STEPHENS' TRAVELS IN GREECE, &c. R HISS DA & 3»®!1,AS1® > S! So OKistavitino pie . LONDON J U B L I S H E D BY WALKER AND CO. TORDYCE. NtVV CASTLE, AND HULL 1 I INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL 1/ IN JS GREECE, TURKEY, RUSSIA, X AND \ \r> POLAND. BY J. L. STEPHENS, AUTHOR OF "INCIDENTS OP TRAVEL IN EGYPT, ARABIA PETRffiA, AND THE HOLY LAND. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY WALKER AND CO. FORDYCE, DEAN STREET, NEWCASTLE; AND MYTON-GATE, HULL, MDCCCXL. INCIDENTS OF ETC, TRAVEL, CHAPTER L A Hurricane— An Adventure— MissiJonghi— Siege of Mis- silonghi — Byron — Marco Bozzaris — Visit to the Widow | Daughters, and Brother to Bozzaris. On t the evening of ihe — February 1835, by a bright starlight, after a short ramble among the Ionian Islands, I sailed from Zante, in a beauti- ful cutter of about forty tons, for Padras. My companions were Doctor W., an old and valued friend from 'New York, who was going to Greece merely to visit the Episcopal missionary at Athens, and a' young Scotchman, who had tra» veiled with me through Italy, and was going far- ther, like myself, he knew not exactly why. There was hardly a breath of air when we left the harbour, but a breath was enough to fill our little sail. The wind, though of the gentlest^ was fair ; and as we crawled from under the leo of the island, in a short time it became a ilns sailiug breeze. We sat on the deck till a lats ft 18 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. hour, and turned in with every prospect of being at Padras in the morning. Before daylight, however, the wind chopped about, and set in dead ahead, and when I went on deck in the morning, it was blowing a hurricane. We had passed the point of Padras ; the wind was driving down the Gulf of Corinth as if old .iEolur had determined on thwarting our purpose ; and our little cutter, dancing like a gull upon the angry waters, was driven into the harbour of Missiionghi. The town was full in sight, but at such a dis- tance, and the waves were running so high, that we could not reach it with our small boat. A long flat extends several miles into the sea mak- ing the harbour completely inaccessible except to small Greek caiques built expressly for such navigation. We remained on board all day; and the next morning, the gale stiil increasing, made signals to a fishing-boat to come off and take us ashore. In a short time she came along- side ; we bade farewell to our captain — an Italian am! c noble fellow, cradled, and, as he said, born to die on the Adriatic — and in a few minutes struck the soil of fallen buc immortal Greece. Our manner of striking it, however, was not such as to call forth any of the warm emotions struggling in the breast of a scholar, for we were literally stuck in the mud. We were yet four or five mile- from the shore, and the water was so low that the fishing-boat, with the additional weight of four men and luggage, could not swim clear. Our boatmen were two long sinewy Greeks, with the red tarbouch, embroidered jacket, sash, and large trousers, and with their Stephens' travels. 19 long poles set us through the water with prodi- gious force ; but as soon as the boat struck, they jumped out, and, putting their brawny shoulders under her sides, heaved her through into better water, and then resumed their poles. In this way they propelled her two or three miles, work- ing alternately with their poles and shoulders, until they got her into a channel, when they hoisted the sail, laid directly for the harbour, and drove upon the beach with canvas all fly- ing. During the late Greek revolution, Missilonghi was the great debarking-place of European ad- venturers ; and, probably; among all the despe- radoes who ever landed there, none were more destitute and in better condition to " go ahead " than I ; for I had all that I was worth on my back. At one of the Ionian Isles I had lost my carpet bag, containing my note-book and every article of wearing apparel except the suit in which I stood. Every condition, however, has its advantages ; mine put me above porters and custom-house officers ; and while my compani- ons were busy with these plagues of travellers, I paced with great satisfaction the shores of Greece, though I am obliged to confess that this satisfac- tion was for reasons utterly disconnected with any recollections of her ancient glories. Busi- ness before pleasure : one of our first inquiries was for a breakfast. Perhaps if we had seen a monument, or solitary column, or ruin of any kind, it would have inspired us to better things ; but there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that could recal an image of the past. Besides, we 20 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. did not expect to land at Missilonghi, and were not bound to be inspired at a place into which we were thrown by accident ; and, more than all, a drizzling rain was penetrating to our very- bones ; v/e were wet and cold, and what can men do in the way of sentiment when their teeth are chattering ? The town stands upon a flat, marshy plain, which extends several miles along the shore. The whole was a mass of new made ruins — of houses demolished and black with smoke — the token of savage desolating war. , In front and directly along the shore, was a long street of mi- serable one-story shantees, run up since the de- struction of the old town, and so near the shore that sometimes it is washed by the sea, and at the time of our landing it was wet and muddy from the rain. It was a cheerless place and re- minded me of Communipaw in bad weather. It had no connexion with the ancient jjlory of Greece, no name or place on her historic page, and no hotel where we could get a breakfast ; but o e of the officers of the customs conducted us to a shan tee filled with Bavarian soldiers drinking. There was a sort of second story, ac- cessible only by a ladder ; and one end of this was partitioned off with boards but had neither bench, table, nor any other article of housekeep- ing. We had been on and almost in the water since daylight, and exposed to a keen wind and drizzling rain, and now, at eleven o'clock, could probably have eaten several chickens apiece ; but nothing came amiss, and as we could not get chickens, v/e took eggs; which for lack of any ves- STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 21 sel to boil them in, were roasted. We placed a huge loaf of bread on the middle of the floor, and seated ourselves around it, spreading out so as to keep the eggs from rolling away, and each hew- ing off bread for himself. Fortunately, the Greeks have learned from their quondam Turk- ish masters the art of making coffee, and a cup of this eastern cordial kept our dry bread from choking us. When we came out again, the aspect of mat- ters was more cheerful ; the long street wasi swarming with Greeks, many of them armed with pistols and yataghan, but miserably poor in appearance, and in such numbers that not half of them could find the shelter of a roof at night. We were accosted by one dressed in a hat and frock-coat, and who, in occasional visits to Corfu and Trieste, had picked up some Italian and French, and suit of European clothes, and was rather looked up to by his untiavelled country- men. As a man of the world, who had received civilities abroad, he seemed to consider it incum. bent upon him to reciprocate at home, and with the tacit consent of all around, be undertook to do the honours of Missilonghi. If, as a Greek, he had any national pride about him, he was imposing upon himself a severe task ; for all that he could do was to conduct us among ruins, and, as he went along, tell us the story of the bloody siege which had reduced the place to its present woeful state. For more than, a year, under unparalleled hardships, its brave garrison resisted the combined strength of the Turkish and J^gyptian armies ; and when all 22 STEPHENS TRAVELS. hope was gone, resolved to cut their way through the enemy, or die in the attempt. Many of the aged and sick, the wounded and the women, re- fused to join in the sortie, and preferred to shut themselves up in a old mill, with the desperate purpose of resisting until they should bring around them a large number of Turks, when they would blow all up together. An old inva- lid soldier seated himself in a mine under the Bastion Bozzaris (the ruins of which we saw), the mine being charged with thirty kegs of gun- powder ; the last sacrament was administered by the bishop and priests to the whole popula- tion, and at a signal the besieged made a despe- rate sortie. One body dashed through the Turk- ish ranks, and, with many women and children, gained the mountains ; but the rest were driven back. Many of the women ran to the sea, and plunged in with their children ; husbands stab- bed their wives with their own hands to save them from the Turks, and the old soldier under the bastion set fire to the train, and the remnant of the heroic garrison buried themselves under the ruins ot Missilonghi. Among them were thirteen foreigners, of whom only one escaped. One of the most distinguish- ed was Meyer, a young Swiss, who entered as a volunteer at the beginning of the revolution, be- came attached to a beautiful Missilonghiote girl, married her, and when the final sortie was made, his wife being sick, he remained with her, and was blown up with the others. A letter written a few days before his death, and brought away STEPHENS' TRAVELS* 23 by one who escaped in the sortie, records the condition of the garrison. " A wound which I have received in my shoul- der, while I am in daily expectation of one which will be my passport to eternity, has prevented me till now from bidding you a last adieu. W e are reduced to feed upon the most disgusting animals. We are suffering horribly from hun- ger and thirst. Sickness adds much to the calami- ties which overwhelm us. Seventeen hundred and forty of our brothers are dead ; more than a hundred thousand bombs and balls, thrown by the enemy, have destroyed our bastions and our homes. We have been terribly distressed by the cold, for we have suffered great want of food. Notwithstanding so many privations, it is a great and noble spectacle to behold the ardour and devotedness of the garrison. A few days more, and these brave men will be angelic spirits, who will accuse before God the indifference of Christendom. In the name of all our brave men, among whom are Notho Bozzaris, *' * * I announce to you the resolution sworn to before Heaven, to defend foot by foot the land of Missi- Jonghi, and to bury ourselves, without listening to any capitulation, under the ruins of this city. We are drawing near our final hour. History will render us justice. I am proud to think that the blood of a Swiss, a child of William Tell, is about to mingle with that of the heroes of Greece." But Missilonghi is a subject of still greater in- terest than this, for the reader will remember it as the place where Ayron died. Almost the first 334 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. questions I asked were about the poet, and it i added to the dreary interest which the place in- spired, to listen to the manner in which the j Greeks spoke of him. It might be thought that ; here, on the spot where he breathed his last, malignity would have held her accursed tongue ; ,/ but it was not so. He had committed the fault, ; unpardonable in the eyes of political opponents, of attaching himself to one of the parties that then divided Greece ; and though he had given her ail that man could give, in his own dying words, " his time, his means, his. health, anof lastly, his rife," the Creeks spoke of him with aH the rancour and bitterness of party spirit. Even deatTf liad not won oblivion for his political of* \ fences; and I heard those who saw him die in ' her cause affirm that Byron was no friend to j Greece. His body, the reader will remember, was transported to England, and interred in the fa- mily sepulchre. The church where it lay in 6tate is a heap of ruins, and there is no stone or monument recording his death ; but, wishing to see some memorial connected with his resi- dence here, we followed our guide to the house in which he died, it was a large square build- ing of stone ; one of the walls still standing, black with smoke, the rest a confused and shape- less mass of ruins. After his death it was con- verted into an hospital and magazine ; and when the Turks entered the city, they set fire to the powder ; the sick and dying were blown into the air, and we saw the the ruins lying as they fell after the explosion. It was a melancholy spec? STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 25 tacie, but it seemed to have a sort of moral fit- ness with the life and fortunes of the poet. It was as if the same wild destiny, the same wreck of hopes and fortunes, that attended him through life, were hovering over his grave. Living and dead, his actions and his character have been the subject of obloquy and reproach, perhaps justly ; but it would have softened the heart of his bitterest enemy to see the place in which he died. It was in this hour-e that, on his last birthday, he came from his bedroom and produced to his friends the last notes of his dying muse, breath- ing: a spirit of sad foreboding and melancholy re- collections, of devotion to the noble cause in which he had embarked, and prophetic conscious- ness ol his approaching end. " My days are in the yellow leaf, The flowers and fruits of love are gone : The worm, the canker, and the grief, / Are mine alone. « * # * * If thou regret' st thy youth, why live ? The leave of honourable death Is here : up to the field, and give Away thy breath ! Seek out— less often sought than found — A soldier's grave, for thee the best; Then look around, and choose thy ground And take thy rest." Moving on beyond the range of ruined houses s though still within the line of crumbling walls, we came to a spot perhaps as interesting as any 26 STEPHENS' TKAVKLS. that Greece in her best days could show. It was the tomb of Marco Bozzaris ! No monu- mental marble emblazoned his deeds and lamp; a few round stones piled over his head, which; but for our guide, we should have passe d with- out noticing-, were all that marked his grave. I would not disturb a proper reverence for the past ; time covers with "its d m and twilight glo- ries both distant scenes and the men who acted in them ; but, to my mind, Miitiades was not more of a hero at Marathon, or LeoUidas at Thermopylae, than Marco Bozzari* at Missi- longhi. When they went out against the hosts of Persia, Athens and Sparta were great and free, and they had the prospect of glory and the praise of men, to the Greeks always dearer than life, Eut when the Suliote chief drew his sword, his country lay bleeding at the feet of a giant, and all Europe condemned the Greek revolution as foolhardy and desperate. For two months, with but a few hundred men, protected only by a ditch and slight parapet of earth, he defended the town, where his body now rests, against the whole Egyptian army. In stormy weather, liv- ing upon bad and unwholesome bread, with no covering but his cloak, he passed his days and nights in constant vigil ; in every assault his sword cut down the foremost assailant, and his voice, rising above the din of battle, struck ter- ror into the hearts of his enemy. In the strug- gle which ended with Ids life, with 2000 men he proposed to attack the whole army of Musta- pha Pacha, and called upon all who were willing to die for their country to stand forward. The STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 27 whole band advanced to a man. Unwilling to sacrifice so many brave men in a death-struggle, he chose iiOO, the sacred number of the Spartan band, his tried and trusty suliotes. At midnight he placed himself at their head, directing that not a shot should be fired till he sounded his bu- gle ; and his last command was, " If you lose sight of me, seek me in the pacha's tent." In the moment of victory he ordered the pacha to be seized, and received a ball in his loins ; his voice still rose above the din of battle, cheering hie; men until he was struck by another ball in the head, and borne dead from the field of his glory. Not far from the grave of Bozzaris was a py- ramid of skulls, of men who had fallen in the last attack upon the city, piled up near the blackened and battered wall which they bad died in defending. Jn my after wanderings I learned to look more carelessly upon these things ; and, perhaps, noticing everywhere the light estima- tion put upon human life in the East, learned to think more lightly of it myself ; but then it was melancholy to see bleaching in the sun, under the eyes of their countrymen, the unbaried bones of men who, but a little while ago, stood with swords in their hands, and animated by the noble resolution to free their country or die in the attempt. Our guide told us that they had ail been collected in that place with a view to se- pulture ; and that King Otho, as soon as he be- came of age, and took the government in his own hands, intended to erect a monument over them. In the meantime, they are at the mercy 2B Stephens' travels. of every passing traveller ; and the only remark that our guide made was a comment upon the force and unerring precision of the blow of the Turkish sabre, almost every skull .being iaid open on the side nearly down to the ear. But the most interesting part of our day at Missilonghi was to come. Returning from a ramble round the walls, we noticed a square house, which our guide told us, was the resi- dence of Constantine, the brother of Marco Boz- zaris. We were all interested in this intelli* gence, and our interest was in no small degree increased when he added, that the widow and two of the children of the Seliote chief were living with his brother. The house was sur- rounded by a high stone wall, a large gate stood most invitingly wide open, and we turned to- wards it in the hope of catching a glimpse of the inhabitants; but before we reached the gate, our interest had increased to such a point, that after consulting with our guide, we requested him to say that, if it would not be considered an intrusion, three travellers, two of them Ameri- cans, would feel honoured in being permitted to pay their respects to the widow and children of Marco Bozzaris. We were invited in, and shown into a large room on the right, where three Greeks were sit- ting cross- legged on a divan, smoking their long Turkish chibouk. Soon after, the brother en- tered, a man about fifty, of middle height, spare built, and wearing a Bavarian uniform, as hold- ing a colonel's commission in the service of King Otho. In the dress of the dashing Suiiote, he STEPHENS* TRAVELS. would have better looked the brother of Marco Bozzaris, and I might then more easily have recognised the daring warrior, who, on the field of battle, in a moment of extremity, was deem- ed, bv universal acclamation, worthy of succeed- ing the fallen hero. Now the strait military frock-coat, buttoned tight across the breast, the stock, tight pantaloons, boots, and straps, seem- ed to repress the free energies of the moun- tain warrior; and I could not but think how awkward it must be for one who had spent all his life in a dress which hardly touched him, at fifty to put on a stock, and straps to his boots. Our guide introduced us, with all apology for our intrusion. The colonel received us with great kindness, thanked us for the honour done his brother's widow, and, requesting us to be seated, ordered coffee and pipes. And here, on the very first day of our arrival in Greece, and from a source which made us proud, we had the first evidence of what after- awards met meat every step, the warm feelings existing in Greece towards America; for almost the first thing that the brother of Marco Bozza- ris said was to express his gra itude as a Greek for the services rendered his country by our own ; and after referring to the provisions sent out for his famishing countrymen, his eyes sparkled, and his cheek flushed as he told us, that when the Greek revolutionary flag first sailed into the .port of Napoii di Romania, among hundreds of vessels of all nations, an American captain was the first to recognise and salute it. 30 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. In a few moments the widow of Marco Boz- zaris entered. I have often been disappointed in my preconceived notions of personal appear- ance, but it was not so with the lady who now stood before me ; she looked the widow of a hero — as one worthy of her Grecian mothers, who gave their hair for bowstrings, their girdle for a sword belt, and, while their heartstrings were cracking, sent their young lovers their arms to fight and perish for their country. Perhaps it was she that led Marco Bozzaris into the path of immortality ; that roused him from the wild gurilla warfare in which he had passed his eaily life, and fired him with the high and holy ambi- tion of freeing his country. Of one thing I am certain : no man could look in her face without finding his wavering purposes fixed, without treading more firmly in the path of high and honourable enterprise. She was under forty, tall and stately in person, and habited in deep black, fit emblem of her widowed condition, with a white handkerchief laid flat over her head} giving the Madonna cast to her dark eyes and marble complexion. We all rose as she entered the room ; and though living secluded, and seldom seeing the face of a stranger, she received our compliments and returned them, with far less embarrassment than we both felt and exhibited. But our embarrassment, at least I speak for myself, was induced by an unexpected circum- stance. Much as I was interested in her ap- pearance, I was not insensible to the fact that ^ie was accompanied by two young and beautiful STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 31 girls, who were introduced to us as her daugh- ters. This somewhat bewildered me. While waiting for their appearance, and talking with Constautine Bozzaris, I had in some way con- ceived the idea that the daughters were mere children, and had fully made up my mind to take them both on my knee and kiss them ; but the appearance of the stately mother recalled me to the grave of Bozzaris ; and the daughters would probably have thought that I was taking liberties upon so short an acquaintance, if I had followed up my benevolent purpose in regard to them ; so that, with the long pipe in my hand, which at that time I did not know how to manage well, I cannot flatter myself that [ ex- hibited any of the benefit of continental travel. The elder was about sixteen, and even in the opinion of my friend Doctor W., a cool judge in these matters, a beautiful girl, possessing in its fullest extent, all the elements of Grecian beauty — a dark, clear complexion, dark hair, set off by a little red cap embroidered with gold thread, and a hmgblue tassel hanging down behind, and large black eves, expressing a melancholy quiet, but which might be excited to shoot forth glances of fire more terrible than her father's sword. Happily, too, for us, she talked French, having learned it from a French marquis who had served in Greece and been domesticated with them ; but young and modest, and unused to the com- pany of strangers, she felt the embarrassment common to young ladies when attempting to speak a foreign language. And we could not talk to her on common themes. Our lips were 32 STEPHENS TRAVELS. sealed, of course, upon the subject which had brought us to her home. We could not sound for her praises of her gallant father. At parting, however, I told them that the name of Marco Bozzaris was as familiar in America as that of a hero of our own revolution, and that it has been hallowed by the inspiration of an American poet; and I added that, if it would not be unaccepta- ble, on my return to my native country I would send the tribute referred to, as the evidence of the feeling existing in America towards the me- mory of Marco Bozzaris. My offer was grate- fully accepted ; and afterwards, while in the act of mounting my horse to leave Missilonghi, our guide, who had remained behind, came to me with a message from the widow and daughters reminding me of my promise. I do not see that there is any^ objection to my mentioning that I wrote to a friend, requesting him to procure Halieck's "Marco Bozzaris," and send it to my banker at Paris. My friend, thinking to enhance its value, applied to Mr. Hal leek for a copy in his own hand writing. Mr* Halleck, with his characteristic modesty, evaded the application ; and on my return home I to id him the story of my visit, and reiterated the same request. He evaded me as he had done my friend, but promised a copy of the new edi- tion of his poems, which he afterwards gave me, and which, I hope, is now in the hands of the widow and her daughters of ibe Grecian hero. I make no apology for introducing in a book the widow and daughters of Marco Bozzaris. True, I was received b) (jkm in private, with- STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 33 out any expectation, either on their part or mine, that all the particulars of the in- terview would be noted, and laid before the eyes of ail who choose to read. 1 hope it will not be considered invading the sanctity of private life ; but, at all eventw, I make no apo- logy — the widow and children of Marco Bozzaris are the property of the world. CHAPTER II. Choice of a Servant — A Tournout— An Evenh)g Chat — Scenery of the Road — Lepanto— A projected. Visit — Change of Purpose — Padras — Vostitza — Variety and Magnificence of Scenery. Barren as our prospect was on landing, our first day in Greece had been already lull of interest. Supposing that we should not hnd any thing to engage us long, before setting out on our ramble we had directed our servant to procure hor; es ; and when we returned, we found all ready tor our departure. One word with regard to t th's same servant. We had taken him at Corfu, much a gainst my inclination. W e had a choice between two, one a full-blooded Greek in fustinellas, who in five minutes established himself in my g >od graces, so that nothing but the democratic principles; of submitting to the will o* the majority eou d make me give him up. He held at that tin>e a very good office in the police at Corfu, but tiie eagerness which he showed to get out or the re- 84 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. gular busine ss and go roving, warmed me to him irresistibiy. He seemed to be distracted between two opposing feelings ; one the strong bent of his natural vagabond disposition to be rambling, and the other a sort of tugging at his heart- strings, by wife and children, to keep him iu a place where he had a regular assured living, in* stead of trusting to the precarious business of guiding travellers. He had a boldness and con- fidence that won me ; and when he drew on the sand with his yataghan a map of Greece, and told us the route he would take us, zig-zag across the Gulf of Corinth to Delphi and the top of Parnassus, I wondered that my companions could resist him. Our alternative was an Italian from somewhere on the coast of the Adriatic, whom I looked upon with an unfavourable eye, because he came between me and my Greek ; and on the morning of our departure, I was earnestly hoping that he had overslept himself, or got into some scrape and been picked up by the guard ; but, most provokingly, he came in time, and with more baggage than all of us had together, in- deed, he had so much of his own, that in obedi- ence to nature's first law, he could not attend to ours, and in putting ashore some British soldiers at Cephlaonia, he contrived to let my carpet- i ag go with their luggage. This did not increase my amiable feeling towards him, and, perhaps, as- sisted in making ine look upon him throughout with a jaundiced eye ; in fact, before we had done wish him, I regarded him as a slouch, a knave, and ;i fool, ax\d had the questionable sa* STEPHENS TRAVELS. 35 tisfaction of finding that my companions, though they sustained him as long as they could, had formed very much the same opinion. It was to him, then, that on our return from our visit to the widow and daughters of Marco Bozzaris, we were indebted for a turnout that seemed to astonish even the people of Missilong- hi. The horses were miserable little animals, hidden under enormous saddles made of great clumps ot wood over an old carpet or towcloth, and covering the whole from the shoulders to the tail ; the luggage was perched on the tops of these saddles, and with desperate exertions, and the help of the citizens of Missiionghi, we were perched on the top of the luggage. The little animals had a knowing look as they peered from under the superincumbent mass ; and supported on either side by the by-standers till we got a little steady in our seats, we put forth from Mis- siionghi. The only gentleman of otir party was our servant, who followed on a European t addle which he had brought for his own use, smoking his pipe with great complacency, perfectly satis- fied with our appearance and with himself. It was four o'clock when we passed the broken walls of Missiionghi. For three hours our road lay over a plain extending to the sea. I have no doubt, if my Greek had been there, he would have given an interest to the road by referring to scenes and incidents connected with the siege of Missiionghi; but Demetrius — as he now chose to call himself — knew nothing of Greece, ancient or modern ; he had no sympathy of feeling with the Greeks had never travelled on this side of 56 STEPHENS 5 TRAVELS, the Gulf of Corinth $ and so he lagged behind and smoked his pipe. It was nearly dark when we reached the miser- able little village of Bokara. We had barely light enough to look around for the best khan in which to pass the night. Any of the wretched tenants would have been glad to receive us for the little remuneration we might leave with them ia the morning. The khans were all alike, one room, mud floor and walls, and we selected one where the chickens had already gone to roost, and prepared to measure off the dirt floor accord- ing to our dimensions. Before we were arranged, a Greek of a better class, followed by half a dozeii villagers, came over, and with many re- grets of the wretched state of the country, invited us to his house. Though dressed in the Greek costume, it was evident that he had acquired his manners in a school beyond the bounds of his miserable little village, in which his house now rose like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, higher than every thing else, but rather ricketty. In a few minutes we heard the death notes of some chickens, and at about nine o'clock sat down to a not unwelcome meal. Several Greeks dropped in during the evening, and one, a particular friend of our host's, supped with us. Both talked French, and had that perfect ease of manner and savoir faire which I always remarked with admi- ration in all Greeks who had travelled. They talked much of their travels ; of time spent in Italy and Germany, and particularly of a long residence at Bucharest. They talked, too, of Greece — of her long and bitter servitude, her STEPHENS' TRAVELS. revolution, and her independence ; and from their enthusiasm I could not but think that they had fought and bled in her cause. I certainly was not lying in wait to entrap them, but I afterwards gathered from their conversation that they had taken occasion to be on their travels at the time when the bravest of their countrymen were pour- ing out their blood like water to emancipate their native land. A few years before I might have felt indignation and contempt for men who had left their country in her hour of utmost need, and returned to enjoy the privileges purchased with other men's blood ; but I had already learn- ed to take the world as I found it. and listened quietly while our host told us, that confiding in the permanency of the government secured by the three great powers, England, France, and Russia, he had returned to Greece and taken a lease of a large tract of land for fifty years, paying a thousand drachms, a drachm being one sixth of a dollar, and one-tenth of the annual fruits, at the end of which time one-half of the land under cultivation was to belong to his heirs in fee. As our host could not conveniently accommo- date us all, M. and Demetrius returned to the khan at which we had first stopped, and where to judge from the early hour at which time they came over to us the next morning, they had not Spent the night as well as we did. At daylight we took our coffee, and again perched our lug- gage on the backs of the horses, and ourselves on the top of the luggage. Our host wished us to remain with him, and promised the next day to 38 Stephens' travels. accompany us to Padras ; but this was not a sufficient inducement, and taking leave of him, pi\ !y lor ever, we started for Lepanto. W e rode about an hour on the plain ; the mountain towered on our left, and the rich soil was broken into rough sandy .gulleys running dc ra to the sea. Our guides had some appre- hensions that we should not be able to cross the torrents that were running down from the moun- tain ; and when we came to the first, and had to walk up along the bank, looking out for a place to ford, we fully participated in their apprehen- sions* Bridges were a species of architecture entirely unknown in that part of modern Greece ; indeed, no bridges could have stood against the mountain torrents. There would have been some excitement in encountering these rapid r .. «ns if we had been well mounted ; but from the manner in which we were hitched on our horses, we did not feel any great confidence in our seats. Still nothing could be wilder or more picturesque than our process in crossing them, except that it might have added somewhat to the effect to see one of us floating down the stream, clinging to the tail of his horse. But we got over or through them all. A range of mountains then formed on our right, cutting us off from the sea, and we entered a valley lying between the two parallel ranges. At first the road, which was exceedingly difficult for a man or a sure- footed horse, lay along a beautiful stream, and the whole of the valley extending to the Gulf of Lepanto is one of the loveliest regions of country I ever saw. The ground was rich and verdant, STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 80 and, even at that early season of the year, bloom- ing with wild flowers of every hue, but wholly uncultivated, the olive-trees having all been cut down by the Turks, and without a single habita- tion on the whole route. My Scotch companion, who had a good eye for the picturesque and beau- tiful in natural scenery, was in raptures with this valley. I have since travelled in Switzerland, not, however, in all the districts frequented by tourists ; but in what I saw, beautiful as it is, I do nut know a place- where the wilderness of mountain scenery is so delightfully contrasted with the softness of a rich valley. At the end of the valley, directly opposite Pa- dras, and on the borders of the gulf, is a wild road called Scala Cativa, running along the sides of a rocky mountainous precipice overlooking the sea. It is a wild and almost fearful road ; in some places I thought it like the perpendicular sides of the Palisades ; and when the wind blows in a particular direction, it is impossible to make headway against it. Our host told us that we should find difficulty that day, and there was just rudeness enough to make us look well to our movements. Directly at our feet was the Gulf of Corinth ; opposite a range of mountains ; and in the distance the Island of Zante. On the other side of the valley is an extraordinary moun- tain, very high, and wanting a large piece in the middle, as if cut out with a chisel, leaving two straight parallel sides, and called by the unpoet- ical name of the Arm-Chair. In the wildest part of the Scala, where a very light struggle would have precipitated us several hundred feet 40 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. into the sea, an enormous shepherd's dog came bounding and barking towards us ; and we were much relieved when his master, who was hang- in? with his flock of goats on an almost inacces- sible height, called him away. At the foot of the mountain we entered a rich plain, where the shepherds were pasturing their flocks down to the shore of the sea, and in about two hours ar- rived at Lepanto. After diligent search by Demetrius (the name by which we had taken him, whose true name, however, we found to be Jerolamon,) and by all the idiers whom the arrival of strangers attract- ed, we procured a room near the farthest wall ; i* was reached by ascending a flight of steps out- side, and boasted a floor, walls, and an apology for a roof. We piled up our baggage in one corner, or rather my companions did theirs, and went prowling about in search of something to eat. Onr servant had not fully apprised us of the extreme poverty of the country, the entire absence of all accommodations for travellers, and the absolute necessity of carrying with us every thing requisite for comfort. He was a man of few words and probably thought that, as between servant and master, example was better than precept, and that the abundant provisions he had made for himself might serve as a lesson for us ; but, in our case, the objection to this mode of teaching was, that it came too late to be profita- ble. At the foot of the hill fronting the sea was an open place, in one side of which was a little eafteria, where all the good-for-nothing loungers of Lepanto were assembled. We bought a loaf STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 41 of bread and some eggs, and, with a cup of Turk- ish coffee, made our evening meal. We had an hour before dark, and strolled along the shore* Though in a ruinous condition, Le- panto is in itself interesting, as giving an exact idea of an ancient Greek city, being situated in a commanding position on the side of a mountain running down to the sea, with its citadel on the top, and enclosed by walls and turrets. The port is shut within the walls, which run into the sea, and are erected on the foundations of the ancient Naupaeiiu«. At a distance was the pro- montory of Aclium, where Cleopatra, with her fifty ships, abandoned Antony, and left to Au- gustus the empire of the world ; and directly be- fore us, its surface dotted with a few straggling Greek caiques, was the scene of a battle which has runs; throughout the world, the great battle of the Cross against the Crescent, where the allied forces of Spain, Venice, and the Pope, amounting to nearly three hundred sail, under the command of Don John of Austria, humbled for ever the naval pride of the Turks. One hun- dred and thirty Turkish galleys were taken, and tifty five sunk; thirty-thousand Turks were kill- ed, ten thousand taken prisoners, fifteen thou- sand Christian slaves delivered ; and Pope Pius VI., with holy fervour, exclaimed, " There was a man sent from God, and his name was John." Cervantes lost his left hand in this battle ; and it fs to the wounds he received here that he makes a touching allusion when reproached by a rival. " What I cannot help feeling deeply is, that I am stigmatised with being old and maimed^ as 42 STEPHENS* TRAVELS though it belonged to me to stay the course of time ; or as though my wounds had been received in some tavern broil, instead of the most lofty occasion which past ages have yet seen, or which shall ever be seen by those to come. The scars which the soldier wears on his person, instead of badges of infamy, are stars to guide the daring in the path of glory. As for mine, though they may not shine in the eyes of the envious, they are at least esteemed by those who know where they were received 5 and even were it not yet too late to chose, I wo aid rather remain as I am, maimed and mutilated, than be now whole of my wounds, without having taken part in so glori- ous achievement." I shall, perhaps, be reproached for mingling with the immortal names of Don John of Austria and Cervantes, those of George Wilson, of Pro- vidence, Rhode Island, and James Williams, a black of Baltimore, cook on board Lord Codh- rane's flagship in the great batile between the Greek and Turkish fleets. George Wilson was a gunner on board one of the Greek ships, and conducted himself with so much gallantry, that Lord Cochrane, at a dinner in commemoration of the event, publicly drank his health. In the same battle, James Williams, who had lost a finger in the United States' service under Deca- tur at Algiers, and had conducted himself with great coolness and intrepidity in several engage- ments, when no Greek could be found to take the helm, volunteered his services, and was struck down by a splinter, which broke his legs and arms. The historian will probably never STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 13 mention these gallant fellows in his quarto vol- umes : but I hope the American traveller, as he stands at sunset by the shore of the Gulf of Le- panto, and recalls to mind the great achieve- ments of Don John and Cervantes, will not for- get George Wilson and James Williams* At evening we returned to our room, built a fire in the middle, and, with as much dignity as we could muster, sitting on the floor, received a number of Greek visitors. When they left us, we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and lay down to sleep. Sleep, however, is not always won when wooed. Sometimes it takes the perverse humour of the wild Irish boy : " The more you call me, the more I won't come." Our room had no chimnev : and though, as I lay all night look- ing up at the roof, there appeared to be aper- tures enough to let out the smoke, it seemed to have a loving feeling towards us in our lowly po- sition, and clung to us so closely that we were obliged to let the fire go out and lie shivering till morning. Every schoolboy knows how hard it is to write poetry, but few know the physical difficulties of climbing the poetical mountain itself. We had made arrangements to sleep tbe next night at Castri, by the side of the sacred oracle of Delphi, a mile up Parnassus. Our servant wanted to cross over and go up on the other side of the gulf and entertained us with several stories of robber- ies committed on this road, to which we paid no attention. The Greeks who visited us in the evening related, with much detail, a story of a celebrated captain of brigands having lately re- STEPHENS* TRAVELS. turned to his haunt on Parnassus, and attacked nine Greek merchants, of whom he killed three ; the recital of which interesting incident we as- cribed to Demetrius, and disregarded. Early in the morning we mounted our horses and started for Parnassus. At the gate of the town we were informed that it was necessary, before leaving, to have a passport from the epar- chos, and I returned to procure it. The epar- chos was a man about forty five, tall and stout, with a clear olive complexion and a sharp black eye, dressed in a rich Greek costume, and, for- tunately, able to speak French. He was sitting cross-legged on a divan, smoking his pipe, and looking out upon the sea; and when I told him my business, he laid down his pipe, repeated the story of the robbery and muider that we had heard the night before, and added, that we must abandon the idea of travelling that road. He said, further, that the country was in a distract- ed state ; that poverty was driving men to despe* ration ; and that, though they had driven out the Turks, the Greeks were not masters of their own country. Hearing that I was an American, and as if in want of a bosom in which to unbur- den himself, and as one assured of sympathy, he told me the whole story of their long and bloody struggle for independence, and the causes that now made the friends of Greece tremble f r her future destiny. I knew that the seat of the muses bore a rather suspicious character, and, in /act, that the rocks and caves about Parnassus Sfere celebrated ns the abodes of robbers, but I was unwilling to be driven from our purpose of STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 45 ascending it. I went to the military command- ant, a Bavarian officer, and told him what I had just heard from the eparchos. He said frankly that he did not know much of the state of the country, as he had but lately arrived in it ; but with the true Bavarian spirit, advised me as a general rule, not to believe anything a Greek should tell me, I returned to the gate, and made my double report to my companions. Dr. W. returned with me to the eparchos, where the latter repeated, with great earnestness, all he had told me ; and when I persisted in combating his objections, shrugged his shoulders in a man- ner that seemed to say, u your blood be on your own heads ;" that he had done his duty, and washed his hands of the consequences. As we were going out, he called me back, and, recurring to our previous conversation, said that he had spoken to me as an American more freely than he would have done to a stranger, and begged that, as I was going to Athens, I would not re- peat his words where they would do him injury. 1 would not mention the circumstance now, but that the political clouds which then hung over the horizon of Greece have passed away ; King Otho has taken bis seat on the throne, and my friend has probably long since been driven or re* tired from public life. I was at that time a stranger to the internal politics of Greece, but i afterwards found that the eparchos was one of a then powerful body of Greeks opposed to the Bavarian influence, and interested in represent- ing the state of the country more unsettled than it really was. 1 took leave of him, however, an 46 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. one who had intended me a kindness, and, re- turning to the gate, found our companion sitting on his horse, waiting the result of our further in- quiries. Both he and my fellow-envoy were comparatively indifferent upon the subject, while I was rather bent on drinking from the Castalian fount, and sleeping on the top of Parnassus. Besides, I was in a beautiful condition to be rob- bed. I had nothing but what I had on my back, and I felt sure that a Greek mountain robber would scorn my stiff coat, pantaloons, and black hat. My companions, however, were not so well situated, particularly M., who had drawn money at Corfu, and had no idea of trusting it to the ten- der mercies of a Greek bandit, lu the teeth of the advice we had received, it would, perhaps, have been foolhardy to proceed ; and, to my great subsequent regret, for the first and last time in my ramblmgs, I was turned aside from my path by fear of perils on the road. Perhaps, alter ail, 1 had a lucky escape; for, if the Greek tradition be true, whoever sleeps on the moun- tain becomes an inspired poet or a uiadman, ei- ther of which, for a professional man, is a catas- trophe to be avoided. Our change of plan suited Demetrius exactly ; he had never travelled on this side of the Gulf of Corinth ; and besides that he considered it a great triumph that his stories of robbers were confirmed by others, showing his superior know- Jedge of the state of the country, he was glad to get on a road which he had travelled before, and on which he had a chance of meeting some of his old travelling acquaintance. Jn half an hour he Stephens' travels. 47 had us on board a caique. We put out from the harbour of Lepanto with a strong and favourable wind ; our little boat danced lightly over the wa- ters of the Gulf of Corinth ; and in three hours, passing between the frowning castles of Romelia and Morea, under the shadow of the walls of which we buried the bodies of the Christians who fell in the great naval battle, we arrived at Padras. The first thing we recognised was the beauti- ful iittle cutter which we had left at Missilonghi, riding gracefully at anchor in the harbour, and the first man we spoke to on landing was our old friend the captain. We exchanged a cordial greeting, and he conducted us to Mr. Robertson, the British vice-consul, who, at the moment of our entering, was in the act of directing a letter to me at Athens. The subject was my interest- ing carpet-bag. There being no American con- sul at Padras, I had taken the liberty of writing to Mr. Robertson, requesting him, if my estate should find its way into his hands, to forward it to me at Athens, and the letter was to assure me of his attention to my wishes, it may be con- sidered treason against classical taste, but it con- soled me somewhat for the loss of Parnassus to find a stranger taking so warm an interest in my fugitive habiliment. There was something, too, in the appearance of Padras, that addressed itself to other feelings than those connected with the indulgence of a classical humour. Our bones w r ere still aching with the last night's rest, or rather the want of it, at Lepanto; and when we found ourselves in 43 STEPHENS' TRAVELS*. a neat little locanda, and a complaisant Greek asked us what we would have for dinner, and showed us our beds for the night, we almost agreed that climbing Parnassus and such things were fit only for boys just out of college. Padras is beautifully situated at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, and the windows of our locanda commanded a fine view of the bold mountains on the opposite side of the gulf, and the parallel range forming the valley which leads to Missilonghi. It stands on the site of the an- cient Petra, enumerated by Herodotus among the twelve cities of Achaia. During the inter- vals of the peace in the Peloponnesian war, Alcibiades, about four hundred and fifty years before Christ, persuaded its inhabitants to build long walls down to the sea. Philip, of Macedon frequently landed there in his expedition to Pe- loponnesus. Augustus Caesar, after the battle of Actium, made it a Roman colony, and sent thither a large body of his veteran soldiers ; and in the time of Cicero, Roman merchants were settled there, just as French and Italians are now. The modern town has grown up since the revolution, or rather since the accession of Otbo, and bears no mark of the desolation at Missi- longhi and Lepanto. It contains a long street of shops well supplied with European goods jj the English steamers from Corfu to Malta touch here; and besides the little Greek caiques trad- ing in the Gulf of Corinth, vessels from all parts of the Adriatic are constantly in this har- bour. Among Others, tbt»re was an Austrian man -of- STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 49 war from Trieste, on her way to Alexandria. By a singular fortune, the commandant had been in one of the Austrian vessels that carried to New York the unfortunate Poles ; the only Aus- trian man-of-war which had oyer been in the United States. A day or two after their arrival at New York, I had taken a boat at the battery, and gone on board this vessel, and had met the officers at some parties given to them at which he had been present ; and though we had no ac- tual acquaintance with each other, these circum^ stances were enough to form an immediate link between us, particularly as he was enthusiastic in his praises of the hospitality of our citizens, and the beauty of our women. Lest, however, any of the latter should be vainglorious at hear- ing that their praises were sounded so far from home, I consider it my duty to say that the commandant was almost blind, very slovenly, always smoking a pipe, and generally a little tipsy. Early in the morning we started for Athens. Our turn out was rather better than at Missi- longhi, but not much. The day, however, was fiue ; the cold wind, for several days, had been blowing down the Gulf of Corinth, had ceased, and the air was wane, and balmy, and invigor- ating. We had already found that Greece had something to attract the stranger besides the re- collections of her ancient giories, and often for- got that the ground we were travelling was con- secrated by historians and poets, in admiration of its own wild and picturesque beauty. Our road for about three hours lay across a plain, D 60 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. and then close along the gulf, sometimes wind- ing by the foot of a wild precipitous mountain, and then again over a plain, with mountains rising at some distance on our right. Some- times we crossed their rugged summits, and descended to the sea-shore. On our left wo had constantly the gulf, bordered on the side by a range of mountains sometimes receding and then rising almost out of the water, while high above the rest rose the towering summits of Par- nassus covered with snow. It was after dark when we arrived at Yostitza, beautifully situated on the banks of the Quit at Corinth. This is the representative of the an- cient iEgium, one of the most celebrated cities in Greece, mentioned by Homer as having suppli- ed vessels for the Trojan war. and in the second century c mtaining sixteen sacred edifices, a theatre, a portico, and an agora. For many r ges it was the seat of the Achaian Congress. Probably the worthy delegates who met here to deliberate upon the affairs of Greece, had better accommodations than we obtained, or they would be likely, I should imagine, to hold but short sessions. We stopped at a vile locanda, the only one in the place, where we found a crowd of men in a sin al l room, gathered around a dirty fable, eating, one of whom sprang up and claimed me as an bid acquaintance. He had on a Greek capote and a iarge foraging cap slouched over his eyes, so that I had some difficulty in recognising him as an Italian, who, at Padras, had tried to per- suade me to go by water up to the head of the STEPHENS TRAVELS. 61 gulf. He had started that morning, about the same time we did, with a crowd of passengers, half of whom were already by the ear3. Fortu- nately they were obliged to return to their boats, and left ail the house to us; which, however, contained little besides a strapping Greek, who called himself its proprietor. Before daylight we were again in the saddle. During the whole day's ride the scenery was magnificent. Sometimes we were hemmed in, as if for ever enclosed, in an amphitheatre of wild and gigantic rocks ; then from some lofty summit we looked out upon lesser mountains, broken and torn, and thrown into every wild and picturesque form, as if by an earth- quake ; and after riding among deep dells and craggy steeps, yawning ravines and cloud capped precipices, we descended to a quiet valley and the sea-shore. At about four o'clock we came down, for tho la^t t»me, to the shore, and before us, at some distance, espied a single khan, standing almost on the edge of the water. It was a beautiful resting-place for a traveller ; the afternoon was mild, and we walked on the shore till the sun set. The khan was sixty or seventy feet long and contained an upper room running the whole length of the building. This room was our bed- chamber. We built a fire at one end, made tea, and roasted some eggs, the smoke ascending and curling around the rafters, and finally passing out of the openings in the roof; we stretched in our cloaks, and, with the murmur of the 62 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. waves in our ears, looked through the apertures in the roof upon the stars, and fell asleep. About the middle of the night the door opened with a rude noise, an ehreee. This wall was at one time fortified with 150 towers ; it was oh en destroyed and as often rebuilt ; and in one place, about three miles from Corinth, vestiges of it may still he seen. Here were celebrated those isthmian games so familiar to every tyro in Grecian literature and history ; towards Mount Oneus stands on an eminence an ancient mound, supposed to be the. tomb of Me- licertes, their founder, and near it to this day a grove of the sacred pine, with garlands of the leaves of which the victors were crowned. Jh about three hours from Corinth we crossed STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 61 the isthmns, and came to the Village of Kalama- ki on the shore of the Saronre Gulf, containing a few miserable buildings, fit only for the miserable people who occupied them. Directly on the shore was a large coffee-house, enclosed by mud walls, and having branches of trees for a roof; and in front was a little flotilla of Greek caiques. Next to the Greek's love for his native moun- tains, is his passion for the waters that roll at their feet ; and many cf the proprietors of the rakish little boats in the harbour talked to us of the superior advantage of the sea over a moun- tainous road, and tried to make us abandon our horses and go by water to Athens ; but we clung to the land, and we have reason to congratulate ourselves upon having done so, for our road was one of the most beautiful it was ever my fortune to travel over. For some distance 1 walked along the shore, on the edge of a plain running from the foot of Mount Geranion. The plain was intersected by mountain torrents, the chan- nel-beds of which were at that time dry. We passed the little village of Caridi, supposed to be the Sidus of antiquity, while a ruined church and a few old blocks of marble mark the site of ancient Crommyon, celebrated as the haunt of a wild boar destroyed by Theseus. At the other end of the plain we came to the foot of Mount Geranion, stretching out boldly to the edge of the gulf, and followed the road along its southern side, close to and sometimes over- hanging the sea. From time immemorial this has been called the Kaka Scala, or bad way. It is narrow, steep, and rugged, and wild to subli- 02 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. mity. Sometimes we were completely hemmed in by impending mountains, and then rose upon a lofty eminence commanding an almost boundless view. On the summit of the range the road runs directly along the mountain's brink, over- hanging the sea, and so narrow that two horse- men can scarcely pass abreast ; where a stumble would plunge the traveller several hundred yards in-o the waters beneath. Indeed, the horse of one of my companions stumbled and fell, and put him in such peril that both dismounted and ac- companied me on foot. In the olden time this wild and rugged road was famous for the haunt of the robber Sciron, who plundered the luckless travellers, and then threw them from this preci- pice. The fabulous account is, that Theseus, three thousand years before, on his first visit to Athens, encountered the famous robber, and toss- ed him from the same precipice whence he had thrown so many better men. According to Ovid, the earth and the sea refused to receive ihe bones of Sciron, which continued for some time sus- pended in the open air, until they were changed into large rocks, whose points slid appear at the f- ot of the prec : pice ; and to this day, say the sailors, knock the bottoms out of the Greek ves- sels. In later days this road was so infested by corsairs and pirates, that even the Turks feared to travel on it ; at one place, that looks as though it might be intended as a jumping-off point into another world, In©, with her son Mihcertes in her arms (so say the Greek poets,) threw herself into the sea to escape the fury of her husband ; and we know that in later days St Paul travelled STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 63 on this road to preach the gospel to the Corinthi- ans. But independently of all associations, and in spite of its difficulties and dangers, if a man wera by accident placed on the lofty height without knowing where he was, he would be struck with the view which it commands as one o' the most beautiful that mortal eyes ever beheld. It was my fori une to pass over it a second time on foot, and I often seated myself on some wild point, and waited the coming up of my muleteers, look- ing out upon the sea, calm and glistening as if plated with silver, and studded with islands in Continuous clusters, stretching away into the During the greater part of the passage of the Kaka Scala, my companions walked with me ; and as we always kept in advance, when we seat- ed ourselves on some rude rock overhanging the sea to wait for our beasts and attendants, few things could be mo;e picturesque on their ap- proach. On the summit of the pass we fell into the an- cient paved way that leads from Attica into the Peloponnesus, and walked over the same pave- ment which the Greeks travelled, perhaps, three thousand years ago. A ruined wall and gate mark the ancient boundary ; and near this an early traveller observed a large block of white marble projecting over the precipice, and almost ready to fall into the sea, which bore an inscrip- tion, now illegible. Here it is supposed stood the Stele erected by Theseus, bearing on one side the inscription, 4 * Here is Peloponnesus, not Io- 64 stephk.nV tr avbls. nia;" and on the other the equally pithy notifi- cation, "Here is not Pelopennesus, but louia." It would be a pretty place of residence for a man in misfortune ; for besides the extraordinary beauty of the scenery, by a single step he might avoid the service of civil process, and set the sheriff of Attica or Peloponnesus at defiance. Descend ing, we saw before us a beautiful plain extending from the foot of the mountain to the sea, and afar off, on an eminence commanding the plain, was tiie little town of Megaxa. It is unfortunate for the reader that every ru- ined village on the road stands on the site of an ancient city. The ruined town before us was the birthplace of Euciid ; and the representative of that Megara which is distinguished in history more than two thousand years ago, w lich sent forth its armies in. the Persian and Pe oponnes^n wars; alternately the ally and enemy of Corinth and Athens ; containing numerous temples, and the largest public houses in Greece ; and Though exposed, with her other cities, to the violence of a tierce democracy, as is recorded by the histori- an, 4 * The Megareans maintained their independ- ence and lived in peace." As a high compliment tiie people effered to Alexander the Great the freedom of their city. When we approached it, its appearance was a speaking comment upon hu- man pride. It had been demolished and burned by Greeks and Turks, and now presented little more than a mass of blackened ruins. A few apartments had been cleared out and patched up, and occasion- STEPHENS 5 TRAVEIS. 65 ally I saw a solitary figure stalking amid the de- solation. I had not mounted my horse all day; had kick- ed out a pair of Greek shoes oa my walk, and was almost barefoot when I entered the city. A little below the town was a large building enclosed by a high wall, with a Bavarian soldier lounging at the gate. We entered, and found a good coffee- room below, and a comfortable bed-chamber above where we found good quilts and mattresses, and slept like princes. Early in the morning we set out for Athens, our road for some time lying along the sea. About half way to the Pirseus, a ruined village, with a starving population, stands on the site of the an- cient Elusis, famed throughout all Greece for the celebration of the mysterious rites of Ceres. The magnificent temple of the goddess has dis- appeared, and the colossal statue made by the immortal Phidias now adorns the vestibule of the University of Cambridge. We lingered a little while in the village, and soon after entered the Via Sacra, by which, centuries ago, the priests and people moved in solemn religious processions from Athens to the great temple of Ceres. At first we passed underneath the cliff along the shore, then rose by a steep ascent among the mountains, barren and stony, and wearing an as- pect of desolation ecpai to that of the Roman Campagna ; then we passed through a long de- file, upon the side of which, deeply cut in the rock, are seen the marks of chariot wheels ; per- haps of those used in the sacred processions. We passed the ruined monastery of Daphnes, in E C3 STEPHENS' TRAVFLS. to beautifully picturesque situation, and in a few minutes saw the rich plain of Attica; and our muleteers and Demetrius., with a burst of enthu- siasm, perhaps because the journey was ended, clapped their hands and cried out, 72 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. gerness after knowledge, which distinguished the Greeks of old, retaining, under centuries of dreadful oppression, the recollection of the great- ness of their fathers, and, what was particularly interesting, many of them bearing the great names so familiar in Grecian history : I shook hands with a little Miltiades, Leonidas, Aristides, &c, in features and apparent intelligence worthy descendants of the immortal men whose names they bear. And there was one who startled me: he was the Son of the Maid of Athens ! To me the Maid of Athens was almost an imaginary being, something fanciful, a creation of the brain and not a corporal substance, to have a little ur- chin of a boy. But so it was. The Maid of Athens is married. She had a right to marry, no doubt ; and it is said that there is poetry in married life, and, doubtless, she is a much more interesting person now than the Maid of Athens at thirty-six could be ; but the Maid of Athens is married to a Scotchman ! the Maid of Athens is now Mrs Black ! wife of George Black ! head of the police ! and her son's name is * * * * * Black ! and she has other little Blacks ! Com- ment is unnecessary. But the principal and most interesting part of this missionary school was the female depart- ment, under the direction of Mrs Hill, the first, and, except at Syra, the only school for females in all Greece, and particularly interesting to me from the fact that it owed its existence to the active benevolence of my own countrywomen. At the close of the Greek revolution, femate education was entirely unknown in Greece, and step hens' travels. 73 the women of all classes were in a most deplora- ble state of ignorance. When the strong feeling that ran through our country in favour ol this stru^Hng people had subsided, and Greece was freedfrom the yoke of the Mussulman, an asso* ciation of ladies in the little town of Troy, per- haps instigated somewhat by an inherent love ot power and extended rule, and knowing the influ- ence of their sex in a cultivated state of society, formed the project of establishing at Athens a school exclusively for the education of females : and humble and unpretending as was its com- mencement, it is becoming a more powerful in- strument in the civilisation, and moral and reli- gious improvement of Greece, than ail that European diplomacy has ever done for her. The girls were distributed in different classes, accord- to their age and advancement ; they had clean faces and hands, a rare thing with Greek chil- dren, aud were neatly dressed, many of them wearing frocks made by ladies at home (probably at some of our sewing societies) ; and some of them had attained such an age, and had such fine, dark, rolling eyes, as to make even a northern temperament feel the powerful influence they would soon exercise over the rising, excitable generation of Greeks, and almost make him bless the hands that were directing that influence aright. Mr and Mrs Hill accompanied us through the whole establishment, and being Americans, we were every where looked upon and received by the girls as patrons and fathers of the school, both which I waived in favour of my friend ; the 74 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. one because he was really entitled to it, and the other because some of the girls were so well grown that I did not care to be regarded as Branding in that venerable relationship. The didaskalissas, or toachers, were of this descrip- tion, and they spoke English. Occasionally Mr Iliil called a little girl up to us, and told us her history, generally a melancholy one, as, being reduced to the extremity of want by the revolu- tion ; or an orphan, whose parents had been murdered by the Turks ; and I had a conversa- tion with a little Penelope, who, however, did not look as if she would play the faithful wife of Ulvsses, ami, if I am a jndge of physiognomy, would never endure widowhood twenty years for any man. Before we went away, the whole school roso at once, and gave us a glorious h*na;e with a Greek hymn. In a short time these gir^s will grow up into women, and return to their seve- ral families ; others will succeed them, and again go out, and evrry year hundreds will distribute themselves into the cities and among the fast- nesses of the mountains, to exercise over their fathers, and brothers, and lovers, the influence of the education acquired here ; instructed in all the arts of woman in civilised domestic life, firm- ly grounded in the principles of morality, and of religion purified from the follies, absurdities, aud abominations of the Greek faith. I have seen much of the missionary labours of the East, but I do not know on institution which promises so surely the happiest results. If the women are educated, the men cannot remain ignorant ; if STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 75 the women are enlightened in religion, the men cannot remain debased and degraded Christi- ans. The ex-secretary Ivigos was greatly affected at the appearance of this female school ; and af- ter surveying it attentively for some moments, pointed to the Parthenon on the summit of the pLcropolis, and said to Mrs Hill, with deep emo- tion, " Lady, you are erecting in A liens a mo- nument rnme endurable and more noble than yonder temple ;V and the king was so deeply im- pressed with its value, that a short time before my arrival, he proposed to Mr Hill to take into his house girls from d fferent districts, ami edu- cate them as teachers, with the view of sending them back to their districts, there to organise new schools, and carry out the great work of fe- male education. Mr Hill acceded to the propo- sal, and the American missionary school now stands as the neucleus of a large and growing system of education in Greece; and very oppor- tunely for my purpose, within a few days I nave received a letter from* Mr Hill, in which, in re- lation to the school, he says, ki Our missionary establishment is much increased since you saw it ; our labours are greatly increased, and I think I may say we have now reached the sum- mit of what, we had proposed to ourselves. We do not think it is possible that it can be extend- ed further, without much larger means and more personal aid. We do not wish or intend to ask for either. We have now nearly forty persons residing with us, of whom thirty-five are Greeks, all of whom are brought within the influence of 7 Stephens' travels. the gospel ; the greater part of them are young girls from different parts of Greece, and even from Egypt and Turkey (Greeks, however), whom we are preparing to become instructresses of youth hereafter in their various districts. We have five hundred, besides, under daily instruc- tion in the different schools under our care, and we employ under us in the schools twelve native teachers who have themselves been instructed by us. We have provided for three of our dear pupils (all of whom were living with us when you were here), who are honourably and usefully settled in life. One is married to a person every way suited to her, and both husband and wife are in our missionary service. One has charge of the government female school at the Pireeus, and supports her father and mother and a large family by her salary ; and the third has gone with our missionaries to Crete, to take charge of the female schools there. We have removed into our hew house" (of which the foundation was just laid at the time of my visit,) " and large as it is, it is not half large enough. We are try- ing to raise ways and means to enlarge it consi- derably, that we may take more boarders under our own roof, which we look up to as the most important means of making sure of our labour ; for every one who comes to reside with us is taken away from the corrupt example exhibited at home, and brought within a wholesome influ- ence. Lady Byron has just sent us £100 to- wards enlarging our house with this view, and we have commenced the erection of three addi- tional dormitories with the money. STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 77 Athens is again the capital of a kingdom. Enthusiasts see her in her present condition the promise of a restoration to her ancient great- ness ; but reason and observation assure us that the world is too much changed for her ever to be what she has been. In one respect, her con- dition resembles that of her best days ; for as lier fame then attracted strangers from every quarter of the world to study in her schools, so now the capital of King Otho has become a great gathering-place of wandering spirits from many near and distant regions. For ages diffi- cult and dangerous of access, the ancient cap- ital of the arts lay shrouded in darkness, and al- most cut off from the civilised world. At long intervals, a few solitary travellers found their way to it ; but since the revolution, it has again become a place of frequent resort and inter- course. It is true that the ancient balls of learn- ing are still solitary and deserted, but strangers from every nation now turn hither ; the scholar to roam over her classic soil, the artist to study her ancient monuments, and the adventurer to carve his way to fortune. The first day I dined at the hotel, I had an opportunity of seeing the variety of inatsr a con- gregated in the reviving city. We had a long table, capable of accommodating about twenty persons. The manner of living was a la carte, each guest dining when he pleased ; but, by tacit c nsent, at about six o'clock all assembled at the table. We presented a curious medley. No two were from the same country. Our discourse was in English, French, Italian, German, Greek, 70 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. Russian, Polish, and I know notrwhat else, as if we were the very people stricken with confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. Dinner over, all fell into French, and the conversation became general. Everyman present was, in the fullest sense of the term, a citizen of the world. It had been the fortune of each, whether good or bad, to break the little circle in which so many are born, revolve, and die; and the habit* Ual mingling with people of various nations had broken down all narrow prejudices, and given to every one freedom of mind and force of charac- ter. Ail had seen much, had much to communi- cate, and felt that they had much yet to learn. By some accident, moreover, all seemed to have become particularly interested in the East. They tiavelled over the whole range of eastern politics, and, to a certain extent, considered themselves identified with eastern interests. Most of the company were or had been soldiers, and several \ wore uniforms and stars, or decorations of some description. They spoke of the different com. paigns in Greece, in which some of them had served ; of the science of war ; of Marlborough, Eugene, . nd more modern captains; and I re- membered that they startled my feeling of class- ical reverence by talking of Leonidas at Thermo- pylae and Miltiades at Marathon, in the same tone as of Napoleon at Leipsie and Wellington at Waterloo. One of them constructed on the table, with the knives, forks, and spoons, a map of Marathon, and with a sheated ya aghan point- ed out the position of the Greeks and Persians, and showed where Miltiades, a* a general, was STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 73 wrong. They were not blinded by the dust of antiquity. They had been knocked about till all enthusiasm and all reverence for the past were shaken out of them, and they had learned to give things their right names. A French engineer sh wed us the skeleton of a map of Greece, which was then preparing under the direction of the French Geographical Society, exhibiting an excess of mountains and deficiency of plain which surprised even those who had travelled over every part of the kingdom. One had just come from Constantinople, where he had seen the sultan going to mosque : another had escaped from an attack of the plague in Egypt ; a third gave the dimensions of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbeck; and a fourth had been at Babylon, and seen the ruins of the Tower of Babci. In short, every man had seen something which the others had not seen, and all their knowledge was thrown into a common stock. I found myself at once among a new class of men ; and I turned from him who sneered at Miltiades to him who had t een the sultan, or to him who had been at Bagdad, and listened with interest, somewhat qualified by consciousness of my own inferiority. 1 was lying in wait, however, and took advantage of an opportunity to throw in something about America; and at the sound, all turned to me with an eagerness of curiosity that I had not anticipated. In Europe, and even in England, I had often found extreme ignorance of my own country ; but here I was astonished to find, among men so familiar with all parts of the Old World, suck 80 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. total lack of information about the new. A gentleman opposite me, wearing the uniform of the King of Bavaria, asked me if I had ever been in America. I told him that I was born, and, as they say in Kentucky, raised there. He begged my pardon, but doubtfully suggested, " You are not black ?" and I was obliged to ex- plain to him that in our section of America the Indian had almost entirely disappeared, and that his place was occupied by the descendants of the (iaul and the Briton, I was forthwith receiv- ed into the fraternity, for my home was farther away than any of them had ever been ; my friend opposite considered me a bijou, asked me innumerable questions, and seemed to be con- stantly watching for the breaking out of the can- nibal spirit, as if expecting to see me bite my neighbour. At first I had felt myself rather a small affair ; but, before seperating, P American, or le sauvage, or, finally le cannibal, found him- self something of a lion* CHAPTER V. Ruins of Athens— Hill of Mars— Temple ot the Winds- Lantern of Demosthenes — Arch of Adrian — Temple of Jupiter Olympus— Temple of Theseus- -The Acro- polis—The Parthenon— -Pentelican Mountain — Mount Hymettus— The Piraeus— Greek Fleas-- Napoli. The next morning I began my survey of the ruins of Athens. It was my intention to avoid any description of these localities and morm- STEPHENS* TRAVELS, 81 merits, because so many have preceded me, stored with all necessary knowledge, ripe in taste and sound in judgment, who have devoted to them all the rime and research they so richly merit; but as in our community, through the hurry and multiplicity of business occupations, few are able to bestow upon these things much time or attention, and, furthermore, as the books which treat of them are not accessible to all, I should be doing injustice to my readers if I were to omit them altogether. Besides, I should be doing violence to my own feelings, and cannot get fairly started in Athens, without recurring to scenes which I regarded at the time with extra- ordinary interest. I have since visited most of the principal cities in Europe, existing as well as ruined, and I hardly know any to which I recur with more satisfaction than Athens. If the rea- der tire in the brief reference I shall make, he must not impute it to any want of interest in the subject ; and as I am not in the habit of going into heroics, he will believe me when I say that if he have any reverence for the men or things consecrated by the respect and admiration of ages, he will find it called out at Athens. In the hope that I may be the means of inducing some of my countrymen to visit that famous city, I wi 1 add another inducement by saying that he may have, as I had, Mr Hill for a cicerone. This gentleman is familiar with every locality and monument around or in the city, and, which I afterwards found to be an unusual thing with those living in places consecrated in the minds of strangers, he retains for them all that freshness STEPHENS' TRAVELS. of feeling which we possess who only know them from books and pictures. By an arrangement made the evening before, early in the morning of my second day in Athens, Mr. Hill was at the door of my hotel to attend us. As we descended the steps, a G reek stopped him, and bowing, with his hand on his heart, ad- dressed him in a tone of earnestness which we could not understand ; but we were struck with the sonorous tones of his voice and the musical cadence of his sentences ; and when he had fin- ished, Mr. Hill told us that he had spoken in a strain which, in the original, was poetty itself, "beginning, " Americans. I am a Stagyrite. I come from the land of Aristotle, the disciple of Plato," &c. &c. ; telling him the whole story of his journey from the ancient Stagy ra and his ar- rival at Athens; and that, having understood that Mr. Hill was distributing books among his countrymen, he begged for one to take home with him. Mr. Hill said that this was an instance of every day occurrence, showing the spirit of in- quiry and thirst for knowledge among the modern Greeks. This little scene with a countryman of Aristotle was a fit prelude to our morning ram- ble. The house occupied by the American mission- ary as a school, stands on the site of the ancient j Agora or market-place, where St Paul iC disputed j daily with the Athenians. " A few columns still remain, and near them is an inscription mention- ing the price of oil. The schoolhouse is built j partly from the ruins of the Agora ; and to us it was an interesting circumstance, that a mission- STEPHENS* TRAVELS. ary from a newly-discovered world was teaching to the modern Greeks the same saving religion which, 1800 years ago, St. Paul, on the same spot, preached to their ancestors. « Windirig around the foot of the Acropolis, within the ancient and outside the modern waif, we came to the Areopagus, or Hill of Mar.*, where in the early days of Athens her judges sat in the open air ; and for many ages, decided with such wisdom and impartiality, that to this day the decision of the court of Areopagites are regarded as models of judicial purity. We as- cended this celebrated hill, and stood on the pre- cise spot where St. Paul, pointing to the temples which rose from every section of the city, and towered proudly on the Acropolis, made his ce- lebrated address : " Ye men of Athens, I see that in ail things ye are too superstitious." The ruins of the very temples to which he pointed were before our eyes. Descending, and rising towards the summit of another hill, we came to the Pnyx, where De- mosthenes, in the most stirring words that ever fell from human lips, roused his countrymen against the Macedonian invader. Above, on the very summit of the hill, is the old Pnyx, com- manding a view of the sea of Salamis, and of the hill where Xerxes sat to behold the great naval battle. During the reign of the thirty tyrants, the Pnyx was removed beneath the brow of the hill, excluding the view of the sea, that the orator ||ght not inflame the passions of the people by directing their eyes to Salamis, the scene of their naval glory. But without this, the orator had 84 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. material enough ; for when he stood on the plat- form facing the audience, he had before him the city which the Athenians loved, and the temples in which they worshiped, and I could well ima- gine the irresistible force of an appeal to these objects of their enthusiastic devotion, their fire- sides and altars. The place is admirably adapted for public speaking. The side of the hill has been worked into a gently inclined plane, semi- circular in form, and supported in some places by a wall of immense stones. This plain is bound- ed above by the brow of the hill cut down per- pendicularly. In the centre the rock projects into a platform about eight or ten feet square, which forms the Pnyx, or pulpit for the orator. The ascent is by three steps cut out of the rock, and in front is a place for the scribe or clerk. We stood on this Pnyx, beyond doubt on the same spot where Demosthenes thundered his philippics in the ears of the Athenians. On the road leading to the Museum-hill we entered a chamber excavated in the rock, which tradition hallows as the prison of Socrates ; and though the authority for this is doubtful, it is not unin- teresting to enter the damp and gloom cavern, wherein, according to the belief of the modern Athenians, the wisest of the Grteks drew his last breath. Farther to the south is the hill of Philopappus, so called after a Roman governor of that name. On the very summit, near the exu^me angle of the old wall, and one of the most conspicuous objects around Athens, is a monument erected by the lloman governor in honour of the Emperor Trajan. The marble is STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 85 covered with the names of travellers, most of whom, like Philopappus himself, would never have been heard of but for that mormmeut. Descending towards the Acropolis, and enter*- ing the city among streets encumbered with ruined houses, we came to the Temple of the Winds, a marble oetogonal tower, built by An- dronicus. On each side is a sculptured figure, clothed in drapery adapted to the wind he repre- sents ; and on the top was formerly a Triton with a rod in his hand, pointing to the figure, mark- ing the wind. The Triton is gone, and great part of the temple buried under ruins. Part of the interior, however, has been excavated, and probably, before long, the whole will be re- stor d. East of the foot of the Acropolis, and on the way to Adrian's Gate, we came to the Lantern of Demosthenes (1 eschew its new name of the Choragic monument of Lysichus), where, accord- ing to the absurd tradition, the orator shut him- self up to study the rhetorical art. Jt is consi- dered one of the most beautiful monuments of antiquity, and the capitals are most elegant spe- cimens of ihe Corinthian order refined by Attic taste. It is now in a mutilated condition, and its many repairs make its dilapidation more pre- ceptible. Whether Demosthenes ever lived here or not, it derives an interest from the fact that Lord Byron made it his residence during his visit to Athens. Farther on, and forming part of the modern wall, is the Arch of Adrian, bear- ing on one side an inscription in Greece, " This is tho city of The&eus and on the other, STEPHENS* TRAVELS w But this is the city of Adrian.'' On the arrival of Oi.ho a placard was erected, on which was inscribed, "These were the ciries of Theseus and Adrian, but now of Otho." Many of the most ancient buildings in Athens have totally disappeared. The Turks destroyed many of ihem to construct the wall around the city, and even the modern Greeks have not scrupled to build their miserable houses with the plunder of temples in which their ancestors worshipped*. Passing under the Arch of Adrian, outside the gate, on the plain towards the missus, we came to the ruined Temple of Jupiter Olympus, per- haps once the most magnificent in the world. It was built of the purest white marble, having a front of nearly 200 feet, and more than 3^0 in length, and contained 120 columns, sixteen of which are all that now remain ; and these, fluted and having rich Corinthian capitals, tower more than sixty feet above the plain, perfect as when they were reared. I visited these ruins often, particularly in the afternoon ; they are at all times mournfully beautiful, but I have seldom known any thing m re touching than, when the sun was setting, to walk over the marble floor, and look up at the lonely columns of this ruined temple. I cannot, imagine any thing more im- posing than it must have b en when, with its lofty roof supported by all its columns, it stood at tho gate of the city, its doors wide open, inviting the Greeks to worship. That such an edifice should be erected for the Worship of a heathen god ! On the architrave connecting three of the columns, a hermit built his lonely ctill, and pass- STEPHENS' TRAVELS* a? ed his life in that elevated solitude, accessible only to the crane and the eagle. The hermit is long since dead, but his little habitation still re- sists the whistling of the wind, and awakens the curiosity of the wondering traveller. The temple of Theseus is the last of the prin- cipal monuments, but the first which the traveller sees on entering Athens. It was built after the battle of Marathon, and in commemoration of the victory which drove the Persians from the shores of Greece. It is a small but beautiful specimen of the pure Doric, built of Pentelic n marble, centuries of exposure to the open air giving it a yellowish tint, which softens the bril- liancy of the white. Three Englishmen have been buried within this temple. The first time I visited it, a company of Greek recruits, with some negroes among them, was drawn up in front, going through the manual under the direc- tion of a German corporal ; and at the same time workmen were engaged in fitting it up for the coronation of king Otho ! These are the principal monuments around the city, and, except the temples at Pees turn, they are more worthy of admiration than all the ruins in Italy; but towering above them in posi- tion, and far exceeding them in interest, are the ruins of the Acropolis. I have since wandered among the ruined monuments of Mgyyt and the desolate city of Petra, but I look back with un- abated reverence to the Athenian Acropolis. Every day I had gazed at it from the balcony of my hotel, and from every part of the city and suburbs. Early on my arrival I had obtained the 88 STEPHENS* TRAVELS* necessary permit, paid a hurried visit, and re- solved not to go again until I had examined all the other interesting objects. On the fourth day, with my friend M., I went again. We ascended by a broad road paved with stone. The summit is enclosed by a wall, of which some of the foun- dation stones, very large, and bearing an appear- ance of great antiquity, are pointed out as part of the wall built by Themistocles after the battle of Salami s, 480 years before Christ. The rest is Venetian and Turkish, falling to decay, and marring the picturesque effect of the ruins from below. The guard examined our permit, and we passed under the gate. A magnificent pro- pylon of the finest white marble, and blocks of the largest size ever laid by human hands, and having a wing of the same material on each side, stands at the entrance. Though broken and ruined, the world contains nothing like it even now. If my first impressions do not deceive me, the proudest portals of Egyptian temples suffer in comparison. Passing this magnificent pro- pylon, and ascending several steps, we reached the Parthenon, or ruined temple of Minerva ; an immense white marble skeleton, the noblest monument of architectural genius which the world ever saw. Standing on the steps of this temple, w r e had around us all that is interesting in asso- ciation and all that is beautiful in art. We might well forget the capital of King Otho, and go back in imagination to the golden age of Athens. Pericles, with the illustrious throng of Grecian heroes, orators, and sages, had ascended there to worship, and Cicero and the noblest of STEPHENS' TRAVELS. w Romans had gone there to admire ; and proba- bly, if the fashion of modern tourists had existed in their days, we should see their names inscrib- ed with their own hands on its walls. The great temple stands on the very summit of the Acro- polis, elevated far above the Propylsea and the surrounding edifices. Its length is 200 feet, and breadth 102. At each end there were two rows of eight Doric columns, thirty-four feet high and six feet in diameter, and on each side were thir- teen more. The whole temple within and with- out was adorned with the most splendid works of art, by the first sculptors in Greece, and Phidias himself wrought the statue of the goddess, of ivory and gold, twenty-six cubits high, having on the top of her helmet a sphinx, with griffins on each of the sides ; on the breast a head of Medusa wrought in ivory, and a figure of Victory about four cubits high, holding a spear in her hand and a shield lying at her feet. Until the latter part of the seventeenth century, this mag- nificent temple, with all its ornaments, existed entire. During the siege of Athens by the Ve- netians, the central part was used by the Turks as a magazine ; and a bomb, aimed with fatal precision, or by a not less fatal chance, reached the magazine, and, with a tremendous explo- sion, destroyed a great part of the buildings. Subsequently, the Turks used it as a quarry, and antiquaries and travellers, foremost among whom is Lord Elgin, have contributed to de- stroy " what Goth, and Turk, and Time, had spared." Around the Parthenon, and covering the whole 90 STEPHENS* TRAVEL summit of the Acropolis, are strewed columns and blocks of polished white marble, the ruins of ancient temples, The remains of the Temples of Erecfcheus and Minerva Polias are preeminent in beauty ; the pillars of the latter are the most perfect specimens of the Ionic in existence, and its light and graceful proportions are in elegant contrast with the severe and simple majesty of the Parthenon. The capitals of the columns are wrought and ornamented with a delicacy surpass- ing any thing of which I could have believed mar- ble susceptible. Once I was tempted to knock off a corner and bring it home, as a specimen of the exquisite skill of the Grecian artist, which it would have illustrated better than a volume of description ; but I could not do it — it seemed no- thing less than sacrilege. Afar off, and almost lost in the distance, rises the Pentilican mountain, from the body of which were hewed the rough hewn blocks which, wrought and perfected by the sculptor's art, now stand the lofty and stately columns of the ruined temple. What labour was expended upon each single column ! how many were employed in hewing it from its rocky bed, in bearing it to the foot of the mountain, transporting it across the plain of Attica, and raising it to the summit of the Acropolis! and then what time, and skill, and labour, in reducing it from a rough block to a polished shaft, in adjusting its jsroportion, in carving its rich capitals, and read ing it where it now stands, a model of majestic grace and beau- ty I Once under the directions of Mr. Hill, I clambered up to the very apex of the pediment, STEPHENS* TRAVEL and, lying down at full length, leaned over and saw under the frieze the acanthus leaf delicately and beautifully painted on the marble, and, be- ing protected from exposure, still retaining its freshness of colouring. It was entirely out of sight from below, and had been discovered, al- most at the peril of his life, by the enthusiasm of an English artist. The wind was whistling around me as I leaned over to examine it, and, until that moment, 1 never appreciated fully the immense labour employed and the exquisite finish displayed in every portion of the temple. The sentimental traveller must already mourn that Athens has been selected as the capital of Greece, Already have speculators and the whole tribe of "improvers" invaded the glorious city; and while I was lingering on the steps of the Parthenon, a German, who was quietly smoking among the ruins, a sort of superintendant, whom I had met before, came up, and offering me a cigar, and leaning against the lofty columns of the temple, opened upon me with " his plans of city improvements ;" and new streets^ and pro* ject; d railroads, and the rise of lots. At first I almost thought it personal, and that he was mak- ing a fling at me, in allusion to one of the great- est hobbies of my native city ; but I soon found that he was as deeply bitten as if he had been in Chicago or Dunkirk ; and the way in which he talked of monied facilities, the wants of the com- munity, and a great French bank then contem- plated at the Piraeus, would have been no disere* dit to some oi my friends at home. The removal of the court lias created a new area in Athens ; 92 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. but, in my mind, it is deeply to be regretted that it has been snatched from the ruin to which it was tending. Even I, deeply imbued with the utilitarian spirit of my country, and myself a quondam speculator in " up-town lots," would fain sp.ve Athens from the ruthless hand of reno- vation ; from the building mania of modern spe- culators. I Would have her go on till there was not a habitation among her ruins ; till she stood, like Pompeii, aloue in the wilderness, a sacred desert, where the traveller might sit down and meditate alone and undisturbed among the relics of the past. But really Athens has become a heterogeneous anomally ; the Greeks in their wild customs are jostled in the streets by Eng- lishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, Dutchmen, Spa- niards, and Bavarians, Russians, Danes, and sometimes Americans. European shops invite purchasers, by the side of eastern bazaars, or coffee -houses, and billiard-rooms; and French and German restaurants are opened all over the city. Sir Pultney Malcolm has erected a house to hire near the site of Plato's Academy. Lady Franklin has bought land near the foot of Mount Hymettus for a country-seat. Several English gentlemen have done the same. Mr. Richmond, an American clergyman, has purchased a farm in the neighbourhood ; and in a few years, if the "march of improvement" continues, the Temple of Theseus will be enclosed in the garden of tiie palace of King Otho ; the Temple of the Winds will be concealed by a German opera-house, and the Lantern of Demosthenes by a row of " three- story houses." STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 93 I was not a sentimental traveller, but I visited all the localities around Athens, and therefore briefly mention, that several times I jumped over the poetic and perennial Iiissus, trotted my horse over the ground where Aristotle walked with his peripatetics, and got mudded up to my knees in the garden of Plato, One morning my Scotch friend and I set out early to ascend Mount Hymettus. The moun- tain was neither high nor picturesque, but a long flat ridge of bare rocks, the sides cut up into rav - ines, fissures, and gulleys. There is an easy path to the summit, but we had no guide, and about mid- day, after a wild scramble, were worn out, and descended without reaching the top, which is exceedingly fortunate for the reader as otherwise he would be obliged to go through a description of the view therefrom. Returning, we met the king taking his daily walk, attended by two aides, one of whom was young Marco Bozzarris. Otho is tall and thin, and, when I saw him, was dressed in a German military frockcoat and cap, and altogether, for a king, seemed to be an amiable young man enough. All the world speaks well of him, and so do I. We touched our hats at him, and he returned the civility ; and what could he do more without inviting us to dinner ? In old times there was a divinity about a king ; but now, if a king is a gentleman, it is as much as we can ex- pect. He has spent his money like a gentleman, that is, he cannot tell what has become of it. Two of the three millions loan are gone, and there i3 no colonisation, no agricultural prosper- 94 STEPHENS ' TRAVELS. ity, no opening of roads, no security in the mountains; not a town in Greece but is in ruins, and no money to improve them. Athens, how- ever, is to be embellished. With £ 10,000 in the treasury, he is building a palace of white Pentelican marble, to cost £300,009. Otho was very popular, because, not being of age, all the errors of his admistration were vis- ited upon Count Armanbergh and the regency, who, from all accounts, richly deserved it ; nnd it was hoped that, on receiving the crown, he would shake off the Bavarians who were preying upon the vitals of Greece, and gather around him his native-born subjects. In private life he bore a most exemplary character. He had no cir> cle of young companions, and passed much of his time in study, being engaged, among other things, in acquiring the Greek and English lan- guages. His position is interesting, though not enviable; and if as -the first king of emancipated Greece, he entertains recollections of her anci- ent greatness, and the ambition of restoring her to her position among the nations of the earth, he is doomed to disappointment. Otho is since crowned and married. The Greeks was consid- erably humbled by a report that their king's proposals to several daughters of German prin- ces had been rejected ; but the king had great reason to congratulate himself upon the spirit which induced the daughter of the Duke of Old- enburgh to accept his hand. From her childhood she had taken an enthusiastic interest in Greek history, and it had been her constant wish to vi- sit Greece ; and when she had heard that Otho STEPHENS.' TRAVELS* had been called to the throne, she naively ex- pressed an ardent wish to share it with him. Several years afterwards, by the merest acci- dent, she met Otho at a German watering- place, travelling with his mother, the Queen of Bavaria, as the Count de Missiloughi ; and in February last she accompanied him to Athens, to share the throne which had been the object of her youthful wish. M. dined at my hotel, and, returning to his own, he was picked up and carried to the guard- house. He started for his hotel without a lan- tern, the requisition to carry one being impera- tive in all the Greek and Turkish cities ; the guard could not understand a word he said until he showed them some money, which made his English perfectly intelligible : and they carried him to a Bavarian corporal, Who* after two hours' detention, escorted him to his hotel. Af- ter that we were rather careful about staying out late at night. "Thursday T don't know the day of the month." I find this in my notes, the caption of a day of business, and at this distance of time will not undertake to correct the entry. Indeed, I am incined to think that my notes in those days are rather uncertain and imperfect ; cer- tainly not taken with the precision of one who expected to publish thein. Nevertheless, the residence of the court, the diplomatic corps, and strangers, form an agreeable society at Athens. I had letters to some of the foreign ministers, but did not present them, as I was hardly pre- sentable myself without my carpet-bag. On 9C STEPHENS' TRAVELS. "Thursday," however, in company with Dr. W., I called upon Mr Dawkins, the British minister. Mr Dawkins went to Greece on a special mission, which he supposed would detain him six months from home, and had remained there ten years. He is a high tory, but retained under a whig administration, because his services could not be well dispensed with. He gave us much interesting information in regard to the present condition and future prospects of Greece; and, in answer to my suggestion that the United States were not represented at all in Greece, not even by a consul, he said, with emphasis, 4 'You are better represented than any power in Europe. Mr. Hill has more influence here than any minis- ter plenipotentiary among us." A few days af- ter, when confined to my room by indisposition, Mr Dawkins returned my visit, and again spoke in the same terms of high commendation of Mr. Hill,. It was pleasing to me, and I have no doubt it will be so to Mr Hill's numerous friends in this country, to know that a private American citizen, in a position that keeps him aloof from politics., was spoken of in such terms fc>y the re- presentative of one of the great powers of Europe. I had heard it intimated that there was a prospect of Mr. Dawkins being transferred to this country, and parted with him in the hope at some future day of seeing him the representa- tive of his government here. I might have been presented to the king, but my carpet-bag Dr W, borrowed a hat, and was presented ; the doctor had an old white hat, which he had worn all the way from New York. STEPHENS* TRAVELS, The tide is rolling backwards; Athens is borrow- ing her customs from the barbarous nations of the north ; and it is part of the etiquette to en- ter a dro wing room with a hat (a black one) under the arm. The doctor, in his republican simplicity, thought that a hat, good enough to put on his own head, was good enough to go into the king's presence ; but he was advised 10 the contrary, and took one of Mr. Hili's, not very much too large for him. He was presented by Dr. W j a German, the king's physician, with whom he had discoursed much of the differ* ent medical systems in Germany and America. Dr W. was much pleased with the king. Did ever a man talk with a king who was not pleased with him ? But the doctor was particularly pleased with King Otho, as the latter entered largely into discourse on the doctor's favourite theme, Mr Hill's school, and the cause of edu- cation in Greece. Indeed, it speaks volumes in favour of the young king, that education is one of the things in which he takes the deepest in- terest. The day the doctor was to be presented, we dined at Mr Hill's, having made arrang- ments for leaving Athens that night • the doctor and M. to return to Europe. In the afternoon, while the doctor remained to be presented, M. and I walked down to the Fiifous, now, as in the days of her glory, the harbour of Athens. The ancient harbour is about five miles from ^Athens, and was formerly joined to it by long wails built of stone oi enormous size, sixty* feet high, and broad enough on the top for two wag- gons to pas3 abreast; J iiese have long since dis- G OS bTEPHENV TRAVELS. appeared, and the road is now over a plain shad- ed a great part of the way by groves of olives. As usual at this time of day, we met many par- ties on horsback, sometimes with ladies ; and I remember particularly the beautiful and accom- plished daughters of Count Armansbergh, both of whom are since married and dead. It is a beau- ful ride, in the afternoon particularly, as then the dark outline of the mountains beyond, and the reflections of light and shade, give a peculi- arly interesting effect to the ruins of the Acro- polis. Towards the other we paced between the ruins of the old walls, and entered upon a scene which reminded me of home. Eight months be- fore there was only one house at the Priasus ; but as soon as the court removed to Athens, the old harbour revived ; and already we saw long ranges of stores and warehouses, and all the hurry and bustle of one of our rising western towns. A railroad was in contemplation, and many other improvements, which have since failed ; but an omnibus! — that most modern and commonplace of inventions — is now running regularly between the Piraeus and Athens. A friend who visited Greece six months after me, brought home with him an advertisement printed in Greek, English, French, and German, the English being in the words and figures following, to wit: — "ADVERTISEMENT. The public are hereby informed, that on the 19th instant an omnibus will commence running between Athens and the Pirseus, and will conti- STEPHENS' TRAVELS. nue to do so every day at the undermentioned hours until further notice. Hours of Departure. FROM ATHENS. FROM TTRJEUS. Half past seven o'clock a. m, Half-past eight a.m. Ten o'clock a.m. Eleven o'clock a m. Two o'clock p. m. Three o'clock f. m. Half-past four p. m. Half-past five p. m. The price of a seat in the omnibus is one drachme. Baggage, if not too bulky and heavy, can be taken on the roof. Smoking cannot be allowed in the omnibus, nor can dogs be admitted- Small parcels and packages may be sent by this conveyance at a moderate charge, and given to the care of the conducteur. The omnibus starts from the corner of the Hermos and .ZEolus Streets, at Athens, and from the bazaar at the Piraeus, and will wait five min- utes at each place, during which period the con- ducteur will sound his horn. Athens 17 th, 2<)th September, 1836.' Old things are passing away, and all thing aie becoming new. For a little while yet we may cling to the illusions with the past, but the nm- tery is fast dissolving, the darkness is breaking away, and Greece and Rome, and even Egypt herself, henceforward claim our attention with objects and events of the present hour. Already they have lost much of the deep and absorbing interest with which men turned to them a gene- ration ago. All the hallowed associations of these WO STEPHENS* TRAVEL S e ancient regions are fading away. We may re- gret it, we may mourn over it, but be cannot help it. The world is marching onward : 1 have met parties of my own townsmen while walking in the silent galleries of the Colliseuni. I have seen Americans drift king champagne in an exca- vated dwelling of the ancient Pompeii, and J have dined with Englishmen among the ruins of Thebe?, but, blessed be my fortune, I never rode in an omnibus from the Pirseus to Athens. We put our baggage aboard the caique, and lounged among the little shops till dark, when we betook ourselves to a dirty little coffee house filled with Greeks, doz ; ng and smoking pipes* We met there a boat's crew of a French man- of-war, waiting for some of the officers, who were dining with the French ambassador at Athens. One of them had been born to a better condi- tion than that of a common sailor. One juvenile indiscretion after another had brought him down, and, without a single vice, he was fairly on the r^ad to ruin. Once he brushed a tear from his eyes as he told us of prospects blighted by his own follies ; but, rousing himself, hurried away, a»d his reckless laugh soon rose above the noise and clamour of his wiid companions. About ten o'clock the doctor came in, drenched with rain, and up to his knees in mud. We wanted to embark immediately, bur the appear- ance of the weather was so unfavourable, and the captain preferred waiting till after midnight. The Greeks went away from the coffee-house, the proprietor fell asleep in his seat, and we ex- tended ourselves on the tables and chairs ; and STEPHENS* TRAVtfESfc m now the fleas, which had been distributed about among all the loungers, made a combined onset upon us. Life has its cares and troubles, but few know that of being given up to the tender mercies of Greek fleas. We bore the infliction till human nature could endure no longer ; and at about three in the morning, in the midst of violent wind and rain, broke out of the coffee- house, and went in search of our boat. It wag very dark, but we found her, and got on board. She was a caique, having an open deck with a small covering over the stern. Under this we crept, and with our cloaks and a sailcloth spread over us, our heated blood cooled, and we fell asleep. When we woke, we were on the way to Epidaurus. The weather was raw and cold. We passed within a stone's throw of Salamis and ./Egina, and at about three o'clock, turning a point which completely hid it from view, entered a beautiful little bay, on which stands the town, of Epidaurus. The old city, the birthplace ox Esculapius, stands upon a hill projecting into the bay, and almost forming an island. In the middle of the village is a wooden building con- taining a large chamber, where the Greek dele- gate , a band of moutain warriors, with arms in their hands, "in the name of the Greek nation, proclaimed before gods and men its indepen- dence." At the locanda there was by chance one bed, which not being large enough for three, I elepi on the floor. At seven o'clock, after a quarrel with our host, and paying him about half his di> nia&d, wo set out im* Wapoli di Romania. 102 8TEPHENS* TRAVELS about an hour we moved in the valley running off from the beautiful shore of Epidaurus ; soon the valley deepened into a glen, and in an hour we turned off on a path that led into the moun- tains, and, riding through wild and rugged ra- vines, fell into the dry bed of a torrent : follow- ing which, we came to the Hieixm Eiios, or sa- cred Grove of Esculapiu«. This was the great watering-place for the invalids of ancient Greece, the pro'otype of the Cheltenham and Saratoga of modern days. It is situated in a valley sur- rounded by high mountains, and was formerly enclosed by walls, within which, that the credit of God might not be impeached, no man was al- lowed to die, and no woman to be delivered. Within this enclosure were temples, porticoes, and fountains, now lying in ruins scarcely distin- guishable. The theatre is the most beautiful and best preserved. It is scoped out of the side of the mountain, rather more than semicircular in form, and containing fifty-four seats. These seats are of pink marble, about fifteen inches high, and nearly three feet wide. In the middle of each seat is a groove, in which, probably, wood-work was constructed, to prevent the feet of those above from incommoding those who sat below, and also to support the backs of an invalid audience. The theatre faces the north, and is so arranged that, with the mountain towering behind it, the audience were shaded nearly alt the day. It speaks volumes in favour of the in- tellectual character of the Greeks, that it was their favourite recreation to listen to the recita- tion of their poets and players. And their supe- STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 103 riority in refinement over the Romans is in no way manifested more clearly than by the fact, that in the ruined cities of the former are found the remains of theatres, and ia the latter of am- phitheatres, showing the barbarous taste of the Romans for combats of gladiators and wild beasts. It was in beautiful keeping with this intellectual taste of the Greeks that their places of assembling were in the open air, amid scenery calculated to elevate the mind ; and as I sat on the marble steps of the theatre, I could well imagine the high satisfaction with which the Greek, under the shade of the impending moun- tain, himself all enthusiasm and passion, rapt in the interest of some deep tragedy, would hang upon the strains of Euripides or Sophocles. What deep-drawn exclamations, what shouts of applause, had rung through the solitude ! what bursts of joy and grief had echoed from those silent benches! And then, too, what flirting and coquetting ! the state of society at the springs in the Grove of Esculapius being proba- bly much the same as at Saratoga in our own days. The whole grove is now a scene of deso- tiow. The lentisculus is growing between the crevices of the broken marble ; § birds sing un- disturbed among the bushes ; the timid hare steals among the ruined fragments ; and some- times the snake is seen gliding over the marble steps. We had expected to increase the interest of our visit by taking our noonday refection on the steps of the theatre, but it was too cold for a picnic alfresco; and, mounting our horses, about 104 Stephens' travels. two oMock we came in sight of Argoa, on the opposite side of the great plain ; and in half an hour more, turning the mountain, saw Napoii di Romania, beautifully situated on a gentle eleva- tion on the shore of the gulf. The scenery in every direction around Napoii is exceedingly beautiful ; and when we approached it, it bore no marks of the sanguinary scenes of the late re- volution. The plain was better cultivated than any part of the adjacent country ; a d the city contained long ranges of houses and streets, with German names, such as Heidecker, Maurer Street, &c, and was seemingly better regulated than any other city in Greece. We drove up to the Hotel des Quatre Nations, the best we had found in Greece ; dined at a restaurant with a crowd of Bavarian officers and adventurers, and passed the evening in the streets and coffee- houses. The appearance of Otho Street, which is the principal, is very respectable ; it runs from what was the palace to the grand square or esplanade, ,on one side of which are the barracks of the Ba- varian soldiers, with a park of artillery, posted so as to sweep the square and principal streets ; a speaking comment on the liberty of the Greeks, and the confidence reposed in them by the go- vernment. Every thing in Napoii recalls the memory of the brief and unfortunate career of Capo d'Istria. Its recovery from the horrors of the barbarian war, and the thriving appearance of the country around, are ascribed ti the impulse given by his administration. A Greek by birth, while his country lay groaning under the Ottoman yoke, he entered the Russian service, distinguished himself in all the diplomatic correspondence during the French invasion, was invested with various high offices and honours, and subscribed the treaty of Paris in 1815 as imperial Russian plenipotentiary. He withdrew from her service because Russia disapproved the . efforts of his countrymen to free themselves from the Turkish yoke : and after pnssing five years in Germany and Switzerland, chiefly at Geneva, in 1827 he was called to the presidency of Greece. On his arrival at Napoli, amid the miseries of war and anarchy, he was received by the whole people as the only man capable of saving their country. Civil war ceased on the very day of his arrival, and the traitor Grievas placed in his hands the key of the Palimethe. I shall not enter into any speculations upon the character of his ad- ministration. The rank he had attained in a foreign service is conclusive evidence of his ta- lents, and his withdrawal from that service for the reason stated is as conclusive of his patriot- ism ; but from the moment he took into his hands the reins of government, he was assailed by every so-called liberal press in Europe with the party cry of Russian influence. The Greeks were in- duced to believe that he intended to sell them to a stranger ; and Capo d'Istria, strong in his own integrity, arid confidently relying on the fidelity and gratitude of his countrymen, wa3 assassinat- ed in the streets on his way to mass. Young Mauromichalis, the son of the old Bey of Maina, struck the fatal blow, and fled for refuge to the 106 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. house of the French ambassador. A gentleman attached to the French legation told me that he himself opened the door when the murderer rushed in with the bloody dagger in his hand, exclaiming, " I have killed the tyrant." He was not more than twenty-one, tall and noble in his appearance, and animated by the enthusias- tic belief that he had delivered his country. My informant told me that he barred all the doors and windows, and went up stairs to inform the minister, who had not yet risen. The latter was embarrassed, and in dcubt what he should do. A large crowd gathered round the house ; but, as yet, they were all Mauromichaiis\s friends. The young enthusiast spoke of what he had done with a higli feeling of patriotism and pride ; and while the clamour out of doors was becoming outrageous, he ate his breakfast and smoked his pipe with the utmost composure. He remained at the embassy more than two hours, and until the regular troops drew up before the house. The French ambassador, though he at first re- fused, was obliged to deliver him up ; and my informant saw him shot under a tree outside the gate of Napoli, dying gallantly in the firm con- viction that he had played the Brutus, and freed his country from a'Csesar. The fate of Capo d'lstria again darkened the prospects of Greece, and the throne went beg- ging for an occupant, until it was accepted by the King of Bavaria, for his second son Otho. The young monarch arrived at Napoli in Febru- ary 1833. The whole population came out to meet him and the Grecian youths ran breast deep STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 107 in the water to touch his barge as it approached the shore. In February 1834, it was decided to establish Athens as the capital. The propriety of this removal has been seriously questioned, for Napoli possessed advantages in her location, harbour, fortress, and a town already built; but ! the King of Bavaria, a scholar and an antiquary, was influenced more, perhaps, by classical feel- ing than by regard for the best interests of Greece. Napoli has received a severe blow from the removal of the seat of government and the consequent withdrawal of the court, and the manufacturers and mechanics attendant upon it. Still it was by far the most European in its ap- pearance of any city I had seen in Greece. It had several restaurants and coffee-houses, which were thronged all the evening with Bavarian offi- cers and broken-down European adventurers, discussing the internal affairs of that unfortunate country, which men of every nation seemed to think they had a right to assist in governing. Napoli had always been the great gathering- place of the phii- Hellenists, and many appropri - ating to themselves that sacred name were hang- ing round it still. All over Europe thousands of men are trained np to be shot at for so much per day ; the soldier's is as regular a business as that of the lawyer or merchant, and there is al- ways a large class of turbulent spirits constantly on the look-out for opportunities, and ever ready with their swords to carve their way to fortune. To them the uproar of a rebellion is music, for they kuowthat, in the general turning up of the elements, seme thing may be gained by him who IM has nothing to lose ; and when the Greek revo- lution broke upon the astonished people of Eu- rope, these soldiers of fortune hastened to take their part in the struggle, and win the profits of success. I believe that there were men who embarked in the cause with as high and noble purposes as ever animated the warrior ; but of many of these chivalric patriots there is no 1 ck of charity in saying that, however good they might be as fighters, they were not much as men ; and I am sorry to add that, from the ac- counts I heard in Greece, the American phil- Ilellenists were a rather shabby set. Jarvis was about the most active and distinguished, and I never heard in Greece any imputations on his character. M. M., then resident in Napoli, was accosted one day in the streets by a young man, who asked him where he could find General Jar- vis. " What do you want with him ?" s;iid Mr M. u I hope to obtain a commission in his army." "Do you see that dirty fellow yon- der ?" said Mr M., pointing to a ragged patriot passing at the moment ; " well, twenty such fellows compose Jarvis's army, and Jarvis him- self is no better off." £ * Well, then," said the young American, " I believe I'll join the Turks!" Allen, another American patriot, was hanged at Constantinople. Another behaved gallantly as a soldier, but sullied his laurels by appropriating the money intrusted to him by the Greek com- mittee. One bore the sacred name of Washing- ton a brave but unprincipled man. Mr M. had beard him say, that if the devil himself should nrise a regiment and would give him a good cam- ST E$a ens' travels, 109 mission, he would willingly march tinder him. He was struck by a shot from the fortress in the harbour of Napoli while directing a battery against it, was taken on board his Brittanic Ma- jest.y's_ship Asia, and breathed his last, uttering curses on his country. I could have passed a week with great satls- tion in Napoli, if it were oniy for the luxury of its hotel ; but time would not permit, and I went to bed resolving to make up for the last night, and sleep a little in advance for the next. CHAPTER VI. Argos — Parting and Farewell — Tomb of Agamemnon — Mycenae — Gate of the Lions — A Misfortune — Meeting in the Mountains — A Landlord's Troubles — A Midnight Quarrel — One good Turn deserves another — Gratitude of a Greek Family — Megara — The Soldiers' Revel. In the morning, finding a difficulty in procuring horses, some of the loungers about the hotel told us there was a carriage in Napoli, and we ordered it to be brought out, and soon after saw moving majestically down the principal street a belle carozza, imported by its enterprising pro- prietor from the Strada Toledo at Naples. It was painted a bright flaring yellow, and had a big-breoched Albanian for a coachman. While preparing to embark, a Greek came up with two horse*, and we discharged the Leila carozza. My companion hired the horses for Padras, and 110 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. I threw my cloak on one of them and followed on foot. The plain of Argos is one of the most beauti- ful I ever saw. On every side, except towards the sea, it is bounded by mountains, and the con- trast between these mountains, the plain and the sea, is strikingly beautiful. The sun was beat- ing upon it with immense heat ; the labourers were almost naked, or in several places laying asleep on the ground, while the tops of the moun- tains were covered with snow. I walked across the whole plain, being only six miles, to Argos. This ancient city is long since in ruins ; her thirty temples, her costly sepulchres, her gymnasium, and her numerous and magnificent monuments and statues, have disappeared, and the only traces of her former greatness are some remains of her Cyclopean walls, and a ruined theatre cut in the rock, and of magnificent proportions. Modern Argos is nothing more than a straggling village. Mr Riggs, an American missionary, w r as sta- tioned there, but was at that time at Athens with an invalid wife. I was still on foot, and wander- ed up and down the principal street looking for a horse. Every Greek in Argos soon knew my bu- siness, and all kinds of four- legged animals were brought to me at exorbitant prices. When I was poring over the Iliad, I little thought I should ever visit Argos ; still less that I should create a sensation in the ancient city of Danai ; but man little knows for what lie is reserved. Argos has been so often visited t sat Homer is out of date. Every middy from a Mediteranean cruiser has danced on the steps of her desolate STEPHENS' TRAVELS. Ill theatre, and instead of busying myself with her ancient glories, I roused half the population in hiring a horse. In fact, in this ancient city I soon became the centre of a regular horsemarket. Every rascally jockey swore that his horse was the best ; and according to the descendants of the respectable S:ons of Atreus, blindness, lameness, spavin, and staggers, were a recommendation. A Bavarian officer, whom I had met in the Ba- zaars, came to my assistance, and stood by me while I made a bargain. I had more regard to the guide than the horse ; and picking out one who had been remarkably noisy, hired him to conduct me to Corinth and Athens. He was a lad of about twenty with a bright sparkling eye, who, laughing roguishly at his unsuccessful com- petitors, wanted to pitch me at once on the horse and be off'. I joined my companions, and in a few minutes we left Argos. The plain of Argos has been immortalised by poetic genius, as the great gathering- place of the kings and armies that assembled for the seige of Troy. To the scholar and poet, few plains in the world are more interesting. It carries him back to the heroic ages — to the history of times bordering on the fabulous, when fact and fiction are so beautifully blended, that we would not separate them if we could. 1 had but a little while longer to remain with my friends , for we were approaching the points where our roads separated, and about eleven o'clock we halted, and exchanged our farewell greetings. We part- ed in the middle of the plain, they to return to Padras and Europe, and I for the tomb of Ag- m STEPHENS' TRAVELS. memnon, and back to Athens, and I hardly knew where besides. Dr. W. I d id not meet again until my return home. About a year afterwards 1 arrived in Antwerp in the evening from Rot- terdam. The city was filled with strangers, and I was denied admission at a third hotel, when a young man brushed by me in the doorway, and I recognised Maxwell. I hailed hiui ; but in cap and cloak, and with a large red shawl around my neck, he did not know me. I um oiled and dis- covered myself, and it is needless to say that I did not leave the hotel that night. It was his very last day of two years' travel on the Conti- nent ; he had taken his passage in the steamer for London, and one day later I should have missed him altogether. I can give but a faint idea of the pleasure of this meeting. He gave me the first information of the whereabouts of Dr W.; we walked nearly all night, and about noon the next day I again bade him farewell on board tho steamer. I have for some time neglected our servant. When we separated, the question was who should not keep him. We were all heartily tired of him, and [ would not have had him with me on any account. Still, at the moment of parting in that wild and distant region, never expecting to sea him again, I felt some slight leaning towards him. Touching the matter of shirts, it will not be surprising to a man of the world, that, at the moment of parting, I had one of M's on my back : and in justice to him, 1 must say it was a very good one, and lasted a long time. A friend ©nee wrote to me on a like occasion not to wear STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 113 his out of turn, but M. laid no such restriction upon me. But this trifling gain did not indem- nify me for the loss of my friends. I had bro- ken the only link that connected me with home, and was setting out alone for I knew not where. I felt at once the great loss I had sustained, for my young muleteer could speak only his own lan- guage, and, as Queen Elizabeth said to Sir Wal- ter Raleigh of her Hebrew, we had " forgotten our" Greek. But on that classical soil I ought not have been lonely. I should have conjured up the ghosts of the departed Atridse, and held converse on their own ground with Homer's heroes. Nevertheless I was not in the mood, and, entirely forgetting the glories of the past, I started my horse into a gallop. My companion followed on a full run, close at my heels, belabouring my horse with a stick, which, when he broke, he pelted him with stones; indeed, this mode of scampering over the ground seemed to hit his humour, for he shouted, hurraed, and whipped, and sometimes, laying hold of the tail of the beast, was dragged along several paces with little effort of his own. I soon tired of this, and made signs to him to stop ; but it was his turn now, and 1 was obliged to lean back till I reached him with my cane before I could make him let go his hold, and then he commenced shouting and pelting again with stones. In this way we approached the village of Kra- bata, about a mile below the ruins of Mycence, and the most miserable place I had seen in Greece. With the fertile plain of Argos uncul- H 114 Stephens' travels. vated before them, the inhabitants exhibited a melancholy picture of the most abject poverty. As I rode through, crowds beset me with out- stretched arms imploring charity ; and a miser- able old woman, darting out of a wretched hovel, laid her gaunt and bony hand upon my leg, and attempted to stop me. I shrank from her grasp, and, under the effect of a sudden impulse, threw myself off on the other side, and left my horse in her hands. Hurrying through the village, a group of boys ran before me, crying out " Agamemnon, Aga- memnon." I followed and they conducted me to the tomb of " the king of kings," a gigantic structure, still in good preservation, of the con- ical form, covered with turf ; the stone over the door is twenty-seven feet long and seventeen wide, larger than any hewn stone in the world except Pompey's Pillar. I entered, my young guides going before with torches, and walked within and around this ancient sepulchre. A worthy Dutchman, Herman Van Creutzer, has broached a theory that the Trajan war is a mere allegory, and that no such person as Aga memnon ever existed. Shame upon the cold- blooded heretic ! I have my own sins to answer for in that way, for I have laid my destroying hand upon many cherished allusions ; but I would not, if I could destroy the mystery that overhangs the heroic ages. The royal sepulchre was forsaken and empty ; the shepherd drives within it his flock for shelter ; the traveller sits under its shade to his noonday meal ; and at the moment, a goat was dozing quietly iu one cor- STEPHENS 1 TRAVELS. in ner. He started as I entered, and seemed to re- gard me as an intruder ; and when I flared be- fore him the light of my torch, he rose up to butt me. I turned away and left him in quiet possession. The boys were waiting outside, and crying " Mycenae, Mycenae," led me away. All was solitude, and I saw no marks of a city until I reached the relics of her cyclopean walls. I never felt a greater degree of reverence than when 1 approached the lonely ruins of Mycenae* At Argos I spent most of my time in the horse- market, and I had galloped over the great plain as carelessly as if it had been the road to Har- lem ; but all the associations connected with this most interesting ground here pressed upon me at once. Its extraordinary antiquity, its gigantic remains, and its utter and long-continued desola- tion, came home to my heart. I moved on to the Gate of the Lions, and stood before it a long time without entering. A broad street led to it between two immense parallel walls ; and this street may perhaps have been a market-place. Over the gate are two lions rampant, like the supporters of a modern coat-of-arms ; rudely carv- ed, and supposed to be the oldest sculptured stone in Greece. Under this very gate Aga- memnon led out his forces for the siege of Troy ; three thousand years ago he saw them filling; be- fore him, glittering in brass, in all the pomp and panoply of war ; and I held in my hand a bosk which told me that this city was so old, that more than seventeen hundred years ago travellers came as I did to visit its ruins; and that Pausanias had found the gate of the Lions in the same 116 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. state in which I beheld it now. A great part is buried by the rubbish of^! the fallen city. I crawled under, and found myself within the walls, and then mounted to the height on which the city stood. It was covered with a thick soil and a rich carpet of grass. My boys left me, and I was alone. I walked all over it, following the line of the walls. I paused at the great blocks of stone, the remnants of Cvclopie masonary, the work of wandering giants. The heavens were unclouded, and the sun was beaming upon it with genial warmth. Nothing could exceed the quiet scene. I became entangled in the long- grass, and picked wild flowers growing over long- buried dwellings. Under it are immense caverns, their uses are unknown ; and the earth sounded hollow under my feet, as if I were treading on the sepulchre of a buried city. I looked across the plain to Argos ; all was as beautiful as when Homer sang its praises ; the plain and the moun- tains, and the sea, were the same, but the once magnificent city, her numerous statues and gi- gantic temp'es, were gone for ever; and but a few remains were left to tell the passing traveller the story of her fallen greatness. 1 could have remained there for hours ; I could have gone again and again, for I had not found a more in- teresting spot in Greece ; but my reveries were disturbed by the appearance of my muleteer and my juvenile escort. They pointed to the sun as an intimation that the day was passing ; and cry- ing " Cavallo, Cavallo," hurried me away. To them the ruined city was a playground; they followed capering behind ; and in descending STEPHENS 1 TRAVELS, U7 three or four of them rolled down upon me ; they hurried me through the gate of the Lions, arid I came out with my pantaloons, my only panta- loons, rent across the knee almost irreparably. In an instant 1 was another man ; I railed at the ruins for their strain upon wearing apparel, and and bemoaned my unhappy lot in not having with me a needle and thread. I looked up to the old gae with a sneer. This was the city that Homer had made such a noise about ; a man could stand on the citadel, and almost throw a stone beyond the boundary -line of Agamemnon's kingdom. In full sight, and just at the other side of the plain, was the kingdon of Argos. The little state of Rhode Island would make a bigger kingdum than both cf hem together. But I had no time for deep meditation, having a long journey to Corinth before me. Fortu- nately, my young Greek had no tire in him he started me off on a gallop, whipping and pelting my horse with stones, and would have hurried me on, over rough and smooth, till either he, or I, or the horse, broke down, if I had not jumped off and walked. As soon as I dismounted, he mounted, and lie moved so leisurely that I had to hurry him on in turn. In this way we ap- proached the range of mountains separating the plain of Argos from the Isthmus of Corinth. Entering the pass, we rode along a mountain torrent, of which the channel-bed was then dry, and ascending to the summit of the first range. Looking back the scene was magnificent. On my right and left were the ruined heights of Ar- 118 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. gog and Mycenso ; before me, the towering Acro- polis of Napoli di Romania; at my feet, the rich plain of Argos, extending to the shore of the sea ; and beyond, the island-studded iEgean. I turned away with a feeling of regret that in all probability, I should never see it more. I moved on, and in a narrow pass, not wide enough to turn my horse if I had been disposed to take to my heels, three men rose up from behind a rock, armed to the teeth with long guns, pis- tols, yataghans, and sheep skin cloaks — the dress of the klept, or mountain robber — and al- together presenting a most diabolically cut-throat appearance. If they had asked me for my purse, I should have considered it all regular, and giv- en up the remnant of my stock of borrowed mo- ney without a murmur ; but I wa3 relieved from immediate apprehension by the cry of passe por- ta. King Otho has begun the benefits of civiliz- ed government in Greece by introducing pass- ports, and mountain warriors were stationed in the different passes to examine strangers. They acted, however, as if they were more used to de- manding purses than passports, for they sprang into the road, and rattled the buts of their guns on the rock with a violence that was somewhat startling. Unluckily, my passport had been made out with those of my companions, and was in their possession, and when we parted nei- ther thought of it ; and this demand of me, who had nothing to lose, was worse than that of my pucfie A few words of explanation might have STEPHENS' TRAVELS. U9 relieved me from all difficulty, but my friends could not understand a word I said. I was vex- ed at the idea of being sent back, and thought I would try the effect of a little impudence ; so, crying out " Americanos," I attempted to pass on ; but they answered me " Nix," and turned my horse's head towards Argos. The scene, which a few moments before had seemed so beau- tiful, was now perfectly, detestable. Finding that bravado had not the desired effect, 1 lower- ed my tone and tried a bribe : this was touching the right chord : half a dollar removed all sus- picions from the minds of these trusty guardians of the pass ; and, released from their attentions, I hurried on. The whole road across this mountain is one of the wildest in Greece. It is cut up by numerous ravines, sufficiently deep and dangerous, which at every step threaten destruction to th« incau- tious traveller. During the late revolution the soil of Greece has been drenched with blood ; and my whole journey had been through cities and over battle-fields memorable for scenes of slaugh- ter unparalleled in the annals of modern war. In the narrowest pass of the mountains, my guide made gestures indicating that it had been the scene of a desperate battle. When the Turks having penetrated to the plain of Argos, were compelled to fall back again upon Corinth, a small band of Greeks, under Niketas and De- metrius Ypsilanti, waylaid them in this pass. Concealing themselves behind the rocks, and waiting till the pass was filled, all at onco they onened a tremendous fire upon the solid column 120 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. below, and the pass was instantly filled with slain. Six thousand were cut down in a few hours. The terrified survivors recoiled for a moment ; but as if impelled by an invisible pow- er, r shed on to meet their fate. " The Mussul- man rode into the passes with his sword in his sheath, and his bands before his eyes, the victim of destiny." The Greeks a^ain poured upon them a shower of lead, and several thousands more were cut down before the Moslem army accomplished the passage of this terrible de- file. It was nearly dark when we reached the sum* mit of the last range of mountains, and saw, un- der the rich lustre of the setting sun, the Acro- polis of Corinth, with its walls and turrets tower- ing to the sky, the plain forming the Isthmus of Corinth ; the dark, quiet waters of the Gulf of Lepanto ; and the gloomy mountains of Cithaeron and Helicon, and Parnassus covered with snow. It was after dark when we passed the region of the Nemean Grove, celebrated as the haunt of the lion and the scene of the twelve labours of Hercules We were yet three hours from Cor- inth ; and if the old lion had stiil been prowling in the grove, we could not have made more haste to escape its gloomy solitude. Reaching the j;lain, we heard behind us the clattering of horses' hoofs, at first sounding in the stillness of the evening as if a regiment of cavalry or a troop of banditti was at our heels, but it proved to be only a single traveller, belated like ourselves, and hurrying on to Corinth. I could see through the darkness the shining butts of his pistols and STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 121 hilt of his yataghan, and took his dimensions with more anxiety, perhaps than exactitude. He re- cognised my Frank dress, and accosted me in bad Italian, which he had picked up at Padras, (being just the Italian in which \ could meet him on equal ground), and told me that he had met a party of Franks on the road to Padras, whom, from his description, \ recognised as my friends. It was nearly midnight when we rattled up to the gate of the old locanda. The yard was thronged with horses and baggage, and Greek and Bavarian soldiers. On ttie balcony stood my old brigand host, completely creftsalion, and literally turned out of doors in bis own house ; a detachment of Bavarian soldiers had arrived that afternoon from Padras, and taken entire posses- sion, giving him and his wife the freedom of the outside. He did not recognize me, and taking me for an Englishman, began u Sono Ingiesi Signor" (he had lived at Corfu under the British dominion) ; and telling me the whole particulars of his unceremonious outster, claimed, through me, the arm of the British government to resent the injury of a British subject ; his wife was walking about in no very gentle mood, but, in truth, very contrary. 1 did not speak to her, and she did not trust herself to speak to me; but addressing myself to the husband, introduced the subject of my own immediate wants, a sup- per, and night's lodging. The landlord told me, however, that the Bavarians had eaten every thing in the house, and he had not a room, bed, blanket, or coverlet, to give me ; that 1 might 122 STEPHENS' TRAVEL8. lie down in the hall or the piazza, but there was no other place. I was outrageous at the hard treatment he had received from the Bavarians, it was too bad to turn an honest innkeeper out of his house, and deny him the pleasure of accommodating a tra- veller who had toiled hard all day, with the per- fect assurance of finding a bed at night. I saw however, that there was no help for it ; and no- ticing an opening at one end of the hall, went into a storeroom filled with all kinds of rubbish, particularly old barrels. An unhinged door was leaning against the wall and this I laid across two of the barrels, pulled off my coat and waistcoat, and on this extemporaneous couch went to sleep. I was roused from my first nap by a terrible fall against my door, i sprang up ; the moon was shining through the broken casement, and, seizing a billet ot wood, I waited another attack. In the meantime, I heard the noise of a violent scuffling on the floor of the hall, and, high above all, the voices of husband and wife, his evidently coming from the floor in a deprecating tone, and hers in a high towering passion, and enforced with severe blows of a stick. As soon as I was fairly awake, I saw through the thing at once. It was only a little matrimonial tete a tcte. The unamiable humour in which I had left them against the Bavarians, had ripened into a private quarrel between themselves, and she had got him down, and was pummelling him with a broomstick or something of that kind. It seem* ed natural and right enough, and wa3, moreover, STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 123 no business of mine ; and remembering that who- ever interferes between man and wife is sure to have both against him, I kept quiet. Others, however, were not so considerate, and the occu- pants of the different rooms tumbled into the hall in every variety of fancy night-gear, among whom was one whose only clothing was a milita- ry coat and cap, with a sword in his hand. When the hubbub was at its highest, I looked out, and found, as I expected, the husband and wife standing side by side, she still brandishing the stick, and both apparently outrageous at every thing and every body around them. I congratulated myself upon my superior know- ledge of human nature, and went back to my bed on the door. In the morning I was greatly surprised to find, that instead of whipping her husband, she had been taking his part. Two German soldiers, already half intoxicated, had come into the hall, and insisted upon having more wine ; the host refused, and when they moved towards my sleep- ing place, where the wine was kept, he interpos- ed, and all came down with the noise which had woke me. His wife came to his aid, and the blows, which, in my simplicity, I had sup- posed to be falling upon him, were bestowed on the two Bavarians. She told me the story her- self ; and when she complained to the officers, they had capped the climax of her passion by telling her that her husband deserved more than he got. She was still in a perfect fury ; and as she looked at them in the yard arranging fop their departure, she added in broken English, 124 STEPHENS' TRAVELS, with deep, and, as I thought, ominous passion, " 'Twas better to be under the Turks." I learned all this while I. was making my toilet on the piazzo, that is, while she was pouring water on my hands for me to wash ; and just as I had finished, my eye fell upon my muleteer assisting the soldiers in loading their horses. At first I did not notice the subdued expression of his usually bright face, nor that he was loading my horse with some of their camp equipage ; but all at once it struck me that they were pressing him into their service. 1 was already roused by what the woman had told me, and, resolving that they should not serve me as they did the Greeks, I sprang off the piazza, cleared my way through the crowd, and going up to my horse, already staggering under a burden poised on his back, but not yet fastened, put my hand under one side, and tumbled it over with a crash on the otlier, The soldiers cried out furiously ; and while they were sputtering German at me, I sprang into the saddle. I was in admirable pu- gilistic condition, with nothing on but panta- loons, boots, and shirt, and just in a humour to get a whipping, if nothing worse ; but I detested the manner in which the Bavarians lorded it in Greece ; and riding up to a group of officers who were staring at me, told them that 1 had just tumbled their luggage off my horse, and they must bear in mind that they could not deal with strangers quite so arbitrarily as they did with the Greeks. The commandant was disposed to be indignant and very magnificent ; but some of the others making suggestions to him, he said STEPHENS* TEAVELS. 125 he understood I had only hired my horse as far as Corinth, but if had taken him for Athens, he would not interfere ; and, apologizing on the ground Gf the necessities of government, ordered him to be released. I apologized back again, returned the horse to my guide, whose eyes sparkled with pleasure, and went in for my hat and coat. I dressed myself, and, telling him to be ready when I had finished my breakfast, went out ex- pecting to start forthwith ; but, to my surprise, my host told me that the lad refused to go any farther without an increase of pay ; and, sure enough, there he stood, making no preparation for moving. The cavalcade of soldiers had gone, and taken with them every horse in Corinth, and the young rascel intended to take advantage of my necessity. I told him that I had hired him to Athens for such a price, and that I had saved him from impressment, and consequent loss of wages, by the soldiers, which he admitted. I added, that he was a young rascal, which he nei- ther admitted nor denied, but answered with a roguish laugh. The extra price was no object, compared wito the vexation of a day's detention ; but a traveller is apt to think that all the world is conspiring to impose upon him, and, at times, to be very resolute in resisting. I was peculiar- ly so then, and, after a few words, set off to com- plain to the head of the police. Without any ado, he trotted a'ong with me, and we proceeded together followed by a troorj of idlers, I in some- thing of a passion, he perfectly cool, good-natur- ed, and considerate, merely keeping out of the 126 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. way of my stick. Hurrying along near the co- lumns of the old temple, I stumbled, and he sprang forward to assist me, his face expressing great interest, and a fear that I had hurt my- self ; and when I walked towards a house which I had mistaken for the bureau of the police de- partment, he ran after me to direct me right. All this mollified me considerably : and before we reached the door, the affair began to strike me as rather ludicrous. I stated my case, however, to the eparchos, a Greek in Frank dress, who spoke French with great facility, and treated me with the greatest consideration* He was so full of professions that I felt quite sure of a decision in my favour ; but, assuming my story to be true, and without asking the lad for his excuse, he shrugged his shoulders, and said it would take time to exam- ine the matter, and, if I was in a hurry, I had better submit. To be sure, he said, the fellow was a great rogue, and he gave his countrymen in general a character that would not tell well in print ; but added, in their justification, that they were imposed upon and oppressed by every body, and therefore considered that they had a right to take their advantage whenever an opportuni- ty offered. The young man sat down on the floor, and looked at me with the most frank, ho- nest, and open expression, as if perfectly uncon- scious that he was doing any thing wrong. I could not but acknowledge that some excuse for him was to be drawn from the nature of the school in which he had been brought up ; and, after a little parley, agreed to pay him the addi- STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 127 tional- price, if at the end of the journey, I was satisfied with his conduct. This was enough ; his face brightened, he sprang up and took my hand, and we left the house the best friends in the world. He seemed to be hurt as well as surpris- ed at my finding fault with him, for to him all seemed perfectly natural; and, to seal the re- conciliation, he hurried on ahead, and had the horse rea,dy when 1 reached the locanda. I took leave of my host with a better feeling thau before, and set out a second time on the road to Athens. At Kaiamaki, while walking along the shore, a Greeh who spoke the lingua Franca came from on board one of the little caiqoes, and, when he learned that I was an American, described to me the scene that had taken place on that beach upon the arrival of provisions from America ; when thousands of miserable beings who had fled from the blaze of their dwellings, and lived for months upon plants and roots — grey- headed men, mothers with their infants at their breasts, emaciated with hunger, frantic with despair — came down from their mountain retreats to re- ceive the welcome relief. He might well re- member the scene, for he had been one of that starving people ; and he took me to his house, and shewed me his wife and four children, now nearly all grown, telling me that they had all been rescued from death by the generosity of my countryman. I do not know why, but in those countries it did not seem unmanly for a bearded and whiskered man to weep ; I felt anything but contempt for him when, with his heart overflow- 128 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. ing and his eyes filled with tears, he told me, when I returned home, to say to my countrymen that I had seen and talked with a recipient of their bounty ; and though the Greeks might never repay us, they could never forget what we had done for them. I remembered the excite- ment in our country in their behalf, in colleges and schools, from the grey- bearded senator to the prattling school-boy, and reflected that, per- haps, my mite, carst carelessly upon the waters, had saved from the extremity of misery this grateful family. I wish that cold-blooded pru- dence which would have checked our honest en- thusiasm in favour of a people, under calamities and horrors worse than ever fell to the lot of man struggling to be free, could have listened to the gratitude of this Greek family. With deep in- terest I bade them farewell, and telling my guide to follow with my horse, walked over to the foot of the mountain. Ascending, I saw in one of the openings of the road a packhorse, and a soldier in the Bavarian uniform, and, hoping to find some one to talk with, I hailed hirn. He was on the top of the mountain, so far off that he did not hear me ; and when, with the help of my Greek, I had succeeded in gaining his attention, he looked for some time without being able to see me. When he did, however, he waited ; but, to my no small disappointment, he answered my first question with the odious " Nix." We tried each other in two or three dialects; but finding it of no use, I sat down to rest, and he, for courtesy, joined me ; my young Greek, in the spirit of good-fel« STEPHENS' TRAVEL?. 129 lowship, doing the same. He was a tall, noble- locking fellow, and, like myself, a stranger in Greece ; and though we couid not say so, it was understood that we were glad to meet and travel together as comrades. The tongue causes more evils than the sword ; and as we was debarred the use of this mischievous member, and walked all day side by side, seldom three paces apart, before night we were sworn friends. About five o'clock in the afternoon we arrived at Megara. A grorip of Bavarian soldiers were lounging round the dour of the khan, who Wel- comed their expected comrade, and me as his companion. My friend left me, and soon re- turned with the comp intents of the command* ant, and an invitation to visit him in the even- ing. I had, however, accented a prior invitation from the soldiers for a rendezvous iu the locanel: . I wandered till daik among the ruined lieu es i f the town, thought of Eucrid and Alexander tl e Great, and returning, went up to the same room in which I had slept with my friends, pored over an o;d map of Greece hanging on the wall, made a few notes, and throwing myself lack on a sort < f divan, while thinking what I should do, feil asleep. About ten o'clock I was roused by the loud roar of a chorus, not like a sudden burst, out a. thing that seemed to have swelled up to that point by degrees ; and rubbing my eyes, and (stumbling down stairs, 1 entered the banqm ting hall. A long, rough, wooden tah!e, extended the whole length ot the room, supplied with only two articles, winc-fiagons and tobacco-pouches ; 110 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. forty or fifty soldiers were sitting round it, smok- ing pipes and ringing with all their souls, and, at the m< ment I entered, waving their pipes to the dying cadence of a hunting chorus. Then followed a long thump on the table, and they all rose ; my travelling friend, with a young soldier who spoke a little French, came up, and escort- ing me to the head of the table, gave me a seat by the side of the chairman. One of them at- tempted to administer a cup of wine, and the other thrust at me the end of a pipe, and I should have been obliged to kick and abscond but for the relief afforded me by the entrance of another new comer. This was no other than the corporal's wife; and if I had been received warmly, she was greeted with enthusiasm. Half the table sprang forward to escort her, two of them collared the president and haul; d him off his seat, and the whole company, by acclama- tion, installed her in his place. She accepted it without any hesitation, while two of them, with clumsy courtesy, took off her bonnet, which I, sitting at her right hand, took charge of. All then resumed their places, and the revel went On more gaily than ever. The lady president was about thirty, plainly but neatly dressed, nd, though not handsome, had a frank, amiable, and good-tempered expression, indicating that g:eatest of woman's attributes, a good heart, in fact, she looked what the ) cung man at my i'le told me she was, the pt ace- maker of the regiment ; and he added, that they always tried to have her at their convivial meetings, for when she w~s among them, the brawling spirits were STEPHENS' TRAVELS, 131 kept down, and every man would be ashamed to quarrel in her presence. There was no chivalry, no heroic devotion about them, but their manner towards her was as speaking a tribute as was ever paid to ihe influence of woman ; and 1 question whether beauty in her bower, surrounds ed by belted knights arid barons bold, ever exer- cised in her more exalted sphere a more happp influence. I talked with her, and with the ut- most simplicity she told me that the soldiers all loved her ; that they were ali kind to her ; and she looked upon them ail as brothers. We broke up at about twelve o'clock with a song, requiring each person to take the hand of his neighbour ; one of her hands fell to me, and I took it with a respect seldom surpassed in touching the hand of woman; for I felt that she was cheering the rough path of a soldier's life and, among scenes calculated to harden the heart, reminding them of mothers, and sisters, and sweethearts at home* CHAPTER VII. A Dreary Funeral — Marathon — Mount Pentelicus — A Mystery — Woes of a Lover— Reveries of Glory — Scio's Itocky Isle — A blood-stained Page of History — A Greek Prelate — Desolation — The iixile's Return, Early in the morning I again started. In a lit- tle khan at Eleusis I saw three or tour bavarian soldiers drinking, and ridiculing the Greek pro- prietor, calling him patrioti and ca.fdtit4 132 Stephens' travels. Greek bore their gibes and sneers without a word ; but their was a deadly expression in his look, which seemed to say, " I bide ray time and I remember then thinking that the Bavarians were running up an account which would one day be settled with blood. In fact, the soldiers went too far ; and, as I thought, to show off be- fore me, on.? of them slapped the Greek on the back, and made him spill a measure of wine which he was carrying to a customer, vvheu the latter turned upon him like lightning, threw him down, and would have strangled him if he had .not been pulled off by the b)Standeis. Inde d, the Greeks had already learned both their intel- Jeciual and physical superiority over the Bavar- ians ; and, a short time before, a party of soldi- i-ers sent to subdue a band of Maaiote insurgents diad been captured, ana after a farce of selling them at auction at a do Jar a-head, were kicked, 4ind whipped, and sent oif. About four o'clock I arrived once more at Athens, dined at my old hotel, and passed the evening at Mr li ill's. The next day I lounged about the city. I had been more than a month without my carpet-bag, and the way in which I managed during that time is a thing between my travelling compan- ions and myself. A prudent Scotchman used to boast of a careful nephew, who, in travelling, instead of leaving some of his clothes at every hotel on the road, always brought home more than he took away with h:m. I was a model of this kind of carefulness while my opportunities lasted ; but my companions had left me, and STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 133 this morning I went to the bazaars, and bought a counle of shirts. Dressed up in one of them, I strolled outside the walls ; and, while sitting in the shadow of a column of the Temple of Ju- piter, I saw coming from the city, through Ha- drian's Gate, four men, carrying a feurden by the corners of a coverlet, followed *j»y another having in his hands a bottle and a spade. As they approached, I saw they were bearing the dead body of a woman, whom, on joining them, I found to be the wife of the man who followed. He was an Englishman or an American (for he called himself either as occasion required), whom I had seen at my hotel and at Mr. Hill's ; had been a Bailor, and probably deserted from hia ship, and many years a resident at Athena, where he married a Greek woman. He was a thriftless fellow, and, as he told me, had lived principally by the labour of his wife, who wash- ed for European travellers. He had been so long in Greece, and his connexions and associations were so thorougly Greek, that he had lost that sacredness of feeling so powerful both in Eng- glishmen and Americans of every class, in re- gard to the decent, burial of the dead, though he did say that he expected to procure a coffin, but the police of the city had sent officers to take her away and bury hey. There was something so forlorn in the appearance of this rude funeral, that my first impulse was to turn away ; but I checked myself and followed. Several times the Greeks laid the corpse on the ground, and stop- ped to rest, chattering indifferently on various subjects. We crossed the Ilissus, and at some mCPH2Nb* TRAVELS. distance eame to a little Greek chapel excavated in the rock, The door was so low that we were obliged to stoop on entering, and when within we couid hardly stand upright. The Greeks laid down the body in front of the altar; the husband went, for the priest, the Greeks to select a place for the grave, and I remained alone with the dead. I sat in the doorway, looking inside upon the corpse, and out upon the Greeks dig- ging the grave. In a short time the husband re- turned with a priest, one of the most miserable *>f that class of " blind teachers" who swarm in Greece. He immediately commenced the funeral eervice, which continued nearly an hour, by which time the Greeks returned, and, taking up the body, carried it to th » grave- side, and laid it within I knew the hollow sound of the first ciod of earih which falls ir.v n the lid of a coffin, and shrank from ils leaden fall upon the uncov- ered body. I turned away, and, when at some distance, looked back and saw them pack- ing the earth over the grave. I never saw so dreary a burial-scene. Returning, I passed by the ancient stadium of Herodes 3 Atticus, once capable of^containing twen- ty five thousand spectators ; the whole structure was covered with the purest white marble. All remains of its magnificence are now gone ; but I could still trace, on the excavated side of the hill, its ancient form of a horse-shoe, and walked through the subterraneous passage by which the vanquished in the games retreated from the presence of the spectators. Reuming to the city, I learned that an affray had Just taken place between some Greelt9 and Bavarians, and hurrying to the place near the bazaars, found a crowd gathered together round a soldier who had been stabbed by a Greek. According to the Greeks, the affair had been caused by the habitual insults and provocation given by the Bavarians, the soldier having wan- tonly knocked a drinking cup out of the Greek's hand while he was drinking. In the crowd I met a lounging Italian (the same who wanted me to come up from Padras by water), a good-na- tured and good-for-nothing fellow, and skilled in tongues; and going with him to a coffee-house thronged with Bavarians and Europeans of va- rious nations in the service of government., heard another story, by which it appeared that the Greeks, as usual, were in the wrong, and that the poor Bavarian had been stabbed without the slightest provocation, purely from the Greek's love of stabbing. Tired of this, T left the scene of contention, and a few streets off met an Athe- nian, a friend of two or three days' standing ; and, stopping under a window illuminated by a pair of bright eyes from above, happened to ex« press my admiration of the lady who owned them, when he tested the strength of my feel- ings on the subject by asking me if I would like to marry her. I was not prepared at the mo» ment to give precisely that proof, and he follow* ed up his blow by telling me that, if I wished it, he would engage to secure her for me before the. morning. The Greeks are almost universally pojoa With thorn every teveJk# i| &gfe &ad 13(5 ETPPHENS' TRAVELS. they are eo thoroughly civilised as (o think that a rich man is, of course, a good match. Towards evening I paid my last visit to the Acropolis. Solitude, silence, and sunset, arc the nursery of sentiment. I sat down on a bro- ken capital of the Parthenon : the owl was al- ready flitting among the ruins. I looked up at the majestic temple, and sat down at the ruined and newly regenerated city, and said to myself, " Lots must rise in Athens !" I traced the line of the ancient walls, ran a railroad to the Pir- tens, and calculated the increase on *'up-town lots" from building the lung's palace near the Garden of Pinto. Shall I or shall I not " make an operation' 5 in Athens? The court has remo- ved here, the country is beautiful, climate fine, jrovernment fixed, steam boats are running, all ti e world is coming, and lots must rise. I bought f in imagination) a tract, of good tillable /and, laid it out in streets, had my Plato, and Homer, and Washington Places, and Jackson Avenue, built a row of hou c es to improve the neighbourhood where nobody lived, gets maps lithograped, and sold off at auctions. T was in the right condition to "go in," fori had no- thing to lose : but, unfortunately, the Greeks were very far behind the spirit of the a^e, knew nothing of the beauties of the credit system, and could not be brought to dispose of their con- secrated soil, " da the usual terms," ten per cent, doivn> balance on bond and mortgage ; so, giving up the idea, at dark I bade farewell to the ruins of the Acropolis, and went to my ho- tel to dinner. STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 137 Early the next morning I started for the field of Marathon. I engaged a servant at the hotel to accompany me, hut he disappointed me, and I Ret out alone with my muleteer. Our road lay along the hase of Mount Hymeltus, on the bor- ders of the plain of Attica, shaded by the thick proves of olives. At noc i I was on the summit of a lofty mountain, at the base of which, still and quiet as if it had never resounded with the shock of war, the great battle-ground of the Greeks and Persians extended to the sea. The descent was one of the finest things I met with in Greece — wild, rugged, and, in fact, the most magnificent kind of mountain scenery. At the foot of the mountain we came to a ruined con- vent, occupied by an old white-bearded monk. I stopped there and lunched, the old man laying before me his simple store of bread and olives, and looking on with pleasure at my voracious appetite. This over, I hurried to the battle-field. To- wards the centre is a large mound of earth, erected over the Athenians who fell in the battle. I made direcily for this mound, ascended it, and threw the reins loose over my horse's neck; and sit; in g on the top, read the account of the battle in Herodotus. After all, is not our reverence misplaced, or rather, does not our respect for deeds hallowed by time render us comparatively unjust ! The Greek revolution teems with instances of as des- perate courage, as great love of country, as pa- triotic devotion, as animated the men of Mara- thon, and yet the actors in these scenes are not STEPHENS* TRAVELS. known beyond the boundaries of their native land. Thousands whose names were never heard of, and whose bones, perhaps, never received burial, were a* worthy of an eternal monument as they upon whose grave I sat. Still that mound is a hallowed sepulchre ; and the shep- herd who looks at it from his mountain house, the husbandman who drives his plough to its base, and the sailor who hails it as a landmark from the deck of his caique, are all reminded of the glory of their ancestors. But away with the mouldering relics of the past — give me the green grave of Marco Bozzaris ! I put Herodotus in my pocket, gathered a few blades of grass as a memorial, descended the mound, betook myself to my saddle, and swept the plain in a gallop, from the mountain to the sea. It is about two miles in width, and bounded by rocky heights enclosing it at either extremity. Towards the shore the ground is marshy, and at the place where the Persians escaped to their ships are some unknown ruins ; in several places the field is cultivated, and towards evening, on my way to the village of Marathon, I saw a Greek ploughing ; and when I told him that I was an American, he greeted me as the friend of Greece. It is the last time I shall recur to this feeling ; but it was music to my heart to hear a ploughman on immortal Marathon sound in my ears the praises of my country. I intended to pass the night at the village of Marathon; but every khan was so clustered up with goats, chickens, and children, that I rode back to the monastery at the foot oi the moun. Stephens' travels. 139 tfcfn. It was nearly dark when I reached it. The old monk was on a little eminence at the door of his chapel, clapping two boards together to call his flock to vespers. With his long white beard, his black cap and long black gown, his picturesque position and primitive occupation, he seemed a guardian spirit hovering on the bor- ders of the Marathon in memory of its ancient glory. He came down to the monastery to re- ceive me, and giving me :paiernal welcome, and spreading a mat on the floor, returned to his chapel. I followed, and saw his little flock assemble. The ploughman came up from the plain, and the shepherd came down from the mountain; the old monk led the way to the altar, and all kneeled down prostrat'ng themselves on the rocky floor. I looked at them with deep in- terest. I had seen much of Greek d votion in cities and villages, but it was a spectacle of ex- traordinary interest to see these wild and lawless men assembled on the lonely mountain to wor- ship in all sincerity, according to the best light they had, the God of their fathers. I could not follow them in their long and repeated kneelings and prostrations ; but my young Greek, as if to make amends for m% and at the same time to show how they did things in Athens, led the van. The service over, several of them descended with me to the moi astery ; the old monkspread his mat, and again brought out his frugal store of bread and o ives. I contributed what I had brought from Athens, and we made our evening meal. If I had judged from appearances, I should have felt rather uneasy at having slept among such 140 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. companions ; but the simple fact of hairing seen them at their devotions gave me confidence. Though I had read and heard that the Italian bandit went to the altar to pray forgiveness for the crimes he intended to commit, and before washing the stains from his h nds, hung up the bloody poignard upon the pillar of the church, and asked pardon for murder, ] always felt a certain degree of confidence in him who practis- ed the duties of his religion, whatever that reli- gion might be. I leaned on my elbow, and by the blaze of the fire read Herodotus, while my muleteer, as I judged, entertained them with Ion? stories about me. By degrees the blaze of the fire died away, the Greeks stretched them- seves out for sleep, the old monk handed me a bench about four inches high for apiliow; and wrapping myself in my cloak, in a few moments 1 was wandering in the land of dreams. Before daylight my companions were in mo- tion. T intended to retnrn by the marble quar- ries on the Pentelican mountain ; and crying " Cavallo*' in the ear of my still sleeping mule- teer, in a few minuses I bade farewell for ever to the good old monk of Marathon, Almost from the door of the monastery we commenced as* cendiilg the mountain. It was just peep of day, the weather raw and cold, the top of the moun- tain covered with clouds, and in an hour I found myself in the midst of them. The road was so Steep and dangerous that I could not ride; a false step of my horse might have thrown me over a precipice several hundred feet deep ; and the air was so keen and penetrating, that, not- STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 141 withstanding the violent exercise of walking, I was perfectly chilled. The mist was so dense, too, that when my guide was a few paces in ad- vance I could not not see him, and I was lite- rally groping my way through the clouis. I had no idea where I was, nor of the &cene around ine, but I felt that I was in a measure lifted above the earth. The cold blasts drove furiously along the sides of the mountain, whistled against the precipices, and bellowed in the hollows of the rocks, sometimes driving so furiously that my horse staggered and fell back. 1 was almost b3vvildered in struggling blindly against them ; but just before reaciiing the top of the moun- tain, the thick clouds were lifted as if by an in- visible hand, and 1 saw once more the glorious sun pouring his morning beams upon a rich val- ley extending a great distance to the foot of the Pentelican mountain. About half way down we came to a beautiful stream, on the banks of which we took out our bread and olives. Our appetites were stimulated by the mountain air, and we divided till our last morsel was gone. At the foot of the mountain, lying between it and Mount Pentdieus, was a large monastery, occupied by a fraternity of monks. We enter- ed, and wa.ked through it, but found no one to rebeive us. In a field near by we saw one of the monks, from whom we obtained a direction to the quarries. Moving on to the foot of the mountain, which rises with a peaked sninmit into the clouds, we commenced ascending, and soon came upon the strata of the beautiful white marble for which Mount Pentelicus has been cele- 142 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. brated thousands of years. Excavations appear- ed to have been made along the whole route, and on the road-side were blocks, and marks caused by the friction of the heavy masses transported to Athens. The great quarries are towards the summit. The surface has been cut perpendicu- larly smooth, perhaps 80 or 100 feet high, and 150 or 200 feet in width, and excavations have been made within to an unknown extent. Whole cities might have been built of the materials ta- ken away, and yet, by comparison of what is left, there is nothing gone. In front are en- trances to a large ci amber, in one corner of which, on the right, is a chapel with the painted figure of the Virgin to receive the Greek's pray- ers. Within are vast humid caverns, over which the wide roof awfully extends, adorned with hollow tubes like icicles, while a small transpar- ent petrifying stream trickles down the rock. On one side are small chambers communicating with subterraneous avenues, used, no doubt, as places of refuge during the revolution, or as the haunts of robbers. Bones of animals, and stones blackened with (• moke, showed that but lately some part had been occupied as a habitation The great excavations around, blocks of marble lying as they fell, perhaps two thousand years ago, and the appearances of having been once a t cene of immense industry and labour, stand in strik- ing contrast with the desolation and solitude now existing. Probably the hammer and chisel will never be heard there more, great temples will no more be raised, and modern genius will never, STEPHENS' TRAVELS* 143 like Greeks of old, make the rude blocks of marble speak. At dark I was dining at the Hotel de France, when Mr. Hill came over, with the welcome in- telligence that my carpet-bag had arrived. On it was pinned a large paper, with the words "Huzzah! huzzah! huzzah ! " by my friend Maxwell, who had met it on horseback on the chores of the Gulf of Lepanto, travelling under the charge of a Greek in. search of me. I open- ed it with apprehension, and, to my great f-atis- faction, found undisturbed the object of my greatest anxiety, the precious notebook from which I now write, saved from the perii of anonymous publication or of being used up for gun-waddi:>gs. The next morning, before I was up, J heard a gentle rap at my door, which was followed by the entrance of a German, a missionary whom I had met several times at Mr. Hill's, and who had dined with me once at my hotel. I apolo- gised for being in bed, and told him that he must possess a troubled spirit, to send him so early from his pillow. He answered that I was right ; that he did possess a troubled spirit ; and closing the door carefully, came to my bedside, and said be had conceived a great regard for me, and in- tended confiding in me an important trust. I had several times held long conversations with him at Mr. Hill's, and very little to my edifica- tion, as his English was hardly intelligible ; but I felt pleased at having, without particularly striving for it, gained the favourable opinion of one who bore the character ol' a very learned and 144 STKPHENS' TRAVELS. a very good man. I requested him to step into the dining room while I rose and dressed myself ; but he put his hand upon my breast to keep me down, and drawing a chair, began, " You are going to Smyrna ?" He then paused, bur, after some hesitation, proceeded to say that the first name I would hear on my arrival there would be his own ; that, unfortunately, it was in every body's mouth. My friend was a short and very ugly middle-aged man, with a very larga mouth, speaking English with the most disagreeable German sputter, lame from a fall, and, altoge- ther, of a most uninteresting and unsentimental aspect; and lie surprised me much by laying before me averiHe affaire du occur. It was so foreign to my expectations, that I should as soon have expected to be made a confidant in a love affair by the Archbishop of York. After a few preliminaries, he went into particulars ; lavished upon the lady the Ubual quota of charms, " io such a case made and provided;" but was uncer- tain, rambling, and discursive, in regard to the position he held in her regard. ■ At first I under- stood that it was merely the old story, a flirta- tion and a victim ; then that they were very near being married, which 1 afterwards under- stood to be only so near as this, that he was willing and she not; and finally, it settled down into the every day occurrence, the lady smiled, whilst the parents and a stout two fisted brother frowned. L could not but think, if such a home- ly expression may be introduced in describing these tender passages, that he had the boot on the wrong leg, and that the parents were much STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 14^ more likely than the daughter to favour such a suitor. However, on this point I held my peace. The precise business he wished to im- pose on me was, immediately on my arrival in Smyrna, to form the acquaintance of the lady and her family, and use all my exertions in his favour. I told him I was an entire stranger in Smyrna, and could not possibly have any influ- ence with the parties ; but being urged, promised him that, if I could interfere without intruding myself improperly, he should have the benefit of my mediation. At first he intended giving me a letter to the lady, but afterwards determined to give me one to the Rev. Mr. Brewer, an American missionary, who, he said, was a parti- cular friend of his, and intimate with the belov- ed and her family, and acquainted with the whole affair. Placing himself at my table, on which were pens, ink, and paper, he proceeded to write his letter, while I lay quietly till he turned over the first side, when, tired of waiting, I rose, dressed myself, packed up, and, before he had finished, stood by the table with my carpet- bag, waiting until he should have done to throw in my materials. He bade me good-bye after I had mounted my horse to leave, and, I turned back to look at him, I could not but feel for the crippled, limping victim of the tender passion, though, in honesty, and with the best wishes for his success, I did notthink.it would help his suit for the lady to see him. An account of my journey from Athens to Smyrna, given in a letter to friends at home, waa published during my absence, and without in/ K STBPHENS' TRAVELS. knowledge, in successive numbers of the Ameri- can Monthly Magazine, and perhaps the favour- able notice taken of it had some influence in in- ducing me to write a book. I give the papers as they were then published. Smyrna, April, 1835. My dear**** — I have just arrived at this place, and I live to tell it. I have been three weeks performing a voyage usually made in three days. It has been tedious beyond all things; but, as honest Dogberry would say, if it had been ten times as tedious, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all upon you. To begin at the beginning : — On the morning of the 2d instant, T and my long«!ost carpet-bag left the eternal city of Athens, without knowing ex.ictly whi'her we were going, and sincerely regretted hy Milti- ades Panajotti, the garcon of the hotel. We wound round the foot of the Acropolis, and, giv- ving a last look to its ruined temples, fell into the road to the Piraeus, and in an hour found crselves at that ancient harbour, almost as ce- h --hrated in the history of Greece as Athens itself. Here we took counsel as to further movements, and concluded to take passage in a caique to sail that evening for Syra, being advised that that island was a great place of rendezvous for vessels, and that from it we could procure a passage to any place ve chose. Having disposed of my better half (I may truly call it so, for what is a man without pantaloons, vests, and shirts ?) I took a little sailboat to float around the ancient harbour, and muse upon its departed glories. STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 147 The day that I lingered there before bidding farewell, perhaps forever, to the shores of Greece is deeply impressed upon my mind. I had hardly begun to feel the magic influence of the land, poe s, patriots, and heroes, until the very moment of my departure. T had travelled in the most interesting sections of the country, and foiled &\\ enthusiasm dead within n.e when 1 had expected to be carried away by the remembrance of the past ; hut here, I know not how £t was, without any effort, and in the mere act of whiling away mv time, all that was great, and noble, and beau- tiful, in her history, rushed upon me at once; the^un and the breeze, the land and the pea, contrihuted to throw a witchery around me • and in a rich and delightful frame of minTi I found myself among the monuments of her better days, gliding by the remains of the immense wall erect- ed to enclose the harbour during the Peioponne- sian war, and was soon floating upon the classic waters of Salamis. If I had got there by accident, it would not have occurred to me to dream of battles and all the fierce panoply of war upon that calm and silvery surface. But I knew where I was, and my blood was up. I was among the enduring witne-ses or the Athenian glory. Behind me was the ancient city, the Acropolis, with its ruine-l temples, the tell tale monuments of by- gone days, towering above the plain ; here was the harbour from which the galleys carried to the extreme parts of the then known world the glories of the Athenian name; before me was unconquered Salamis ; here the invading fleet of 148 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. Xerxes ; there the little navy, the last hope of the Athenians ; here the island of ^Egina, from which Aristides, forgetting his quarrel with The- mistocles, embarked in a rude boat, during the hottest of the battle, for the ship of the latter ; and there the throne of Xerxes, where the proud invader stationed himself as a spectator of the battle that was to lay the rich plain of Attica at his feet There could be no mistake about lo- calities ; the details have been handed down from generation to generation, and are as well known to the Greeks of the present day as they were to their fathers. So I went to work systematically, and fought the whole battle through. [ gave the Persians ten to one, but I made the Greeks fight like tigers ; I pointed them to their city, to their wives and children ; 1 brought on long strings of little innocents, urging them as in the farce, "sing out, young 'uns;" I carried old Themistocles among the Persians, like a modern Greek fireship among the Turks ; I sank ship after ship, and went on demolishing: them at a most furious rate, until I saw old Xerxes scud- ding from his throne, and the remnant of the Persian fleet scampering away to the tune of 6> devil take the hindmost.'* By this time I had got into the spirit of the thing; and moving ra- pidly over that water, once red with the blood of thousands from the fields of Asia, I steered for the shore, and mounted the vacant throne of Xerxos. This throne is on a hill near the shore, not very high, and as pretty a place as a man could have selected t > see his friends whipped and keep out of harm's way himself ; for you will STEPHENS TRAVELS. 149 recollect that in those days there was no gunpow- der nor cannon balls, and, consequently, no dan- ger from long chance shots. 1 selected a parti- cular stone, which I thought it probable Xerxes, as a reasonable man, and with an eye to per- spective, might have chosen as his seat on the eventful day of the battle ; and on that same stone sat down to meditate upon the vanity of all earthly greatness. But, most provokingly, whenever I think of Xerxes, the first thing that presents itself to my mind is the couplet in the primer, "Xerxes the Great did die, And so must you and I." This is a very sensible stanza, no doubt, and worthy of always being borne in mind ; but it was not exactly what I wanted, I tried to drive it away ; but the more I tried, the more it stuck to me. It was all in vain. I railed at early educat'on, and resolved that acquired knowledge hurts a man's natural faculties; for if I had not received the first rudiments of education, I should not have been bothered with the vile couplet, and should have been able to do some- thing on my own account. As it was, I lost one of the best opportunities ever a man had for mo- ralising ; and you, my dear , have lost at least three pages. I give you, however, all the materials ; put yourself on the throne of Xerxes, and do what you can, and may your early studies be no stumbling-block in your way. As for me, vexed and disgusted with myself, I descended the hill as fast as the great king did of yore, and, 150 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. jumping into my boat, steered for the farthest point of the Piraeus ; from the throne of Xerxes to the tomb of Themistocles. I was prepared to do something here- Thi9 wad not merely a place where he had been ; I was to tread upon the earth that covered his bones; here were his ashes; here was all that remained of the best and bravest of the Greeks, save his immortal name. As I approached, I saw the large squnre stones that enclosed his grave, and mused upon his history ; the deliverer of hiscountry, banished, dying an exile, his bones begged by bis repenting countrymen, and buried with peculiar propriety near the shore of the sea, commanding a full view of the scene of his naval glory. For more than '2000 years the waves have almost washed over Ins grave — the sun ! as shone and the winds have howled over him ; while, perhaps, his spirit has mingled with the sighing of the winds and murmur of the waters, in moan- ing over the long captivity of his countrymen ; perhaps, too, his spirit has been with them in their late struggle for liberty — has hovered over them in the battle and the breeze, and is now standing sentinel over his beloved and liberated country. 1 approached as to the grave of one wlio wdi never die. His great name, his great deeds, hallowed by the lapse of so many a^es ; the scene — I iooked over the wall with a feeling amounting to reverence, when, di redly before me, the first thing I saw, the only thing 1 could set — so glaring and so conspicuous, that nothing else could fix my eye — was a tail, stiff, wooden beac'board, painted white, with black letters, STEPHENS TRAVELS. 151 the memory of an Englishman with as unclassi- cal a name as that of John Johnson. My eyes were blasted with the sight — I was ferocious— I railed at him as if he ha 1 buried himself there with his own hands. What had he to do there ? I railed at his friends. Did they expect to give him a name, by mingling him with the ashes of the immortal dead ? Did they expect to steal ini« mortality, like fire from the flint ? I dashed back to my boat, steered directly lor the harbour, gave sentiment to the dogs, and in half an hour was eating a most voracious and spiteful dinner. In the evening I embarked on board my little caique. She was one of the most rakish of that rakish description of ves*els. I drew my cloak around me and stretched myself on the deck, as we glided quietly out of the harbour ; saw the thro.ie of Xe;xes ; tiie island of Salamis, and the shores of Greec-i, gradually fade from view; looked at the dusky forms of the Greeks in their capotes lying asleep around me ; at t ie helms- man Sitting eruss-iegged at his post, apparently without life or motion ; gave one thought to home, and fell asleep. In the morning i oegan to examine my compa- nions. They were, in all, a captain and six sailors, probably all part owners, audtwo passen- gers from one of the islands, not one of whom could speak any other language than Greek. My knowledge of that language was confined to a few roiling hexameters, which had stuck by me in some unaccountable way, as a sort of memeuio of college days. These, however, were of no 152 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. particular use, and, consequently, I was pretty much tongue-tied during the whole voyage. I amused myself by making my observations quiet- ly upon my companions, as they did more openly upon me, for I frequently heard the word " Ame- ricanos" pass among them. I had before had occasion to see something of Greek sailors, and to admire their skill and general good conduct, and I was fortified in my previous opinion by what I saw of my present companions. Their temperance in eating and drinking is very re- markable, and all my comparisons between them and European sailors were very much in their favour. Indeed, I could not help thinking, as they sat collectively, Turkish fashion, around their frugal meal of bread, caviari, and black olives, that I had never seen finer men. Their features were regular, in that style which we to this day recognise as Grecian ; their figures good, and their faces wore an air of marked character and intelligence ; and these advanta- ges of person were set off by the island costume, the fez, or red cloth cap, with a long black tassel at the top, a tight vest and jacket, em- broidered and without collars, large Turkish trousers coming down a little below the knee, legs bare, sharp- pointed slippers, and a sash around the waist, tied under the left side, with long ends nanging down, and a knife sticking out about six inches. There was something bold and daring in their appearance, indeed, 1 may say, rakish and piratical : and 1 could easily Mi agine that, if the Mediterranean should again ecooio infested with pirates, my friends woi Id STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 153 cut no contemptible figure among them. But I must not detain you as long on the voyage as 1 was myself. The sea was calm ; we had hardly any wind ; our men were at the oars nearly all the time, and, passing slowly by ^Egina, Cape Sunium, with its magnificent ruins mournfully overlooking the sea, better known in modern times as Colonna's Height and the scene of Fal- coner^ shipwreck, passing also the island of Zea, the ancient Chios, Thermia, and other is- lands cf lesser note, in the afternoon of the third day we arrived at Syra. With icgard to Syra, T shall say but little ; I am as loath to linger about it now as I was to stay there then The fact is, I cannot think of the place with any degree of satisfaction. The evening of my arrival I heard, through a Greek merchant to whom T had a letter from a friend in Athens, of a brig to sail the next day for Smyrna; and I lay down on a miserable bed in a miserable locanda, in the confident expectation of resuming my jonrney in the morning, Before morning, however, I was roused by " blustering Boreas" rushing through the broken casement of my window ; and for more than a week all the winds ever celebrated in the poetical history of Greece were let loose upon the island. We were completely cut off from all communication with the rest of the world. Not a vessel could leave the port, while vessel after vessel put in there for shelter. I do not mean to go into any details— indeed, for my own credit's sake I dare not ; for if I were to draw a picture of things as I found them, if 1 were to write home the truth, 154 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. I should be considered a9 utterly destitute of taste and sentiment ; I should be looked upon as a most unpoetical dog, who ought to have been at home poring over tiie revised statutes, instead of breathing the pure air of poetry and song. And now, if I were writing what might by chance come under the eyes of a sentimental young lady, or a young gentleman in his teens, the truth would be the last thing I would think of telling. No, though my teeth chatter — though a cold sweat comes over me when I think of it, I would go through the u-ual rhapsody, and huzzah for 4< the land of the East and the ctime of the sun." Indeed, I have a scrap in my portfolio, written with my cloak and great coat on, and my feet over a brazier, beginning in that way. But to you, my dear , who know my touching sensi- bilities, and who, moreover, have a tender regard for my character and will not punish me, I woutd a? soon tell the truth as not. And I therefore do not hesitate to say, but do not whisper it else- where, that in one of the beautiful islands of the ^E^ean, in the heart of the Cyclades, in the sight of Delos, and Paros, and Antiparos, any one of which is enough to throw one who lias never seen them into raptures with their fane ed beauties, here, in this paradise of a young man's dreams, in the middle of April, 1 would have hailed " chill November's surly blast" as a zephyr ; I would have exchanged all the beauties of this balmy clime for the sunny side of Kamschatka ; I would have given my room, and the whole island of Syra, for a third-rate lodging in Communipaw. It was utterly impossible to walk out. and equally Stephens' travels. 155 impossible to* tay in the room ; the house, to suit that delightful climate, being built without win- dows or window-shutters. If I could forget the island, I could remember with pleasure the society 1 met there. 1 passed my mornings in the library of Mr K., one of our worthy Ame- rican missionaries ; and my evenings ;tt the house of Mr W., the British consul. This gentleman married a Greek lady of Smyrna, and had three beautiful daughters, more than half Greeks in their habits and feelings; one of them is married to an English baronet, another to a Greek mer- chant of Syra. and the third On the ninth day the wind fell, the sun once more shone brightly, and in the evening I em- barked on board a ncketty brig for Smyrna. At about six o'clock p. m , thirty or forty vessels were quietly crawling out of the harbour, like rats alter a storm. JU was almost a calm when we started; hi about two hours we had a favour- able bref ze ; we turned in, going at the rate of eight miles an hour, and rose with a strong wind dead ah< ad. We heat about all that day ; the wind increased to a gale, and towards evening we rook shelter in the harbour of Scio. The history of this beautiful little island forms one of the bloodiest pa^es in the history of the world, and one glance told that dreadful history. Once the most beautiful island of the Archipe- lago, it is now a mass of ruins. Its fields, which once " budded and blossomed as the rose," have become waste places ; its villages are deserted, its towns are in ruins, its inhabitants murdered, in capuvity, and in exile. Before the Greek H6 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. revolution, the Greeks of Scio were engaged in extensive commerce, and ranked among the lar- gest merchants in the Levant. Though living under hard taskmasters, subject to the exactions of a rapacious pacha, their industry and enter- prise, and the extraordinary fertility of their is- land, enabled them to pay a heavy tribute to the Turks, and to become rich themselves. For many ages they had enjoyed the advantages of a college, with professors of high literary and sci- entific attainments, and their library was cele- brated throughout all that country ; it was, per- haps, the only spot in Greece where taste and learning still held a seat. But the island was far more famed for its extraordinary natural beauty and fertility. Its bold mountains and its soft valleys, the mildness of its climate, and the richness of its productions, bound the Greeks to its soil by a tie even stronger than the chain of their Turkish masters. In the early part of the revolution the Sciotes took no part with their countrymen in their glorious struggle for liberty. Forty of their principal citizens were given np as hostages, and they were suffered to remain in peace. Wrapped in the rich beauties of their island, they forgot the freedom of their fathers and their own chains ; and under the precarious tenure of a tyrant's will, gave themselves up to the full enjoyment of all that wealth and taste could pur- chase. We must not be too hard upon human nature ; the cause seemed desperate ; they had a little paradise at stake ; and if there is a spot on earth, the risk of losing which could excuse men in forgetting that they were slaves in a land STEPHENS TRAVELS. 157 where their fathers were free, it is the island of Scio. But the sword hung suspended over them by a single hair. In an unexpected hour, with- out the least note of preparation, they were star- tled by the thunder of the Turkish cannon ; 50,000 Turks were let loose like bloodhounds upon the devoted island. The affrighted Greeks lay unarmed and helpless at their feet, but they lay at the feet of men who did not know mercy even by name — at the feet of men who hungered and thirsted after blood — of men, in comparison with whom wild beasts are as lambs. The wild- est beast of the forest may become gorged with blood ; not so with the Turks at Scio. Their appetite " grew with what it fed on," and still longed for blood when there was not a victim left to bleed. Women were ripped open, child- ren dashed against the walls, the heads of whole families stuck on pikes out of the windows of their houses, while their murderers gave them- selves up to riot and plunder within. The forty hostages were hung in a row from the walls of the castle ; an indiscriminate and universal burn- ing took place; in a few days the ground became cambered with the dead, and one of the loveliest spots on earth was a pile of smoking ruins. Out of a population of 1 10 ; 000, 60,000 are supposed to have been murdered, 20, 000 to have escaped, and 30,000 to have been sold into slavery. Boys and young girls were sold publicly in the streets of Smyrna and Constantinople at a dollar a-head. And all this did not arise from an} r irritated state of feeling towards them. It originated in the cold-blooded, calculated policy of the sultan, 158 Stephens' travels. conceived in the same spirit which drenched the streets of Constantinople with the blood of the Janizaries ! it was intended to strike terror into the hearts of the Greeks, but the murderer failed in his aim. The groans of the hapless Sciotes reached ihe ears of their countrymen, and gave a headlong and irresistible impulse to the spirit then struggling to be free. And this bloody tra- gedy was performed in our own days, and in the face of the civilised world. Surely if Heaven visits in judgment a nation for a nation's crimes, the burning and massacre at Scio will be deeply visiied upon the accursed Turks. It was late in the afternoon when I landed, and my landing was under peculiarly interesting circumstance-. One of my* fellow passengers wag a native of the island, who had escaped during the mass »cre, and now revisited it for the nr.->t time. He asked me to accompany him ashore, p omis'ng to find some friends at whose house we might sleep ; where he had once known every body, he now knew nobody. 'I he town was a complete mass of ruins; the walis of many fine buildings were still standing, crumbling to pieces, an 1 still b ack with the fire of the incendiary Turks. The town that had grown up upon the ruins consisted of a row of miserable shantees, occupied as shops for the sale of the mere neces- saries of life, where the shopman slept on his window-shutter in front. All my companion's efforts to find an acquaintance who would give us a night's lodging were fruitless. We were determined not to go on board the vessel, if pos- sible to avoid it ; her last cargo had been oil, the STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 159 odour of which still remained about her. The weather would not permit us to sleep on deck, and the cabio was intolerably disagreeable. To add to our unpleasant situation, and, at the same time, to heighten the chcerlessness of the scene around us, the rain began to fall violently. Un- der the guidance of a Greek, we searched among the ruins of an apartment where we might build a fire and shelter ourselves for the night, but we searched in vain ; the work of destruction was too complete. Cold, and thoroughly drenched with rain, we were retracing our way to the boat, when our guide told mv companion tl at a Greek arch- b shop 1 ad lately taken up his abode among the ruins. We immediately went there, and found him occupying apartmen s, partially repaired, in v hat had once been one of the finest houses in Scio. The entrance ih rough a la ge stone gate- way was imposing: the house was cracked trom top to bottom by thefire, nearly one half had fallen down, and the stones lay scattered as they fell ; but enough remained to show that 'n its better days it had been almost a palace. We ascended a flight of stone steps to a terrace, from which we entered into a large hall, perhaps thirty feet wide and fifty feet long. On one side of this hall the wall had fallen down the whole length, and we looked out upon the mass of ruins beneath. On the other side, in a small room in one corner, we found the archbishop. He was sick, and in bed with all his clothes on, according to the cus- tom here, but received us kindly. The furniture consisted of an iron bedstead wirh a mattrass, on 16*0 Stephens' travels. which he lay with a quilt spread over him, a wooden sofa, three wooden chairs, ahout twenty books, and two large leather cases containing clothes, napkins, and, probably, all his worldly goods. The rain came through the ceiling in several places ; the bed of the poor archbishop had evidently been moved from time to time to avoid it, and I was obliged to change my position twice. An air of cheerless poverty reigned through the apartment. I could not help com- paring his lot with that of more favoured, and, perhaps, not more worthy, servants of the church. It was a style so different from that of the priests of Home, the Pope and his cardinals, with their gaudy equipages and multitudes of footmen rattling to the Vatican ; or from the pomp and state of the haughty English prelates, or even from the comforts of our own missiona- ries, in different parts of this country, that I could not help feeling deeply for the poor priest before me. But he seemed contented and cheer- ful, and even thankful that, for the moment, there were others worse "off than himself, and that he had it in his power to befriend them. Sweetmeats, coffee, and pipes, were served; and in about an hour we were conducted to sup- per in a large room, also opening from the hall. Our supper would not have tempted an epicure, but suited very well an appetite whetted by ex- ercise and travel. It consisted of a large lump of bread and a large glass of water for each of us, caviari, b^aek olives, and two kinds of Turk- ish sweetmeats. We were waited upon by two priests ; one of them, a handsome young man, STKPHENB Til.VV EL not more than twenty, with long black hair hang- ing over his shoulders, like a girl's, stood by w ith a napkin on his arm and a pewter vessel, with which he poured water on our hands, receiving it again in a basin. This was done both before and after eating ; then came coffee and pipes. During the evening the young priest brought out an edition of Homer, ana 1 surprised him, and astounded myself, by being able to translate a passage in the iliad. I translated it in French, and my companion explained it in modern Greek to the young priest. Our beds were cushions laid on a raised platform or divan extending around the wails, with a quilt for each of us. In the morning, alter sweetmeats, coffee, and pipes, we paid our respects to the good old archbishop, and took our leave. When we got out of doors, finding that the wind was the same, and that there was no possibility of sailing, my friend pro- posed a ride into the country. We procuied a couple of mules, took a small basket oi provisions for a collation, and started Our road lay directly along the shore ; on one side the sea, and on the other the ruins of houses and gardens, almost washed by the waves. At about three miles' distance we crossed a little stream, by the side of which we saw a saiehopha- gus, lately disinterred, containing the usual vases of a Grecian tomb, including the piece of money to pay Charon his ferriage over the river Styx, and s x pounds of dust ; being all that remained of a man — periiaps one who had filled a large Epace in the world ; perhaps a hero — buried pro- ably more than 2,000 years ago. After a rid* L 162 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. of about five miles we came to the ruin-- of a large village, the style of which would any where have fixed the attention, as Laving been once the fa- voured above of wealth and taste. The houses were of brown stone, built together strictly in the Venetian style, after the m< dels left during the occupation of the island by the Venetians, large and elegant, with gardens of three or four acres, enclosed by high wa Is of the same kind of stone, and altogether in a style far superior to any thing I had seen in Greece. These were the conn try- houses and gardens of the rich merchants of Scio. The manner of living among the proprietors here was somewhat peculiar, and the ties that bound them to this little village were peculiarly strong. This was the family home ; the community was essentially mercantile, and most of their bus ness transactions were carried on elsewhere. When there were three or four brothers in a family, one would be in Constantinople a couple of years, another at Trieste, and so on, while another re* mained at home ; so that those who were away, while toiling amid the perplexities of business, were always looking to the occasional family re- union ; and all trusted to spend the evening of their days among the beautiful gardens of Scio. What a scene for the heart to turn to now ! The houses and gardens were still there, some stand- ing almost entire, others black with emofee and crumbling to ruins. But where were they who occupied them ? Where were they who should now be coming out to rejoice in the return of a friend, and to welcome a stranger ? An awful solitude, a stillness that struck a cold upon the STEPHENS' TRAVELS. heart, reigned around us. We saw -nobody ; and our own voices, and the trampling of our horses upon the deserted pavements, sounded hollow and sepulchral in our ears. It was like walking among the ruins of Pompeii ; it was another city of the dead ; but there was a freshness about the desolation that seemed of-day ; it seemed as the inhabitants should be sleeping, and not dead. Indeed, the high walls of the gardens, and the outside of the houses too, were generally so fresh and in so perfect a state, that it seemed like rid- ing through a handsome village at an early hour before the inhabitants had risen ; and I some- times could not help thinking that in an hour or two the streets would be thronged by a busy pop- ulation. My friend continued to conduct me through the solitary streets ; telling me, as we went along that this was the house of such a fa- mily, this of such a family, with some of whose members I had become acquainted in Greece, uniil, stopping before a large stone gateway, he dismounted at the gate of his father's house. In that house he was born ; there he had spent his youth ; he had escaped from it during the dread- ful massacre, and this was the first of his revisit- ing it. What a tide of recollections must have rushed upon him ! We entered through the large and stone gate- way into a courtyard beautifully paved m mosaic in the form of a star, with small black and white round stones. On our left was a large stone re- servoir, perhaps twenty- five feet square, siiil so perfect as to hold water, with an arbour [over it supported with marble columns; a venerable 164 fTEPHENS* TRAVELS. grape-vine completely covered the arbour. The garden covered an extent of about four acres, tilled with orange, lemon, almond, and fig trees ; overrun with weeds, roses, and flowers, growing together in wild confusion. On the right was the house, and a melancholy spectacle it was : the wall had fallen down on one side, and the whole was black with smoke. We ascended a flight of stone steps, with balustrades, to the terif.ee, a platform about twemy feet square, overlooking the garden. From the terrace we entered the saloon, a large room with high ceil- ings ai d fresco paintings on the wall ; the marks of the fire kindled on tiie stone floor stiil visible, all the woodwork burned to a cinder, and the whole black with smoke, it was a perfect pic- ture f wanton destruction. The day, too, was in conformity with the scene ; the sun was ob- scured, the wind blew through the ruined build- ing, it rained, and was cold and cheerless. W hat vere the feelings of my friend I cannot imagine; (three of the houses of his uncles were immedi- ately adjoining ; one of these uncles was one of the for iv hostages, and was hanged; the other two were muiOered; his father, a venerable- looking old man, who came down to the vessel when we started to tee him off, and escaped to the mountains, hem thence in a caique tolpsara, and from thence into Italy. 1 repeat it, 1 can- not imagine what weie his feelings ; he spoke but little ; they must have been too deep for ut- terance. I looked at every thing with intense interest ; I wanted to ask question after question, but could not, in mercy, probe his bleeding RTEPHEVS' TRAVELS. wounds. We left the house, and walked out in- to the garden. It showed that there was no master's eve to watch over it ; I plucked an orange which had lost i^s flavour; the tree was withering from want of care; our feet became entangled among weeds, arid roses, aad rare hot- house plants, growing "wildly together. I said that lie did not talk much ; but the little he did say amounted to volumes. Passing a large vase in which a beautiful plant was running wildly over the sides, he murmured indistinctly "the same vase" (le mem 9 vase); and once he stopped opposite a tree, and, turning to me, said, £C This is the onlv tree T do not remember." These and ot «er little incidental remarks showed how deep- ly all the particulars were engraved upon his mm 1, and told me, plainer than words, that the wreck and ruin he saw around him harrowed his very soul. Indeed, how could it be otherwise ? This was his father's house, the home of his youth, the scene of his earliest, dearest, and fondest recollections. Busy memory, that source of ail our greatest pains as well as greatest p ea- sures, must have pressed sorely upon him, must have painted the ruined and desolate scene around him in colours even brighter, far brighter, than than they ever existed in ; it must have called up the faces of well-known and well-loved friends; indeed, he must have asked iimself, in bitter- ness and in anguish of spirit, M The friends of my youth, where are they ?" while the fatal answer fell upon his heart, fi Gone, murdered, in captivity, and in exile.'* Stephens' travels. CHAPTER VIII. A Noble Grecian Lady —Beauty of Scio — An Original — Foggi — A Turkish Coffee house — Mussulman at Prayers — Easter Sunday — A Greek Priest — A Tartar Guide — Turkish Ladies — Camel Scenes — Sight of a Harem — Disappointed Hopes — A rare Concert — Arrival at Smyr- na. ( Continuation of the letter. ) We returned to the house, and seeking out a room less ruined than the rest, partook of a slight collation, and set out on a visit to a rela- tive of iny Sciote friend. On our way nay companion pointed out a con- vent on the side of a hill, where 6000 Greek, who bad been prevailed upon to come down from the mountains to ransom themselves, were treacherously murdered to a man ; their unburi- ed bones still whiten the ground within the walls of the convent. Arriving at the house of his relative, we entered through a large gateway into a handsome courtyard, wiih reservoir, gar- den, &c, ruinous, though in better condition than those we had seen before. This relative was a widow, of the noble house of Mavrocord- ato, one of the first families in Greece, and per- haps the most distinguished name in the Greek revolution. She had availed herself of the sul* tan'3 anmesty to return ; had repaired two or three rooms, and sat down to end her days among the scenes of her childhood, among the STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 1G7 rui».is of her father's house. She was now not more than thirty ; her countenance was remaik- ably pensive, and she had seen enough to drive a smile for ever from her face. The meeting between her and my friend was exceedingly af- fecting, particularly on her part. She wept bit- terly, though, with the elasticity peeuaar to the Greek character, the era ile soon chased away the tear. She invited us to spend the night there, pointing to the divan, and promising us cushions and coverlets. We accepted her invi- tation, and again set forth to ramble among the ruins. I heard that an American missionary had late- ly come to the island, and was living somewhere in the neighbourhood. I found out his abode, and went to see him. He was a young man from Virginia, by the name of * * * * ; had mar- ried a young lady from Connecticut, who w.;~ unfortunately sick in bed. He was living in one room, in the corner of a mined building, but was then engaged in repairing a house into which he expected to remove soon. As an American, the first whom they had seen in that distant is- land, they invited me into the sick room. In a strange land, and among a people whose lan- guage they did not understand, they seemed to be all in all to each other ; and I left them, probably for ever, in tiie earnest hope that the wife might soon be restored to health, that hand in hand they might sustain each other in the rough path before them. Towards evening, we returned to the house of my friend's relative. We found there a nephew, 168 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. a young man about twentv-two, and a cousin, a man about thirty-five, botb accidentally on a vi- sit to the island. As T looked at the little party before me, sitting around a brazier of charcoal, and talking earnestly in Greek, I could hardly persuade myself that what I had seen and heard that day was real. All that I bad ever read in history of the ferocity of the Turkish character; all the wild stories of corsairs, of murdering, capturing, and carrying into captivity, that I bad ever read in romances, crowded upon me, and [ saw living witnesses that the bloodiest records of history, and the wildest creations of romances, were not overcharged. They could ail testify in their own persons that these things were true. They had all been stripped of their property, and had their houses burned over their heads; had all narrowly escaped being murdered ; and had all suflered in the : r nearest and dearest connex- ions. The nephew, then a boy nine years old, had been save 1 by a maid-servant ; his father had been murdered ; a brother, a sister, and many of his cousins, were at that moment, and had been for several years, in slavery among the Turks; my friend, with his sister, had found a refuge in the house of the Austrian consul, and from thence had escaped into I f aly; the cousin was tbe son of one of the forty hostages who were hanged, and was the only member of his fa- ther's family that escaped d- ath ; while our pen- sive and amiable hostess, a bride of seventeen, had ieen her young husband murdered before her eyes : had herself been sold into slavery, STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 169 and, after two years' servitude, redeemed by her friends. In the morning I rose ea'ly, and walked out upon the terrace. Nature had put on a different garb. The wind had fallen, and the sun was shining warmly upon a scene of softness and luxuriance surpassing all that I had ever heard or dreamed of the beauty of the islands of Greece. Away with all that I said about Smyr- na ; skip the pa2;e ! The terrac ■ overlooked the garden filled with oramre, lemon, almond, and fU-trees ; with plants, roses, and flowers of ev- ery description, growing in luxuriant wildness. But the view was not c nfined to the garden. Looking back to the harbour of Scio, was a bold range of rugged mountains bounding the view on that side; on the right was t lie sea, then calm as a lake; on both the other tides wore ranges of mountains, irregular and p'cturesque in their appearance, verdant and blooming to their very summits; and within these limits, for an extent of perhaps five miles, were continued gardens like that at my feet, filled with the choic- est fruit- trees, with roses, and the greatest vari- ety of rare plants and flowers that ever unfolded their beauties before the eyes of man ; above all, the orange-trees, the peculiar favourite of the islands, then almost in full bloom, covered with blossoms, from my elevated position on the ter- race, made the whole valley appear an immense bed of flowers, All, too, felt the freshening influence of the rain ; and a gentle breeze brought to me, from this wilderness of sweets, the most delicious perfume that ever greeted the 170 STEPHENS TRAVELS. senses. Do not think me extravagant when I say, that in your wildest dreams you could never fan- cy so rich and beautiful a scene. Even among ru'ns, that almost made the heart break, I could hardly tear my eyes from it. It is one of the loveliest spots on earth. It is emphatically a Paradise lost, for the hand of the Turks is upon it — a hand that withers all it touches. In vain does the sultan invite the survivors, and their children, made orphans by his bloody massacres to return ; in vain do the fruits and the flowers, the sun and the soil, invite them to return ; their wounds are still bleeding; they cannot for- get that the wild beast's paw might again be upon them, and that their own blood might one day moisten the flowers which glow over the grave of their fathers. But I must leave this place. I could hardly tear myself away then, and 1 love to linger about it now. While I was enjoying the luxury ot the terrace, a messenger came from the capstain to callus onboard. With a feeling of the deepest interest, I bade farewell, probably for ever, to my sorrowing hostess, and to the beautiful garden of Seio. We mounted our mules, and in an hour were at the port. My feelings were so wrought upon, that I felt my blood boil at the first Turk i met in the streets. I felt that I should like to sacri- fice him to the shades of the murdered Greeks. I wondered that the Greeks did not kill every one on the island. I wondered that they could endure the sight of the turban. We found that the captain had hurried us away unnecessarily. We could not get out of the harbour, and were Stephens' travels. 171 obliged to lounge about the town all clay. We again made a circuit among the ruins ; examined particularly those of the library, where we found an old woman who had once beuch pertinacity as if he had built it himself ; but I am sorry to be obliged to say, in spite of his authority and my own wish to believe him, that the better opinion is, that now not a single stone is to be seen. Topographers have fixed the site 00 the plain, near the gate of the city which opened to the sea. The sea, which once almost washed its walls, has receded or been driven back for several miles. For many years a new soil has been accumu- lating, and all that stood on the plain, including so much of the remains of the temple as had not been plundered and carried away by different conquerors, is probably now buried many feet under its surface. It was dark when I returned to Aysalook. I had remarked, in passing, that several caravans had encamped there, and on my return found the 204 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. camel drivers assembled in the little coffee-house in which I was to pass the night. I soon saw that there was so many of us that we should make a tight fit in the sleeping part of the khan, and immediately measured off space enough to fit my body, allowing turning and kicking room. I look- ed with great complacency on the slight slippers of the Turks, which they always throw off, too, when they go to sleep, and made an ostentatious display of a pair of heavy iron-nailed boots, and, in lying down, gave one or two preliminary thumps to show them I was restless in my move- ments, and if they came too near me, these iron-naikd boots would be uncomfortable neigh* hours. And here I ought to have spent half the night in musing upon the strange concatenation of cir- cumstances which had broken up a quiet, prac- tising attorney, and sent him a straggler from a busy, money-getting land, to meditate among the ruins of ancient cities, and sleep pellmell with turbaned Turks. But I had no time for mus- ing ; I was amazingly tired ; I looked at the group of Turks in one corner, and regretted that I could not talk with them ; thought of the tower of Babel and the wickedness of man, which brought about a confusion of tongues ; of camel- drivers, and Arabian Nights' entertainments ; of home, and my own comfortable room in the third story ; brought my boot down with a thump that made them all start;, and in five minutes was asleep. In the morning I again went over to the ruins. Daylight, if possible, added to their effect ; and STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 205 a little thing occurred, not much in itself, but the circumstances fastened itself upon my mind, in such a way that I shall never forget it. I had read that here, in the stillness of the night, the jackal's cry was heard ; that, if a stone was rolled, a scorpion or lizard slipped from under it ; and while picking our way slowly along the lower part of the city, a wolf of the largest size came out above, as if indignant at being disturbed in his possessions. He moved a few paces towards us with such a resolute air that my companions both drew their pistols ; then stopped, and gazed at us deliberately as we were receding from him, until, as if satisfied that we intended to leave his dominions, he turned and disappeared among the ruins. It would have made a fine picture; the Turk first, then the Greeks, each with a pistol in his hand, then myself, ail on horseback, the wolf above us, the valley, and the ruined city. I feel my inability to give you a true pic- ture of these ruins. Indeed, if I could lay be- fore ycu every particular, block for block, fragment for fragment, here a column and there a column, I could not convey a full idea of the desolation that marks the scene. To the Christian, the ruins of Ephesus carry with them a peculiar interest; for here, upon the wreck of heathen temples, was established one of the earliest Christian churches ; but the Christian church hath followed the heathen tem- ple, and the worshippers of the true God have followed the worshippers of the great goddess Diana; and in the city where Paul preached, and where, in the words of the apostle, " much 206 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. people were gathered unto the Lord,*' now not a solitary Christian dwells. Verily, in the pro- phetic language of inspiration, the "candlestick is removed from its place a curse seems to have fallen upon it, men shun it, not a human being is to be seen among its ruins ; and Ephe- sus, in faded glory and fallen grandeur, is given up to birds and beasts of prey, a monument and a warning to nations. From Ephesus I went to Scala Nova, hand- somely situated on the shore of the sea, and commanding a fine view of the beautiful Island of Samos, distant not more than four miles. I had a letter to a Greek merchant there, who re- ceived me kindly, and introduced me to the Turkish governor. The governor, as usual, was seated upon a divan, and asked us to take seats beside him. We were served with coffee and pipes by two handsome Greek slaves, boys about fourteen, with long hair hanging down their necks, and handsomely dressed ; who, after seiving us, descended from the platform, and waited with folded arms until we had finished. Soon after, a third guest came, and a third lad, equally handsome and equally well dressed, served him in the same manner. This is the style of the Turkish grandees, a slave to every guest. I do not know to what extent it is car- ried, but am inclined to think that, in the pres- ent instance, if one or two more guests had hap- pened to come in, my friend's retinue of slaves would have fallen short. The governor asked me from what country I came, and who was my king ; and when I told him that we had no king, STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 207 but a president, he said, very graciously, that our president and the grand seignior were very good friends ; a compliment which I acknow- ledged with all becoming humility. Wanting to show off a little, I told him that we were going to fight the French, and he said we should cer- tainly whip them if we could get the grand seign- ior to help us. { afterwards called on my own account upon the English consul. The consuls in these little places are originals. They have nothing to do, but they have the government arms emblazoned over their doors, and strut about in cocked hats and regimentals, and shake their heads, and look knowing, and talk about their government; they do not know what the government will think, &c, when half the time their government hard- ly knows an old Maltese, who spoke French and Italian. He received me very kindly, and press- ed me to stay all night. I told him that I was not an Englishman, and had no claim upon his hos- pitality ; but he said that made no difference; that he was consul for all civilised nations, among which he did me the honour to include mine. At three o'clock I took leave of the consul. My Greek friend accompanied me outside the gate, where my horses were waiting for me ; and, at parting, begged me to remember that I hud a friend, who hardly knew what pleasure was except in serving me. 1 told him that the happiness <>f my life was not complete before I met him ; we threw ourselves into each other's arms, and, after a two hours' acquaintance, 26S stephknV travels. could hardly tear away from each other's em- braces. Such is the force of sympathy between congenial spirits. My friend was a man about fifty, square built, broad shouldered, and big must ached ; and the beauty of it was. that nei- ther could understand a word the other said ; and this touching interchange of sentiment had to pass through my mustached, big- whisk- ered, double-fitted, six-feet interpreter. At four o'clock we set out on our return ; at seven we stopped in a beautiful valley surround- ed by mountains, and on the sides of the moun- tains were a number of Turcoman's tents. T he khan was worse than any I had yet seen. It had no floor, and no mat. The proprietor of the khan — if such a thing, consisting merely of four mud walls with a roof of branches, which seemed to have been laid there by the winds, could be said to have a proprietor — was uncommonly so- ciable ; he set before me my supper, consisting of bread and yort — a preparation of milk — and appeared to be much amused at seeing me eat. He asked my guide many questions about me; examined my pistols, took off his turban, and put my hat upon his shaved head, which trans- formed him from a decidedly bold, slashing look- ing fellow, into a decidedly sneaking-looking one. I had certainly got over all fastidiousness in re- gard to eating, drinking, and sleeping, but I could not stand the vermin at this khan. In the middle of the night I rose and went ow of doors; it was a brilliant starlight night, and, as the bare earth was in any case to be my bed, I ex- changed the mud floor of my khan for the green- STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 209 sward and the broad canopy of heaven. My Turk was sleeping on the ground, about a hund- red yards from the house, with his horse grazing around him. I nestled close to him, and slept perhaps two hours. Towards morning I was awakened by the cold, and, with the selfishness of misery, I began punching my Turk under the ribs to wake him. This was no easy matter ; but after a while I succeeded, got him to saddle the horses, and in a few minutes we were off, my Greek not at all pleased with having his slumbers so prematurely disturbed. At about two o'clock we passed some of the sultan's volunteers. These were about fifty men chained together by the wrists and ankles, who had been chased, run down, and caught in some of the villages, and were now on their way to Con- stantinople, under a guard, to be trained as sol- diers. I could not but smile as I saw them, not at them, for, in truth, there was nothing in their condition to excite a smile, but at the recollection of an article I had seen a few days before in a European paper, which referred to the new le- vies making by the sultan, and the spirit with which his subjects entered into the service. They were a speaking comment upon European insight into Turkish politics. But, without more ado, suffice it to say, that at about four o'clock I found myself at the door of my hotel, my out- er garments so covered with creeping things that my landlord, a prudent Swiss, with many apolo- gies, begged me to shake myself before going into the house ; and my nether garments so stained with blood, that I looked as if a corps 210 Stephens' travels. of the sultan's regulars had pricked me with their bayonets. My enthusiasm on the subject of the seven churches was in no smal! degree abated, and just at that moment I was willing to take up on trust the condition of the others, that all that was foretold of them in the Scriptures had come to pass. I a^ain betook me to the bath, and, in thinking of the luxury of my re- pose, 1 feel for you, and come to a full stop. CHAPTER X. Position of Smyrna — Consular Privileges — The Case of the Lover — End of the Love Affair — The Missionary's Wife — The Casino — Only a Greek Row — Rambles m Smyrna — The Armenians — Domestic Enjoyments. But I must go back a little, and make the amende honourable, for, in truth, Ghiaour Is- mir, or infidel Smyrna, with its wild admixture of European and Asiatic population, deserves better than the rather cavalier notice contained in my letter. Before reaching: it, I had remarked its ex- ceeding beauty of position, chosen as it is with that happy taste which distinguished the Greeks in selecting the sites of their ancient cities, on the declivity of a mountain running down to the shore of the bay, with houses rising in terraces on its sides ; its domes and minarets, interspers- ed with cypresses, rising above the tiers of houses, and the summit of the hill crowned with a large solitary castle. It was the first large STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 211 Turkish city I had seen, and it differed, too, from all other Turkish cities, in the strong foot- hold obtained there by Europeans. Indeed, re- membering it is in a place where often, and with- in a very few years, upon a sudden outbreaking of popular fury, the streets were deluged with Christian blood, I was particularly struck, not only with the air of confidence and security, but in fact with the bearing of superiority assumed by the "Christian dog" among the followers of the Prophet. Directly on the bay is a row of large houses running along the whole front of the city, among which are seen emblazoned over the doors the arms of most of the foreign consuls, including the American. By the treaties of the Porte with the Christian powers, the Turkish tribunals have no jurisprudence in matters touching tho rights of foreign residents; and all disputes be- tween these, and even criminal offences, fall under the cognisance of their respective consuls. This gives the consuls in all the maritime ports of Turkey great power and position ; and all over the Levant they are great people; but at Smyrna they are far more important than am- bassadors and ministers at the European capi» tals ; and with their Janizaries and their appear- ance on all public occasions in uniform, are looked up to by the Levantines somewhat like the consuls abroad under the Roman empire., and by the Turks as almost sultans. The morning after my arrival 1 delivered let- ters of introduction to Mr. OfHey, the American consul, a native of Philadelphia, thirty ye. ra 212 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. resident in Smyrna, and married to an Armenian lady ; Mr Langdon, a merchant of Boston ; and Mr Styth, of Baltimore, of the firm of Issaver- dens, Styth, and Company ; one to Mr Jetter, a German missionary, whose lady told me, while her husband was reading it, that she had met me in the street the day before, and on her re- turn home told him that an American had just arrived. I was curious to know the mark by which she recognised me as an American, being rather dubious whether it was by reason of any thing praiseworthy, or the reverse ; but she could not tell. I trust the reader has not forgotten the vic- tim of the tender passion, who, the moment of my leaving Athens, had reposed in my sympa- thising bosom the burthen of his hopes and fears. At the very first house in which I was introduced to the female members of the family, I found making a morning call the lady who had made such inroads upon his affections. I 1 ad already heard her spoken of as being the largest fortune, and, par consequence, the greatest belle in Smyrna, and I hailed it as a favourable omen that I accidentally made her acquaintance so soon after my arrival. I made my observa- tions, and could not help remarking that she was by no means pining away on account of the ab- sence of my friend. 1 was almost indignant at her heartless happiness, and, taking advantage of an opportunity, introduced his name, hoping to see a shade come over her, and, perhaps, to strike her pensive for two or three minutes ; but er comment was a death blow to my friend's STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 213 prospects and my mediation — "Poor M. !" and all present repeated " Poor M. !" with a porten- tous smile, and the next moment had forgotten his existence. I went away in the full conviction that it was all over with "Poor M. !" — and murmuring to myself, " Put not your trust in woman." I dined, and in the afternoon called with my letter of introduction upon his friend, the Rev. Mr Brewer ; and Mr Brewer's com- ment on reading it was about equal to the lady's "Poor M. !" He asked me in what condition I left our unfortunate friend. I told him his leg was pretty bad, though he continued to hobble about ; but Mr Brewer interrupted me ; he did not mean his leg, but — he hesitated, and with reluctance, as if he wished to avoid speaking of it outright, added — his mind. I did not compre- hend him, and, from his hesitation and delicacy, imagined he was alluding to the lover's heart ; but he cleared the matter up, and to my 3:o small surprise, by telling that, some time before he left Smyrna, "Poor M." had shown such strong marks of aberration of intellect, that his friends had deemed it advisable to put him under the charge of a brother missionary and send him home, and that they hoped great benefit from travel and change of scene. I was surprised, and by no means elevated in my own conceit, when I found that I had been made the confidan of a crazy man. Mr Hill, not knowing of any particular intimacy between us, and probably not wishing to publish his misfortune unnecessarily, had not given the slightest intimation of it, and I had not discovered it. I had considered 214 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. his communication to me strange, and his general conduct not less so, but I had no idea that it was any thing more than the ordinary derangement which every man is said to labour under when in love. I told Mr Brewer my story, and the com- mission with which I was entrusted, which he said was perfectly characteristic, his malady be- ing a sort of monomania on the subject of the tender passion ; and every particle of interest whicii I might nevertheless have taken in the af- fair, connecting his derangement in some way with the lady in question, was destroyed by the volatile direction of his passion, sometimes to one object, and sometimes to another: and in regard to the lady to whom 1 was accredited, he had never shown any penchant towards her in particular, and must have given me her name because it happened to be the first that suggested itself at the moment of his unburthening himself to me. Fortunately, I had not exposed myself by any demonstration in behalf of my friend, so I quietly dropped him. On leaving Mr Brewer, I suggested a doubt whether I could be regarded as an acquaintance upon the introduction of a crazy man ; but we had gone so far that it was decided, for that specific purpose, to admit his sanity. I should not mention these particulars, if there was any possibility of their ever wound- ing the feelings of him to whom they refer; but he is now beyond the reach eiiher of calumny or praise, for about a year after, I heard, with great regret, that his malady had increased, accompanied with a general derangement of STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 215 health, and shortly after his return home, he died. My intercourse with the Franks was confined principally to my own countrymen, whose houses were open to me at all times ; and I cannot help mentioning the name of Mr Van Lennup, the Dutch consul, the great friend of the mission- aries in the Levant, who had bsen two years resident in the United States, and was inti- mately acquainted with many of my friends at home. Society in Smyrna is purely mercantile, and having been so long out of the way of it, it was grateful to me once more to hear men talk- ing with all their souls about cotton, stocks, ex- changes, and other topics of interest, in the lit- eral meaning of the word. Sometimes lounging in a merchant's counting-room, 1 took up an American paper, and heard Boston, and New York, and Baltimore, and cotton, and opium and freight, and quarter p r cent, less, baudied about, until I almost fancied myself at home ; and when this became too severe, I had a re- course with the missionaries, gentlemanly and well-educated men, well acquainted with the countries and places worth visiting, with just the books I wanted, and, I had almost said, the wives— I mean with wives always glad to see a countryman, and to talk about home. There is something exceedingly interesting in a mission- ary's wife. A soldier's is more so, for she fol- lows him to danger, and, perhaps to death ; but glory waits him if he falls, and whiie she weeps, she is proud. Before I went abroad, the only missionary I ever knew I despised, for I believ- 216 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. ed him to be a canting hypocrite ; but I saw much of them abroad, and made many warm friends among them, and, I repeat it, there is something exceedingly interesting in a mission- ary's wife. She who had been cherished as a plant that the winds must not breathe on too rudely, recovers from the shock of a separation from her friends, to find herself in a land of barbarians, where her loud cry of distress can never reach their ears. New ties twine round her heart, and the tender and helpless girl changes her very nature, and becomes the staff and support of the man. In his hours of des- pondency, she raises his drooping spirits— she bathes his aching head — she smooths his pillow of sickness; and, after months of wearisome si* lence, I have entered her dwelling, and her heart instinctively told her that I was from the same land. I have been welcomed as a brother; answered her hurried, and anxious, and eager questions ; and sometimes, when I have known any of her friends at home, I have been for a moment more than recompensed for all the toils and privations of a traveller in the East. I have left her dwelling burdened with remembrances to friends whom she wili perhaps never see again. I bore a letter to a father, which was opened by a widowed mother. Where I could, I have dis- charged every promise to a missionary's wife ; but I have some yet undischarged, which I rank among the sacred obligations of my life. It is true, the path of the missionary is not strewed with roses ; but often, in leaving his house at night, and following my guide with a lantern STEPHENS TRAVELS. 217 through the narrow streets of a Turkish city, I have run over the troubles incident to every con- dition of life, not forgetting those of a traveller, and have taken to whistling, and as I stumbled into the gate of an old convent, have murmured involuntarily, " After all, these missionaries are happy fellows." Every stranger, upon his arrival in Smyrna, is introduced at the casino. I went there the first time to a concert. It is a large building, erected by a club of merchants, with a suit of rooms on the lower floor, billiards, cards, reading and sitting-room, and a ball-room above, cover- ing the whole. The concert was given in the ballroom, aud from what I had seen in the streets I expected an extraordinary display of beauty, but was much disappointed. The company con- sisted of the aristocracy or higher mercantile classes, the families of the gentlemen composing the club, and excluded the Greek and Smyrniote women, among whom is found a great portion of the beauty of the place. A patent of nobility in Smyrna, as in our own city, is founded upon the time since the possessor gave up selling goods, or the number of consignments he receives in the course of a year. The casino, by the way, is a very aristocratic institution, and sometimes knotty questions occur in its management. Captains of merchant vessels are not admitted. A man came out as owner of a vessel and cargo, and also master, quere, could he be admitted ? His consignee said yes; but the majority, not being interested in the sales of his cargo, went for a strict construction, and excluded him. STEPHENS TRAVELS. The population of Smyrna, professing three distinct religions, observe three different Sab- baths ; the Mahommedans Friday, the Jews Sa- turday, and the Christians Sunday-, so that there are only four days in the week in which all the shops and bazaars are open together, and there are so many fete days that these are much broken in upon. The most perfect toleration prevails... and the religious festivals of the Greeks often termi« mate in midnight orgies, which debase and de- grade the Christian in the eyes of the pious Mus- sulman. On Saturday morning I 'was roused from my bed by a loud cry, and the tramp of a crowd through the street. I ran to my window, and saw a Greek tearing down the street at full speed, and another after him with a drawn yata- ghan in his hand ; the latter gained ground every step, and, just as he turned the corner, stabbed the first in the back. He returned with the bloody poignard in his hand, followed by the crowd, and rushed into a little Greek drinking- shop next door to my hotel. There was a loud noise and scuffling inside, and presently I saw him pitched out headlong into the street, and the door closed upon him. In the phrensy of passion he rushed back, and drove his yataghan with all his force into the door, stamped against it with his feet, and battere i it with stones ; un- able to force it open, he sat down on the oppo- site side of the street, occasionally renewing his attack upon the door, talking violently with those inside, and sometimes the whole crowd laughing loud from the answers from within. Nobody at- STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 219 tempted to interfere. Giusseppi, my host, said it was only a row among the Greeks. The Greek kept the street in an uproar for more than an hour, when he was secured and taken into custody. After dinner, under the escort of a merchant, a Jew from Trieste, residing at the same hotel, J visited the Jew's quarter. The Jews of Smyr- na are the descendants of that unhappy people who were driven our, from Spain by the bloody persecutions of Ferdinand and Isabel ; they still talk Spanish iu their families ; and though com- paratively secure now as ever, they live the vie- . tims of tyranny and oppression, ever toiling and accumulating, and ever fearing to exhibit the fruits of their industry, lest they excite the cu- pidity of a rapacious master. Their quarter is by far the most miserable in Smyrna, and with- in its narrow limits are congregated more than ten thousand of " the accursed people." It was with great difficulty that 1 avoided wounding the feelings of my companion by remarking its filthy and disgusting appearance ; and wishing to re- move my unfavourable impression by introducing me to some of ihe best families first, he was obliged to drag me through the whole range of its narrow and dirty streets. From the external appearance of the tottering houses, I did not ex- pect anything better within ; and, out of regard to his feelings, was really sorry that I had ac- cepted his offer to visit his people ; but with the first house I entered, I was most agreeably dis- appointed. Ascending outside by a tottering staircase to the second story, within was not 220 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. only neatness and comfort, but positive luxury. At one end of a spacious room was a raised plat- form opening upon a large latticed window, cov- ered with rich rugs and divans along the wall. The master of the house was taking his afternoon siesta ; and while we were waiting for him, 1 expressed to my gratified companion my surprise and pleasure at the unexpected appearance of the interior. In a few minutes the master en- tered, and received us with the greatest hospita- lity and kindness. He was about thirty, with the high square cap of black felt, without any rim or border, long gown tied with a sash around the waist, a strong marked Jewish face, and amiable expression. In the house of the Israel- ite, the welcome is the same as in that of the Turk ; and seating himself, our host clapped his hands together, and a boy entered with coffee and pipes. After a little conversation, he clapped his hands again ; and hearing a clatter of wood- en shots, I turned my head and saw a little girl coming across the room, mounted on high wood- en sabots almost like stilts, who stepped upon the platform, and with quite a womanly air took her seat on the divan. I looked at her, and thought her a pert forward little miss, and was about asking her how old she was, when my com- panion told me she was our host's wife. I check- ed myself, but in a moment felt more than ever tempted to ask the same question ; and upon in- quiring, learned that she had attained the res- pectable age of thirteen, and had been then two years a wife. Our host told us she had cost him a great deal of money, and the expence consisted STEPHENS TRAVELvS. 221 in the outlay necessary for proeuring a divorce from another wife. He did not like the other one at all ; his father had married him to her, and he had great difficulty in prevailing on his father to go to the expence of getting him freed. This wife was also provided by his father, and he did not much like her at first ; he had never seen her till the day of marriage, but now he be- gan to like her very well, though she cost him a great deal for ornaments. All this time we were looking at her, and she, with a perfectly compos- ed expression, was listening to the conversation as my companion interpreted it, and following with her eyes the different speakers. I was par- ticularly struck with the cool, imperturbable ex- pression of her face, and could not help thinking, that on the subject of likings and disliking?, young as she was, she might have some curious notions of her own ; and since we had fallen into this little disquisition on family matter-', and thinking i hat he had gone so far himself that I might waive delicacy, I asked him whether she liked him ; he answered in that easy tone of confidence of which no idea can be given in words, " Oh yes and when I intimated a doubt he told me I might ask herself. But I forbore, and did not ask her, and so lost the opportunity of learning from both sides the practical opera- tion of matches made by parents. Our host sus- tained them ; the plan saved a great deal of trouble, and wear and tear of spirit ; prudent parents always selected such as were likely to suit each other ; and being thrown together very young, they insensibly assimilated in tastes and 222 STEPHENS'* TRAVELS. habits ; he admitted that he had missed it the first time, but he had hit it the second, and al- lowed that the system would work much better if the cost of procuring a divorce was not so great. With the highest respect, and a press- ing invitation to come again, seconded by his wife, I took my leave of the self satisfied Israel- ite. From this we went into several other houses, in all of which the interior belied, in the same manner, their external appearance. I do- not say tiiat they were gorgeous or magnificent, but they were clean, comfortable, and striking by their oriental style of architecture and furniture : and being their Sabbath, the women were in their best attire, with their heads, necks, and wrists, adorned with a profusion of gold and silver orna- ments. Several of the houses had libraries, with old Hebrew books, in which an old rabbi was reading or instructing children. In the last house a son was going through his days of mourning on the death of his father. He was lying in the middle of the floor, with his black cap on, and covered witii a long black cloak. Twenty or thirty friends were sitting on the floor around him, who had come in to condole with him. When we entered,/ neither he nor any of his friends took any notice of us, except to make room on the floor. We sat down with them. It was growing dark, and the light broke dimly through the latticed windows upon the dusky figures of the mourning Israelites. ; and there they sat, with stern visages and long beards, the feeble remnant of a fallen people, under scorn STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 223 and contumely , and persecution and oppression, holding on to the traditions received from their fathers, practising in the privacy of their houses ti e same rights as when the priests bore aloft the ark of the covenant, and out of the very dust in which they lie still looking for the restoration of their temporal kingdom. In ano'her room sat the widow of the deceased, with a group of wo- men around her, all silent ; and they, too, took no notice of us, either when we entered or when w t went away* The next day the shops were shut, and the streets again thronged as on the day of my arrival. I went to church at the English chapel attached to the residence of the British consul, and heard a sermon from a German missionary. I dined at one o'clock, and in company with mine host of the Pension Suisse, and a merchant of Smyrna resident there, worked my way up the hill through the heart of the Turks' quarter to the old castle standing alone and in ruins on its summit. We rested a little while at the foot of the castle, and looked over the city and the tops of the minarets upon the beautifnl bay, and descending in the rear of the cas It?, vve came to the river Meles winding through a deep valley at the foot of the hiil. This stream was celebrated in Grecian poetry three thousand years ago. It was the pride of the ancient Smyrniotes, once washed the wails of the ancient citi , and tradition says that on its banks the nymph Cr it heis gave birth to Homer. We folio wed in its winding course down the valley, murmuring among evergreens. Over it in two places were the ruins of aqueducts 224 Stephens' travels. which carried water to the old city, and in one or two places it turns an overshot mill. On each side, at intervals along its banks, were oriental summer-houses, with verandahs, and balconies, and latticed windows. Approaching the caravan bridge we met straggling parties, and by degrees fell into a crowd of people, Franks, Europeans of every nation, Greeks, Turks, and Armenians, in all their striking costumes, sitting on benches un- der the shade of noble old sycamores, or on the grass, or on the river's brink ; and moving among them were Turks cleanly dressed, with trays of refreshments, ices, and sherbet. There was an unusual collection of Greek and Smyrniote wo- men, and an extraordinary display of beauty ; none of them wore hats, but the Greek women a light gause turban, and the Smyrniotes a small piece of red cloth, worked with gold, secured on the top of the head by the folds of the hair, with a long tassel hanging down from it. Opposite, and in striking contrast, the great Turkish bury- ing-ground, with its thick grove of gloomy cypress, approached the brink of the river/ 1 crossed over and entered the burying-ground, and pene- trated the grove of funereal trees ; all around were the graves of the dead; thousands and tens of thousands who but yesterday were like the gay crowd I saw flitting through the trees, were sleeping under my feet. Over some of the graves the earth was still fresh, and they who lay in them were already forgotten ; but no, they were not forgotten ; woman's love still remembered them, for Turkish women, with long white shawls wrap- ped around their faces, were planting over tliern STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 225 myrtle and flowers, believing that they were pay* ing an acceptable tribute to the souls of the dead. I left the burying-ground, and plunged once more among the crowd. It may be that memory paints these scenes brighter than they were ; but if that does not deceive me, I never saw at Paris or Vienna so gay and beautiful a scene, so rich in landscape and scenery, in variety of costume, and in beauty of female form and fea- ture. We left the caravan bridge early to visit the Armenian quarter, this being the best day for seeing them collectively at home ; and 1 had not passed through the first street of their beautiful quarter, before I was forcibly struck with the ap- pearance of a people different from any I had yet seen in the east. The Armenians are one of the oldest nations of the civilised world, and, amid all the revolutions of barbarian war and despot- ism, have maintained themselves as a cultivated people. From the time when their first chief- tain fled from Babylon, his native place, to es- cape from the tyranny of Belus, king of Assyria, this warlike people, occupying a mountainous country near the sources of the Tigris and Eu- phrates, battled the Assyrians, Medcs, the Per* sians, Macedonians, and Arabians, until their country was de-populated by the Shah of Persia. Less than two millions are all that now remain of that once powerful people Commerce has scattered them, like xhe Israelites, among all the principal nations of Europe and Asia, and every where they have preserved their stem integrity and uprightness of character* The Armenian 226 * rkPH&Xb' 1 RAVELS. merchant is now known in every quarter of the globe, and every where distinguished by superior cultivation, honesty, and manners. As early as the fourth century, the Armenians embraced Christianity; they never had anysympatlr, witbj and always disliked and avoided, the Greek Chris- tians, and constantly resisted the endeavours of the popes to bring them within the Catholic pale. Their doctrine differs from that of the orthodox chiefly in their admitting only one nature in Christ, and believing the Holy Spirit to issue from the Father alone. Their first abode, Mount Ararat, is even at the present day the centre of their religious and political union. They are dis- tinguished by a patriarchal simplicity in their do- mestic manners ; and h was the beautiful exhi- bition of this trait of their character that struck nie on entering their quarter at Smyrna. In style and appearance, their quarter is superior t » any in Smyrna ; their streets are broad and clean ; their houses large, in good order, and well painted; oriental in their style of architecture, with large balconies and latticed windows, and spacious halls running through the centre, floored with small black and white stones laid in the form of stars and other fanciful devices, and leading to large gardens in the rear, ornamented with trees, vines, shrubs, and flowers, then in full bloom and beauty. All along the streets the doors of the houses were thrown wide open, and the old Ar- menian " Knickerbockers " were sitting outside or in the doorway, in their flowing robes, grave and sedate, with long pipes and large amber mouth-pieces, talking with their neighbours, STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 227 while the younger members were distributed along the hall, or strolling through the garden, and children climbing the trees and arbours. It was a fete day for the whole neighbourhood. All was social, and cheerful, and beautiful, with- out being gay or noisy, and all was open to the observation of every passer-by. My companion, an old resident of Smyrna, stopped with me at th house of a large banker, whose whole family, with several neighbours, young and old, were assem- bled in the hall. In the street the Armenian ladies observe the Turkish custom of wearing the shawl tied around the face, so that it is difficult to see the features, though I had often admiied the dignity and grace of their walk, and their propriety of manners ; but in the house there was a perfect absence of all concealment ; and I have seldom seen more interesting persons than the whole group of Ar- menian ladies, and particularly the young Arme- nian girls. They were not so dark, and wanted the bold, daring beauty of the Greek, but alto- gether were far more attractive. The great charm of their appearance was an exceeding mo- desty, united with affability and elegance of man- ner ; in fact, there was a calm and quiet loveli- ness about them that would have made any one of them dangerous to be shut up aione with, that is, if a man could talk with her without an interpreter. This was one of the occasions when 1 numbered among the pains of life the confusion of tongues. But, notwithstanding this, the whole scene was beautiful; and with all the simplicity of a Dutchman's fireside, th© 228 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. style of the house, the pebbled hall, the garden, the foliage, and the oriental costumes, threw a charm around it which now, while I write, comes e ver me again. CHAPTER XI. An American Original — Moral Changes in Turkey — Won- ders of Steam Navigation — The March of Mind—Clas- sic Locatities— Sestos and Abydos — Seeds of Pesti- lence. On my return from Ephesus, I heard of the ar- rival in Smyrna of two American travellers, fa- ther and son, from Egypt ; and thes ame day, at Dr Langdon's, I met the father, Dr N. of Missis- sippi. The doctor had made along and interesting four in Egypt and the Holy Land, interrupted, however, by a severe attack of the ophthalmia, and a narrow escape from the plague at Cairo. He was about fifty five, of a strong, active, and inquiring mind; and the circumstances which had brought him to that distant country were so peculiar that I cannot help mentioning them. He had passed all his life on the banks of the Mississippi, and for many years had busied him- self with speculations in regard to the creation of the world, Year after year he had watched the deposits and the formation of soil on the banks of the Mississippi, had visited every mound and mountain indicating any peculiar geological formation, and, unable to find any data to satisfy him, he started from his plantation directly for STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 229 the banks of the Nile. He possessed all the warm, high-toned feelings of the southerner, but a thorough contempt for the usages of society, and every thing like polish of manners. He came to New York, and embarked for Havre. He had never been even to New York before ; was utterly ignorant of any language but his own ; despised all f oreigners, and detested their "jabber." He worked his way to Marseilles with the intention of embarking for Alexandria, but was taken sick, and retraced his steps direct- ly to his plantation on the Mississippi. Recover- ing, he again set out for the Nile the next year, accompanied by his son, a young man of about twenty-three, acquainted with foreign languages, and competent to profit by foreign travel. This time he was more successful, and when I saw him, he had rambled over the pyramids, and ex- pi red t ] e ruined temples uf ^"gypt. The result of his observations had .boon to fortify his pre- conceived notions., that the of this world far exceeds six thousand years, Indeed, he was firm- ly persuaded that some >f the temples of the Nile were built more than six thousand years ago. He had sent on to Smyrna enormous boxes of earth and stones tu be shipped to America, and was particularly curious on the subject of trees, hav- ing examined and satisfied himself as to the age of the olive-trees in the Garden of Gethsemane and the cedars of Lebanon. 1 accompanied him to his hotel, where I was introduced to his son ; and I must not forget another member of this party, who is perhaps already known to some of my readers by the name of Paolo Na- 230 STEPHENS' TRAVELS, ozzo, or, more familiarly, Paul. This worthy individual had been travelling on the Nile with two Hungarian counts, who discharged him, or whom he discharged (for they differed as to the fact), at Cairo. Dr N. and his son were in want, and Paul entered their service as drago- man and superintendant of another man, who, they said was worth a dozen of Paul, t have a very imperfect recollection of my first interview with this original. Indeed, I hardly remember him at all until my arrival at Constantinople, and have only an indistinct impression of a dark surly looking, mustached man, following at the heels of Dr N., and giving crusty answers in horrible English. Before my visit to Ephesus, I had talked with a Prussian baron of going up by land to Con- stantinople, but on my return I found myself at- tacked with a recurrence of an old malady, and determined to wait for the steam- beat. The day before I left Smyrna, accompanied by Mr O. Langdon, I went out to Boujac to dine with I E* Styth. The great beauty of Smyrna is its sur- rounding country. Within a few miles there are three villages, Bournabat, Boujac, and Sedi- guey, occupied by Franks, of which Boujac is the favourite. The Franks are always looking to the time of going out to their country houses, and consider their residences in their villages the most agreeable part of their year ; and, from what I saw of it, nothing can be inoze agreeable. Not more than half of them had yet moved out, but after dinner we went round and visited all who were there. They are all well acquainted, STEPHEN^ TK.Avjo.JLe>. and, living in a strange and barbarous country, are drawn closer together than they would be in their own. Every evening there is a re-union at some of their houses, and there is among them an absence of all unnecessary form and cere- mony, without which there can be no perfect en- joyment of the true pleasures of social inter- course. These villages, too, are endeared to them as places of refuge during the repeated and pro- longed visitations of the plague, the merchant going into the city every rnouiing and returning at night, and during the whole continuance of the disease avoiding to touch any member of his family. The whole region of country around their villages is beautiful in landscape and sce- nery, producing the choicest flowers and fruits ; the fig tree, particularly, growing with a luxuri- ance unknown in any other part of the world. But the whole of this beautiful region lies waste and uncultivated, although, if the government could be relied on, holding out, by reason of its fertility, its climate, and its facility of access, particularly now by means of steam-boats, far greater inducements to European emigration than any portion of our own country. I will not impose upon the reader my speculations on this subject — ray notes are burdened with them ; but, in my opinion, the Old World is in process of regeneration, and at this moment offers greater opportunities for enterprise than the New. On Monday, accompanied by Dr N. and his son, and Paolo Nuozzo, I embarked on board the steam- boat Maria Dorothea for Constan- 232 STEPHENS 1 TRAVELS. tinople ; and here follows another letter, and the last, dated from the capital of the eastern empire. Constantinople ) May — , 1835. My dear*****— -Oh, you who hope one day to roam in eastern lands, to bend your curious eyes upon the people warmed by the rising sun, come quickly, for all things are changing. You who have pored over the story of the Turk ; who have dreamed of him as a gloomy enthusiast, hating, spurning, and slaying, all who do not be- lieve and call upon the Prophet ; " One of that saintly, murderous brood, To carnage and the Koran given, Who think through unbelievers' blood Lies their directest path to Heaven come quickly, for that description of Turk is passing away. The day has gone by when the haughty Mussulman spurned and persecuted the k a caique at Tophana, and went up the shipyards at the head of the Golden Horn to visit Mr Rhodes, to whom I had a let- ter from a friend in Smyrna. Mr Rhodes is a native of Long Island, but from his boyhood a resident of this city, and 1 take great pleasure in saying that he is an honour to our state and country. The reader will remember that, some years ago, Mr Eckford, one of our most promi- nent citizens, under a pressure of public and domestic calamities, left his native city. He sailed from New York in a beautiful corvette, its destination unknown, and came to anchor under the walls of the seraglio in the harbour of Constantinople. The sultan saw her, admired her, and bought her ; and I saw her, " riding like a thing of life," on the waters of the Golden Horn, a model of beauty. The fame of his skill, and the beautiful spe- cimen he carried out with him, recommended STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 251 Mr Eckford to the sultan as a fit instrument to build up the character of the Ottoman navy ; and afterwards, when his full value became known, the sultan remarked of him that Ame- rica must be a great nation if she could spare from her service such a man. Had he lived, even in the decline of life he would have maie for himself a reputation hi that distant quarter of the globe equal to that he had left behind him, and doubtless would have reaped attendant pecuniary reward. Mr Rhodes went out as Mr Eckford's foreman, arid on hisdearh the task of completing bis employer's work devolved on him. It could not have fallen on a better man. From a journeyman shipbuilder, all at once Mr Rhodes found himself brought, into close relations with the seraskier pacha, the reis efFendi, the grand vizier, and the sultan himself ; but his good sense never deserted him. He was then prepar- ing for the launch of the great ship ; the longest as he said, and he knew the dimensions of every ship that floated, in the world. I accompanied him over the ship, and through the yards, and it was with no small degree of interest that 1 view- ed a townsman, an entire stranger in the. coun- try, by his skill alone standing at the head of the great naval establishment of the sultan. He was dressed in a blue roundabout jacket, with- out whiskers or mustache, and, exeept that he wore the tarbouch, was a thorough American in his appearance and manners, while his dragoman was constantly by his side, communicating his orders to hundreds of mustached Turks ; and in the same breath he was talking to me ( f ship- 252 STEPHENS TRAVELS. builders in New York, and people and things most familiar in our native city, Mr Rhodes knows and cares but little for things that do not immediately concern him ; his whole thoughts are of his business, and in that he possesses an ambition and industry worthy of all praise. As an instance of his discretion, particularly proper in the service of that suspicious and despotic go- vernment, I may mention that, while standing near the ship, and remarking a piece of cloth stretched across her stern, I asked him her name and he told me that he did not know ; that it was painted on her stern, and his dragoman knew, but he had never looked under, that he might not be ab'e to answer when asked. I have seldom net a countryman abroad with whom I was more p' eased; and at parting he put himself on a pin- nacle in my estimation by telling me that, if I came to the yard the next day at one, I would see the sultan ! There was no man living whom I had a greater curiosity to see. At twelve o'clock I was at the yard, but the sultan did not come. I went again, and his highness had come two hours before the time ; had accompanied Mr Rhodes over tiie ship, and left the yard less than five minutes before my arrival ; his caique was still lying at the little dock, his attendants were carrying trays of re- freshments to a shooting-ground in the rear; and two black eunuchs, belonging to the seraglio, handsomely dressed in long black cloaks of fine pelisse cloth, with gold-headed canes, and rings on their fingers, were still lingering about the STEPHEN'S* TRAVELS. 253 ship, their effeminate faces and musical voices at once betraying their neutral character. The next day was the day of the launch ; and early in the morning, in the suite of Commodore Porter, I went on board an old steamer, provid- ed by the sultan expressly for the use of Mr Rhodes's American friends. The waters of the Golden Horn were already covered ; thousands of caiques, with their high sharp points, were cutting through it, or resting like gulls upon its surface ; and there were ships with the still proud banner of the crescent, and strangers with the flags of every nation in Christendom, and sail-boats, long-boats, and row-boats, ambassa- dors' barges, and caiques of effendis, beys, and packas, with red silk flags streaming in the wind, while countless thousands were assembled on the banks to behold the extraordinary spectacle of an American ship, the largest in the world, launched in the harbour of old Stamboul. The sultan was then living at his beautiful palace at Sweet Waters, and was obliged to pass by our boat ; he had made a great affair of the launch ; had invited all the diplomatic corps, and, through the reis effendi, particularly requested the pre- sence of Commodore Porter ; had stationed his harem on the opposite side of the river ; and as I saw prepared for himself near the ship a tent of scarlet cloth trimmed with gold, I expected to see him appear in ali the pomp and splendour of the greatest potentate on earth. I had already seen enough to convince me that the days of Eastern magnificence had gone by, or that the gorgeous scenes which my imagination had al- 254 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. ways connected with the East had never existed ; but I could not divest myself of the lingering idea of the power and splendour of the sultan. His commanding style to his own subjects : " I command you , my slave, that you bring the head of -, my slave, and lay it at my feet and then his lofty tone with foreign powers : " I who am, by the infinite grace of the great, just, and all-powerful Creator, and the abundance of the miracles of the chief of his prophets, emper- o of powerful emperors; refuge of sovereigns; distributor of crowns to the kings of the earth ; keeper of the two very holy cities (Mecca and Mediua) ; governor of the holy city of Jerusa- lem ; master of Europe, Asia, and Africa, con- quered with our victorious swerd and our ter ribie lance ; lord of two seas (Black and White) ; of Damascus, the odour of Paradise ; of Bagdad, the seat of the cailifs ; of the fortres- ses of Belgrade, Agra, and a multitude of coun- tries, isles, straits, people, generations, and of so many victorious armies who repose under the shade of our Sublime Porte. I, in short, who am the shadow of God upon earth." I was roll- ing these things through my mind when a mur- mur, " The sultan is coming !" turned me to the side of the boat, and one view dispelled all my gorgeous fancies. There was no style, no state — a citizen king, a republican president, or a democratic governor, could not have made more unpretending appearance than did this *}■ shadow of God upon earth." He was seated in the bot- tom of a large caique, dressed in the military frockcoat and red tarbouch, with his long black STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 255 beard, the only mark of a Turk about him, and he moved slowly along the vacant space cleared for his passage, boats with the flags of every na- tion, and thousands of caiques falling back, and the eyes of the immense multitude earnestly fix- ed upon him , but without any shouts or accla- mations ; and when he landed at the little dock, and his great officers bowed to the dust before him, he looked the plainest, mildest, kindest man a • ong them. I had wished to see him as a wholesale murderer, who had more blood upon his hands than any man living ; who had slau. h- tered the janizaries, drenched the plains of Greece, to say nothing of bastinadoes, impale- ments, cutting off heads, and tying up his sacks which are taking place every moment ; but I will, not believe that Sultan Mahmoud finds any plea- sure in shedding blood. Dire necessity, or, as he himself would say, fate, has ever been driv- ing him on. I look upon him as one of the moi t interesting characters upon earth ; as the crea- ture of circumstances, made bloody and cruel by the necessities of his position. I look at his past life, and at that which is yet in store for him, through all the stormy scenes he is to pass until he completes his unhappy destiny, the last of a powerful and once- dreaded race, bearded by those who once crouched at the footstool of his ancestors, goaded by rebellious vassals, consci- ous that he is going a downward road, and yet unable to resist the impulse that drives him on. Like the strong man encompassed with a net, he finds no avenue of escape, and cannot break thro r f gh it. 256 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. The seraskier pacha and other principal offi- cers escorted him to his tent ; and now all the interest which I had taken in the sultan was transferred to Mr Rhodes. He had great anxi- ety about the launch, and many difficulties to contend with : first, in the Turk's jealousy of a stranger, which obliged him to keep constantly on the watch lest some of his ropes should be cat or fastenings knocked a way ; and he had another Turkish prejudice to struggle against : the day had been fixed twice before, but the astronomers had found an unfortunate conjunction of the stars, and it was postponed, and even then the stars were unpropitious ; but Mr Rhodes had insisted that the work had gone so far that it could not be stopped. And, besides these, he had another great difficulty in his ignorance of their language. With more than a thousand men under him, all his orders had to pass through interpreters, and often, too, the most prompt action was necessary, and the least mis- take might prove fatal. Fortunately he was pro- tected from treachery by the kindness of Mr Churchill and Dr Zohrab, one of whom stood on the bow and the other in the stem of the ship, and through whom every order was transmitted in Turkish. Probably none there felt the same interest that we did, for the flags of the barbari- an and every other nation in Christendom were waving around us, and at that distance from home the enterprise of a single citizen enlisted the warmest feelings of every American. We watched the ship with as keen an interest as it our own honour and success in life depended STEPHENS TRAVELS. 257 upon her movements. For a long time she re- mained perfectly quiet. At length she moved, slowly and imperceptibly ; and then, as if con- scious that the eyes of an immense multitude were on her, and that the honour of a distant nation was in some measure at stake, she march- ed proudly to the water, plunged in with a force that almost buried her, and, rising like a huge leviathan, parted the foaming waves with her bow, and rode triumphantly upon them. Even Mussulman indifference was disturbed; all petty jealousies were hushed ; the whole immense mass was roused into admiration ; loud and long continued shouts of applause rose with one ac- cord from Turks and Christians, and the sultan was so transported that he jumped up and clap- ped his hands like a schoolboy. Mr Rhodes's triumph was complete ; the sul- tan called him to his tent, and with his own hands fixed on the lappet of his coat a gold medal st t in diamonds, representing the launching of a ship. Mr Rhodes has attained among strangers the mark of every honourable man's ambitiun, the head of his profession. He has put upon the water what Commodore Porter calls the fin- est ship that ever floated, and has a right to be proud of his position and prospects under the ff shade of the Sublime Porte. " The sultan wishes to confer upon him the title of chief naval constructor, and to furnish him with a house, and a caique with four oars. In compliment to his highness, who detests a hat, Mr Rhodes wears the tarbouch ; but he declines alt offices and honours, and any thing that may tend to fix a 258 STEPHENS' TRAVELS, him as a Turkish subject, and looks to return and enjoy in his own country and among his own people the fruits of his honourable labours. If the good wishes of a friend can avail him, he will soon return to our city rich with the profits of untiring industry, and an honourable testimony to his countrymen of the success of American skill and enterprise abroad. To go back a moment. All day the great ship lay in the middle of the Golden Horn, while per- haps more than a hundred thousand Turks shot round her in their little caiques, looking up from the surface of the water to her lofty deck ; and in Pera, wherever I went, perhaps because I was an American, the only thing I heard of was the American ship. Proud of the admiration excit- ed so far from home by this noble specimen of the skill of an American citizen, I unburden my- self of a long-smothered subject of complaint against my country. 1 cry out with a loud voice for reform, not in the hackneyed sense of petty politicians, but by a liberal and enlarged expen- diture of public money; by increasing the outfits and salaries of our foreign ambassadors and mi- nisters. We claim to be rich, free from debt, and abundant in resources, and yet every Ame- rican abroad is struck with the feeling of morti- fication at the inability of his representative to take that position in social life to which the cha- racter of his country entitles him. We may talk of republican simplicity as we will, but there are pertain usages of society and certain appendages of rank, which, though they may be unmeaning |H4 worth less, a, re sanctioned, if not by the wis- STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 259 dom, at least by the practice, of all civilised countries. We have committed a fatal error, since the time that Franklin appeared at the court of France in a plain citizen's dress ; every where our representative conforms to the eti- quette of the court to which he is accredited, and it is too late to go back and begin anew ; and now, unless our representative is rich and willing to expend his own fortune for the honour of the nation, he is obliged to withdraw from the circles and position in which he has a right and ought to move, or to move in them on an inferior foot- ing, under an acknowledgement of inability to appear as an equal. And again ; our whole consular system is radi- cally wrong, disreputable, and injurious to our character and interests. While other nations consider the support of their consuls a part of the expenses of their government, we suffer our- selves to be represented by merchants, whose pe- cuniary interests are mixed up with all the local and political questions that afftct the place, and who are under a strong inducement to make their office subservient to their commercial relations. 1 make no imputations against any of them. I could not if I would, for I do not know an Ame- rican merchant holding the office who is not a respectable man ; but the representative of our country ought to be the representative of our country only ; removed from any distracting or conflicting interests, standing like a watchman to protect the honour of his nation and the rights of her citizens. And more than this, all over the Mediterranean there are ports where com- 260 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. merce presents no inducements to the American merchant, and there the office fails into the hands of the natives ; and at this day the American arms are blazoned on the doors, and the American flag is waving over the houses, of Greeks, Ita- lians, Jews, and Arabs, and all the mongrel po- pulation of that inland sea ; and in the ports under the dominion of Turkey particularly, the office is coveted as a means of protecting the holder against the liabilities to his own government, and of revenue by selling that protection to others. I will not mention them by name for I bear them no ill will personally, and I have received kindness from most of the petty vagabonds who live under the folds of the American flag; but the consuls at Genoa and Algiers are a disgrace to the American name. Congress has lately turned its attention to this subject, and will be- fore long, I hope, effect a complete change in the character of our consular department, and give it the respectability which it wants ; the on- ly remedy is by following the example of other nations in fixing salaries for the office, and for- bidding the holders in engaging in trade. Be- sides the leading inducements to this change, there is a secondary consideration, which, in my eyes, is not without its value, in that it would furnish a valuable school of instructk n for our young men. The offices would be sought by such. A thousaud or fifteen hundred dollars a year would maintain them respectabl) in most of the ports of the Mediterranean ; and young men resident in those places, living upon salaries, and not obliged to engage in commerce, would em- STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 261 ploy their leisure hours in acquiring the lan- guage of the conutry, in communicating with the interior, and among them would return upon us an accumulation of knowledge far more than re- paying us for alt the expence of supporting them abroad. Doubtless the reader expects other things in Constantinople ; but all things are changing. The day has gone by when the Christian could not cross the threshold of a mosque, and live. Even the sacred mosque of St Sophia, the an- cient Christian church, so long closed against the Christians' feet, now, upon great occasions, again opens its doors to the descendants of its Christian builders. One of these great occasions happened when I was there. The sultan gave a firman to the French ambassador, under which all the European residents and travellers visited it. Unfortunately, I was unwell, and could not go out that day, and was obliged afterwards to content myself with walking round its walls, with uplifted eyes and a heavy heart, admiring the glittering crescent, and thinking on the prostrate cross. But no traveller can leave Constantinople without having seen the interior of a mosque ; and accordingly, under the guidance of Musta- pha, the janizary of the British consul, I visited the mosque of Sultan Sulu an, next in point of beauty to that of St Sophia, though far inferior in historical interest. At an early hour we cros- sed the Golden Horn to old Stamboul . threaded our way through its narrow and intricate streets to an eminence near the seraskier pacha's tow- 262 STEPHENS TRAVELS. er ; entered by a fine gateway into a large court- yard, more than 1000 feet square, handsomely paved, and ornamented with noble trees, and en- closed by a high wall ; passed a marble fountain of clear and abundant water, where, one after another, the faithful stopped to make their ablutions ; entered a large colonnade, consisting of granite and marble pillars of every form and style, the plunder of ancient temples, worked in without much regard to architectural fitness, yet, on the whole, producing a fine effect ; pulled off our shoes at the door, and, with naked feet and noiseless step, crossed the sacred threshold of the mosque. Silently we moved among the kneel- ing figures of the faithful scattered about in dif- ferent parts of the mosque, and engaged in pray- er ; paused for a moment under the beautiful dome, sustained by four columns from the Tem- ple of Diana at Ephesus ; leaned against a mar- ble pillar which may have supported, 2000 years ago, the praying figure of a worshipper of the great goddess ; gazed at the thousand small lamps suspended from the lofty ceiling, each by a separate cord, and with a devout feeling left the mosque. In the rear, almost concealed from view by a thick grove of trees, shrubs, and flowers, is a circular building about forty feet diameter, con- taining the tomb of Suliman, the founder of the mosque, his brother, his favourite wife Roxala, and two other wives. The monuments are in the form of sarcophagi, with pyramidal tops, covered with rich Cashmere shawls, having each at the head a large white turban, and enclosed STJSPHKNS' TRAVELS. 263 by a railing covered with mother-of-pearl. The great beauty of the sepulchral chamber is its dome, which is highly ornamented, and sparkles with brilliants. In one corner is a plan of Mec- ca, the holy temple, and tomb of the Prophet In the afternoon I went for the last time to the Armenian burying- ground. In the East the grave-yards are the general promenades, the pla- ces of .rendezvous, and the lounging-piaces ; and in Constantinople the Armenian burying-ground is the most beautiful, and the favourite. Situ- ated in the suburbs of Pera, overlooking the Bosphorus, shaded by noble palm trees, almost regularly towards evening 1 found myself sitting upon the same tombstone, looking upon the sil- very water at my feet, stuclded with palaces, hashing and glittering with caiques from the golden palace of the sultan to the seraglio point, and then turned to the animated groups throng- ing the burying' ground ; tbe Armenian in his flowing robes, the dashing Greek, the stiff and out-of-place-looking Frank; Turks in their gay and bright costume, glittering arms, and solemn beards, enjoying the superlative of existence in dozing over their pipe ; and w STKPHEN^ TRAVELS. in which the slaves belonging to the different dealers are kept. A large shed or portico pro- jects in front, under which, and in front of each chamber, is a raised platform, with a low rail- ing around it, where the slave- merchant sits and gossips, and dozes over his coffee and pipe. I had heard bo little of this place, and it was so little known among; Europeans, taking into' con- sideration, moreover, that ui a season of univer- sal peace the market must be without a supply, of captives gained in war, that I expected to see but a remnant of the ancient traffic, supposing that I should find but few slaves, and those only black ; hut, to my surprise, I found there twenty or thirty white women. Bad, horrible as this traffic is under any circumstances, to ray habits and feelings it loses a shade of its horrors when confined to blacks; but here whites and blacks were exposed together in the same bazaar. The women were from Circassia and the regions of the Caucasus, the country so renowned for beau ty ; they wi re dressed in ihe Turkish costume and the white shawl wrapped around the mouth and chin, and over the forehead, shading the eyes, so that it was difficult to judge with cer- tainty as to their personal appearance. Europe- ans are not permitted to purchase, and their visits to this bazaar are looked upon with suspi- cion. If we stopped long opposite a door, it was closed upon us ; but I was not easily shaken off, and returned so often at odd times, that I suc- ceeded in seeing pretty distinctly all that was to be seen. In genera*, the best slaves are not exposed in the bazaars, but are kept at the STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 267 houses of the dealers ; but there was one among them not more than seventeen, with a regular Circassian face, a brilliant fair complexion, a mild and cheerful expression ; and in the slave- market, under the partial disguise of the Turk- ish shawl, it required no great effort of the imagination to make her decidedly beautiful. Paul stopped, and with a burst of enthusiasm, the first I had discovered in him, exclaimed, u Quelle beaute !" She noticed my repeatedly stopping before her bazaar ; and when I was my- self really disposed to be sentimental, instead of drooping her head with the air of a distressed heroine, to my great surprise she laughed and nodded, and beckoned me to come to her. Paul was very much struck ; and, repeating his warm expression of admiration at her beauty, told me that she wanted me to buy her. Without wait- ing for a reply, he went off and inquired the price, which was 250 dollars ; and added, that he could easily get some Turk to buy her in his name, and then I could put her on board a ves- sel, and carry her'where I pleased. I told him it was ardly worth while at present ; and he think- ing my objection was merely to the person, in all honesty and earnestness told me he had been there frequently, and never saw any thing half so handsome; adding that, if I let slip this op- portunity, I would scarcely have another as good, and wound up very significantly by declaring that, if he was a gentleman, he would not hesi- tate a moment. A gentleman, in the sense in which Paul understood the word, is apt to fall into irregular ways in the East. Removed from 268 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. the restraints which operate upon men in civili- sed countries, if he once breaks through the trammels of education, he goes ail lengths ; and it is said to be a matter of general remark, that slaves are always worse treated by Europeans than by the Turks. The slave dealers are prin- cipally Jews, who buy children when young, and, if they have beauty, train up the girls in such accomplishments as may fascinate the Turks. Our guide told us, that since the Greek revolution* the slave-market had been compara- tively deserted ; but during the whole of that dreadful struggle, every day presented new hor- rors ; new captives were brought in, the men raving and struggling, and vainly swearing eter- nal vengeance against the Turks, and the women shrieking distractedly in the agony of a separa- tion. After the massacre at Scio, in particular, hundreds of young girls, with tears streaming down their cheeks, and bursting hearts, were sold to the unhallowed embraces of the Turks for a few dollars a head. We saw nothing of the horrors and atrocities of this celebrated slave-market. Indeed, except prisoners of war and persons captuied by Turkish corsairs, the condition of those who now fill the siave market is not the hoirible lot that a warm imagination might suppose. They are mostly persons in a semi barbarous sta;e ! blacks from Senaar and Abyssinnia, or whites from the regions of the Caucasus, bought from their parents for a string of beads, or a shawl ; and, in all probability, the really beautiful girl whom 1 saw had been sold by parents who could not feed or clothe her, STEPHENS 1 TRAVELS. who considered themselves rid of an encum- brance, and whom she left without regret ; and she, having left poverty and misery behind her, looked to the slave-market as the sole means of advancing her fortune ; and, in becoming the favoured inmate of a harem, expected to attain a degree of happiness she could never have en- joyed at home. I intended to go from Constantinople to Egypt, ut the plague was raging there so violently that it would be foolhardy to attempt it ; and while making arrangements with a Tartar to return to Europe on horseback across the Balkan, strik- ing the Danube at Semlin and Belgrade, a Rus- sian government steamer was advertised for Odessa; and as the mode of travelling at that moment suited my health better, I altered my whole plan, and determined to leave the ruined countries of the Old World for a land just emerging from a state of barbarism, and growing into greatness. With great regret I took leave of Dr N. and his son, who sailed the same day for Smyrna, and I have never seen them since. Paul was the last man to whom I said farewell. At the moment of starting, my shirta were brought dripping wet, and Paul bestowed a ma- lediction upon the Greek while he wrung them out and tumbled them into my carpet-bag, I after wards found him at Malta, whence he ac- companied me on my tour in Egypt, Arabia, Petrsea, and the Holy Land, by which he is perhaps already known to ;ome of my readers. With my carpet-bag on the shoulder of a Turk, I walked for the last time to Tophana. A hund- 270 STEPHENS' TRAVELS red caiquemen gathered around me, but I push- ed them all back, and kept guard over my car- pet-bag, looking out for one whom I had been in the habit of employing ever since my arrival in Constantinople. He soon espied me ; and when he took my luggage and myself into his caique, manifested that he knew it was for the last time. Having an hour to spare, I directed him to row once more under the walls of the seraglio; and still loath to leave, I went on shore and walked around the point until I was stopped by a Turk- ish bayonet. The Turk growled, and his mus- tache curled fiercely as he pointed it at me. I had been stopped by Frenchmen, Italians, and by a mountain Greek, but found nothing that brings a man to such a dead stand as the Turkish bayonet. I returned to my caique, and went on board the steamer. She was a Russian government vessel, more classically called a pyioscaphe, a miserable old thing; rani yet as much form and circumstance were observed in sending her off as in fitting out an exploring expedition. Consuls' and ambassadors 1 boats were passing and repass- ing ; and after an enormous fuss and preparation, we started under a salute of cannon, which was answered from one of the sultan's frigates. We had the usual scene of parting with friends, wav- ing of handkerchiefs, and so on ; and feeling a little lonely at the idea of leaving a city contain* ing a million inhabitants without a single friend to bid me God- speed, I took my place on the quarter-deck, and waved my handkerchief to my paiqueman, who, I have no doubt, independent STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 271 of the loss of a few piastres per day, was very sorry to lose me ; for we had been so long toge- ther, that in spite of our ignorance of each other's language, we understood each other per- fectly. I found on board two Englishmen whom I had met at Corfu, and a third, who had joined them at Smyrna, going to travel in the Crimea ; our other cabin passengers were Mr Luoff, a Russian cfiicer, an aide-de-camp of the emperor, just returned from travels in Egypt and Syria ; Mr Perseani, secretary to the Russian legation in Greece; a Creek merchant, with a Russian pro- tection, on his way to the Sea of Azoff; and a French merchant of Odessa. The tub of a steam -boat dashed up the B.sphorus at the rate of three miles an hour ; while the classic waters, as if indignant at having such a bellowing, blow* ing, blustering monster upon their surface, seem- ed to laugh at her unwieldy and ineffectual ef- forts. Slowly we mounted the beautiful strait, lined on the European side almost with one con- tinued range of houses, exhibiting in every beautiful nook a palace of the sultan, and at Ter- epia and Bu.yukdere the palaces of the foreign ambassadors ; passed the Giant's Mountain, and about an hour before dark were entering a new sea, the dark and stormy Euxine. Advancing, the hills became more lofty and rugged, terminating on the Thracian side in high rocky precipices. The shores of this extremity of the Bosphorus were once covered with shrines, altars, and temples, monuments of the fears or gratitude of mariners who were about to leave* 272 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. or who had escaped, the dangers of the inhospit- able Euxine ; and the remains of these antiqui- ties were so great that a traveller almost ;n our own day describes the coasts as " covered their ruins." The castles on the European and the Asiatic sides of the strait are supposed to occupy the sites where stood, in ancient days, the great temples of Jupiter Serapis and Jupiter Urius. The Bosphorus o, ens abruptly, without any enlargement at its mouth, between two mountains. The parting view of the strait, or, rather, of the coast on each side, was indescrib- ably grand, presenting a stupendous wall oppo- sed to the great bed of waters, as if torn asunder by an earthquake, 1 aving a narrow rent for their escape. On each side, a miserable lantern on the top of a tower, hardly visible at the dis- tance of a few miles, is the only light to guide the mariner at night ; and as there is another opening called the false Bosphorus, the entrance is difficult and dangerous, and many vessels are lost here annually. As t he narrow opening closed before me, I felt myself entering a new world; I was fairly em- barked upon that wide expanse of water which once, according to ancient legends, mingled with the Caspian, and covered the great oriental plain of Tartary, anil upon which Jason, with his ad- venturous Argonatus, having killed the dragon and carried off \he golden fleece from Colchis, if those same legends be true (which some doubt), sailed across to the great ocean. I might and should have speculated upon the great changes in the face of nature, and the great deluge re- STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 273 corded by Grecian historians and poets, which burst the narrow passage of the Thracian Bos- phorus for the outlet of the mighty waters ; but who could philosophise in a steam- boat on the Euxine ? Oh, Fulton ! much as thou hast done for mechanics and the useful arts, thy hand has fallen rudely upon all cherished associations. We boast of tb e ; I have myself been proud of thee as au American ; but as I sat at evening on the stern of the steamer, and listened to the clat- ter of the engine, and watched the sparks rush- ing out of the high pipes, and remembered that this was on the dark and inhospitable Euxine, I wished that thy life had begun after mine was ended. I trust I did his memory no wrong; but if I had borne him malice, 1 could not have wished him worse than to have all his dreams of the past disturbed by the clatter of one of his own engines. I turned away from storied associations to a new country grown up in our own day. We es- caped, and, I am obliged to say, without noticing them, the Cyanese, "the blue Symplegades," or " wandering islands," which, lying on the Euro- pean and Asiatic side, floated about, or, accord- ing to Pliny, " were alive, and moved to and fro more swiftly than the blast," and in passing through which the good ship Argo had a narrow escape, and lest the extremity of her stern. History and poetry have invested this sea with extraordinary and ideal terrors ; but my expe- rience both of the Mediterranean and Black Sea was unfortunate for realising historical and poetical accounts, X had known the beautiful s 274 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. Mediterranean a sea of storm and sunshine, in which the storm greatly predominated. I found the stormy Eux ; ne calm as an untroubled lake ; in fact, the Black Sea is in reality nothing more than a lake, not as large as many of our own, receiving the waters of the great rivers of the north ; the Don, the Cuban, the Phase, the Dnieper, and the Danube, and pouring their col- lected streams through the narrow passage of the Bosphorus into the Mediterranean. Still, if the number of shipwrecks be any evidence of its character, it is, indeed, entitled to its ancient reputation of a dangerous sea, though probably these accidents proceed, in a great measure, from the ignorance and unskilfulness of mariners, and the want of proper charts and of suitable light- houses at the opening of the Bosphorus. At all events, we outblustered the winds and waves wi;h our steam boat ; passed the Serpent Isles, the ancient Leuce, with a roaring which must have astonished the departed heroes, where souls, ac- cording to fhe ancient poets, were sent there to enjoy perpetual paradise, and scared the aquatic birds which every morning dipped their wings in the sea, and sprinkled the Temple of Achilles, and swept with their plumage its sacred pave- ment. On the third day we made the low coast of Moldavia or Bess Arabia, within a short distance of Odessa, the gr« at sea-port of Southern Rus- sia, llere, too, there was nothing to realise pre- conceived notions ; for instead of finding a rug- ged region of eternal snows, we were suffering under an intensely hot sun when we cast anchor STEPHENS TRAVELS. 275 in the harbour of Odessa. The whole line of the coast is low and destitute of trees ; but Odessa is situated on a high bank ; and with its beauti- ful theatre, the exchange, the palace of the go- vernor, &c, did not look like a city which, thirty years ago, consisted only of a few fisher- men's huts. The harbour of Odessa is very much exposed to the north and east winds, which often cause great damage to the shipping. Many hundred anchors cover the bottom, which cut the rope cables; and the water being shallow, vessels are. often injured by striking on them. An Austrian brig going out, having struck one, sank in ten minutes. There are two moles, the quarantine mole, in which we cime to anchor, being the principal. Quarantine flags were flying about the harbour, the yellow indicating those under- going purification, and the red the fatal presence of the plague. W e were prepared to undergo a vexatious process. At Constantinople I had heard wretched accounts of the rude treatment of lazaretto subjects, and the rough, barbarous manners of the Russians to travellers ; and we had a foretaste of the light in which we were to be regarded, in the conduct of the health-officer who came along side. He offered to take charge of any letters for the town, pari y them that night, and deliver them in the morning; and, according to his directions, we laid them down on the deck, where he took them up with a pair of long iron tongs, and putting them into an iron box, shut it up and rowed off. In the morning, having received notice that 276 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. the proper officers were ready to attend us, we went ashore. We landed in separate boats at the end of a long pier, and, forgetting our sup- posed pestiferous influence, were walking up to- wards a crowd of men whom we saw there, when their retrogade movements, their gestures, and unintelligible shouts, reminded us of our situa- tion. One of our party, in a sort of ecstacy at being on shore, ran capering up the docks, put- ting to flight a group of idlers, and, single-hand- ed, might have depopulated the city of Odessa, if an ugly soldier with a bayonet had not met him in full career and put a stop to his gambols. The soldier conducted us to a large building at the upper end of the pier ; and carefully opening the door, and falling back so as to avoid even the wind that might blow from us in his direction, told us to go in. At the other end of a large room, divided by two parallel railings, sat offi- cers and clerks to examine cur passports, and take a general account of us. We were at once struck with the military aspect of things, every person connected with the establishment wearing a military uniform ; and now commenced a long process. THie first operation was to examine our passports, take down our names, and make a memorandum of the purposes for which we se- verally entered the dominions of the emperor and autocrat of all the Russias. We were all called up, one after the other, captain, cook, and cabin boy, cabin and deck passengers ; and never, perhaps, did steam-boat pour forth a more motley assemblage than we presented. We were Jews, Turks, and Christians; Russians, Poles, and STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 277 Germans ; English. French, and Italians ; Aus- trians, Greeks, and Illyrians; Moldavians, Wal- lachians, Bulgarians, and Sclavonians : Armeni- ans, Georgians, and Africans ; and one Ameri- can. I had before remarked the happy facility of the Russians in acquiring languages, and I saw a striking instance in the officer who con- ducted the examination, and who addressed every man in his own language with apparently as much facility as though it had been his native tongue. After the oral, commenced a corporeal examination. We were ordered one by one into an adjoining loom, where, on the other side of a railing, stood a doctor, who directed us to open our shirt bosoms, and slap our hands smartly under our arms and upon our groins, these being the places where the fatal plague-marks first ex- hibit themselves. This over, we were forthwith marched to the lazaretto, escorted by guards and soldiers, who behaved very civilly, and kept a respectful dis- tance from us. Among our deck passengers were forty or fifty Jews, dirty and disgusting objects, just returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. An old man, who seemed to be in a manner the head of the party, and exceeded them all in rags and filthiness, but was said to be rich, in going up to the lazaretto amused us, and vexed the officers, by sitting down on the way, paying no regard to them when they urged him on, being perfectly assured that they would not dare to touch him. Once he resolutely refused to move : they threatened and swore at him, but he kept his 218 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. place until one got a long pole and punched him on ahead. In this way we entered the lazaretto ; but if it had not been called by" that name, and if we had not looked upon it as a place where we were com- pelled to stay for a certain time, nolens volens, we should have considered it a beautiful spot. It is situated on high ground, within an enclosure of some fifteen or twenty acres, overlooking the Black Sea, laid out in lawn and gravel walks, and ornamented with rows of acacia-trees. Fronting the sea was a long range of buildings divided into separate apartments, each with a little courtyard in front containing two or three acacias. The director, a fine, military-looking man, with a decoration on his lapel, met us on horseback within the enclosure, and, with great suavity of manner, said that he could not bid us welcome to prison, bur, that we should have the privilege of walking at will over the grounds, and visiting each other, subject only to the atten- dance of a yuardiano ; and that all that could contribute to our comfort should be dene for us. We then selected our rooms, and underwent another personal examination. This was the real touchstone ; the first was a mere prelimi- nary observation by a medical understrapper ; but this was conducted by a more knowing doc- tor. We were obliged to strip naked ; to give up the clothes we pulled off, and put on a flannel gown, drawers, and stockings, and a woollen cap provided by the government, until our own should be smoked and purified. 3 n every thing, however, the most scrupulous regard was paid to our wish- STEPHENS.* TRAVELS. es, and a disposition was manifested by all to make this rather vexatious proceeding as little annoying as possible. The bodily examination was as delicate as the nature of the case would admit ; for the doctor merely opened the door, looked in, and went out without taking his hand from off the knob. It was none of my business, I know, and may be thought impertinent, but, as he closed the door, I could not help calling him back to ask him whether he held the same inquisition upon the fair sex ; to which he re plied, with a melancholy upturning of the eyes, that in the good old days of Russian barbarism, this had been part of his duties, but that the march of improvement had invaded bis rights, and given this portion of his professional duties to a sage femme. All our effects were then taken to another chamber, and arranged on lines, each person su- perintending the disposition of his own, so as to prevent all confusion, and left there to be fumi- gated with sulphuric acid for twenty four hours. So particular were they in fumigating every thing susceptible of infection, that 1 was obliged to leave there a black ribbon which I wore round my neck as a guard to my watch. Towards evening the principal director, one of the most gentlemanly men I ever met with, came round, and with many apologies and regrets for his ina- bility to receive us be iter, requested us to call upon him freely for any thing we might want. Not knowing any of us personally, he did me the honour to say that be understood there was an American in the party, who had been particularly 280 STEPHENS TRAVELS. recommended to him by a Russian officer and fellow-passenger, Afterwards came the commis- sary, or chief of the department, and repeated the same compliments, and left us with an ex- alted opinion of Russian politeness. I had heard horrible accounts of the rough treatment of tra- vellers in Russia, and I made a note at the time, lest after-vexations should make me forget it, that i had received more politeness and civility from these northern barbarians, as the}' are called by the people of the south of Europe, than I ever found amid their boasted civilisa- tion. Having still an hour before dark, I strolled out, followed by my guardiano, to take a more parti- cular survey of our prison. In a gravel walk lined with acacias, immediately before the door of my little courtyard, I came suddenly upon a lady of about eighteen, whose dark hair and eyes I at once recognised as Grecian, leading by the hand a little child. 1 am sure my face brightened at the first glimpse of this vision which promised to shine upon us in our solitude ; and perhaps my satisfaction was made too manifest by my involuntarily moving towards her. But my pre- sumption received a severe and mortifying check ; for though at first she merely crossed to the other side of the walk, she soon forgot all ceremony, and fairly dragging the child after her, ran over the grass to another walk to avoid me. My mor- tification, however, was but temporary ; for though, in the first impulse of delight and admi- ration, I had forgotten time, place, and circum- stance, the repulse I had received made me turn STEPHENS TRAVELS. 281 to myself, and I was glad to find an excuse for the 1 -dy's flight in the flannel gown and long cap and slippers, which marked me as having just entered upon my season of purification. I was soon initiated into the routine of lazar- etto ceremonies and restrictions. By touching a quarantine patient, both parties are subjected to the longest term of either ; so that if a person, on the last day of his term, should come in con- tact with another just entered, he would lose all the benefit of his days purification, and be obliged to wait the full term of the latter. I have seen, in various situations in life, a system of operations called keeping people at a distance, but I never saw it so effectually practised as in quarantine. For this night, at least, I had full range. I walked where I pleased, and was very sure that every one would keep out of my way. During the whole time, however, I could not help treasuring up the precipitate flight of the young lady ; and I afterwards told her, and, 1 hope, with the true spirit of one ready to return good for evil, that if she had been in my place, and the days of my purification had been almost ended, in spite of plague and pestilence, she might have rushed into my arms without my offering the least impediment. In making the tour of the grounds, I had al- ready an opportunity of observing the relation in which men stand to each other in Russia. When an officer spoke to a soldier, the latter stood motionless as a statue, with his head un- covered during the whole of the conference ; and when a soldier on guard saw an officer, no 282 STEPHENS' TRAVELS, matter at what distance, lie presented arms, and remained in that position until the officer was out of sight. Returning, I passed a grating, through which I saw our deck passengers, forty or fifty in number, including the Jewish pilgrims, mi- serable, dirty-looking objects, turned in togeth r for fourteen days, to eat, drink, and sleep, as best tkey might, like brutes. With a high idea of the politeness of the Russians towards the rich and great, or those whom they believe to be so, and with a strong impression already received confirming the accounts of the degraded condi- tion of the lower classes, I returned to my room, and with a Frenchman and a Greek for my room-mates, my window opening upon the Black Sea, I spent my first night in quarantine. CHAPTER XIV. The Guardiano— One too many — An Excess of Kindness — The last Day 01 Quarantine — Mr Baguet— Rise of Odessa — City-making — Count Woronzow— A Gentleman Farmer — An American Russian. I shall pass over briefly the whole of our prutu que. The next morning I succeeded in getting a room to myself. A guardiano was assigned to each room, who took his place in the antecham- ber, and was always in attendance. These guar- dianos are old soldiers, entitled by the rules of the establishment to so much a-day ; but as they always expect a gratuity, their attention and ser- vices are regulated by that expectation. 1 was STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 283 exceedingly fortunate in mine ; he was always in the antechamber, cleaning his musket, mending his clothes, or stretched on a mattrass looking at the wall ; and whenever J came through with my hat on, without a word he put on his belt and followed me; and very soon, instead of regard- ing him as an encumbrance, 1 became accus- tomed to him, and it was a satisfaction to have him with me. Sometimes, in walking for exer- cise, I moved so briskly that it tired him to keep up with me ; and then I selected a walk where he could sit down and keep his eye upon me, while I walked backwards and forwards before him. Besides this, he kept my room in order, set my table, carried my notes, brushed my clothes, and took better care of me thon any ser- vant I ever had. Our party consisted of eight, and being sub- jected to the same quarantine, and supposed to have the same quantum of infection, we were allowed to visit each other ; and every afternoon we met in the yard, walked an hour or two, took tea together, and returned to our own rooms, where our guard in the antechamber ; our gates were locked up and a soldier walked outside as sentinel. I was particularly intimate with the Russian officer, whom I found one of the most gentlemanly, best educated, and most amiable men I ever met. Pie had served and been wounded in the campaign against Poland ; had - with him two soldiers, his own serfs, who had served under him in that campaign, and had ac- companied him in his tour in Egypt and Syria. He gave me his address at St Petersburgh, and 284 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. promised me the full benefit of his acquaintance there. I have before spoken of the three En- glishmen. Two of them I had met at Corfu • the third joined them at Smyrna, and added another proof to the well-established mazim that three spoil company ; for 1 soon found that they had got together by the ears; and the new-co- mer having connected himself with one of the others, they were anxious to get rid of the third. Many causes of offence existed between them ; and though they continued to room together, they were merely waiting till the end of our pratique for an opportunity to separate. One morning the one who was about being thrown off came to my room, and told me that he did not care about going to the Crimea, and proposed accompanying me. This suited me very well ; it was a long and expensive journey, and would cost a mere fraction more for two than for one ; and when the breach was widened past all pos- sibility of being healed, the cast-off and myself agreed to travel together. I saw much of the secretary of legation, and also of the Greek and Frenchman, my room mates for the first night. Indeed, I think I must say that I was an object of special interest to all our party, I was un- well, and my companions overwhelmed me with prescriptions and advice ; they brought in their medicine-chests; one assuring me that he had been cured by this, another by that, and each wanted me to swallow his own favourite medi- cine, interlacing their advice with anecdotes of whole sets of passengers who had been detained, some forty, some fifty, and some sixty days, by STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 285 the accidental sickness of one. I did all I could for them, always having regard to the circum- stance that it was not of such vital importance to me, at least, to hold out fourteen days, if I broke down on the fifteenth. In a few days the doctor, in one of his rounds, told me he under- stood I was unwell, and I confessed to him the reason of my withholding the fact, and took his prescriptions so w r ell, that at parting he gave me a letter to a friend in Chioff, and to his brother a distinguished professor in the university at St Petersburg!]. We had a restaurante in the lazaretto, with a new bill of fare every day ; not first-rate, per- haps, but good enough. I had sent a letter of introduction to Mr Baguet, the Spanish consul, also to a German, the brother of a missionary at Constantinople, and a note to Mr Iialli, the American consul, and had frequently visits from them, and long talks at the parlatoria through the grating. The German was a kcowing one, and came often ; he had a smattering of English, and would talk in that language, as I thought, in cociplknent to me ; but the last time he came he thanked me kindly, and told me he had improved more in his English than by a year's study. When I got out he never came near me. Sunday, June 7th, was our last day in quaran- tine. We had counted the days anxiously ; and though our time had passed as agreeably as, un- der the circumstances, it could pass, we were in high spirits at the prospect of our liberation. To the last, the attention and civility of the of- ficers id the yard continued unremitted. Every 286 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. morning regularly as the director knocked at each gate to enquire how we had passed the night, and whether he could do any thing for us; then the doctor, to inquire into our corporeal condition ; and every two or three days, towards evening, the director, with the same decoration on the Ja- pel of his coat, and at the same hour, inquired whether we had any complaints to make of want of attendance or improper treatment. Our last day in the lazaretto is not to be for- gotten. We kept as clear of the rest of the in- mates as if they had been pickpockets, though once I was thrown into a cold sweat by an act of forget fulness. A child fell down before me ; I sprang forward to pick him up, and should infal- libly have been fixed for ten days longer, if my guardiano had not caught me. Lingering for the last time on the walk overlooking the Black Sea, I saw a vessel coming up under full sail, bearing, as I thought, the American flag. My heart al- most bounded at seeing the star and the stripe on the Black Sea, but I was deceived, and almost dejected with disappointment, called my guardi- ano, and returned for the last time to my room. The next morning we waited in our rooms till tht doctor paid h s final visit, and soon after we ail gathered before the door of the directory, ready to sally forth. Every body who has made a European voyage knows the metamorphosis in in the appearance of the passengers on the day ot landing. It was much the same with us ; we had no more slip-shod, long- bearded companions, but all were elean-shirted and shaved becom- ingly, except our old Jew and his party who pro- Stephens' travels. 287 bably hud not changed a raiment or washed their faces since the first day in quarantine, nor per- haps for many years before. They were people from whom, under any circumstances, one would be apt to keep at a respectful distance, and to the Last they carried every thing before them. We had still another vexatious process in pas- sing our luggage through the custom house. We had landed in a list of all our effects the night before, in which I intentionally omitted to mention Byron's Poem>, these being prohibited in Ru*s a. He had been ray companion in Italy and Greece, and I was loath to part with him ; so I put the book under my arm, threw my cloak over me, and walked out unmolested. Outside the gate there was a general shaking of hands ; the director, whom we had seen every day at a distance was the first to greet us, and Mr Baguefc. the brother of the Spanish consul, who was waiting to receive me, welcomed me to Russia. With sincere regret I bade good bye to my old soldier, mounting a drosky, and in ten minutes was deposited in a hotel, in size and appearance equal to the best in Paris. It was a pleasure once more to get into a wheel carriage ; I had not seen one since I left Italy, except the old hack I mentioned at Argos and the Arabas at Constantinople. It was a pleasure, too, to see hats, coats, and pantaloons. Early associa- te us will cling to man ; and in spite of a tran- sient admiration for the dashing costume of the Gteek and Tiuk, 1 warmed to the ungraceful covering, of civilized man, even to the long surt- out and be 11- crowned hat of the Russian mar- 288 STEPHENS TRAVELS. chand ; arid, more than all, I was attracted by an appearance of life and energy particularly striking after com ng from among the dead and alive Turks. Whiie in quarantine I had received an invita- tion to dine with Mr Hague', and had barely time to make one tour of the city in a drosky, before it was necessary to drees for dinner. Ml Basnet was a bachelor of about forty, living in pleasant apartments, in an unpretending and gentlemanly style. As in all the ports of the Levant, except where theie are ambassadors, the consuls are the nobility of the place. Several of them were pre- sent, and the European consuls in those places are a different class of men from ours, as they are paid by salaries from their respective govern- ments, while ours, who receive no pay, are generally natives of the place, who serve for the honour, or some other accidental advantage. We had, therefore, the best society in Odessa, at Mr Baguet's, the American consul not being present, which, by the way, I do not mean in a disrespectful sense, as Mr Ralli seemed every way deserving of all the benefits that the station gives. In the evening the consul and myself took two or three turns on the boulevards, and about eleven returned to my hotel. After what I have said of this establishment, the reader will be sur- prised to learn that, when I went to my room, 1 found there a bedstead, but no bed or bed- clothes. I supposed it was neglect, and ordered one to be prepared ; but, to my surprise, was told that there were no beds in the hotel. It was STEPHENS' "fltAVELS. 289 kept exclusively for the rich seigneurs, who always carry their own beds with them. Luckily the bedstead was not corded, but contained a bottom of plain slabs of wood, about six or eight inches wide, and the same distance apart, laid crosswise, so that lengthwise there was no danger of failing through ; and wrapping myself in my cloak, and putting my carpet-bag under my head, I went to sleep. Before breakfast the next morning, I had learned the topography of Odessa. To an Ame- rican, Russia is an interesting country. True it is not classic ground; but as forme, who had now travelled over the faded and worn-out king- doms of the Old World, 1 was quite ready for something new. Like our own, Russia is a new country, and in many respects resembles ours. It is true that v. e began life differently. Russ a hai worked her way to civilisation from a state of absolute barbarism, while we sprang into be- ing with the advantage of ail the lights of the Old World. Sali there are many subjects of comparison, and even of emulation, between us; and nowhere in all Russia is there a more proper subject to begin with than my first land- ing-place. Odessa is skuated in a small bay between toe mouths of the Dneiper and Dueister. Forty years ago it consisted of a few miserable fisher- men's huts on the shores of the Black Sea. In i796 ; the Empress Catharine resolved to bui.d a city there ; and the Turks being driven from the dominion of the Biack Sea, it became a place oi resort and speculation for the English, Austrians T 2<)0 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. Neapolitans, Dutch, Ragusans, and Greeks of the Ionian republic. In 1802, two hundred and eighty vessels arrived from Constantinople and the Mediterranean; and the Duke de Richelieu, being appointed governor-general by Alexander, laid out a city upon a gigantic scale, which, though at first its growth was not commensurate with his expectations, now contains sixty thous- and inhabitants, and bids fair to realise the ex- travagant calculations of its founder. Mr. Bag- uet, and the gentlemen whom I met at his table, were of opinion that it is destined to be the greatest commercial city in Russia, as the long winters and the closing of the Baltic with ice must ever be a great disadvantage to St. Peters * burgh, and the interior of the country can as well be supplied from Odessa as from the northern capital. There is no country where cities have sprung np so fast and increased so rapidly as in ours ; and altogether, perhaps nothing in the world can be compared with our Buffalo, Rochester, Cincin- nati, &c. But Odessa has grown faster than any of these, and has nothing of (he appearance of one of our new cities. We are both young, and both marching with gigantic strides to great- ness, but we move by different roads ; and the whole face of the com try, from the new city on the borders of the Black Sea to the steppes of Siberia, shows a different order of government and a different constitution of society. With us, a few individuals cut down the trees of the forest, or settle themselves by the banks of a stream, where they happen to find some local advanta - STEPHENS 1 TRAVELS. 291 ges, and build houses suited to their necessities ; others come and join them ; and by degrees the little settlement becomes a large city. But here a gigantic government, endowed almost with cre- ative powers, says, k< Let there be a city," and immediately commences the erection of large buildings. The rich seigneurs follow the lead of government, and build hotels to let out in apartments. The theatre, casino, and exchange, at Odessa, are perhaps superior to any buildings in the United States. The city is situated on an elevation about a hundred feet above the sea ; a promenade three quarters of a mile long, termi- nated at one end by the exchange, and' at the other by the palace of the governor, is laid out in front along the margin of the sea,' bounded on one side by an abrupt precipice, and adorned, with trees, shrubs, liowers, statues, and busts, like the garden of the Tuileries, and Bor^hese Villa, or the Villa Recaii at Naples. On the other side is a long lange of hotels built of stone, running the whole length ot the boulevards, some of them with facades after the best models in Italy. A broad street runs through the centre of the city, terminating with a semicircular en . largement at the boulevards, and in the centre of this stands a large equestrian statue, erected to the Duke de Richelieu ; and parallel, and at right angels, are wide streets lined with large buildings, according to the most approved plans of modern architecture. The custom which the people have of taking apartments in hotels causes the erection or large budding*, which add 292 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. much to the general appearance of the city ; while with us, the universal disposition of every man to have a house to himself, conduces to the building of small houses, and. consequently, de- tracts from general effect. The city, as yet, is not generally paved, and is, consequently, so dusty, that every man is obliged to wear a light cloak to save his dress. Paving stone is brought from Trieste and Malta, and i* very expensive. About two o'clock Mr Ralii, our consul, called upon me. Mr Raili is a Greek of Seio. He left his native island when a boy ; has visited every port in Europe as a merchant, and lived for the last eight years in Odessa. He has several brothers in England, Trieste, and some of the Greek islands, and are all connected in business. When Mr Rhind, who negotiated our treaty with the Porte, left Odessa, he authorised Mr Balli to transact whatever consular business might be required ; and on his recommendation, Mr Raili afterwards received a regular appoint- ment as consul. Mr. Rhind, by. the way ex- pected a great trade from opening the Black Sea to American vessels ; out i.e was wrong in his anticipations, and there have been but two Ame- rican vessels the;e since the treaty. Mr Ralii is rich and respected, bi ing vice-president of the commercial board, and very proud of the honour of the American consulate, as it gives him a po- sition among the dignitaries of the place, enables him to wear a uniform and sward on public occa- sions, and yields him other privileges, which uie gratifying, at least, if not inti infcically val- uable. STEPHENS TRAVELS. 293 No traveller can pass through Odessa without having to acknowledge the politeness of Count Woronzow, the governor of the Crimea, one of the richest seigneurs in Russia, and one of the pillars of the throne. At the suggestion of Mr Ralii, I accompanied him to the palace, and wag presented. This palace is a magnificent build- ing, and the interior exhibits a combination of wealth and taste. The walls are hung with Ita- lian paintings, and, for interior ornaments and finish, the palace is far superior to those in Italy ; the knobs of the doors are of amber, and the doors of the dining-room from the old impe- rial palace at St. Petersburgh. The count is a military-looking man of about fifty, six feet high, with swallow complexion and grey hair. His father married an English lady of the Sidney family, and his sister married the Earl of Pern- broke. He is a soldier in bearing and appear- ance, held a high rank during the French inva- sion of Russia, and distinguished himself partic- ularly at Borodino ; in rank and power he is the fourth military officer in the empire. He pos- sesses immense wealth in all parts of Russia, particularly in th Crimea ; and his wife's mo- ther, after Demidoff and Sheremetieff, is the richest subject in the whole empire. He speaks English remarkably well ; and after a few com- monplaces, with his characteristic politeness to strangers, invited me to dine at the palace the next day. J was obliged to decline, and he him- self suggested the reason, that probably 1 was engaged with my countryman Mr. Sontag (of whom more anon), whom the count referred to 294 STEPHENS' TRAVELS, as his old friend, adding that he would net inter- fere with the pleasure of a meetingjbetween two countrymen so far from home, and asked me for the day after, or any other day I pleased. I apologised on the ground of my intended depar- ture, and took my leave. My proposed travelling companion had com- mit ed to me . the whole arrangements for our journey, or, more properly, had given me the whole trouble of making them ; and accompanied by one of Mr Ralli's clerks, I visited all the car- riage repositories to purchase a vehicle, after which I accompanied Mr Ralli to his country- house to dine. He occupied a pretty little place a few vers s from Odessa, with a large fruit and ornamental garden, Mr Ralli's lady is also a native of Greece, with much of the cleverness and spirituelle character of the educated Greeks. One of her own bons mots current in Odessa is, that her husband is consul for the other world, A young Italian, with a very pretty wife, dined with us ; and after dinner a stroll through the garden, we walked over to Mr Perseani's, the father of our Russian secretary ; another walk in the garden with a party of ladies, tea, and I got back to Odessa in time for a walk on the boulevards, and the opera. Before my attention was turned to Odessa, I should as soon have thought of an opera-house at Chicago as tnere; but I already found, what impressed itself more forcibly upon me at every step, that Russia is a country of anomalies. The new city on the Black Sea contains many French and Italian residents, who are willing to STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 233 give all that is not necessary for food and cloth- ing for the opera ; the Russians themselves are passionately fond of musical and theatrical enter- tainments, and government makes up all defi- ciencies. The interior of the theatre corresponds with the beauty of its exterior. All the decora- tions are in good taste, and the Corinthian co- lumns, running from the foot to the top, particu- larly beautiful. The Opera was the Barber of Seville ; the company in full undress, and so bar- barous as to pay attention to the performance. I came out about ten o'clock, and after a turn or two on the boulevards, took an ice-cream at the cafe of the Hotel de Petersburg. This hotel is beautifully situated on one corner of the main ;Ureet, fronting the boulevards, and opposite the statue of the Duke de Richlieu ; and looking from the window of the cafe, furnished and fitted up in a style superior to most in Paris, upon the crowd still thronging the boulevards, I could hardly believe that I was really on the borders of the Black Sea. Having purchased a carriage, and made all my arrangements for starting, I expected to pass this day with an unusual degree of satisfaction ; and I was not disappointed. I have mentioned incidently the name of a countryman resident in Odessa ; and being so far from home, I felt a yearning towards an American. In France or Italy I seldom had this feeling, for there Ameri- cans congregate in crowds ; but in Greece and Turkey I always rejoiced to meet a compatriot ; and when at my arrival at Odessa, before going into the lazaretto, the captain told me that there 290 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. was an American residing there, high in charac- ter and office, who had been twenty years in Russia, I requested him to present my compli- ments, and say, that if he had not forgotten his fatherland, a countryman languishing in the laz- aretto would be happy to see him through the gratings of his prison-house. I afterwards re- gretted having sent this message, as I heard from other sources that he was a prominent man ; and during the whole term of my quarantine, I never heard from him personally. I was most agreea- bly disappointed, however, when, on the first day of my release, I met him at dinner at the Spanish consul's. He had been to the Crimea with Count Woronzow ; had only returned that morning,_.and had never heard of my being there until invited to meet me at dinner. I had wrong- ed him by my distrust ; for, though twenty years an exile, his heart beat as true as when he left our shores. Who can shake off the feeling that binds him to Iris native land ? Not hardships n t disgrace at home, net favour nor success abroad, not even time, can drive from his mind the land of his birth or the friends of his youth- ful (lavs. General Sontag was a native of Philadelphia ; had been in our navy, and served as sailing-mas- ter on board the Wasp ; became dissatisfied, from some cause which he did not mention, left our navy, entered the Russian, and came round to the Black Sea as captain of a frigate ; was transferred to the land service, and, in the cam- paign of 1814, entered Paris with the allied ar- mies as coionel of a regiment. In this campaign STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 297 he formed a friendship with Count Woronzow, which exists in full force at this day. He left the army with the rank of brigadier-general. By the influence of Count Woronzow, he was appointed inspector of the port of Odessa, in wirch office he stood next in rank to the Gover- nor of the Crimea, and, in fact, on one occasion, during the absence of Count Woronzow, lived in the palace and acted as governor for eight months. He married a lady of rank, with au estate and several hundred s'aves at Moscow ; wears two or three ribbons at his button-hole, badges of different orders ; has gone through the routine of offices and honours, up to the grade of grand counsellor of the empire ; and a letter ad- dressed to him under the title of "his excellen- cy, " will eome to the right hands. He was then living at his country place, about eight versts from Odessa, and a ked me to go out and pass the next day with him. 1 was strongly tempted, but in order that I might have a full benefit of it pos'poned the pleasure until I had completed my arrangements for travelling. The next day General Sontag called upon me, but I did not see him ; and this morning, accompanied by Mr Baguet the younger, I rode out to his place. The land about Odessa is a dead level, the road was excessively dry, and we were begrimed with dust when we arrived. General Sontag was waiting for us, and in the true spirit of an Ame- rican farmer at home, proposed taking as over his grounds. His farm is his hobby ; it contains about, six hundred acres, and we walked all over it. His crop was wheat, and, although I am no 2,98 STEPHENS TRAVELS. great judge of these matters, I think I never saw finer. He showed me a field of very good wheat, which had not been sowed in three years, but produced by the fallen seed of the previous crops. We compared it with our Genesee wheat and to me it was an interesting circumstance to find an American cultivating land on the Black Sea, and comparing it with the products of our Genesee flats, with which he was perfectly fa- miliar. One thing particularly struck me, though, as an American, perhaps I ought not to have been so sensitive. A large number of men were at work at the field, and they were all slaves. Such is the force of education and habit, that I have seen hundreds of black slaves without a sensa- tion ; but it struck rudely upon to see white men slaves to an American, and he one whose father had been a soldier in the revolution, and had fought to sustain the great principle that C£ all men are by nature free and equai." Mr Sontag told me that he valued his farm at six thousand dollars, on which he could live well, have a bot- tle of Crimea wine, and another every day for a friend, and lay up one thousand dollars a- year ; but I afterwards heard that he was an enthu- siast on the subject of his farm ; a bad manager, and that he really knew nothing of its expense or profit. Returning to the house, we found Madame Sontag ready to receive us. She is an authoress of groat literary reputation, and of such charac- ter that, while the emperor was prosecuting the Turk»sh war in person, and the empress remain- STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 299 ed at Odessa, the young archduchesses were placed under her charge. At diuner she talked with much interest of America, and expressed a hope, though not much expectation, of one day visiting it. But General Sontag himself, sur- rounded as he is by Russian connexions, is all American. Pointing to the ribbon on his but. ton hole, he said he was entitled to one order which he should value above all others ; that his father had been a soldier of the revolution, and member of the Cincinnati Society, and that in Russia the decoration of that order would be to him the proudest badge of honour that an Amercan could wear. After dining, we retired into a little room fitted up as a library, which he calls America, furnished with all the standard American books, Irving, Paulding, Cooper, &c, engravings of distinguished Americans, maps, charts, canal and railroad reports, &c. ; and his daughter, a lovely girl and only child, has been taught to speak her father's tongue and love her father's land. In honour of me she played on the piano 6 1 Hail Columbia/' and " Yankee Doo- dle," and the day wore away too soon, We took tea on the piazzo, and at parting I received from him a letter to his agent on his estate near Moscow, and from Madame Sontag one which carried me into the imperial household, being directed to "Monsieur l'lnteudant du Prince heritiere, Petersbourgh." A few weeks ago I received from him a letter, in which he says, " The visit of one of my countrymen is so great a treat, that I can assure you are never forgotten by any one of my little family ; and when my 300 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. daughter wished to make me smile, she is sure to succeed if she sits down to her piano and plays 4 Hail Columbia' or ( Yankee Doodle this brings to mind Mr — , Mr , Mr , and Mr , who have passed through this city : to me alone it brings to mind my country, parents, friends, youth, and a world of things and ideas past, never to return. Should any of our coun- trymen be coming this way, do not forget to in- form them that in Odessa lives one who will be glad to see them and I say now to any of my countrymen whom chance may throw upon the shores of the Black Sea, that if he would receive, so far from home, the welcome of a true-heart-' ed American, General Sontag will be glad to ren- der it. It was early in the evening when I returned to the city. It was moonlight, and I walked im- mediately to the boulevards. I have not spoken as I ought to have done of this beautiful prome- nade, on which I walked every evening under the light of a splendid moon. The boulevards are bounded on one side by the precipitous shore of the sea; are three quarters of a mile in length with rows of trees on each side, gravel walks and statues, and terminated at one end try the Ex- change, and at the other by the palace of Count •# Woronz nv. At this season of the year it was the promenade of all the beauty and fashion of Odessa, from an hour or two before dark until midnight. This evening the moon was brighter, and the crowd was greater and gayer, than sual. The great number of officers, with their dashing uniforms, the clashing of their swords, and rat- STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 301 tling of their spurs, added to the effect ; and wo- men never look so interesting as when leaning on the arm of a soldier. Even in Italy or Greece, I have seldom seen a finer moonlight scene than the columns of the Exchange through the vista of trees lining the boulevards. I ex- pected to leave the next day, and I lingered till a late hour. I strolled up and down the prome- nade, alone among thousands. I sat upon a bench, and looked for the last time on the Black Sea, the Stormy Euxine, quiet in the moon- beams, and glittering like a lake of burnished silver. By degrees ihe gay throng disappeared ; one after another, party after party withdrew ; a few straggling couples, seeming ali the world to each other, still lingered, like me, unable to tear themselvss away. It was the hour and the place for poetry and feeling. A young officer and a 1 idy were last to leave ; they passed by me, but did not notice me ; they had lost ail outward perceptions ; and as, in passing for the last time, she raised her head for a moment, and the moon shone full upon her face, I saw there an expres- sion that spoke of heaven. I followed them as they went out, murmured involuntarily u Happy dog I" whittled " Heighho, says Thimble !" and went to my hotel to bed. 302 STEPHENS' TRAVELS < CHAPTER XV. Choice of a Conveyancer-Hiring a Servant— Another American— Beginning of Troubles — A Bivouac — Rus- sian Jews— -The Steppes of Russia— A Traveller's Story — Approach to Ciiioff. — How to get rid of a Servant — History of Chioff. I had before me a journey of nearly 2000 miles, through a country more than half barbarous, and entirely destitute of all accommodation for tra- vellers. Southern Russia was the Scythia of Darius, u savage from the remotest time." "Ail the way," says an old traveller, 6 I never came in a house, but lodged in the wilderness by the river side, and carried provisions by the way, for there be small succour in those parts," and we wer advised that a century had made but lit- tle charge in the interior of the empire. There were no public conveyances, and we had our choice of three modes of travelling ; first by a Jew's waggon, in which the traveller stretches out his bed, and is trundled along like a bale of goods, always with the same horses and there- fore, of necessity, making slow progress; se- condly, the char de poste, a mere box of wood on four wheels, with straw in the bottom ; very fast, but not to be changed always with the post horses ; and, thirdly, posting with our own car- riage. We did not hesitate long in choosing the last, and bought a carriage, fortunately a good one, a large caleche which an Italian nobleman STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 203 had got made for his own use in travelling on the continent, and which he now sold, not because he did not want it, but because he wanted money more. Next we procured a podoroshni, under which, u By order of his Majesty Nicholas I., autocrat of all the Russias, from Odessa to Mos- cow and Petersburgh, all the post-offices were commanded to give and , with their servant, foul? horses with their drivers, at the prices fixed by law." Besides tins, it was ne- cessary to give security that we left no debt be- hind us; and if Mr Ralli undertakes for all Americans the same obligation he did for me, it may happen that his office of consul will be no sinecure. Next, and this was no trifling matter, we got our passports arranged ; the Russian am- bassador at Constantinople, by the way, had given me a new passport in Russian, and my companion, that he might travel with the advan- tages of rank and title, got himself made ''noble" by aii extra stroke of his consul's pen. The last thing was to engage a servant. W e had plenty of applications, but as very few talk- ed any language we understood, we had not much choice; one, a German, a capital fellow, was the man we wanted, only he could not speak a word of Russian, which was the principal qualification we required in a servant. At length came a Frenchman, with an unusual proportion of whiskers and mustaches, and one of the worst of the desperate emigres whom the French Re- volution, or rather the Restoration, sent roaming in foreign lands. He had naturally a most unprepossessing physiognomy, and this was S04 STEPHENS TRAVELS. heightened by a sabre-cat which had knocked out several of his teeth, and left a huge gash in his cheek and lip, and, moreover, made him speak very unintelligibly. When I asked him if he was a Frenchman, he drew himself up with great dignity, and replied, " Monsieur, je suis, Parisien." His appearance was a gross libel upon the Parisians ; but as we could get no one else, we took him, upon little recommendation, the day before ofir departure, and, during the same day, threatened naif a dozen times to dis- charge him. The police regulation obliging him to pay his debts before leaving Odessa, he seemed to consider peculiarly hard ; and all the time he was with us, kept referring to his having been obliged to fritter away thirty or forty roubles be- fore he could leave. We ought to bave furnished ourselves with provisions for the whole road to Moscow, and even cooking utensils ; but we neglected it, and carried with us only tea and sugar, a tin teapot, two tin cups, two tin plates, two knivts and forks, and tome Bologna saus - ges, trusting, like Napoleon when he invaded Russia, to make up the rest by foraging. Before beginning .our journey, we had a fore- taste of the diliiculty of [ravelling in Russia, We had ordered post-horses tln-ee times, and had sent for them morning and evening, and re- ceived for answer that there were none in. At the third disappointment, our own consul being out of town, my friend the Spanish consul went with me to the director of the post, and found that during the time in which they had told us they had no horses, they had sent out more than STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 303 a hundred. Instead of taxing them with their rascality, he talked the matter over very polite- ly, paid the price of the horses, gave them a bonus of ten roubles, and obtained a promise, by all the saints in the Russian calendar, for day- light the next morning, The next morning at eight o'clock the horse?? came, four shaggy, wild looking little animals* which no comb or brush had ever touched, har- nessed with a dollar and rope lines. They were tied in with rope traces, all a breast, two on each side the pole, and a postilion with a low wool cap, sheepskin coat and trousers, the woolly side next the skin, who would make an English whip stare, mounted the box. Henri followed, and my companion and myself took our seats within. The day before we had a positive quarrel upon a point unnecessary here to mention, in which I thought, and still think, he acted wrong, and the dispute had run so high that I told him I n • gretted exceedingly having made arrangements for travelling with him, and proposed even theii to pirt company; he objected, and as we had purchased a carriage jointly, and particularly as our passports were prepared, our podoroshvA made out, and servants hired in our joint names, I was fain to go on ; and in this inauspicious humour towards each other, we set out for a journey of nearly 2000 miles, through a wild and desolate country, among a half-uncivilised people, whose language we couid not understand^ and with a servaut whom we distrusted and dis« liked. In spile of all this, however, I felt a higH de- ir' 306* STEPHENS* TRAVELS. gree of excitement in starting for the capital of Russia ; and T will do my companion the justice to say that he had heen always ready to receive my advances, arid to do more than meet me half way, which I afterwards learned from an appre- hension of the taunts of his companions, who, not satisfi d with getting rid of him, had con- stantly told him that it was impossible for an Englishman and an American to travel together, and that we would quarrel and fight the first day. I believe that I am enough of an American in my head ; I met many Englishmen, and with some formed a friendship which I trust will last through life ; and among all I met, these two were the only young men so far behind the spirit of the age as to harbour such a thought. I did meet one old gentleman, who, though showing me personally the greatest kindness, could not forget the old grudge. But men cannot be driv- ing their elbows into each other's ribs, compar- ing nvmey accounts, and consulting upon the hundred lit' le things that present themselves on such a journey, without getting upon at least sociable terms ; and before night of the first day, the feelings of my companion and myself had undergone a decided change. But to go back to Odessa, At the barrier we found a large travelling- carriage stopping the way, in which was my friend M. Ralli, with his lady, on his way to Nicolaif ; part of his business here was to erect a monument to the memory of a deceased country man. Mr Munroe, son of a former postmaster in Washington, is another in- stance of the .success of American adventures in STEPHENS* TRAVELS. 307 Russia. He went out to St Petersburg!], with letters from the Russian ambassador and others, and entered the army, the only road to distinc- tion in Russia. He accompanied the Grand- duke Constantine to Poland, and was made one of his aide-de-camps ; and on the death of Con- stantine was transferred to the staff of the Em* peror Nicholas. At the time of the invasion of Turkey by the Egyptians under Ibrahim Pacha, Mr Munroe held the rank of colonel in the army sent to the aid of the sultan. While the Russi- ans were encamped at the foot of the Giant's Mountain, lie visited Constantinople, and became acquainted with the American missionaries, who all spoke of him in the highest terms. He was a tall, well-made man, carried himself with a military air, and looked admirably well in the Russian uniform. On the withdrawal of the Russians from the Black Sea, Mr Munroe was left in some charge at Nicolaif, where he died in the opening of a brilliant career. I heard of him all over Russia, particularly from officers of the army ; and being often asked if I knew him, regretted to be obliged to answer no. But though personally unacquainted, as an American I was gratified with the name he had left behind him. To re'urn again to our journey : a few rubies satisfied the officer at the barrier that we were carrying nothing prohibited out of the " free port" of Odessa, and we started on a full run, to the great peril of our necks, and, to use the climax of a Dutch proclamation, ,c what's more, of breaking our carriage." In less than an hour 308 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. we brought up before the door of a post-house. Our wheels were smoking when we s opped. On our hind axle we carried a basket of grease ; half a dozen bipeds in sheepskin whipped off the wheels and greased them ; four quadrupeds were tied to the carriage, another bety mounted the box, and we were off again at a full run. My companion undertook to keep a memorandum of expenses, and we put a certain sum in a purse, and paid out of it till all was gone. This was a glorious beginning for a journey of 2000 miles. The country possessed little interest, being most- ly level, and having but few villages. On the way vve saw a natural phenomenon that is com- mon in Egypt and the East, where the country is level, and know it by the name of mirage. At a distance it seemed a mere pond or lake, and a drove of cattle passing over it looked as if they were walking in the water. We rolled on rapidly all day, passed through Bargarba, Kod- urseve, and Pakra, timing every post and not- ing every village, with a particularity which it would be tedious here to repeat, and at about eight in the evening dashed into the little town of Voznezeuski, 130 versts from Odessa. Here vve came to a dead stand. We had begun to entertain some apprehension?, from the conduct of Monsieur Henri, who complained of the liar ness of his seat, and asked if we did not intend to stop at night, recommending Voznezeuski as a place where we could sleep in the post- house ; we told him that we had no idea of stopping but to change horses, and should go on immediately. STEPHENS TRAVELS. 309 Voznezeuski lies on the river Bog, and is the chief town of the Cossacks of the Bog. This river is navigable for large vessels 150 versts; beyond this, for three or four hundred versts, it is full of cataracts. The Cossacks of the Bog are a warlike tribe, numbering from six to seven thousand, all living under the same military system with the Cossacks of the Don. But we fell into worse hands than the Cossacks. The postmaster was a Jew, and at first told us that he had no horses ; then that he had no postilion, but would hire one if we would pay him a certain sum, about four times the amount fixed by law. We had been obliged before to pay a few extra roubles, but this was our first serious difficulty with the postmasters ; and in pursuance of the advice received at Odessa, we talked loud, de- manded the book which is nailed to the table in every post-house for travellers to enter com- plaints in, and threatened vengeance of Count Woronzo and every one else, up to the emperor: but the Jew laughed in our faces ; looked in our podoroshni, where we were described as simple travellers, without any of the formidable array of titles which procure respect in Russia ; told us we were no grand seigneurs, and that we must either pay the price or wait, as our betters had done before us. We found too soon, as we had been advised at Odessa, that these fellows do not know such a character in society as a private gentleman ; and if a man is not described in his podoroshni as a count, duke, or lord of some kind, or by some high-sounding military title, they think he is a merchant, or manufacturer. 310 STEPHENS' TRAVELS. or some other common fellow, and pay no regard to him. I relied somewhat upon my companion's having been made 4 -noble/' but now found that his consul had been rather chary of his honours, and, by the Russian word used, had not put him up high enough to be of any use. We had a long wrangle with the Jew, the result of which was, that we told him, probably in no very gen- tle phrase, that we would wait a month rather than submit to his extortion ; and, drawing up the window of our carriage, prepared to pass the night at the door of the post-house. One of our party was evidently well satisfied with this arrangement, and he was Monsieur Henri. We had hired him by the day to Mos- cow, and, if we wanted him to St Petersburgh, and very soon saw that he was perfectly content with the terms, and in no hurry to bring onr journey to a close. From the moment of our arrival, we suspected him of encouraging the postmaster in his eff- rts to detain us, and were so much fortified in this opinion by after circum- stances, that when he was about moving towards the house to pass the night within, we peremp- torily ordered him to mouut the box and sleep there. He refused, we insisted ; and as this was the first day out and the first moment of actual collision, audit was all-important to decide who should be master, we told him that if he did not obey, we would discharge him on the spot, at the risk of being obliged to work our way back to Odessa alone. And as he felt that, in that case, his debts would have been paid to no purpose, with a string of fcuppresst-d sacrcs he took his STKPHENS' TRAVELS, 311 place on the box. Our carriage was very com- fortable, well lined and stuffed, furnished with pockets, and every thing necess.ry for the road, and we expected to sleep in it ; but, to tell the truth, we felt rather cheap as we woke during the night, and looked at the shut door of the post-house, and thought of the Jew sleeping away in utter contempt of us, and our only sa- tisfaction was in hearing an occasional groan from Henri. That worthy individual did not oversleep him- self, nor did he suffer the Jew to do so either. Early in the morning, without a word on our part, the horses were brought out and harnessed to our vehicle, and the same man who professed to have hired expressly for us, and, who no doubt, was the regular postilion, mounted the box. The Jew maintained his impudence to the last, coming round to my window, and then asking a few roubles as a douceur. Good English would have been thrown away upon him, so I resented it by drawing up the window of the carriage, and scowling at him through the glass. Many of the postmasters along this road were Jews ; and I am compelled to say that they were always the greatest scoundrels we had to deal with ; and this is placing them on very high ground, for their inferiors in rascality would be accounted masters in any other country. No men can bear a worse character than the Rus- sian Jews, and I c&n truly say that I found them all they were represented to be. They are not allowed to come within the territory of old Rus- sia. Peter the Great refused the application to 312 STEPHENS* ' TRAVELS. be permitted to approach nearer, suiooting bis re- fusal by telling them that his Kussian subjects were greater Jews than they were themselves. The sagacious old monarch, however, was wrong; for all the money business along the road is in their hands. They keep little taverns, where the sell vodka, a species of* brandy, and wring from the peasant all his earnings, lending the money again to the seigneurs at exorbitant inter- est. Many of them are rich, and though aHko despised by rich and poor, by the seigneurs and the serf, they are proud of exhibiting their wealth, particularly in the jewels and ornaments of their women. At Savouka, a little village on the confines of old Poland, where we were de- tained waiting for horses, I saw a young girl about sixteen, a Polenese, sitting on the steps of a miserable little tavern, sewing together some ribbons, with a head-dress of brown cloth, orna- mented with gold chains and pearls worth 600 roubles, diamond ear rings worth ICO, and a neck- lace of ducats and other Dutch gold pieces worth 400 rubles ; al together, in our currency, worth perhaps 250 dollars. Here, too, while sitting with Henri on the steps of the post-house, I asked him in a friendly way how he could be such a rascal as to league with the postmaster to detain us at Voznezeuski, whereupon he went at once into French heroics, exclaiming " Monsieur, je suis vieux militaire — j'etais chasseur Napoleon — mon honneur," §cc. ; that he had never travelled before except with grand seigneurs, and then in the carriage, more as compagnon de voyage than as a servant, STEPHENS* TUAVKLS. 313 and intimated that it was great condescension to be with us at all. We passed through several villages, so much alike, and so uninterest ng ija appearance, that I did not note even their names. As night ap- proached, we had great apprehensions that Henri would contrive to make us stop again ; but the recollection of his bed on the box served as a lesson, and we rolled on without interruption. At daylight we awoke, and found ourselves upon the wild steppes of Russia, forming part of the immense plain which, beginning in northern Ger- many, extends for hundreds of miles, having its surface diversified by ancient tumuli, and termi- nates at the long chain of the Urals, which ris- ing like a wail, separates them from the equally vast plains of Siberia. The whole of this im- mense plain was covered with a luxuriant pas- ture, but bare of trees like our prairie lands, mostly uncultivated, yet every where capable of producing the same wheat which now draws to the Black Sea the vessels of Turkey, Egypt, and Italy, making Russia the granary of the Levant; and which, within the last year., we have seen brought 6000 miles to our doors. Our road over ihese steppes was in its natural state ; that is to say, a mere track worn by caravans of waggons; there ware no fences, and sometimes the route was marked at intervals by heaps of stones, in- tended as guides when the ground should be cov- ered with snow. I had some anxiety about our carriage ; the spokes of the wheels were all strengthened and secured by cords wound tightly aiouud them, and interlaced so as to make a net- 314 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. work ; but the postilions were so perfectly reck- less as to the fate of our carriage, that every crack went through me like a shot. The break- ing of a wheel would have left us perfectly help- less in a desolate country, perhaps more than a hundred miles from any place where we could get it repaired. Indeed, on the whole road to Chioff there was not a single plac ; where we could have any material injury repaired ; and the remark of the old traveller is yet empha- tically true, that u there be small succour in these parts." At about nine o'clock we whirled furiously into a little village, and stopped at the door of the post-house. Our wheels were smoking with th^ rapidity of their revolutions ; Henri dashed a bucket of water over them to keep them from burning, and half a dozen men whipped them off and greased them. Indeed, greasing the wheels is necessary at every post, as otherwise the hubs becomes dry, so that there is actual danger of their taking fire ; and there is a traveller's story told (but 1 do not vouch for its truth) of a pos- tilion, waggon, and passengers, being all burned up, on the road to Moscow, by the ignition of the wheels. The village, like all the others, was built of wood, plastered and whitewashed, with roofs of thatched straw, and the houses were much clean- er than I expected to find them. W e got plen- ty of fresh milk ; the bread, which to the travel- ler in those countries is emphatically the staff of life, we found good every where in Russia, and Moscow the whitest lever saw. Henri was an STEPHENS* TRAVEL!?. 315 enormous feeder ; and wherever we stopped, he disappeared for a moment, and came out with a loaf of bread in his hand and his mustache cov- ered with the froth of quass, a Russian small beer, lie said he was not always so voracious, but his seat was so hard, and he was so roughly shaken, that eating did him no good. Resuming \>uv journey, we met no travellers. Occasionally we passed large droves of cattle ; but all the way from Odessa the principal objects were long trains of waggons, fifty or sixty to- gether, drawn by oxen, and transporting mer- chandise towards Moscow, or grain to the Black Sea. Their approach was indicated at a great distance by immense clouds of dust, which gave us timely notice to let down our curtains nv.d raise our glasses. The waggoners were short, ugly- looking fellows, with huge sandy mustaches and beards, black woolly caps, and sheepskin jackets, the wool side next the skin ; perhaps, in many cases, transferred warm from the back of one animal to that of the other, where they remained till worn out or eaten up by the ver- min. They had among them blacksmiths and wheelwrights, and spare wheels, and hammer, and tools, and every thing necessary for a jour- ney of several hundred miles. Half of them were generally asleep on the top of their loads ; and they encamped at night in caravan style, arranging the waggons in a square, building a large fire, and sleeping around it. About mid- day we saw clouds gathering afar off in the ho- rizon, and soon after the rain began to fall, and we could see it advancing rapidly over the im- STEPHENS.' TRAVELS. mense level till it broke over our heads, and in a few moments passed off, leaving the ground smoking with exhalations. Late in the afternoon we met the travelling equipage of a seigneur returning from Moscow to his estate in the country. It consisted of four carriages, with six or eight horses each. The first was a large, stately, and cumbrous vehicle, padded and cushioned, in which, as we passed ra- pidly by, we caught a glimpse of a corpulent Russian on the back seat, with his feet on the front, bolstered all around with pillows and cush- ions, almost burying every part of him but his face, aud looking the very personification of luxurious indulgence ; and yet, probably, that man had been a soldier, and slept many a night on the bare ground, with no covering but his mili- tary cloak. Next came another carriage, fitted out in the same luxurious style with the seigne- ur's lady and a little girl ; then another with nurses and children ; then beds, baggage, cook- ing utensils, and servants, the latter hanging on every where about the vehicle, much in the same way with the pots and kettles. Altogether it was an equipment in the caravan style 5 somewhat the same as for a journey in the desert, the traveller carrying with him provision and every thing ne- cessary for his comfort, as not expecting to pro- cure any thing on the road, nor to sleep under a roof during the whole journey. He stops when he pleases, and his' servants prepare his meals, sometimes in the open air, but generally at the post house. We had constant difficulties with Henri and the postmasters, but, except when de- STEPHENS' TRAVELS. 317 tained for an hour or two by these petty tyrants, we rolled on all night, and in the morning again woke upon the same boundless plain. The post- house was usually in a village, but sometimes stood alone, the only object to be seen on the great plain. Before it was always a high square post with black and white stripes, marking the number of versts from station to station ; opposite to this Henri dismounted and presented his podoroshni, or imperial order for horses. But the postmasters were high above the laws ; every one of them seemed a little au- tocrat in his own right, holding his appointment rather to prey upon than to serve travellers ; and the emperor's government would be but badly administered if his ukases, and other high-sound- ing orders, did not carry with them more weight than his podoroshni. The postmasters obeyed it when they pleased, and when they did not, made a new bargain. They always had an ex- cuse ; as, for instance, that they had no horse?, or were keeping them in reserve for a courier or grand seigneur ; but they listened to reason when enforced by roubles, and as soon as a new bargain was made, half a dozen animals in sheepshin went out on the plain and drove between fifteen or twenty horses, small, rugged, and tough, with long and shaggy manes and tails, which no comb or brush had ever touched, and, driving among them promiscuously, caught four, put on rope head-stalls, and tied them to our rope traces. The postilion mounted the box, and shouting and whipping his horses, and sometimes shutting his eyes, started from the post on a full gallop, car- 318 STEPHENS' TRAVELS, ried us like the wind, ventre a terre, over the immense plain, sometimes without rut or any visible mark to guide him, and brought us up all standing in front of the next post. A long delay and a short pos*-, aud this was the same, over and over again, during the whole journey. The time actually consumed in making progress was incredibly short, and I do not know a more beautiful way of getting over the ground than posting in Russia with a man of high military rank, who can make the postmasters give him horses immediately on his arrival. As for us, after an infinite deal of vexation and at a ruin- ous expense, on the morning of the fourth day we were within one post of Chioff. Here we heard with great satisfaction that a diligence was advertised for Moscow, and we determined at once to get rid of carriage, posting, and Henri. We took our seats for our last time in the calcche, gave the postilion a double allowance of kopeeksj and in half an hour saw at a great distance the venerable city of Chioff, the ancient capital of Russia. It stands at a great height, on tbe crest of an amphitheatre of hills, which rise abruptly in the middle of an immense plain, ap- parently throsvu up by some wild freak of nature, at once curious, unique, and beautiful. The style of its architecture is admirably calculated to give effect to its peculiar position ; and after a dreary journey over the wild plains of the Uk- raine, it breaks upon the traveller with all the glittering and gorgeous splendour of an Asiatic city. For many centuries it has been regarded as the Jerusalem of the North, the sacred and STEPHENS TRAVELS. mo holy city of the Russians : and long before reaching it, its numerous convents and churches, crowning the summit and hanging on the sides of the hill, with their quadrupled domes, and spires, and chains, and crosses, gilded with ducat gold and glittering in the sun, gave the whole city the appearance of golden splendour. The churches and monasteries have one large dome in the centre, with a spire surmounted by across, and several smaller domes around it, also with spires and crosses connected by pendant chains, and all gilded so purely that they never tarnish. We drove rapidly to the foot of the hill, and as* cended by a long wooden paved road to the heart of the city. Daring the whole of our last post, our interest had been divided between the venerable city and the rogue Henri. My companion, who, by the way, spoke but little French, disliked him from the first. We had long considered him in lea- gue with all the Jews and postmasters on the road, and had determined, under no circum- stances, to take him farther, than Chioff ; but as we had hired him to Moscow, the difficulty was how to get rid of him. He might take it into his head that, if we did not kuow when we had a good servant, he knew when he had good mas- ters ; but he was constantly grumbling about his seat, and calculated upon three or four days' rest at Chioff. So, as soon as we drove up to the door of the hotel, we told him to order breakfast and postnorses. He turned round as if he had not fully comprehended us. We re- peated the order, and, for the first time since he 320 STEPHENS* TRAVELS. had been with us, he showed something like agility in dismounting, fairiy threw himself from the box, swore he would not ride another verst that day for a thousand roubles, and discharged us on the spot. We afterwards paid him to his entire satisfaction, indemnifying him for the money he had squandered in paying his debts at Odessa, and found him more useful at ChiofT than he had been at any time on the road. In- deed, we afterwards learned what was rather ludicrous, viz., that he, our pilot and interpreter through the wilderness of Russia, knew but lit- tle more of Russian than we did ourselves. He could ask for post-horses and the ordinary ne- cessaries of life, count money, &c. but could not support a connected conversation, nor speak nor understand a long sentence. This changed our suspicions of his honesty into admiration of his impudence ; but, in the mean time, when be discharged us, we should have been rather desti- tute if it had not been for the servant of a Rus- sian traveller who spoke French, and, taking our direction from him, -we mounted a drosky and rode to the office of the diligence, which was situated in the Podelsk, or lower town, and at which we found ourselves particularly well re- ceived by the proprietor. He said that the at- tempt to run a diligence was discouraging; that he had advertised two weeks, and had not book- ed a single passenger ; but, if he could get two, he was determined to try the experiment. We examined the vehicle, which was very large and convenient, and* satisfied that there was no dan- ger of all the places being takerij we left him STEPHENS* TRAVELS, 321 until we could make an effort to dispose of our carriage. Relieved from all anxiety as to our future movements, we again mounted our drosky. Ascending the hill, we passed the fountain where St Vladimir baptised the first Russian converts; the spring is held sacred by the Christians now, and a column bearing a cross is erected over it, to commemorate the pious act of the ancient sove- reignty of Chioff. The early history of this city is involved in some obscurity. Its name is supposed to be de« rived from Kiovi or Kii, a Sarmatian word sig- nifying heights or mountains ; and its inhabitants, a Sarmatian tribe, were denominated Kivi, or mountaineers. It is known to have been a place of consequence in the fifth century, when the Suevi, driven from their settlements on the Da- nube, established themselves here and at Novo-, gorod. In the beginning of the tenth century, it was the capital, and most celebrated and opu- lent city in Russia, or in that part of Europe. Boleslaus the Terrible notched upon its " golden gate" his