarantine of one day for 
 form's sake, and in order to show his people 
 that he was not utterly defied; but finding 
 that we were inexorable, he not only aban- 
 doned his attempt, but promised to supply 
 
 us with horses. 
 
 When the discussion had arrived at this 
 happy conclusion, chibouks and coffee 
 were brought, and we passed, I think, nearly 
 an hour in friendly conversation. The 
 Pasha, it now appeared, had once been a 
 prisoner of war in Russia: during his cap- 
 tivity he could not have failed to learn the 
 greatness of the Czar's power, and it was 
 this piece of knowledge perhaps which made 
 
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EOTHEN [Chapter XXIX 
 
 him more alive than an untraveled Turk 
 might have been to the force of my com- 
 rade's eloquence. 
 
 The Pasha now gave us a generous feast. 
 Our promised horses were brought without 
 much delay. I gained my loved saddle once 
 more, and when the moon got up and 
 touched the heights of Taurus, we were joy- 
 fully winding our way through the first of 
 his rugged defiles. 
 
 410