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THE EDGE OF THE ORIENT 
 
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 From the Desert. 
 
THE 
 
 EDGE OF THE ORIENT 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT HOWARD RUSSELL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1896 
 
 > > > 
 
 ■ 
 
 j j i i > 
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 1 1 1 
 
Copyright, 1896, bv 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 
 
 
 TROW OIRECTORY 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1 <. 1 , l l 
 
TO 
 BARBOUR LATHROP 
 
 IN REMEMBRANCE OF OUR PLEASANT 
 JOURNEYINGS TOGETHER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 /. Zara, 
 
 
 
 Page 
 I 
 
 //. Sebenico and Scardona, 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 III. Trau and Spalato, 
 
 
 
 49 
 
 IV. Cur^ola and Ragusa, . 
 
 
 
 68 
 
 V. Cattaro and Montenegro, . 
 
 
 
 88 
 
 VI. Constantinople, . 
 
 
 
 140 
 
 VII. The Sweet Waters of Europe, 
 
 
 
 162 
 
 VIII. Smyrna and Salonica, . 
 
 
 
 177 
 
 IX. Beyrout and Damascus, 
 
 
 
 196 
 
 X. The Pacha's Levee, 
 
 
 
 225 
 
 XI. Alexandria and Cairo, 
 
 
 
 241 
 
 XII. Luxor and Assouan, . 
 
 
 
 269 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 
 
 
 Page 
 
 From the Desert, 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
 Miramar. The Chateau of Maximilian, 
 
 . 3 
 
 Trieste. The Water Front, . . . ' . 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 Trieste. Grand Canal and San Antonio Nuovo, 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 Market Woman, 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 Morlaks, 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 Street Types, 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 Shrine of Saint Simeon, 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 Via Larga, Zara, . 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 The Municipo, 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 The Piazza dell' Erbe, 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 A Conscript, 
 
 
 
 27 
 
 Sebenico, 
 
 
 
 31 
 
 On the Wharf, Sebenico, 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 The Public Square, 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 Facade of Cathedral, 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 Women of the Sebenzani, 
 
 
 
 37 
 
 On the Quay at Scardona, 
 
 
 
 39 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 
 
 
 Page 
 
 Shepherd Boys Playing Svirala, 41 
 
 Falls of Kerka, . 
 
 
 
 
 Castle of Santa Anna, .... 
 
 
 
 . 43 
 
 
 
 
 
 General View of Sebenico, 
 
 
 
 . 47 
 
 Old Loggia — Piazza dei Signori, 
 
 
 
 . 51 
 
 Market Women in the Piazza, 
 
 
 
 . 52 
 
 Morlak Women, ... 
 
 
 
 . 53 
 
 Morlaks Outside the Porta di Terra Ferma, 
 
 
 
 . 57 
 
 Ruins of Salona, 
 
 
 
 . 59 
 
 Spalato. The Harbor, .... 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 Spalato. From the North, 
 
 
 
 . 61 
 
 Peristyle of Diocletian's Palace, Spalato, 
 
 
 
 . 63 
 
 Curzola, 
 
 
 
 . 69 
 
 Old Strong Tower, Curzola, 
 
 
 
 . 71 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cloister of the Dominican Monastery, Ragusa, 
 
 
 
 . 78 
 
 Ragusa — Old Fountain near the Porta Pille, 
 
 
 
 . 79 
 
 
 
 
 
 Approach to Ragusa, 
 
 
 
 . 84 
 
 The Moat and Land Walls, Ragusa, . 
 
 
 
 . 86 
 
 
 
 
 . 91 
 
 Santa Maria dello Scarpello, .... 
 
 
 
 . 94 
 
 
 
 
 . 95 
 
 Xll 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 Page 
 
 The Cathedral, Cattaro, 99 
 
 Cattaro, 103 
 
 Cattaro and the Military Road to Montenegro, .... 107 
 
 In the Black Mountains, 109 
 
 Cettinje, the Capital City, 112 
 
 Prince Nicholas I., of Montenegro, 115 
 
 Girl of Montenegro, 119 
 
 Montenegrin Peasants, 121 
 
 Montenegrins, 126 
 
 A Mountain Lake, 128 
 
 Albanian Boy, 129 
 
 Albanian Peasant Woman, 133 
 
 A Comprehensive View of Cettinje, 137 
 
 The Old Walls, 141 
 
 Ancient Columns in St. Sophia, 143 
 
 Troops of the Sultan's Body-guard, 147 
 
 Waiting for the Sultan, 151 
 
 A Turkish Beggar, 1 54 
 
 Far-away-Moses at Home, 157 
 
 The Galata Bridge, 1 59 
 
 A Bend in the River, 163 
 
 Turkish Woman wearing the Yashmak or Veil, . . .168 
 
 The Sultan's Kiosk, 169 
 
 Gypsy Women Singing, 1 70 
 
 xiii 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 The Turkish Arsenal, 
 
 Under the Trees, 
 
 Araba or Turkish Wagon, 
 
 Approaching Smyrna, 
 
 Upper Harbor, Smyrna, . 
 
 Houses in the Turkish Quarter, 
 
 Turkish Graveyard and Mosque, 
 
 Smyrna and the Harbor, from Mount Pagus, 
 
 The Cave of the Seven Sleepers, 
 
 How Brigands are Treated, 
 
 Ruins of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, 
 
 A Warning to Malefactors, 
 
 Salonica. The Genoese Tower, 
 
 The Inn at Shtora, .... 
 
 The Great Columns. Baalbek, 
 
 Illustrating the Diameter of a Fallen Column, 
 
 The Great Stones in the Walls. Baalbek, . 
 
 Tomb of Saladin in Damascus, . 
 
 Tombs Decorated during Feast of Beiram, 
 
 The House of Shamiyeh in the Christian Quarter, 
 
 The Burned Omayyade Mosque, 
 
 View of Damascus from the Garbiyeh Minaret of the 
 
 Mosque, 
 
 Camel Litter, with the Embroidered Cloths for Mecca, 
 
 Great 
 
 Page 
 
 171 
 172 
 174 
 178 
 180 
 181 
 182 
 183 
 185 
 186 
 187 
 189 
 193 
 197 
 202 
 203 
 205 
 209 
 211 
 213 
 215 
 
 216 
 217 
 
 xiv 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 
 
 
 Page 
 
 Waiting for the Procession, 220 
 
 The Pilgrimage Starting for Mecca, . 
 
 
 
 . 221 
 
 The Women on the Housetops, 
 
 
 
 . 223 
 
 The Interview with the Pacha, . 
 
 
 
 . 231 
 
 The Pacha's Levee, 
 
 
 
 . 237 
 
 A Cairo Street, 
 
 
 
 . 251 
 
 In the Muski, 
 
 
 
 • 255 
 
 The Sphinx as a Background, .... 
 
 
 
 . 257 
 
 Rameses the Great, an Egyptian Donkey, . 
 
 
 
 . 262 
 
 Shadoof Workers on the Banks of the Nile, 
 
 
 
 . 263 
 
 Two Little Fellaheen Girls, 
 
 
 
 . 265 
 
 A Nile Landing, 
 
 
 
 . 267 
 
 Mahmoud, 
 
 
 
 . 271 
 
 Snake Charmers and Jugglers, 
 
 
 
 . 275 
 
 Soudanese Actors, 
 
 
 
 . 277 
 
 Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, . 
 
 
 
 . 281 
 
 Ready to Shoot the Cataract, . 
 
 
 
 . 285 
 
 XV 
 
THE EDGE OF THE ORIENT 
 
 i 
 
 ZARA 
 
 IF you wish to get out of the beaten round of 
 European travel ; if you wish to see one of the 
 most beautiful and interesting parts of the world 
 where picturesque costumes are yet worn, and 
 the people are still simple and unsophisticated; 
 if you wish to find a climate that surpasses the 
 Riviera, then run down to Trieste and take an 
 Austrian Lloyd boat down the coast of Istria to 
 Dalmatia, and if you can manage it, try to see 
 Montenegro." 
 
 This advice was given me by an Austrian gov- 
 ernment official as we sat one day under the 
 shade of the blossoming chestnut -trees in the 
 Haupt Allee watching the endless parade of 
 Viennese wealth and beauty taking its afternoon 
 airing in the Prater, and, although Vienna is suffi- 
 ciently attractive in the spring to make one wish 
 to tarry there indefinitely, the novelty of the ex- 
 cursion appealed to me, and one morning early in 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 May found me on the Slid Bahn Railway, on an 
 early morning train bound for Trieste. 
 
 For some time after leaving Vienna the route 
 traverses a beautiful plain rising gradually into 
 the hills, where the famous Voslau wine is pro- 
 duced. At Gloggnitz you reach the commence- 
 ment of the famous Semmering Railway, the 
 pioneer of mountain railroads, and begin the as- 
 cent of the Styrian Alps, going through fifteen 
 tunnels and over eighteen viaducts in the first 
 thirty-five miles, while beautiful vistas of gray 
 cliffs and green valleys are continually opening to 
 you as you shoot out into the sunshine from the 
 dark caverns which pierce the heart of the moun- 
 tains. 
 
 At Klamm a gray cliff rises sheer from the 
 centre of the valley, and from its summit rises 
 the battered old castle of Prince Liechtenstein, 
 once the very key of all Styria, but now deserted, 
 half destroyed and looking pitifully powerless to 
 cope with the engines of modern warfare. Then 
 you pass over a great viaduct, and after plunging 
 through a few more tunnels find yourself on the 
 other side of Semmering, descending into a 
 grassy valley for a long run through the whole 
 length of Styria, with flying glimpses of Gratz, 
 with its fine old Schlossberg towering three hun- 
 dred and fifty feet above the town ; and pictur- 
 esque old Marburg on the banks of the Dray, the 
 
Zara 
 
 centre of the Styrian fruit and wine country. 
 Then the Julian Alps rise like misty clouds upon 
 the horizon, and the snow-capped crown of Ter- 
 glou peers over the heads of the others in the 
 dim distance. Crossing the dreary rock-strewn 
 plain of Karst to Divaca; where the celebrated 
 grottos, caverns, and cataracts of St. Canzian and 
 the Kronprinz Rudolf are, in another hour you 
 are skirting a slope of trellised vines, olives, and 
 figs, while before you stretches the beautiful blue 
 Adriatic, Trieste, and the Istrian coast ; and just 
 below, on the Punta di Grignano, projecting into 
 the sea, is Miramar, the unfortunate Maximilian's 
 beautiful castle, from whose marble towers once 
 floated the flag of Mexico. 
 
 Trieste is a very modern, new, and smart-look- 
 ing city, and is one of the busiest-looking places 
 you come across on the continent. Boats from 
 every clime and every nation line the stone quays 
 and cluster round the molos, and great freight 
 trains crawl along the river-front distributing and 
 collecting cargo from the ships. The blue waters 
 are dotted with variegated sails from Venice and 
 Chioggia, and the streets are peopled with sailors 
 from all lands. The Corso is thronged with busy 
 shoppers, and toward evening all Trieste turns 
 out and takes possession of the innumerable small 
 tables in front of the restaurants in the Piazza 
 Grande, where groups of dignified-looking Aus- 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 trian officers in full uniform are seated in the 
 open street discussing ridiculous little yellow, 
 red, and green ices like a lot of schoolboys. How- 
 ever, the ices are not so distressing as are the 
 cigars which are smoked here ; a good whiff from 
 one of those blown in your face by a passing sol- 
 dier being a revelation in the possibilities of bad 
 tobacco. The Austrians, who are an ingenious 
 people, have invented a way of smoking them 
 which probably tempers their severity. The end 
 of the cigar is thrust into a little pasteboard cor- 
 nucopia having at the lesser end a long quill. 
 This removes the cigar from the immediate vic- 
 inity of the smoker, and gives it an additional 
 flavor of pasteboard and goose-quill which may 
 possibly render it more desirable. 
 
 At the long Molo San Carlo a trim little 
 steamer, the Trieste, which had just returned 
 from a three months' cruise, for which it had been 
 chartered by Stephanie, the crown princess of 
 Austria, was lying, puffing out little jets of steam 
 as though impatient to be off and reveal to its 
 passengers the old walled cities of the Dalmatian 
 coast, and the beautiful islands of the Adriatic ; so 
 one May morning we cast loose from the wharf 
 and steamed away south, keeping close to the 
 olive-clad shores of Istria, and passing the pretty 
 coast towns of Pirano, battlemented bv the tow- 
 ers and pinnacles of an ancient fortress ; Umago, 
 
Zara 
 
 with its lofty spire ; and Parenzo, once the first 
 station of the Crusaders. At Rovigno a slender 
 miniature Campanile, copied from its great proto- 
 type at Venice, lifts its head high above the lit- 
 tle town and remains in sight a long time as we 
 steam slowly along. Then we pass the little 
 island of Brione, and shortly after, on rounding 
 a promontory crowned by a metal bombproof 
 turret, come suddenly into view of the harbor of 
 Pola. 
 
 All day we have been passing picturesque lit- 
 tle craft from Venice and Chioggia, with quaint 
 shaped sails of many colors, which were apparent- 
 ly sailing lazily about for no other purpose than 
 to attract painters of water-colors, and decorate 
 and beautify the bosom of the blue Adriatic ; but 
 here at Pola we see the modern iron-clad fleet of 
 the Austro-Hungarian navy, not so picturesque 
 perhaps, but grim and formidable, and behind 
 these modern war engines the gray walls of the 
 old arena constructed in the time of the Anto- 
 nines as a theatre for the combats of gladiators 
 and wild beasts. The arched enclosure, in which 
 over fifteen thousand people could have witnessed 
 the desperate struggles of the trained gladiators, 
 or the fierce encounters of wild beasts, is now 
 peacefully carpeted with green turf and over- 
 grown with ivy and wild geranium. Toward the 
 other side of the town on Monte Zara, an emi- 
 
 9 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 nence commanding a beautiful view of the harbor, 
 stands Kundmann's noble statue of the Austrian 
 naval hero, Tegetthoff, gazing fixedly out at sea, 
 far bevond the steel-clad fleet which lies at an- 
 chor below ; while close at hand is the Austrian 
 naval school where boys in blue uniforms learn to 
 furl sails and climb the tall mast which is set in 
 the ground with a great net spread below to 
 catch them in case of a fall. 
 
 At the head of the Bay of Quarnero, which lies 
 to the east of the Istrian peninsula, is Fiume, the 
 chief seaport of Hungary, and near by is the lit- 
 tle Croatian town of Delnicze which has recently 
 attained to fame in consequence of a wholesale 
 elopement which was carried on there lately by 
 twenty-six gallant young Croatian Lochinvars 
 who descended upon the town and carried off on 
 horseback the twenty-six maidens of their choice, 
 in spite of the ineffectual protests of their bewil- 
 dered parents. It is not uncommon for Croatian 
 girls to force consent to their marriages by elope- 
 ment, but an organized raid on this scale was un- 
 precedented, and made a sensation even in Croa- 
 tia. 
 
 One hundred miles to the south of Pola lies 
 Zara, the capital of Dalmatia, the southernmost 
 crown land of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a 
 long, attenuated strip of territory stretching from 
 Istria to Montenegro. Narrow as are the limits 
 
o 
 
Zara 
 
 of Dalmatia, confined between the blue waters of 
 the Adriatic and the bleak, barren limestone 
 mountain, it has produced a fine race of brave 
 
 Market Woman. 
 
 and bold seamen and soldiers who were once the 
 pride and main support of the great republic of 
 Venice. They are to-day, however, as they have 
 always been, a people of little education, and even 
 
 13 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 the Turk, who has many times been made to re- 
 spect their prowess, has a sneering proverb which 
 says, " Without a book, like a Dalmatian." 
 
 Zara is the 
 place whose 
 existence you 
 have always 
 doubted when 
 you have seen 
 it on the label 
 of a maraschino 
 bottle, for the 
 reason that no 
 one could ever 
 tell you where 
 it was, and the 
 only allusion 
 you ever saw 
 to it in print 
 was that on the 
 label, so when 
 you come sail- 
 ing into the 
 beautiful har- 
 bor and your steamer makes fast to the fine 
 stone quay which extends along the whole length 
 of the town, having replaced the great walls which 
 struck terror to the hearts of the Crusaders who 
 once came here and besieged the old city, it ra- 
 
 14 
 
 Morlaks. 
 
Zara 
 
 ther surprises you to find that it is a real place 
 and not an invention of the lithographer who 
 printed the maraschino labels. 
 
 Zara is not only real, but it is exceedingly pict- 
 uresque. The early market in the public square 
 is full of color and costume, fine, buxom-looking 
 girls, with brown skins and dark eyes, are selling 
 artichokes, flowers, vegetables and poultry, or 
 standing at ease with the carcass of a dead lamb 
 held carelessly before them by the hind legs, as 
 a New York debutante might hold a bouquet. 
 Picturesque groups of morlaks, or gypsies, from 
 the country stroll about the market-place, the 
 men wearing short jackets of coarse blue home- 
 spun stuff, embroidered with designs in red and 
 yellow, and trousers of the same material, open 
 at the sides below the knee and supported by 
 great leathern belts ornamented with brass, and 
 often roughly set with agates and other colored 
 stones; their feet shod in roughly made mocca- 
 sins worn over gay - colored coarse stockings ; 
 and, placed at a jaunty angle on their heads, little 
 red skull-caps edged with black. The women are 
 still more gorgeously arrayed in a costume not 
 unlike that of our traditional stage Indian prin- 
 cess. Austrian soldiers in plain dull blue uni- 
 forms chat with the flower-girls; venders of 
 paper flowers and tapers bargain in the doorway 
 of the Duomo with their customers ; and the 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 whole square presents a scene of bustling activ- 
 ity which is heightened by the shrill cries of the 
 
 Street Types. 
 
 market-women in their endeavors to call atten- 
 tion to their wares. 
 
 There is a quaint old church at Zara containing 
 
 16 
 
Zara 
 
 a silver-gilt shrine in which it is claimed reposes 
 the body of Saint Simeon, the prophet who held 
 the infant Jesus in his arms and sang the Nunc 
 Dimittis. The shrine, which is in the shape of an 
 ark over six feet in length and five feet in height, 
 is covered with most highly decorated and 
 wrought silver panels, and is supported by two 
 marble and two bronze angels, the latter having 
 been cast from guns captured in the seventh cen- 
 tury from the Turks by the Venetians. Accord- 
 ing to tradition, the body of the good saint was 
 brought to Zara by a knight returning from the 
 Crusades, Avhose ship, after encountering a severe 
 gale at sea, drifted helplessly into the port of Zara. 
 While awaiting repairs to his vessel the knight 
 fell ill, and on his death-bed divulged to the monks 
 in attendance that he had on board his ship no less 
 precious a relic than the body of Saint Simeon. 
 After the death of the knight the body of the 
 saint was exhibited in the church, and many mar- 
 vellous cures were wrought by it, causing its 
 fame to spread throughout all Dalmatia. In the 
 fourteenth century, Queen Elizabeth, of Hungary, 
 made a visit to Zara, and wishing to take away 
 with her some relic of the venerable miracle- 
 worker, she broke a finger from one of his hands, 
 in return for which the enraged saint deprived 
 her of her sight on the spot. She strove to flee 
 from the church but was unable to find the door, 
 
 J 9 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 so groping her way back to the altar she fell on 
 her knees, confessed her sin, and replaced the 
 finger which immediately united itself to the 
 hand. The Queen's sight was restored, but her 
 own hand which had touched the body of the 
 saint became withered. Then, for the second time, 
 the Queen made supplication to the saint for for- 
 giveness, promising to present him with a silver 
 shrine in which his body could be more becom- 
 ingly bestowed than in the humble wooden affair 
 in which he then rested. This promise appeased 
 the venerable prophet, the Queen's withered hand 
 was at once made whole, and upon her return to 
 her palace she commissioned a Milanese silver- 
 smith named Francesco to execute this costly 
 shrine, in the construction of which nearly one 
 thousand pounds of silver were used, and, as Fran- 
 cesco received twenty-eight thousand ducats for 
 his labor, the Queen had a pretty penny to pay for 
 a broken finger. The body of the saint is still in 
 an excellent state of preservation ; the head rests 
 on a wooden pillow which supports a silver crown 
 set with precious stones, while on the forefinger 
 are numerous beautifully chased gold rings said 
 to have been placed there by the courtiers of 
 Queen Elizabeth at the time the finger was so 
 miraculously joined to the hand. 
 
 There are other interesting old churches in 
 Zara dating back to the thirteenth century, and 
 

Zara 
 
 having richly carved altars and choir-stalls ; and 
 then there are some very modern-looking build- 
 
 The Municipo. 
 
 ings on the principal street, the Via Larga, and a 
 new tower, built after designs by Jackson, the 
 English archaeologist, who is an authority on 
 
 23 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 Dalmatia and has written three volumes on the 
 subject. The Dalmatians of to-day first discov- 
 ered their past history through him, and as a re- 
 ward for his services to their country they have 
 caused a gold medal to be struck in his honor. 
 
 Hidden away here and there amongst the 
 modern buildings are the relics of the Roman 
 and Venetian occupations of the old town. Frag- 
 ments of an old Roman temple, dedicated to 
 Juno Augusta, consort of Emperor Augustus, 
 have been built into the ancient church of St. 
 Donato, which was erected in the ninth century. 
 In the Piazza dell' Erbe rises an antique Corin- 
 thian column crowned with the lion of St. Mark, 
 having heavy iron rings fixed in its base, showing 
 that it was once used as a pillory. Farther on are 
 the Cinque Pozzi (five fountains), erected in 1574 
 by the Veronese architect Sammicheli, who also 
 constructed the land gate of the town. In the 
 Piazza del Signori is the Municipo, now used as 
 a fire department and conscripting office, whence 
 now and then emerges a tall Dalmatian, holding 
 his head high in the air and stepping proudly, 
 impressed with his newly won importance as a 
 soldier of the Emperor Franz Joseph. 
 
 A delightful walk along the Riva Nuova brings 
 you to a part of the town where the gateways are 
 bowered with roses and the cherry-trees are in 
 
 full bloom. Here lives Guiseppe Manzin, the vil- 
 
 24 
 
1 /' * '•- 
 
 The Piazza dell' Erbe. 
 
 i 
 
Zara 
 
 lage doctor, and the moving spirit of the town, 
 The old gentleman ushered us into his parlor, a 
 long narrow room down the centre of which ran 
 a row of marble pedestals supporting a curious 
 
 A Conscript. 
 
 array of modern Italian art, chief among which 
 were busts of Guiseppe and his wife, ready, as he 
 told us, to be placed upon their tombstones at 
 their death. With great pride did the old doctor 
 and his wife show us the treasures of their parlor — 
 the wonder of Dalmatia. The old 
 
 gentleman 
 
 27 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 seated himself at a new mechanical piano from 
 Paris, and let his hands roam lightly over the 
 keys, while he pumped away vigorously on the 
 treadle with his feet, and, when he had finished, 
 the old lady brought out a mechanical bird in a 
 golden cage and put her head down to the lit- 
 tle feathered automaton and called " cheepie — 
 cheepie — cheepie " encouragingly, as she put in 
 motion the mechanism which gave him voice. 
 The old people knew every note and movement 
 of the bird, and as he turned his head from side 
 to side they bent over and encouraged him with 
 chirps and calls and terms of endearment, evincing 
 the greatest possible pride in his performance. 
 Last of all they showed us their dining-room, 
 where a great sideboard was set as if for a ban- 
 quet, with wax fruit, papier-mache turkeys, hams 
 and joints ; baskets of grapes, peaches and pears 
 carved from marble and brilliantly colored, and a 
 large centre-piece of artificial flowers. This was 
 their piece de resistance, and the old people fairly 
 beamed with pride as they showed us the various 
 pieces. When we took our leave the old gentle- 
 man courteously bowed us out of his house, and 
 we strolled back to the stone quay where our 
 steamer was lying, stopping on the way to buy a 
 bottle of the famous " Rosolio Maraschino," dis- 
 tilled from "Amarasca," the cherries which grow 
 
 in profusion on the lime-stone soil of Poljica, for 
 
 28 
 
Zara 
 
 which we paid only twenty cents — less than is 
 sometimes charged for a tiny liqueur-glass of it 
 here. 
 
 Then we boarded our little steamer and sailed 
 away through a narrow winding strait between 
 rocky walls, bearing with us a pleasant memory 
 of the quaint old town of Zara, and of the con- 
 tent and childlike old couple living their peace- 
 ful lives there surrounded by their toys. 
 
II 
 
 SEBENICO AND SCARDONA 
 
 SOME fifty miles to the south of Zara, lies the 
 picturesque old city of Sebenico. As you 
 approach the harbor from the Adriatic you can- 
 not fail to be impressed with the admirable judg- 
 ment displayed by the ancient robbers and pirates 
 who founded the city in choosing the situation 
 for their stronghold. 
 
 Between you and the broad sheet of still blue 
 water which reflects the quaint old houses, tow- 
 ers, and castles of the ancient city is stretched 
 an apparently impenetrable barrier. Presently, 
 however, the steamer reaches a narrow cleft in 
 the rock close under an old Venetian fortress, 
 above which the lion of St. Mark still keeps 
 watch, proudly ignoring the fact that the town 
 has long since ceased to be his to guard. 
 
 The opening in the rocks is barely wide enough 
 to admit of the passage of the steamer, which 
 slowly and cautiously makes its way through the 
 tortuous channel to the beautiful harbor, on the 
 farther side of which, piled up against the side of 
 
Sebenico and Scardona 
 
 the mountain, are the picturesque old houses and 
 gray walls of the city, overshadowed and com- 
 manded by the massive battlements of the old 
 castle of Santa Anna, built on the highest point of 
 
 On the Wharf, Sebenico. 
 
 the town ; while far above, on the mountain side, 
 where the old robbers were used to watch the sea 
 for ships which they might plunder, are the two 
 castles of San Giorgio and II Barone. 
 
 Our steamer made fast to the stone quay, 
 where a group of sullen-looking men in pictur- 
 
 33 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 esque costumes stood regarding us with mild 
 curiosity. Their little red caps, which are not 
 bigger than the palm of your hand, have a dab 
 of black fringe over the right ear, and are worn 
 jauntily upon the side of their heads, where they 
 are held in place by elastic bands; their red or 
 blue waistcoats are decorated with silver orna- 
 ments and coins, and display two rows of large 
 filigree buttons hanging pendant from little sil- 
 ver chains. Rough, shaggy jackets or cloaks 
 covered with bunches of woollen fringe, and 
 trousers of a coarse blue or brown homespun 
 material roughly made, but gaily worked at the 
 pockets, drawn tight to the leg, and often fas- 
 tened up the back of the calf with a row of small 
 silver buttons or hooks ; and on their feet the 
 opanka — a kind of moccasin or sandal made of a 
 piece of rawhide turned up and fastened together 
 at the toe, and laced over the instep with leathern 
 thongs. Above this is worn a kind of spat of gay 
 embroidery reaching above the ankle which com- 
 pletes the adornment of a Dalmatian gallant. 
 Not long ago the morlak, or countryman of this 
 part of the world, used to tie up his hair behind 
 in a tight little pigtail, and wear his shirt outside 
 of his trousers ; but few of the Dalmatians of to- 
 day adhere to this old custom. 
 
 Sebenico is filled with picturesque bits of ar- 
 chitecture, carved doorways, sculptured coats of 
 
 34 
 
Sebenico and Scardona 
 
 arms on the gray walls, and quaint mullioned 
 windows, looking out on the steep narrow streets, 
 while the oft-recurring lion of St. Mark is a 
 constant reminder of the days of Venetian su- 
 premacy. At one end of the town is the public 
 square, with rude wooden benches beneath the 
 
 The Public Square. 
 
 trees, where the old people sit in the sun and 
 gossip, and the young people sit in the moonlight 
 and make love ; and toward the other end is the 
 old cathedral, with its great round dome, rising 
 from the stone roof one hundred feet above the 
 transept, and its richly carved marbles in the 
 chancel and baptisterium. Opposite the cathe- 
 dral, and separated from it by an open square, 
 is the old Loggia, formerly the town-hall, but 
 
 35 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 now doing duty as a third-class cafe. This open 
 square is the favorite promenade of the women 
 
 r% 
 
 \ 
 
 Facade of Cathedral. 
 
 of Sebenico, and on feast-days they deck them- 
 selves in all their finery and walk up and down 
 in little groups of two or three all the afternoon, 
 for the delectation of the Sebenzani gallants, who 
 sit on the stone seats by the side of the cathe- 
 
 36 
 
Sebenico and Scardona 
 
 dral, or at the little tables of the cafe opposite, 
 and placidly smoke and watch the show. 
 
 Women of the Sebenzani. 
 
 The women of Sebenico have a costume pecul- 
 iar to themselves, consisting of a short blue or 
 black pleated skirt, with a dark bodice worn over 
 a white chemise with flowing sleeves. The front 
 of the bodice is laced with a heavy silk cord of 
 
 37 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 any bright color which may suit the fancy of the 
 wearer ; young girls and unmarried women have 
 a white linen front beautifully starched and clean 
 to cover the bosom, while the married women 
 wear a crimson or figured velvet instead of the 
 linen, and when they have a great many chil- 
 dren they proclaim their pride in their maternal 
 achievements to an appreciative public by ex- 
 changing their crimson for black. Their hair 
 is worn twisted up in a knot at the back of the 
 head, with a wisp of white cloth braided into it, 
 and covered with a white panno fastened like a 
 turban, with long pendant ends behind. The 
 effect of the costume is greatly destroyed by the 
 almost universal adoption in cool weather of a 
 sort of knit cardigan jacket, which conceals the 
 picturesque white flowing sleeves. 
 
 From Sebenico to the Kerka Falls is about 
 twelve miles, and makes a picturesque trip by 
 boat, winding along up the river through bluffs 
 and bare rocks of a yellow or orange color, which 
 widen out as the river expands into the broad 
 stretch known as Lake Prokljan, above which is 
 Scardona, with its white church towers and the 
 ruins of an old castle on a high crag lifting 
 themselves above the olive-trees which embower 
 the little town. There is not much left of Scar- 
 dona. Since the seventh century Latins, Slavs, 
 Croatians, Venetians, Hungarians, and Turks have 
 
 38 
 
Sebenico and Scardona 
 
 successfully fought for it, gained it, and held 
 brief sway over it ; and, as if these devastating 
 wars and demoralizing changes of ownership 
 
 On the Quay at Scardona. 
 
 were not enough to discourage the little town, it 
 has several times been sacked and burned by the 
 neighboring cities of the coast, on account of the 
 piratical habits of its citizens ; and now fever, 
 which rises from a stagnant marsh at the back of 
 
 39 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 the town, has set its mark upon them, and is do- 
 ing its best to dispose of the few remaining in- 
 habitants. If the traveller finds but little to see 
 in Scardona to-day he can at least comfort himself 
 by reflecting that he has afforded a pleasurable 
 excitement in the lives of its citizens by visiting 
 them, as visits from the outside world are ap- 
 parently of rare occurrence, and are regarded 
 as an occasion for a general holiday and merry- 
 making. When we first caught sight of Scardo- 
 na it had the appearance of a deserted village, not 
 a soul being in sight ; as we approached, a few of 
 the more alert citizens appeared running toward 
 the wharf. When we had landed we were fol- 
 lowed through the streets by at least half the 
 population of the hamlet, and even the Italians, 
 who were playing mora in the dark basements 
 of the little wine-shops came out from their dens 
 and joined our escort, and by the time we were 
 ready to depart on our way to the falls, every 
 man, woman, and child in the place was on the 
 wharf to see us off. 
 
 From Scardona you ascend the river through 
 another rocky gorge, on the right of which rises 
 Mount Tartaro, where the grapes for the Tartaro 
 wine, which is highly esteemed in Dalmatia, are 
 grown. Here and there along the barren, desert- 
 like banks of the river are miserable little hovels 
 which serve as shelter for the shepherds who 
 
 4 o 
 
Sebenico and Scardona 
 
 tend the flocks of lean sheep and goats, which the 
 Dalmatians say feed on stones, and there is cer- 
 tainly nothing in the appearance of the wretched 
 
 animals which would appear to contradict the 
 statement. 
 
 A sudden turn in the stream reveals the end of 
 the gorge, where the sparkling waters of the falls 
 of Kerka find an outlet from their narrow chan- 
 nel, and go rushing and foaming over the rocks, 
 forcing their way between the little wooded isl- 
 ands and clumps of luxuriant foliage that stretch 
 across the pass between the two ranges of sterile 
 
 41 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 mountains. Here and there nestles a rude little 
 cabin, whose occupants appear at our approach, 
 and regard us with silent curiosity. The boys 
 who tend the sheep and goats on the hills near 
 by leave their flocks to their own devices, and 
 come down to reap a harvest of small change 
 by piping to us on their rudely carved wooden 
 whistles, or svirala, as they name them, or offer 
 us pieces of stalactite formation which they find 
 in the small caverns about the falls. 
 
 The total height of the falls is about one hun- 
 
 Falls of Kerka. 
 
 dred and sixty feet, although nowhere do they 
 have a sheer fall of any great height or descend 
 
 42 
 
Castle of Santa Anna. 
 
Sebenico and Scardona 
 
 in full volume, but spread the entire width of the 
 valley, springing from the hills above in a series 
 of leaps over rocky steps of from ten to thirty 
 feet in height, twisting and turning as they come 
 down, so that at no one point can you see the en- 
 tire descent. 
 
 Higher up, beyond the point where the ranges 
 of barren hills almost close together, is the lake 
 of Vissovay, where, on a little wooded island, a 
 few Franciscan monks spend peaceful lives in 
 their little convent in the midst of the waters. 
 Above the lake you can trace the river as it 
 comes rushing down between the hills on its way 
 from Mount Dinara, about twenty miles beyond, 
 where it issues with a bound from a dark cavern 
 in the mountain-side. The water-power from the 
 falls has within a few years been applied to a 
 pumping-station which affords Sebenico a plenti- 
 ful supply of wholesome river-water, and now the 
 enterprising inhabitants of that city, under the 
 guidance of the Austrian Government, which has 
 done so much for the improvement and develop- 
 ment of its Dalmatian province, are building a 
 power-house here which will generate electricity 
 to be carried over the hills by wires to light the 
 narrow streets of the old town. 
 
 Toward evening we returned to Sebenico, and 
 found the streets thronged with promenaders in 
 their gayest costume, as it was Whit-Monday. 
 
 45 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 Beside the gray walls of the old Duomo, on a low 
 stone bench, were seated a little group of Seben- 
 zani. Two young girls with the gayest of silken 
 lacings and freshest of white linen were at one 
 end of the group, and next the prettiest one was 
 sitting a handsome, lithe-looking gallant, with his 
 
 
 '^ > T:' 
 
 A Jealous Maiden. 
 
 red cap, bronzed face, and gorgeous waistcoat 
 with silver buttons, while beyond was a wrinkled 
 and dark-skinned old lady. The young people 
 were not talking together, nor did the man even 
 look at the dark-haired girl by whose side he sat, 
 for the proud Dalmatian considers it beneath his 
 dignity to talk to women in a public place, but 
 
 the girl seemed happy and contented that he 
 
 4 6 
 
Sebenico and Scardona 
 
 should honor her by sitting beside her. Presently 
 a group of women strolled along the piazza, two 
 of them evidently sisters from their strong resem- 
 blance to each other. The elder wore the black 
 front over her bosom which proclaimed her the 
 mother of many children, while the younger and 
 
 General View of Sebenico. 
 
 prettier of the two wore the white linen which 
 announced her single state. As they approached, 
 the young gallant on the bench started to his feet. 
 The young girl modestly cast her eyes upon the 
 ground as if she had not seen him, and the group 
 turned and walked back toward the other end of 
 the city, followed by the young man and the jeal- 
 ous and reproachful glances of the two maidens 
 whom he had deserted. 
 
 At dinner our regret at leaving Sebenico was 
 somewhat diminished by the music of the muni- 
 cipal band, which consisted for the most part of 
 
 47 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 boys of twelve or fourteen dressed in blue uni- 
 forms, wearing little derby hats ornamented with 
 waving plumes of cocks' feathers at the side. The 
 mistaken kindness of the authorities subjected us 
 to the crudities of their performance all during 
 dinner, and it was not until we had put some 
 miles of blue water between our steamer and the 
 harbor of Sebenico that the memories of their 
 discords were entirely obliterated. 
 
 4 8 
 
Ill 
 
 TRAU AND SPALATO 
 
 EARLY one morning our little vessel cast loose 
 from the stone quay at Sebenico, and thread- 
 ing its way out of the narrow channel steamed 
 away south between the mainland and the island 
 of Zlarin, toward little Traii, the ancient Tragiiri- 
 um of the Romans. A few miles below Sebenico 
 we passed out into the open sea and rounded the 
 rocky promontory of Diomedis, famous through 
 two thousand years for its dangers, but looking 
 peaceful and quiet enough on this calm morning, 
 crowned by its little votive chapel built by a 
 grateful mariner, who so narrowly escaped ship- 
 wreck on this notorious point that he at once 
 commenced the erection of the chapel to com- 
 memorate his escape, using his whole cargo of 
 Malvasia wine to mix the mortar used in the con- 
 struction of his thank-offering. 
 
 After rounding this redoubtable headland we 
 again pass under the lee of a group of islands and 
 presently come into view of the massive stone 
 
 49 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 towers of the old fortification, and the graceful 
 church-spires of the ancient Roman city. 
 
 Trail is built on a small island cut off from 
 the mainland by a narrow channel crossed by a 
 wooden bridge, while opposite, protecting the 
 little city from the boras — the fierce storms of the 
 Adriatic — lies the island of Bua. The two islands 
 are connected by a stone drawbridge, and are 
 so close together that our steamer throws a rope 
 to each, which being made fast we lie in mid- 
 stream a little distance above the drawbridge. 
 
 Our arrival had been expected at Traii, and we 
 were met on the wharf by II Conte Gian Do- 
 menico de Fanfogna, the Podesta of the city, who 
 conducted us through the lion-guarded gateway 
 in the walls near a picturesque old Loggia, to the 
 Piazza dei Signori, at one side of which is the im- 
 posing old cathedral, with fine sculpture and 
 wonderful carvings beneath its impressive dark 
 porch, while opposite is the old Loggia, which in 
 Venetian times was the open-air court of justice, 
 and where in honor of our arrival the munici- 
 pal band was stationed, playing away industri- 
 ously for our benefit. The Piazza was thronged 
 with citizens listening to the music. Conspicuous 
 in the crowd were the morlak women with their 
 towering head-dresses, consisting of a kind of 
 crown of red cloth built high up on their heads, 
 
 and covered with a smooth, white linen kerchief 
 
 50 
 
Trali and Spalato 
 
 falling in folds to their shoulders. This, with the 
 heavy woollen aprons woven in gay stripes, 
 and long, dark blue, sleeveless coats worn over a 
 white woollen undergarment with flowing sleeves, 
 all elaborately embroidered and decorated, makes 
 one of the most striking and most picturesque 
 
 Old Loggia — Piazza dei Signori. 
 
 costumes that can be seen in all Europe to-day. 
 Some of the old market women, with their wicker 
 baskets filled with green vegetables, and with 
 faces seared by hardship and exposure, were 
 such veritable old crones that they could have 
 appeared as the witches in Macbeth without the 
 trouble of making up. A good-natured Dalma- 
 
 51 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 tian held two of the morlak women, whose mod- 
 esty prompted them to escape my camera, and 
 
 Market Women in the Piazza. 
 
 while they were laughing at their capture I got a 
 picture of the group. Finding that I had taken 
 their pictures while they were laughing they 
 
 52 
 
 
Trali and Spalato 
 
 were much disturbed, fearing- perhaps that I 
 could not have done them justice under such 
 circumstances, and came and stood before me in 
 solemn seriousness, with their hands folded, in 
 order that I might obtain a more dignified sou- 
 venir of our meeting. 
 
 A reverend father conducted us through the 
 doorway of the cathedral, which was guarded on 
 one side by a great stone lion, above which was 
 the figure of Adam, while on the other side, sup- 
 ported by a great lioness, stood Eve. The dimly 
 lit interior is sombre and majestic, and rich with 
 curious old carvings, and the treasury contains 
 some fine old silver and wonderful embroidered 
 vestments. When we had seen all the glories of 
 the old Duomo, and the fine old organ, under the 
 direction of our guide, had pealed a welcome to 
 us, we were taken out beyond the walls of the 
 city through the Porta di Terra Firma, which 
 bears the statue of the redoubtable San Giovanni 
 Orsini, the patron saint of Traii, whose bones 
 repose in a chapel bearing his name in the old 
 cathedral. San Giovanni was a wonderful man in 
 his life-time, and well deserves the grateful re- 
 membrance of the Tratirini. Among his benevo- 
 lent acts are cited the causing of scanty vintages 
 to produce unusual quantities of wine, walking 
 out on the waves to the rescue of a shipwrecked 
 crew off Diomedis, and the destruction of Colo- 
 
 55 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 man's battering ram with a sling. When the 
 Venetians sacked Traii in 1171 they found the 
 body of the saint in the ark, which they were 
 searching for treasure. Upon his finger was a 
 wonderful ring, which through the intervention 
 of some miraculous power could not be removed. 
 Determined not to be baffled by a miracle the 
 Venetian despoilers ruthlessly tore the arm from 
 the body and carried it back to Venice with them, 
 depositing it in the church of San Giovanni di 
 Rialto. Some three years after, according to 
 the Traiirini, San Giovanni, " who would be all 
 their own," caused his arm to return on the eve of 
 his festival, when it " came flying like a com- 
 et through the air, and was found on the ark 
 wrapped in white linen," thus showing that the 
 efficiency of the old saint as a miracle-worker had 
 not been seriously impaired by his death. As a 
 further example of his power, which continues 
 to the present day, he has caused a cypress-bush 
 to spring from between two stones, over the stone 
 gateway which bears his effigy, and cunningly con- 
 ceal the lion of St. Mark, which was placed there 
 to assert the sovereignty of Venice, thus prevent- 
 ing the Traiirini of to-day from being reminded 
 of their ancient bondage to the Great Republic. 
 The Traiirini believes that this bush is miracu- 
 lously sustained by the saint himself, and the mor- 
 
 laks regard its appearance each year as a prophesy 
 
 56 
 
Trail and Spalato 
 
 of a good or bad season according as its foliage 
 is green and luxuriant or yellow and sparse. 
 Outside the gate a little procession, consisting 
 
 Morlaks outside the Porta di Terra Ferma. 
 
 of all the available rolling-stock of the entire sec- 
 tion awaited us, as the streets of Trail are too 
 narrow to admit of carriages, and they are but 
 little used in the adjoining mountainous country. 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 Under the guidance of the Podesta we entered 
 the six antiquated one-horse chaises, and to the 
 wonder of the Traurini, who have seldom seen so 
 gallant a cavalcade, we were whirled away across 
 the little wooden bridge to the mainland, where 
 we were driven to the top of a great hill Avhich 
 commands a beautiful view of the little town and 
 harbor, and, beyond the slope of the opposite 
 island of Bua, the long stretch of the blue Adri- 
 atic. Then Ave were driven back through the 
 vineyards and orchards of figs to the gateway of 
 the little town, with its quaint, narrow streets 
 and curious old houses, that has known such a 
 changeful history. Founded by the Greeks, 
 ruled by the Romans, sacked by the Saracens, at- 
 tacked by the Tartars, subjugated by the Ban of 
 Bosnia, it has survived and forgotten all its troub- 
 lous times, and is passing its old age in peaceful- 
 ness and content. 
 
 While the hawsers were being cast loose from 
 either shore preparatory to our departure, the 
 musicians stationed themselves on the little draw- 
 bridge which swung open for us to pass on our 
 way to Spalato, and as we glided slowly through 
 the narrow opening to the farewell strains of the 
 band, the portly figure of the red-bearded Po- 
 desta, II Conte Gian Domenico de Fanfogna, ap- 
 peared under a sun umbrella in the midst of his 
 musicians, waving us adieux. 
 
 58 
 
Trali and Spalato 
 
 Ruins of Saiona. 
 
 From Traii we proceed down the Canale Cas- 
 telli, which takes its name from the Sette Castelli, 
 seven villages which originally sprang up under 
 the shadows of seven old Venetian fortresses 
 which still stand guard over them, and a little 
 farther on our steamer makes the circuit of the 
 fine bay on the shores of which once stood the 
 proud city of Saiona, the old Roman capital of 
 Dalmatia and the bulwark of Roman power in 
 the province. There is but little remaining above 
 ground to testify to the ancient glory of the city. 
 
 59 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 Spalato. The Harbor. 
 
 Taken and retaken time and again by Goths and 
 Huns, it met its final ruin at the hands of the 
 Avars in 639, and its marble columns and sculp- 
 tured capitals now lie hidden in the dust of the 
 centuries that have rolled over them since its 
 fall. Rounding another point, we come in view 
 of the harbor of Spalato, and in the distance is 
 the city crowned by the great campanile which, 
 hoarded in scaffolding to its very top, towers 
 above the Avails of Diocletian's palace. On May 
 1, 305 Diocletian, Emperor of Rome, abdicated 
 
 60 
 
Trali and Spalato 
 
 his imperial throne and repaired to this his 
 Dalmatian palace, ostensibly to raise cabbages, 
 thus setting the stamp of imperial approval upon 
 the first of May as the proper day on which to 
 change one's abode. 
 
 The palace, which was twelve years in build- 
 ing, preserves to this day many traces of its for- 
 mer magnificence and its solid construction and 
 vast proportions still excite admiration — nearly 
 
 Spalato. From the North. 
 61 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 ten acres being enclosed within the massive 
 walls, which rise to a height of fifty feet on the 
 land side, and over seventy feet toward the sea, 
 where the land falls away. Along the quay in 
 front of the sea-wall of the palace, market-boats 
 from Greece, Turkey, Italy, and Hungary are 
 ranged, with their colored sails stretched like 
 awnings above their various cargoes of yellow 
 fruit, green vegetables, golden dates, figs and 
 nuts, and gay pottery of curious shapes, and here 
 the boatmen bargain all day long, buying and 
 selling or exchanging their wares for merchan- 
 dise which will find a ready sale at their own 
 ports. Here we see the first turbans of Mo- 
 hammedans, as Spalato is the principal port for 
 goods which are sent from Italy to Turkey over- 
 land, and the Turkish merchants have agents here 
 to buy and ship their goods to them. The work- 
 manship of the jewellers here shows traces of 
 oriental influence, and some of the silver fili- 
 gree work is as fine and well executed as any to 
 be found in the bazaars of Constantinople or 
 Damascus. 
 
 Diocletian's palace, although sufficiently large 
 for the abode of one man, has made a cramped 
 little city of Spalato, three-fourths of which is 
 built within the palace walls. When the citizens 
 of Salona were driven from their city by the 
 Avars they fled here for protection and estab- 
 
 62 
 
Peristyle of Diocletian's Palace, Spalato. 
 
Traii and Spalato 
 
 lished themselves within the walls of the palace, 
 building up every available space within their 
 bounds, and leaving - only the narrowest of little 
 alleyways to serve for light and air and passage. 
 Only the peristyle of the palace was left free to 
 serve as a public square, and even here the 
 beautiful columns of red syenite have been 
 roughly hacked into and used as supports for 
 the wretched little houses which have grown up 
 between them. 
 
 At the end of the peristyle is the entrance to 
 the temple, guarded on one side by an Egyptian 
 sphinx of black granite. In the museum of the 
 town is the body of the companion sphinx which 
 formerly guarded the other side of the door- 
 way, but long ago on some unlucky day it 
 lost its head and was removed from its post 
 of duty. The head has since reappeared, built 
 into the walls of the house of a citizen of the 
 town, where it may be seen to-day, but per- 
 suasions, bribes, and even the threats of the 
 Austrian Government have as yet failed to 
 convince this lover of art of the propriety of re- 
 storing it to the headless body in the museum. 
 We were conducted through the narrow streets 
 of the old town to the cathedral, the temple of 
 ^Esculap, and the museum, by a man who is to 
 Spalato to-day what Diocletian must have been 
 in his time — the man of the place. It is he who 
 
 65 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 has charge of all the restorations and repairs of 
 the ancient monuments of the town. It is he who 
 personally superintends the rebuilding- of the 
 campanile. It is he who founded and directs the 
 little museum where most of the treasures found 
 at Salona are stored ; and it is he who attends to 
 the welfare of the souls of the Spalatini of to-day. 
 His card reads as follows : 
 
 MSGR. FR. BULIC. 
 Canierier de ho?ineur de S. S. Leon XIII. 
 Directeur dn Gymnase et du Musee Archeologique 
 Conservateur de la Commission Centrale ftour les monu- 
 ments d'art et d'histoire 
 Membre Correspondant de V Academie Jugoslave 
 Membre ordinaire de FInstitut Archeologique Allemand 
 SPALA TRO-DALMA TIE 
 
 Autriche. 
 
 Later in the day, in company with our reverend 
 conductor, we climbed to the top of the scaffolding 
 which surrounds the old campanile, toward the 
 restoration of which the Austrian Government 
 gives from thirty to forty thousand florins an- 
 nually, and had an extensive view of the sur- 
 rounding country, the plain of Salona, and the 
 sea. There are many large vineyards all about 
 
 66 
 
Trali and Spalato 
 
 here, but in late years the wine industry has not 
 prospered, as since the treaty with Italy, which 
 allows of the competition of Italian wines in Aus- 
 tria, the demand for the wine of Spalato has de- 
 creased, and it may now be had at the rate of 
 three or four cents a bottle. 
 
 In the evening we went to a very new and 
 modern theatre, which seemed entirely out of 
 place in the old city, and heard a Bohemian opera 
 troupe give the " Seven Ravens," which was de- 
 scribed as follows on the programme : 
 
 SEDAM GA VRANO VA 
 
 Veliko carobiio djelo u ij slika 
 
 Muzika raznih ucitelja. Upravitelj kapelnzk 
 
 H. BENISEK. Redatelj L. Chmelensky 
 
 and, to do the Bohemians justice, it sounded as 
 bad as it looks. 
 
 The next day we steamed away south again, 
 past the island of Solta, the ancient Olynta, famed 
 for its wonderful honey produced from the cistus 
 rose and rosemary, and out into the blue Adriatic, 
 which was as placid as an inland lake, and after 
 rounding the point of Lesina, shaped our course 
 for the island of Curzola. 
 
 6 7 
 
IV 
 CURZOLA AND RAGUSA 
 
 The old city of Curzola, which lies at the eastern 
 extremity of a fine wooded island of the same 
 name, is chiefly known to fame on account of the 
 great naval battle between the Genoese and the 
 Venetians, which took place in the narrow chan- 
 nel dividing the island from the long peninsula 
 of Sabbioncello which juts out from the main 
 land. Here the Genoese defeated the Venetians 
 and captured the famous old navigator Marco 
 Polo, who had just returned from the Chinese 
 seas. Andrea Dandolo, the Venetian provvedi- 
 tore, too proud to bear the ignominy of defeat, 
 dashed out his brains against the side of the Geno- 
 ese galley that was bearing him away as a prison- 
 er of war, and Marco Polo was carried away to 
 Genoa and thrust into a dungeon, where he wrote 
 his wonderful book of travels. Before their de- 
 feat by the Genoese the Venetians had experienced 
 considerable difficulty in governing the little 
 island, owing to the independent spirit of the 
 Curzolani, who at times rose in open rebellion 
 
Curzola and Ragusa 
 
 and defied their rulers. Count Zorzi, who en- 
 deavored to extend his power in the island by 
 making it an hereditary principality, was expelled 
 from the city, and upon endeavoring with the aid 
 of his armed fol- 
 lowers to reinstate 
 himself, he was de- ,J 
 feated, losing: his i^l 
 standard and re- 
 ceiving man y 
 wounds. Nothing 
 daunted, this 
 doughty warrior 
 encamped Avithin 
 sight of the strong 
 walls of the town, 
 raising for his stan- 
 dard the bloody 
 bandages from his 
 wounded limbs, 
 and, engaging the country people in his support, 
 eventually regained and held the city. 
 
 The wails of the old town, although now torn 
 down in many places, still give evidence of their 
 former strength, and some of the great stone 
 bastions still look as grim and formidable as they 
 must have done when Uliz-Ali, the Turkish cor- 
 sair, came sailing into the harbor one fine morning 
 to sack and burn the town. The Venetian gover- 
 
 71 
 
 Old Strong Tower. Curzola. 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 nor, hearing of the prospective visit of the corsair, 
 had discreetly withdrawn his garrison and fled to 
 Zara, but the cunning people of Curzola not being 
 minded to give over their city to the Turks to be 
 pillaged and despoiled, arrayed all the women 
 and children of the place in armor and made such 
 a brave showing on the walls and battlements 
 that the corsair, thinking the garrison too strong 
 for him, sailed away after firing a few cannon 
 balls, which are still preserved in the old city 
 as souvenirs of this visit. 
 
 Curzola has also had a taste of British rule. 
 The English took the town in 1813 and held it 
 until 181 5, when, with the rest of Dalmatia, it was 
 ceded to Austria. The old fort crowning the hill 
 at the back of the town and commanding the har- 
 bor is a relic of the English occupation. For the 
 sightseer the resources of Curzola are not great. 
 There are some quaint and pretty bits of archi- 
 tecture, and curiously carved oraro^ovles jutting 
 out from the eaves over the narrow streets, and in 
 the piazza there is a diminutive column bearing a 
 dilapidated and shame-faced looking little lion 
 which, at the downfall of the republic, was dis- 
 gracefully maltreated by a little apothecarv who, 
 owing the dying government a grudge, re- 
 lieved his pent up feelings on learning the news 
 of its dissolution by going out in the square and 
 brutally kicking the little stone lion's tail off and 
 
Curzola and Ragusa 
 
 destroying his wings, which accounts for his 
 present woe-begone appearance. When you have 
 visited the old cathedral and have been led by a 
 circuitous route to a little court-yard to inspect 
 a bronze door knocker which is held in great 
 esteem by the citizens, you have exhausted the 
 stock sights of the town. In fact, the pleasantest 
 thing you can do in Curzola is to walk outside the 
 walls to the west, and sit in one of the busy little 
 yards where the boat-builders are at work ; and 
 there, with the fragrant odor of the pine-chips in 
 your nostrils, listen to the lapping of the blue 
 water against the quay which all but surrounds 
 the old town, and mark the graceful outline of the 
 lantern tower of the old Duomo outlined against 
 the dark mountains of the opposite mainland. 
 
 From Curzola to Ragusa is something over 
 fifty miles. The steamer stops at Gravosa, the 
 modern port, some two miles above the walls of 
 the ancient republic, for the harbor of Ragusa 
 itself affords but little protection from the stormy 
 Adriatic. The drive to the old city from the fine 
 harbor of Gravosa on a May morning is one of 
 the most beautiful in the world. The road, skirt- 
 ing the sea all the way, is perfumed by gardens in 
 full bloom and great masses of roses hanging over 
 old stone walls and iron gateways. Figs, date, 
 palms, olives and agaves are all in luxuriant foli- 
 age ; and below, dashing against the gray cliffs, is 
 
 73 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 the beautiful blue water of the Adriatic, so clear 
 that you can see the dark rocks twenty feet 
 beneath the surface, and can distinguish the dart- 
 ing bodies of the fish in the shallows. 
 
 Presently you come to a piazza thickly shaded 
 with mulberry- trees and having a low stone wall 
 at one end on the cliff overlooking the sea ; a little 
 beyond the piazza rise the massive walls of the old 
 town, and crossing the moat you enter the Porta 
 Pille — a gateway in one of the great bastions — 
 and a winding way, descending between the great 
 stone walls, leads you into the principal street of 
 Ragusa, the Corso. 
 
 Old Ragusa has seen many vicissitudes. Found- 
 ed by Roman refugees, for a long period it flour- 
 ished under Byzantine rule and protection, and 
 had grown strong enough within its moats and 
 walls to withstand a fifteen months' siege by the 
 Saracens in the ninth century. Its old houses 
 were built for the most part of wood from the 
 pine forests of Mount Sergius, which rises behind 
 it, at one time so thickly wooded as to bestow 
 upon the city the Illyric name of Dubrovnik, or 
 " woody " — a sad misnomer to-day, as the old 
 mountain has been shorn of its forests for centu- 
 ries and now rises as sterile and bare as though 
 it had never known a tree. 
 
 In the early part of the fourteenth century the 
 " Black Death " visited the old town and num- 
 
 74 
 
Si 
 
Curzola and Ragusa 
 
 bered for its victims eleven thousand citizens, 
 more than the entire population of the city to-day. 
 A relic of this scourge is preserved in San Biagio 
 in the shape of an old crucifix, which was vowed 
 at that time, and San Biagio itself, the votive 
 church, was built as a memorial of this terrible 
 visitation. After the city had recovered some- 
 what from this sore blow the present enormous 
 fortifications were built, and again Ragusa en- 
 tered on a prosperous career, which attained its 
 height in the early part of the sixteenth century, 
 when the commerce of the old city had been ex- 
 tended to all the principal ports of the Mediter- 
 ranean, and its argosies sailed even beyond the 
 pillars of Hercules. (The word argosy, or ra- 
 gosy, is said to have meant originally a ship of 
 Ragusa.) Then came the earthquakes, which did 
 such damage to the city and were such a menace 
 to the safety of the inhabitants that the good citi- 
 zens carved the letters I. H. S. over their stone 
 doorways as a sort of Passover mark or suppli- 
 cation to Providence to protect them. Before 
 the shocks of the earthquakes had ceased came 
 the plague of 1526, during which twenty thou- 
 sand citizens died. Then their misfortunes ceased 
 for a time, only to be repeated in a later century 
 by the great earthquake of 1667, which destroyed 
 almost all the buildings of the town, over five 
 thousand citizens perishing in the ruins. 
 
 77 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 In addition to all these calamities, Ragusa had 
 many battles to fight, not only for itself, but for 
 the more powerful and ambitious States of Hun- 
 
 Cloister of the Dominican Monastery, Ragusa. 
 
 gary and Austria, who pressed the small republic 
 into their service, and hundreds of Ragusan gal- 
 leys and thousands of Ragusan lives were sacri- 
 ficed in fighting battles that were not their own; so 
 
 7 8 
 
Curzola and Ragusa 
 
 that, taking all things into consideration, it speaks 
 well for the vitality of the old city that there is 
 anything remaining of it to-day to tell the tale of 
 its long struggle against its varied misfortunes. 
 
 One of the first places of interest after coming 
 within the walls of Ragusa is Mala Braca, the old 
 Franciscan church and convent, with its fine 
 cloister and brown-robed monks, and near by is 
 an old Venetian fountain or reservoir, where the 
 water, led into the city through pipes laid to the 
 hills behind, was stored. The Corso, which is 
 surprising^ broad and straight for a Dalmatian 
 city, is made picturesque by the many little open 
 shops, after the manner of Oriental bazars, where 
 Albanian tailors sit cross-legged working curious 
 embroidered patterns on the scarlet waistcoats 
 and gorgeous jackets worn by the country people 
 about here. Silversmiths are at work on filigree 
 ornaments for the women or buttons for the jack- 
 ets of the men ; and shop-windows, hung with 
 cheap silk scarfs and gay prints of brilliant colors, 
 attract the country people, with whom the streets 
 are filled. The most picturesque of these peas- 
 ants are the Canalesi women, with their peculiar 
 head-dresses and elaborate jackets richly embroid- 
 ered in gold and silver, and their gay-colored 
 torbas, a kind of gigantic reticule which they in- 
 variably carry with them, slung over their shoul- 
 ders by its drawing-strings. The men from the 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 same district wear full Turkish costume, blue 
 trousers, red fezzes, and short jackets extravagant- 
 
 A Canalesi Woman. 
 
 ly embroidered. The Canali was formerly Sutto- 
 rino, a Turkish enclave. 
 
 At the end of the Corso is the clock-tower, 
 where a bronze knight in armor stands beside 
 the great bell, sledge in hand, ready to strike the 
 
 82 
 
Curzola and Ragiisa 
 
 alarm and assemble the citizens of the town 
 which he guards, in the piazza below him. Here 
 is also the Church of San Biagio, the patron saint 
 of the city, and in front oi its door is a statue 
 of Orlando, erected to commemorate the inde- 
 pendence of Ragusa. From the stone pillar be- 
 hind the statue the herald, with a flare of trum- 
 pets, used to announce the decrees of the judges 
 to the assembled citizens, and in front of the 
 statue condemned criminals were executed. Be- 
 yond is the interesting Palazzo Communale, 
 formerly the rector's palace, which, although 
 almost entirely destroyed by the earthquake 
 of 1667, has been restored, and still preserves 
 much of the curious and well-wrought stone 
 carving with which it was adorned. Still farther 
 along is the Piazza dell' Erbe, a busy and pict- 
 uresque square, especially on market-days, when 
 it is enlivened by the gay costumes of the Cana- 
 lesi and a mixture of variously costumed peas- 
 ants from over the mountains ; turbaned Bosni- 
 ans and Herzegovinians, and tall, fierce-looking 
 Montenegrins, with their picturesque, long white 
 coats and red and black caps. 
 
 Retracing our steps for a short distance, we find 
 a way which leads to the outer fortification on 
 the harbor. Here, as on the other side of the city, 
 the tremendous walls and massive bastions, which 
 seem to have been built for all time, impress you 
 
 83 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 Approach to Ragusa. 
 
 with the former strength of the old city. In the 
 drainage-holes left in the walls by the old build- 
 ers thousands of pigeons have built their nests, 
 and their metallic breasts, shining in the sunlight 
 from every niche, emphasize the peace that has 
 settled upon these old fortifications after the 
 centuries of battle and siege that they have 
 withstood. Beyond the outer gate of the for- 
 tifications runs the high road to Trebinje, in the 
 Herzegovina. If you follow this for about two 
 miles it will bring you to a point high above the 
 sea, where you can command a beautiful view of 
 old Ragusa, with its triple walls and great moat 
 dividing it from the mountain, which rises so pre- 
 cipitously in its rear that even the high road has 
 no room to pass outside the walls, but must enter 
 the gates and pass through the town to reach the 
 farther side. 
 
 A little way out in the blue water lies the 
 green-bowered island of La Croma, at one time 
 the property of Prince Rudolph, but now restored 
 
Curzola and Ragusa 
 
 by the Austrian Crown to the Dominican monks, 
 whose ancient monastery, transformed into an im- 
 perial chateau during the tenure of the Austrian 
 Crown, was founded by Richard Cceur de Lion, 
 who, narrowly escaping shipwreck in these wa- 
 ters, built a chapel on this island, where he first 
 touched his foot to dry land. 
 
 On a bare, isolated rock toward the north of 
 Ragusa, towers the grim old fortress of San Lo- 
 renzo, and beyond, on a little point stretching 
 into the sea, is the luxuriant garden of the Conte 
 Pozza, with its bowers of roses and its wealth of 
 tropical vegetation. Farther on, toward the 
 northwest, a little group of rocky islands, which 
 turn to purple shadows in the sunset, lift their 
 heads above the sea. Nowhere in the world is 
 there a more beautiful view, and nowhere in the 
 world is there a more perfect example of an old 
 mediaeval town w 7 ith ancient walls and great bat- 
 tlements, deep moats and strong towers, draw- 
 bridges, and sally-ports, from which, so visionary 
 does it all seem, you half-expect to see a goodly 
 company of King Arthur's knights ride forth on 
 their quest of the Holy Grail. 
 
 At sunset we walked back along the cactus- 
 lined road to the city gates, catching a glimpse 
 on the way of a long white yacht, which glided 
 silently into the little harbor near La Crorna and 
 quietly dropped anchor in the still water. 
 
 8s 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 Then we found our way through the streets of 
 the old town to the Porta Pille, on the northern 
 side, where our charioteer awaited, and drove 
 along through the cool and perfumed night-air to 
 the wharf at Gravosa, where our steamer was in 
 waiting. Near the wharf a band of dark-skinned 
 Servian gypsies had pitched their tents for the 
 night — miserable low shelters like those of the 
 Bedouins — and toward the mouth of the harbor, 
 barely distinguishable in the dusk, lay the dull, 
 gray mass of an Austrian man-of-war which had 
 just arrived, bringing the Archduke Albrecht 
 
 The Moat and Land Walls. Ragusa. 
 
Curzola and Ragusa 
 
 to review the Austrian garrison stationed near 
 Gravosa. After dinner we sat on deck and 
 smoked our pipes in the still air until the bells of 
 the warship rang the hour for retiring ; and when 
 we awoke in the morning Ragusa, the old re- 
 public, had vanished like a dream, and we were 
 far out on the blue waters of the broad Adriatic. 
 
V 
 CATTARO AND MONTENEGRO 
 
 HIGH up in the fastness of the desolate and in- 
 accessible black mountains, which have given 
 it its name, in a little world of its own, shut in by 
 barren peaks which reach the clouds, and prac- 
 tically cut off from all the civilizing and progres- 
 sive influences of the century, lies the sturdy 
 little highland principality of Montenegro. Dur- 
 ing the five hundred years of its existence this 
 little State has maintained its independence 
 against tremendous odds with such marvellous 
 persistency and valor that no less a student than 
 Mr. Gladstone has stated that, in his deliberate 
 opinion, " the traditions of Montenegro exceed in 
 glory those of Marathon, Thermopylae, and all 
 the war traditions of the world." 
 
 Toward the end of the fourteenth century a 
 number of Servian fugitives, driven from their 
 country by the victorious hordes of the Turks 
 after the ruin of the Servian cause at the battle 
 of Kossovo, took refuge in these bleak and sterile 
 mountains, and with one of the Baltscha princes 
 
 88 
 
Gittaro and Montenegro 
 
 t> j 
 
 at their head established their independence at a 
 time when all of Southeastern Europe was trem- 
 bling- before the power of the Turks, who had 
 forced their way to the very gates of Vienna. 
 This independence they have maintained up to 
 the present day, and their whole history from 
 that time to the present is comprised in an un- 
 ending warfare with their hereditary enemies. 
 Time and a^ain have the Turks sent <rreat 
 armies of from forty thousand to two hundred 
 thousand men against these gallant highlanders, 
 and time and again have thev been repulsed with 
 the loss of from ten to thirty thousand men by 
 the valiant little army of hardy mountaineers, for 
 whom warfare was the sole pursuit in life. 
 
 In 1604 eight thousand Montenegrin warriors 
 defeated an army of sixty thousand Turks. In 
 1623 Suleiman Pasha invaded the country with a 
 vast army, burning and destroying the towns and 
 villages, but failing to conquer the people. In 
 1703 the Montenegrins, in revenge for Turkish 
 outrages upon the border, offered to every Turk 
 within the principality the alternative of baptism 
 or death, and on Christmas-eve this decree was 
 rigorously carried out, and every Moslem within 
 the land who would not be baptized was put to 
 the sword on this night of Montenegrin vespers. 
 In 1706 a fresh invasion by the Turks was re- 
 pelled with loss, and one hundred and fifty-seven 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 Turkish prisoners were ignominiously ransomed 
 for the same number of pigs. In 171 1 the Monte- 
 negrins invaded Turkish territory at the instance 
 of Russia, and when a counter-invasion took 
 place drove back the infidels and captured 
 eighty-six standards. In 17 14 one hundred and 
 twenty thousand Turks under the Grand Vizier 
 Kuprili invaded the country, burned Cettinje, and 
 drove the people to the mountains ; they then 
 withdrew for the conquest of Morea, carrying off 
 two thousand captives. Fresh invasions con- 
 stantly took place from 171 8 to 1796, when the 
 Montenegrins under Peter I. gained the most 
 decisive victory of all over their hereditary foe. 
 
 Although since the treaty of Berlin, in 1878, 
 Montenegro has acquired twenty-five miles of 
 seacoast and two ports of its own on the Adri- 
 atic — Dulcigno and Antivari — the Dalmatian 
 port of Cattaro has always been and still contin- 
 ues to be the Montenegrins' principal avenue 
 of commercial and social intercourse with the 
 world. Far down at the lower extremity of Dal- 
 matia, where its territory is so attenuated as to 
 form but a narrow ribbon on the map, just wide 
 enough to close out that part of Montenegro 
 from the sea, a narrow opening in the rocky 
 shore between the Punta d'Ostro and the Punta 
 d'Arza leads into the famous Bocche di Cattaro, 
 
 probably the finest and most beautiful harbor in 
 
 90 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 the world. This magnificent water-way consists 
 of a chain of five great basins, joined by narrow 
 channels winding their way between the great 
 ranges of bleak and sterile mountains which rise 
 precipitously from the borders of these inland 
 seas, barely leaving room here and there for the 
 sparkling little white towns surrounded by their 
 ancient walls, to obtain a foothold at their base. 
 
 Into this great chain of inland lakes we sailed 
 one morning at daybreak, and as we reached the 
 narrowest division of waters, known as " le ca- 
 tene," where in former times a chain was stretched 
 across to defend the innermost harbors, the mist 
 which overhung the water began to rise, and 
 under the slowly rolling gray curtain we saw the 
 great lead-colored hulks of the Austrian navy 
 steaming grandly out, each great ship attended 
 by three or four little noisy black torpedo boats, 
 puffing energetically along on either side of their 
 consorts like little children afraid of being left 
 behind. Farther on, forming a peaceful contrast 
 to the huge war vessels, as they moved majesti- 
 cally through the narrow pass, were two tiny 
 islands barely raising themselves above the level 
 of the water. On one of these stands the minia- 
 ture monastery of San Giorgio, with chapel and 
 cloisters and garden complete ; and on the other 
 is a little pilgrimage church, Santa Maria dello 
 Scarpello, in which is a portrait of the Madonna, 
 
 93 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 said to have been painted by St. Luke. The 
 white walls, red-tiled roofs, and green domes of 
 the little church, which seems to float on the 
 water like a lily-pad, makes a charming bit of 
 
 Santa Maria dello Scarpello. 
 
 color against the bleak, gray mountain - side, 
 which rises majestically behind to such heights 
 that the tiny church in the foreground seems no 
 bigger than a child's toy. 
 
 Beyond the islands lies the pretty little town of 
 Perasto, guarding the entrance to the Bay of Ri- 
 sano, on the farther shore of which, high up on 
 the mountain-side, a great fountain bursts forth 
 from the solid rock and falls in white foam down 
 
 94 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 the . heer cliffs into the sea below. Higher up on 
 the same mountain can be seen the mouth of a 
 dark cavern in which is a great subterranean lake, 
 the abode, according to local tradition, of a great 
 dragon, who lies in its depths guarding an enor- 
 mous diamond between his paws. Certain it is 
 that strange rumbling noises are often heard pro- 
 ceeding from the very heart of the mountain, and 
 at such times, you are told, the mighty dragon is 
 at play and, in his sport, rolls the huge diamond 
 about in the depths of his gloomy cavern — a Dal- 
 matian Fafner as yet unconquered, awaiting the 
 Siegfried who shall despoil him of his treasure. 
 
 From Perasto we steer south into the last of 
 this wonderful chain of inland seas, and after pass- 
 ing Perzanio are shut in on every side by the 
 great sterile mountains. At the extreme end of 
 the bay towers the huge Lovcen, one of the black 
 mountains of Montenegro, and at its base, be- 
 tween two torrents which issue from the solid 
 rock, is the little white town of Cattaro, clinging 
 tenaciously to the meagre foothold it has obtained 
 at the foot of the stupendous cliffs which tower 
 thousands of feet above it, dwarfing the little col- 
 lection of houses to the proportions of a Noah's- 
 ark village, an impression still further heightened 
 by the little rows of round green trees set at reg- 
 ular distances apart along the broad stone quay. 
 Behind the cathedral this great drop-curtain of 
 
 97 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 stone descends so closely that the towers seem- 
 ingly guard an entrance to some great cavern in 
 the living rock behind. 
 
 So shut in among the great masses of towering 
 crags which surround it is this little town that a 
 Greek historian has stated that the sun never 
 reached it except in summer. This statement is 
 not exactly borne out by the truth, although in 
 the winter months the sun only reaches the city 
 for five hours each day. 
 
 At one side of the town a great buttressed wall, 
 part of the city's old defenses, makes its devious 
 way from the water's edge to a point some fifteen 
 hundred feet above the town, where it terminates 
 at an old castle perched on the edge of a great 
 ravine. Far above, stretching for miles along the 
 precipitous side of the great mountain, is the faint 
 line of the famous Ladder of Cattaro, the old mule 
 track which follows the gorge of the torrent 
 Fiumara, and at last, with innumerable zigzags, 
 surmounts the face of Lovcen and leads over the 
 wastes of barren rock to the mountain strong- 
 holds of the invincible Montenegrins. The other 
 side of the town is protected by a sheer preci- 
 pice of rock which descends to the water, and 
 here a frail little bridge leads from under the 
 great stone tower of the old wall over the Gor- 
 dicchio to the wonderfully well engineered car- 
 riage road that leads to Cettinje. 
 
The Cathedral. Cattaro. 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 Saturday is the great market day in Cattaro, 
 and all along the quay and outside the Porta Fiu- 
 mara the Montenegrins, after complying with 
 the Austrian regulations by leaving their fire- 
 arms in a house provided for the purpose, hold 
 market and sell their livestock and produce, or 
 exchange it for the merchandise of the Cattaro 
 shopkeepers. The poor Montenegrin women, 
 who conduct these markets, have a hard struggle 
 for existence. They are the workers and the 
 tillers of the soil, and all their merchandise is the 
 fruit of their unaided toil, as the men reserve their 
 strength for warlike pursuits and in time of peace 
 spend their time in swaggering about the streets, 
 smoking and talking of war and rumors of war, 
 while the poor women work for them, tilling the 
 land with wooden ploughs or staggering up and 
 down the steep mountain-paths under enormous 
 burdens. 
 
 These poor creatures, broken and bent by toil 
 before they are twenty-five, leave their little 
 stone huts in the mountains at two or three 
 o'clock in the morning, and with a load of sixty 
 pounds or more on their backs, make their way 
 down the precipitous path of the Ladder of Cat- 
 taro, and after a weary day spent in disposing of 
 their merchandise, they shoulder great bags of 
 flour and meal, bought with the proceeds of their 
 sales, and painfully and laboriously make their 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 way up the side of the sheer rock to the little 
 huts far up in the Black Mountains, which they 
 reach late in the night, weary and worn with 
 their exhausting labors. 
 
 There are no railroads in Montenegro, and un- 
 til recently there was not even a carriage-road to 
 Cettinje, as the policy of these canny highlanders 
 has always been to keep their little capital as in- 
 accessible as possible, for their greatest strength 
 lay in the difficult approaches to their strong- 
 holds. Recently, however, the Austrians have 
 persuaded Prince Nicholas to construct a road 
 from Cettinje to the frontier, where, high on the 
 mountain-side, it joins the admirably engineered 
 road which the Austrians have built to scale the 
 precipitous mountain-side. Starting from the 
 quay one morning in a little yellow ramshackle, 
 four-wheeled vehicle of a nondescript type, hav- 
 ing three shaggy and under-fed little mountain 
 horses, fastened together in a bunch with ropes 
 and strings, to draw it, we crossed the little bridge 
 over the Gordicchio and commenced the ascent 
 to the mountain stronghold. The road at first 
 led directly away from the Montenegrin frontier, 
 through a beautiful valley shaded with great oak- 
 trees. Then for a time it wound back and forth 
 under the sinister shadow of an Austrian fort, 
 which has been so placed as to command nearly 
 every foot of the eight or nine miles of roadway 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 leading to the Montenegrin frontier, which, al- 
 though only a few hundred yards distant horizon- 
 tally from Cattaro, is so high up in the clouds as 
 to necessitate the construction of over eight miles 
 of road to reach it. 
 
 In many places you can leave your conveyance 
 and by climbing straight up over the rocks for 
 a short distance, gain fifteen or twenty minutes 
 over the ragged little horses, who toil patiently 
 along on the zigzag path of the road beneath you. 
 
 There is no grander sight in the world than 
 these beautiful basins of still blue water sur- 
 rounded by the majestic piles of barren rock with 
 the little fringe of verdant shore at its base, as 
 seen from this wonderful mountain road ; and the 
 intervals of rest, in which you can view the won- 
 derful panorama spread out below you, well re- 
 pay the trouble of scrambling up the steep rocks. 
 
 At last the innumerable zigzags end, the road 
 trends upward in a long ascending line, and pres- 
 ently a row of little white stones laid obliquely 
 across the road, in default of custom-houses and 
 barriers, proclaims the frontier of Montenegro ; 
 and here many a hardy mountaineer, whom 
 chance has some time exiled from his native land, 
 has fallen on his face in the road and kissed the 
 dust from the stones in grateful joy at his return 
 to the Black Mountains of his fatherland. A little 
 
 farther on, at a sharp turn in the road, we came 
 
 io 5 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 upon a little group of the Black Mountaineers, 
 with rifles slung- over their backs and their belts 
 stuck full of revolvers, knives, and yatagans, 
 standing at the mouth of a dark cavern, which 
 leads for a mile or more into the mountain-side. 
 Then we reached a little mountain inn, a welcome 
 shelter from the cold misty air, and refreshed 
 ourselves with coarse bread, cheese, and red wine, 
 which was provided for us by a dark-eyed Mon- 
 tenegrin woman in the picturesque peasant cos- 
 tume of rough, homespun woollen, a white waist 
 under a long white coat trimmed with blue and 
 elaborately embroidered, a coarse, dark woollen 
 skirt, and sandals or opankas of undressed hide, 
 laced across the top with thongs of leather. 
 
 From the inn the road leads by a slight descent 
 to the little town of Njegus, the ancestral home 
 of the reigning family of Montenegro and one of 
 the country-seats of the present prince. The poor 
 little thatched houses of the town are no better 
 than stables ; but it is a brave little community, 
 and has often sent three hundred and fifty of its 
 five hundred men to the wars. Here you get 
 some idea of the extreme difficulty with which 
 the Montenegrin labors to get a bare living from 
 the barren and unfruitful land in which he lives. 
 Little patches of ground no bigger than tennis- 
 courts are carefully cultivated, and wherever 
 there is the slightest deposit of soil on the sides 
 
 106 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 of the mountains or in the hollows of the rocks a 
 little stone wall is built about it to prevent its 
 washing away, and it is cherished and tended as 
 
 In the Black Mountains. 
 
 carefully as a window-garden, so that it shall add 
 
 its full quota to the scant crops of the country. 
 
 Agriculture here is conducted much as it was in 
 
 the time of the Trojan wars. The ploughs are of 
 
 wood and the harrows of thorns or rods, and near 
 
 109 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 every little patch of cultivated land you may see 
 a little stone ring where the harvest of wheat is 
 threshed out by horses, who tread it out as they 
 are driven round and round about a post in the 
 centre. 
 
 From Njegus the road ascends again to the 
 pass of Kruacko Zdrjelo, where at the summit a 
 wonderful view is presented. There is a legend 
 current here that, having created the world, God 
 saw that it was good — in parts — but that the rocks 
 and stones made by Satanael were harmful and 
 hateful, whereupon he sent his angel Gabriel to 
 gather them up and cast them into the deep sea. 
 So Gabriel filled an enormous sack with all the 
 rocks and cliffs of the world, and flew with his 
 burden toward the blue Adriatic, but Satanael, 
 flying fast behind, cut a hole in the sack, there- 
 upon all the rocks dropped out, forming the moun- 
 tains of Montenegro and Dalmatia, and when 
 Gabriel reached the Adriatic the sack was empty. 
 
 From this high pass in the Black Mountains the 
 reason for the origin of the legend is apparent, 
 for nowhere in the world is there a more desolate 
 expanse of tumbling rocks and crags. Looking 
 north toward Niksic, as far as the eye can reach 
 tosses a great sea of barren rocky peaks of gray 
 limestone, a veritable picture of utter desolation 
 with hardly a trace of vegetation of any sort to 
 be seen. Far off in the south shines the glint of 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 water in the Lake of Scutari ; to the right towers 
 the huge Lovcen, and on its side is the Chapel of 
 St. Peter, the patron saint of Montenegro. St. 
 Peter is rather a home-made saint, with a dis- 
 tinctly modern flavor, as he did not die until 1830 
 and was immediately canonized by his nephew, 
 Peter the Second, who wanted a saint in the fam- 
 ily ; and as many of the older men in Montenegro 
 to-day knew St. Peter intimately during his life 
 and can therefore vouch for his special fitness for 
 the position he holds, he has proved a popular 
 and favorite divinity. 
 
 From here the road descends rapidly into the 
 basin of an old lake which at one time filled the 
 valley where Cettinje now stands, and presently 
 we obtain a glimpse of the red roofs and white- 
 washed houses of the smallest capital in Europe, 
 and after a few more devious twistings among 
 the foothills we drove past a little Greek church 
 and entered the main street, which leads through 
 the town to the little inn at the farther end. The 
 streets were filled with tall, fine-looking men in 
 picturesque white coats, embroidered waistcoats, 
 baggy dark-blue breeches, and high boots, and 
 each man, as compelled by law, wore a loaded re- 
 volver in his belt as well as a miscellaneous col- 
 lection of knives and short swords. Even the 
 waiters at the inn wore top boots and carried 
 knives and revolvers. 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 The inn itself is not calculated to render a long 
 sojourn in Cettinje particularly fascinating-. The 
 room assigned to us contained four double beds 
 
 Cettinje, the Capital City. 
 
 and no wash-stand. I finally procured a tin basin 
 and a wooden chair, Avhich served as a wash-stand 
 and towel-rack, and a bucket of water. The only 
 method of disposing of a basin of water seemed 
 to be to throw it out of the window. I did this 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 successfully on the night of our arrival, but on 
 repeating it in the morning I heard a shout 
 from below, and on looking out found that 1 had 
 drenched a doughty highland warrior, who, upon 
 seeing my head at the window, proceeded to make 
 a demonstration with the aid of the extensive col- 
 lection of firearms in his belt. I had been told 
 that the Montenegrin was extremely courteous to 
 those who spoke his language, so I immediately 
 put in use the two words I had just learned from 
 a phrase book, " Dobro jutro," meaning " good 
 morning," to which I added in English, for lack of 
 any further Slavish vocabulary : " Have you used 
 Pear's soap?" This did not seem to have any 
 immediate effect in pacifying him, so I discreet- 
 ly withdrew from his gaze, resolving in the fut- 
 ure to make cautious and careful surveys of the 
 ground immediately beneath the windows, and 
 avoid wittingly dispensing any more free shower- 
 baths to these walking arsenals. 
 
 The stock sights of a capital so small that one 
 could stand in its very centre and throw stones 
 into the suburbs are necessarily limited. A large, 
 square, low-roofed building, two stories high and 
 painted a dingy yellow, with a little wooden sen- 
 try-box on either side of the front-door steps, is 
 the new palace of the Prince. A little beyond 
 this is the old Biljar or palace, enclosed within a 
 high stone wall and guarded by four round tow- 
 
 "3 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 ers, now used as the palace of justice and the gov- 
 ernment printing-office, where the " Glas Crna- 
 gora," or " Voice of Montenegro," is published. 
 
 Between the old and new palaces is the Tree of 
 Justice, a great elm, where, as a last resort for all 
 from the four or five courts of the country, peti- 
 tioners may appeal to the Prince, who occasion- 
 ally sits in paternal fashion beneath its branches 
 and administers justice in person. 
 
 The justice dispensed by the Prince is, at all 
 events, summary. A visitor who attended one of 
 these open-air courts on one occasion reports that 
 the Prince named the petitioners collectively as 
 liars, consigned the leader to jail, and threatened 
 to send the others after him unless they speedily 
 got out of the way. 
 
 On the rocky slope behind the Biljar is the old 
 Convent of the Virgin and the little convent 
 church, which serves as the cathedral of Monte- 
 negro, where St. Peter, the local saint, reposes in 
 his sarcophagus. A little way above the convent 
 is the famous round tower of Tabia, where, up to 
 a few years ago, it was the pride of the Montene- 
 grins to maintain a continuous display of Turks' 
 heads, neatly arranged on poles stuck in the 
 ground about the walls, and Avhere the hollow 
 vault is still filled with Turkish skulls. 
 
 Near by are the royal stables, where the Prince 
 
 keeps several fine Arabs, and the national jail, a 
 
 ii 4 
 
Prince Nicholas I, of Montenegro. 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 remarkable institution, where a few prisoners 
 lounge about in the open doorways, smoking 
 cigarettes and apparently enjoying to the full the 
 freedom and hospitality -of this unique prison. 
 Some of the prisoners are manacled by chains fas- 
 tened to the left leg and arm, or, in some cases, to 
 both ankles. The inconvenience of the latter 
 method, in which the chain is supposed to drag 
 on the ground, has been overcome by the in- 
 genuity of the wearers, who attach a cord to the 
 centre and suspend it from their waists, making 
 the decoration rather ornamental than otherwise. 
 Many of the prisoners are entirely unencumbered, 
 and there is apparently no reason why they should 
 not make their escape if they wished to do so, but 
 they evidently prefer the tempered joys of this 
 metropolitan confinement to the hardships inci- 
 dent to a fugitive existence in the surrounding 
 mountains. 
 
 Across the town from the jail and the palace is 
 the new theatre, built by an American named 
 Slade — a rough, unfinished-looking building, which 
 is intended to eventually serve as casino, museum, 
 and reading-rooms, as well as the home of the 
 Montenegrin drama. In the bare, white-washed 
 hall of this building are produced the plays writ- 
 ten by the Prince, who is a poet and dramatist, 
 and has written two plays, " The Empress of the 
 
 Balkans " and " Prince Arbanit." 
 
 ii 7 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 We were not so fortunate as to see either of 
 these royal dramas, although we saw a Servian 
 company from Belgrade in a curious play, inter- 
 spersed with songs and dances, enacted with as 
 much force and power as could well be exerted 
 on a ten by twelve stage, lighted by a dingy little 
 row of smoking kerosene lamps without reflectors. 
 
 The Crown Prince had been expected to attend 
 the performance and encourage the performers 
 by his royal patronage, but we watched in vain 
 for his appearance in the royal box, which was 
 prodigally hung with faded red canton flannel ; but 
 the Crown Prince is a shy young man, and, hear- 
 ing that there were strangers in town, he aban- 
 doned the play and stayed at home in his konak 
 rather than run the chance of being stared at by 
 strangers. There were no women in the audience, 
 the Montenegrin men evidently considering it 
 bad form to be seen in public with the women of 
 their families. 
 
 At the farther end of the town from the inn is 
 the national arsenal, where are stored two siege 
 guns, two bronze Russian twelve-pounders, eigh- 
 teen small Krupp guns, and twenty-four mountain 
 guns, with a quantity of rifles and small arms. A 
 big room in the arsenal is used as a war museum, 
 and is filled with trophies captured from the 
 Turks. Here are preserved hundreds of bullet- 
 riddled flags and standards shot to ribbons in 
 
 118 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 their desperate affrays, curved swords, Turkish 
 cannon, guns, pistols, decorations and medals — 
 among the latter being a number of Crimean war 
 
 Girl of Montenegro. 
 
 medals taken from Turks who had fought side by 
 side with the English in the Crimea. 
 
 There is a small market-square, with a rude little 
 
 no 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 fountain in the centre, which is rendered pict- 
 uresque by the bright costumes of the peasants 
 on market days, and there is a school for girls 
 founded and supported by the Dowager Empress 
 of Russia. Along the main street are little shops 
 where gunsmiths and silversmiths can be seen 
 at work in the windows ; tobacconists, where big 
 rolls of dark-blue paper, filled with the fine, golden 
 tobacco of Scutari, are stacked on the shelves 
 about the walls ; tiny bazaars of general supplies, 
 where the red pork-pie cap, with its covering of 
 black silk and the initials N. I., gaily colored tor- 
 bas or pouches ; and the struka, a long brown 
 shawl — which is to the Montenegrin what the 
 plaid is to the Highlander — are the most con- 
 spicuous articles displayed for sale. 
 
 These, with the post-office, where you buy Mon- 
 tenegrin stamps from a postmaster who wears 
 two huge revolvers in his belt and has others in 
 easy-reaching distance, and the small one-story 
 buildings occupied by the representatives of for- 
 eign powers and emblazoned over the doorways 
 with their coats-of-arms, comprise all the institu- 
 tions of the little capital. 
 
 The rulers of Montenegro have always been 
 warriors of renown. Their patron saint, Peter I., 
 was a great general in his day, and in 1796, at 
 Kroussa, he gained a most decisive victory over 
 the Turks, whom he utterly defeated, inflicting a 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 loss upon them of over thirty thousand men, in- 
 cluding their leader, Kara Mahmoud, whose head 
 
 Montenegrin Peasants. 
 
 for a long time after was displayed by the future 
 saint as one of his most cherished possessions. 
 
 His nephew, Peter II., who succeeded him in 
 1830, was one of the foremost Servian poets of 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 the time ; and, although his energies were princi- 
 pally directed toward the civilization of his people, 
 the suppression of the vendetta and the establish- 
 ment of security and order in his dominion, yet 
 he had the martial spirit strongly within him, and 
 commanded the respect of his troops, who had 
 often seen this great bishop and leader of theirs, 
 who was no less than six feet eight in height, 
 stand before them in his robes and hit lemons 
 with his rifle as they were thrown into the air by 
 an attendant. This picturesque figure was the 
 last Yladika, or ruler combining the temporal and 
 spiritual power, for his nephew, Danilo II., who 
 succeeded him in 185 1, separated the two and 
 founded an absolute principality to be governed 
 by secular princes. Danilo waged war upon the 
 Turks, and administered a severe defeat to Omar 
 Pasha at Grahovo in 1858, but he did not prove 
 a popular ruler, and in i860 he was assassinated, 
 and the succession passed to his nephew, Prince 
 Nicholas I., Petrovic Njegos, the present ruler. 
 
 Prince Nicholas, who is a fine-looking man of 
 about fifty-five, was educated at Trieste and Paris 
 and was proclaimed Prince on August 14, i860. 
 He has fairly won his spurs in his battles with the 
 Turks, defeating them in 1861-62, and also in 
 1877-78, when, to aid Russia, he engaged nearly 
 ninety thousand Turkish troops, who were drawn 
 away from the Danube at a critical time for Rus- 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 sia, and with a vastly inferior force defeated them 
 repeatedly, finally driving them from his dominion 
 after they had sustained a loss of six thousand 
 killed and many more thousands wounded. In 
 one battle, at Kristatz, two thousand Montene- 
 grins withstood thirty thousand Turks under 
 Suleiman Pasha, with a loss of seven hundred, the 
 Turks losing over thirty-five hundred ; while at 
 Jezero the Montenegrins killed over four hundred 
 and eighty Turks, with a loss to themselves of 
 only thirteen killed and twenty-three wounded. 
 As an example of the courage of the Montenegrin 
 warriors in this battle, an English newspaper cor- 
 respondent, who was in Montenegro at the time, 
 relates the following incident : " The battle of 
 Jezero was signalized on the part of the Montene- 
 grins by a splendid individual valor, which cer- 
 tainly deserves chronicling. A Montenegrin of 
 the tribe of Piperi, Luka Philipov by name, had 
 distinguished himself at the battle of Vucidol by 
 taking Osman Pasha alive and carrying him bodily 
 to Prince Nikola, who presented the gallant fellow 
 with five hundred ducats for his prize, and jest- 
 ingly bade him bear him another Turk in the same 
 fashion. Now, for a Montenegrin to be told by 
 " The Master — " " The Gospodar," as the Prince 
 is generally called here — to do a thing is for him 
 to do it or die. Accordingly, our hero of Piperi, 
 being present at the battle of Jezero, and mindful 
 
 123 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 of the master's orders, seized the moment of at- 
 tack to rush into the Turkish lines, hug a true be- 
 liever around the waist with a bearlike embrace, 
 and lug him off bodily, disarming him by the way. 
 To carry his prize safely to the rear the Monte- 
 negrin made a slight detour, but he had not gone 
 half-way to the Montenegrin position for which 
 he was making when a bullet struck him, passing 
 through both thigh bones, and letting go his cap- 
 tive, he fell heavily to the ground. The Turk, 
 with a shout of triumph, sprang upon his fallen 
 captor, but despite the agony in which he lay, 
 the Black Mountaineer retained strength of body 
 and presence of mind sufficient for the occasion. 
 He laid one hand heavily upon the Turk, who had 
 sprung at his throat, and with the other pointed 
 his revolver at his adversary's head, quietly re- 
 marking : " Now, then, Turk, if you don't want to 
 be blown into another world, just lift me on your 
 back. And now, my fine horse," as the cowed 
 and astonished Turk complied, " just trot me to 
 my friends out there ! " Kismet being obviously 
 against him, the Moslem obeyed his driver, and 
 stumbled on over the rocks, groaning under the 
 weight of the burly Montenegrin, to where the 
 men of Piperi stood marvelling at the approach 
 of what they believed to be a Turkish Goliath, 
 ten feet tall ! But the warriors burst into a roar 
 of laughter when, on the apparition approaching 
 
 124 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 nearer, they perceived their wounded Luka rid- 
 ing the reluctant Turk into their lines, where, 
 after having presented his steed to the Prince, he 
 fell senseless to the ground." 
 
 Another characteristic incident occurred dur- 
 ing the siege of Niksic, when Pope Milo, the he- 
 roic priest and warrior of the Montenegrins, chal- 
 lenged the infidel to single combat between the 
 lines. The Turks accepted the challenge and 
 sent out their most redoubtable swordsman, and 
 the armies ceased hostilities to witness this hand- 
 to-hand combat. The Turk proved himself a bet- 
 ter swordsman than the priest, and killed him and 
 severed his head from his body ; but his triumph 
 was short lived, as immediately upon the resump- 
 tion of hostilities he was served in the same way 
 by an infuriated Montenegrin in revenge for the 
 death of Pope Milo. 
 
 At the fall of Niksic the Prince, who had been 
 in active command of the long siege, during 
 which the Montenegrin women had toiled inces- 
 santly carrying cannon-balls and rations over the 
 mountains to the besiegers, received the surren- 
 der of Scanderbes: reclining: on his struka on a 
 rock, and after he had taken coffee with the van- 
 quished Turkish commander he composed a 
 poem containing the news of his victory, com- 
 mencing, " Niksic mourns, captive to-dav of my 
 arms," which he sent to his wife at Cettinje, where 
 
 125 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 the Princess read it to the citizens amid salvos 
 of applause from their guns and pistols, and the 
 ringing of the monastery bells ; while the metro- 
 
 Montenegrins. 
 
 politan or archbishop of Montenegro formed a 
 ring for the war-dance or "Horo," and the blind 
 
 minstrels tuned their one - stringed guzlas and 
 
 126 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 sang the song of the " Green Apple Tree," which 
 recites the valorous deeds of Montenegrin he- 
 roes. 
 
 Since 1878 there has been no active warfare in 
 Montenegro, and the mountain warriors have had 
 to content themselves with occasional raids into 
 the neighboring provinces, and even this has 
 lately been done away with, owing to the watch- 
 ful eye of the Austrians on the north and the 
 pacific policy of the Turks on the south. This 
 enforced peace cannot last long, however, for the 
 Montenegrin can never forget that it was the 
 Turk who, five hundred years ago, drove him 
 from his fertile fields and luxuriant valleys about 
 the old Serbian capital of Prisrend, and shut him 
 up in the barren, inaccessible prison among the 
 rocks, where he now lives, and, not content to let 
 him rest in peace even there while still uncon- 
 quered, has over and over again, in the centuries 
 that have followed, sent great armies against him 
 to conquer and subdue or, if possible, exterminate 
 his government and destroy his autonomy. How- 
 ever, Prince Nicholas is a politic man, and three 
 years ago, when the Sultan, anxious to propitiate 
 his natural enemy, sent him a present of a com- 
 plete equipment for a squadron of cavalry, he ac- 
 cepted it without question, although it is hardly 
 possible that he could use it in any way except 
 offensively against the donor, and carried it up to 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 a place of safety in his stronghold among the 
 mountain-tops. Then, turning his face toward 
 Russia, Tie awaited the tidings from the north. 
 They were not long in coming, for less than a 
 year ago the Russian ship, Rostoff, from Cron- 
 staclt, arrived in Antivari with thirty thousand 
 
 A Mountain Lake. 
 
 rifles, fifteen million cartridges, a number of can- 
 non and machine guns, and a quantity of dyna- 
 mite, all of which was a present from the Czar 
 of Russia to Prince Nicholas I. of Montenegro. 
 These weapons, added to the forty thousand rifles 
 already in the country, would provide a rifle for 
 almost every able-bodied man and woman in the 
 whole principality, which has a population of less 
 
 128 
 
Albanian Boy. 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 than two hundred thousand, the number of 
 trained men liable to be called under arms being 
 about thirty-five thousand. 
 
 Since the receipt of this portentous present 
 from the Czar the Prince has decided to main- 
 tain a standing army. Hitherto, although every 
 able-bodied man and youth was liable to serve in 
 time of Avar, the standing army has consisted of 
 thirty or forty men, who were usually engaged in 
 playing at bowls in the Prince's back yard, a sim- 
 ple, but convenient, arrangement of troops, allow- 
 ing the Prince to accomplish the mobilization of 
 his entire army by a low whistle from his back 
 piazza in case of need. Now, however, the whole 
 population will gradually be drilled in the use of 
 the new arms provided by Russia, one section fol- 
 lowing another in continuous service for three 
 months. With his new weapons ready to his 
 hand, who can blame the Montenegrin if at the 
 first favorable opportunity he falls upon the Mos- 
 lem, who destroyed the great Serbian kingdom 
 of Stephen Duchan, which embraced Macedonia, 
 Thessaly, Northern Greece, and Bulgaria, and 
 drove him to his rocky eerie, among those barren 
 crags, where for four or five centuries he has 
 been shut out from the verdant and fruitful val- 
 leys of his rightful heritage ? 
 
 Prisrend, the ancient home of the old Serbian 
 Czars, lies beyond the Albanian Mountains in the 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 southeast, and there is not in Montenegro to-day 
 a Slav who does not await with impatience the 
 battles that shall restore to. him the ancient heri- 
 tage of his race. His national ballad or piesma 
 is " Onamo, Onamo Za Br'da " (Out there, out 
 there beyond the mountains), and as the Marsel- 
 laise stirs the blood of the French or verses from 
 the Koran frenzy the Moslem fanatic, so these 
 lines thrill the heart of every Montenegrin : 
 
 Out there, out there beyond the mountains ; 
 My Czar has ceased to speak they say ; 
 Of heroes was his speech that day. 
 
 Out there, out there beyond the mountains ; 
 In some dark cave beneath the hill 
 They say my Czar is sleeping- still. 
 He wakes ! and rising in our wrath 
 We'll hurl the proud usurper forth : 
 From Dechan church to Prisrend towers 
 That olden heritage is ours ! 
 
 Out there, out there beyond the mountains ; 
 They say a verdant forest quakes. 
 Where Dechan 's sainted race awakes ; 
 A single prayer within that shrine, 
 And Paradise is surely mine ! 
 
 Out there, out there beyond the mountains; 
 Where the blue sky to heavenlier light 
 Is breaking — brothers ; to the fight ! 
 
 Out there, out there beyond the mountains, 
 Where tramps the foaming steed of war, 
 132 
 
Albanian Peasant Woman. 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 Old Jugo calls his sons afar 
 To aid ! to aid ! — in my old age 
 Defend me from the foeman's rage ! 
 
 Out there, out there beyond the mountains, 
 
 My children, follow one and all, 
 
 Where Nikola, your Prince, doth call. 
 
 And steep anew in Turkish gore 
 
 The sword Czar Dushan flashed of yore, 
 
 Out there, out there beyond the mountains. 
 
 There is no doubt that should the demise of 
 the " Sick Man of Europe," or any other cause, 
 tend to the rearrangement of that particular part 
 of the map, Prince Nicholas and his highland war- 
 riors are sure to benefit by it, and these long-ex- 
 iled people may come down from the mountains 
 and take possession once again of the rich val- 
 leys from which they were driven by the conquer- 
 ing hosts of Islam. 
 
 Before leaving Cettinje I managed to secure 
 two small kodaks, which represented the little 
 capital so comprehensively as to allow no single 
 feature to escape. The first was taken from the 
 door of the inn on the occasion of the laying of 
 the corner-stone for the new konak of the Crown 
 Prince. In it appear the Prince and Princess, 
 the Crown Prince, the Archbishop or Metropoli- 
 tan, and the clergy ; the army, the citizens, the 
 principal street, the public buildings, and the 
 mountains in the background, all within a space 
 
 135 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 of three by four inches. The other shows the 
 whole extent of the valley, with the little capital 
 in the centre, and makes a brave show of the 
 public gardens in the foreground, the gardens 
 consisting of an elaborate design of curved walks 
 scratched on the white soil through the light, 
 heathery growth which covers it. 
 
 The little principality well repays a visit. It 
 has no railroad, no bank, no currency nor coinage 
 of its own, and but one die for all its postage 
 stamps, but it has as brave a history as ever a 
 nation cherished ; and it is worth while, in these 
 days of commercial and political ascendancy, to 
 go a long w T ay to see a little kingdom founded 
 upon physical courage, whose very existence for 
 nearly five hundred years has depended entirely 
 upon its proved valor. 
 
 No more fitting final w T ord can be said for these 
 gallant mountaineers than the tribute paid them 
 by Tennyson. 
 
 " They rose to where their sovran eagle sails,. 
 They kept their faith, their freedom on the height, 
 Chaste, frugal, savage, arm'd by day and night 
 Against the Turk ; whose inroad nowhere scales 
 Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails, 
 And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight 
 Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight 
 By thousands down the crags and thro' the vales. 
 O smallest among peoples ! rough rock-throne 
 i 3 6 
 
Cattaro and Montenegro 
 
 Of Freedom ! warriors beating back the swarm 
 Of Turkish Islam for rive hundred years, 
 Great Tsernagora ! never since thine own 
 Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm 
 Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers." 
 
 139 
 
VI 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 I remember when a boy at school the map of 
 Turkey used to be a great favorite for draw- 
 ing on the blackboard from memory, because of 
 the fancied resemblance borne by its outline to 
 a bristling turkey-cock strutting proudly about, 
 with wings distended and feathers ruffled, as 
 though bidding defiance to all of the rest of the 
 map of Europe. Since that time, however, its 
 plumage has been so rumpled and plucked by the 
 European powers that it has entirely lost its arro- 
 gant appearance and no longer bears the slightest 
 resemblance to the proud bird which graces the 
 table of every good New Englander on Thanks- 
 giving Day. The changes in its old capital, how- 
 ever, have not been so marked ; and the great 
 walls, stretching from the Sea of Marmora to the 
 Golden Horn, constructed by Theodosius nearly 
 fifteen hundred years ago, still mark the western 
 limit of the ancient city. 
 
 On these walls, in 1453, fell Constantine, the last 
 
 of the Eastern emperors, fighting valiantly against 
 
 140 
 
Constantinople 
 
 odds of fifty to one, and crying piteously as he died, 
 deserted by his flying troops, " Is there no Chris- 
 
 Ancient Columns in Saint Sopnia. 
 
 tian who will cut off my head?" Then throuo-h 
 the great breaches in the walls rode " The Con- 
 
 143 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 queror," Mohammed II., at the head of the Mos- 
 lem hosts, slaying as he went, until he rode into 
 the nave of St. Sophia and let loose his savage sol- 
 diery upon the poor fugitives — priests and wom- 
 en who had sought shelter there. On one of the 
 pillars in the south bay of the great sanctuary, 
 far beyond reach from the pavement, is pointed 
 out to-day the mark of the Conqueror's bloody 
 hand where, riding high upon the dead bodies of 
 the slain, he smote the marble column, crying, 
 " There is no God but God, and Mohammed is 
 his Prophet," and close by another huge column 
 bears a great gash, said to have been made by the 
 stroke of his sword when he marked the Chris- 
 tian church for his own. 
 
 In strange contrast to this fierce conqueror is 
 the present Sultan, Abdul Hamed IT, the well- 
 meaning, but faint-hearted and weak, monarch, 
 who lives concealed from his people in a state of 
 almost perpetual personal terror in the small Yil- 
 diz Kiosk, or Star Palace, about three miles from 
 Pera, and separated by the Golden Horn and 
 the entire European quarter from the great Mo- 
 hammedan quarter of Stamboul, where the prin- 
 cipal mosques, the bazaars, and the public offices 
 of government are situated. 
 
 At one time it was urged that the presence of 
 the Padischa in Stamboul was obligatory during 
 Ramadan, but as Abdul Hamed is not only an 
 
 144 
 
Constantinople 
 
 autocrat, but the head of his religion, he has 
 abandoned the ceremony of the Selamlik in St. 
 Sophia, and holds it at a little mosque built within 
 a stone's throw of his palace at Yildiz, so that he 
 may have all the way from the steps of his palace 
 to the door of his mosque lined rank on rank deep 
 with troops of cavalry and regiments of his house- 
 hold guards. 
 
 At the feast of Beiram it was customary with 
 former Sultans to observe the ceremony of the 
 Selamlik on a much grander scale than on ordi- 
 nary occasions. The great imperial white and 
 gold ka'ik, one hundred feet long, manned by 
 twenty-six picked oarsmen, with the Sultan re- 
 clining under a golden canopy at the stern, flew 
 through the water at the head of a flotilla of 
 gorgeously decorated boats, in which followed 
 the members of his suite and the pachas. Salutes 
 were fired from ships and batteries, and then the 
 procession drew up at the old Seraglio Point, 
 where horses and gorgeous equipages, escorted 
 by troops of cavalry, were waiting to convey the 
 " Defender of the Faith " to prayers ; but Abdul 
 Hamed is a nervous man, and does not mean to 
 expose himself to the possible attacks of con- 
 spirators or bombs of anarchists, and so for years 
 he has not left his own palace grounds except 
 to traverse the distance of a few hundred yards 
 which separates the Yildiz Palace from the 
 
 145 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 mosque of the Hamidieh, when he goes to his 
 prayers, guarded by five thousand picked horse- 
 men and troops of the household guards. Not 
 even on the occasion of the German Emperor's 
 visit to him some years ago did the Sultan dare 
 to move from the circumscribed space to which 
 his fears for his personal safety have condemned 
 him. The Selamlik of to-day, however, is an 
 interesting spectacle, if only to show what elabo- 
 rate precautions can be taken for the personal 
 safety of the Moslem ruler. To view this cere- 
 mony, the visitor must obtain a card from his 
 legation or embassy, which will admit him to the 
 guard-house opposite the mosque, and near the 
 gate of the Sultan's palace grounds. Here he is 
 ushered into a long, narrow room, with windows 
 overlooking the entrance to the mosque and the 
 square around which the troops are beginning to 
 form, and after being warned not to lean out of 
 the windows and not to use opera-glasses, he is 
 permitted to view the green-turbaned regiments 
 of Bashibazouks, the Nubian Blacks, and Albanian 
 Whites, and the magnificently mounted squadrons 
 of lancers and cavalry. When all the troops have 
 been formed in place, watering-carts appear and 
 sprinkle the road, and then come men in carts 
 with fine gravel, which is carefully distributed 
 along the route, so that there shall be no risk of his 
 
 Majesty's horses losing their footing. Then nu- 
 
 146 
 
. 
 
 
 mm o 
 
 ; | 
 
 J 
 
Constantinople 
 
 merous household servants and eunuchs, bearing 
 the Sultan's prayer-rug and Koran, and various 
 accessories for making his prayers, saunter down 
 the roadway and enter the mosque. Then come 
 broughams full of veiled ladies from the harem, 
 guarded by the chief eunuch, who are driven into 
 the enclosure about the mosque, where the horses 
 are taken from their traps, and they are left boxed 
 up in their broughams to listen to the music of 
 the bands, and to get such a limited view of the 
 proceedings as they may from behind the drawn 
 blinds of their carriages. 
 
 Then comes a long pause, during which all eyes 
 are directed toward the gate through which the 
 Sultan is to appear, and presently an open carriage 
 approaches, in which is seated a little man in a 
 black coat, with a straight collar, without orna- 
 ments or orders, or any distinctive signs of rank 
 or royalty, and wearing an ordinary red fez ; and 
 then the body-guards and the Turkish troops 
 to a man burst into a shout like the explosion of 
 musketry, crying, " Padischahim tchok yacha!" 
 which means " Long live my Sultan ; " and the 
 sorrowful -looking little sovereign, with the pale 
 face, thin dark beard, and a hunted look in his 
 dark, sunken eyes — a remarkable contrast to 
 the strong face of Osman Pacha, the hero of 
 Plevna, who sits opposite him — drives on and 
 
 enters the mosque. After him come six beauti- 
 
 149 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 fully caparisoned horses with gold -embroidered 
 saddle-cloths, led by gorgeously attired grooms, 
 then a small empty landau for his return trip, and 
 then the imperial princes and other high digni- 
 taries ; and when all have entered the mosque 
 the shrill cry of the muezzin, who has been calling 
 his " Allahu Akbar," and the calls to prayers 
 from the minaret, ceases, and for about half an 
 hour the Sultan remains at prayer, while the vis- 
 itors in the guard-house are regaled with coffee 
 and cigarettes as the guests of his Majesty. 
 
 When he comes out from the mosque he steps 
 into a small open landau, drawn by a pair of horses, 
 and, taking the reins in his own hands, drives 
 quickly back through the gate to the palace, the 
 grooms following with the led horses. Then 
 the horses are again hitched to the broughams 
 in the yard, and the ladies of the household are 
 trundled back to the harem after their exciting 
 morning, and the pale little princes, in patent- 
 leather riding boots and tight -fitting uniforms, 
 follow along on their beautiful Arab steeds ; and 
 when all are safely in the palace grounds and the 
 great gates are closed the troops march away, 
 with bands playing and banners filing, and the 
 visitor is allowed to emerge from the guard-house. 
 
 It seems incredible that the ruler of a great 
 nation should be content to live in such seclusion, 
 and through his personal cowardice voluntarily 
 
 15° 
 
Constantinople 
 
 deprive himself of all knowledge of his people 
 and his State, save such as he can gain within the 
 walls of his palace from his ministers and ad- 
 visers. I have been told bv a Turk, who has 
 access to the Sultan and knows him well, that he 
 has often seen his Majesty upon the streets of the 
 city disguised by a false gray beard and followed 
 by one or two faithful attendants, endeavoring to 
 discover for himself the real condition of his cap- 
 ital and his people in the manner of Haroun al 
 Raschid, the Caliph of Bagdad ; but I doubt if this 
 be anything more than a kindly fable devised by 
 a loyal subject to relieve his ruler from the con- 
 tumacy attaching to his timorous behavior. 
 
 Near the Yildiz Kiosk, and connected with it 
 by a bridge over the roadway, is the Palace of 
 Cheragan, where Abdul Hamed's brother and 
 predecessor, the deposed Sultan Murad V., is 
 supposed to be confined, and where Sultan Ab- 
 dul Aziz, the uncle of Murad and Abdul Hamed, 
 died by his own hand a few days after his deposi- 
 tion by his nephew. 
 
 There exists at present good and sufficient rea- 
 son for the Sultan's uneasiness. Revolutionary 
 pamphlets have been found in the mosques of 
 Stamboul, and there are signs of rising Moham- 
 medan discontent, which at any time may break 
 out and release all Islam from the thraldom and 
 taxation to which it is now subject under the 
 
 *53 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 reign of the Osmanli. Considerably less than one- 
 half of the nine hundred thousand inhabitants of 
 
 A Turkish Beggar. 
 
 the city are Moslems, and the Greeks and Arme- 
 nians, of whom there are some three hundred 
 thousand, would at once join in any insurrection 
 
 154 
 
Constantinople 
 
 for the overthrow of the present dynasty. The 
 British squadron lies at the Island of Lemnos, 
 near the entrance of the Dardanelles, and the 
 Russian fleet is anchored near at hand, both pre- 
 pared to enforce the demands of the European 
 governments in regard to the administration in 
 Armenia. These are the problems that the " Com- 
 mander of the Faithful " has to contend with ; and 
 unless he undertakes some radical change in his 
 administration, it is hardly possible that the Otto- 
 man rule in Europe will survive much longer, 
 for the imperial system is drawing the life-blood 
 from his subjects with its heavy burden of taxes. 
 The contrasts in Constantinople between the royal 
 palaces and kiosks and the poverty and squalor 
 of the subjects who support them is distressing, 
 and a visit to the Sultan's treasure-chamber in the 
 old Seraglio, where golden thrones, great emeralds 
 and rubies of fabulous value, wonderful stores of 
 pearls and gems, and heaps of precious stones lie 
 scattered about in the. greatest confusion and neg- 
 lect in dusty drawers and rickety old cabinets 
 with cobwebbed windows, only serves to empha- 
 size the poverty of the wretched streets and the 
 condition of the poor people who are so griev- 
 ously taxed to support the master of this Oriental 
 treasure-house. 
 
 Although the Sultan may not go to Stamboul, 
 the tourist does, for there is little to interest him 
 
 155 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 in the European quarter of Pera or the slums of 
 Galata as compared with the wonderful old city, 
 where all the treasured handiwork of the Orient 
 is stored. There is St. Sophia and the old Serag- 
 lio, the Hippodrome and the Delphic Oracle, the 
 Museum and the Bab-i-Ali, or Sublime Porte— a 
 building- containing the offices of the Prime Min- 
 ister, the Foreign Minister, and the Minister of 
 the Interior. There is the Seraskerat, or War 
 Office, with its great white marble tower, and 
 there, above all, is the Great Bazaar, that ever- 
 fascinating place, where the tourist returns again 
 and again to bargain with Greek or Jew, Turk 
 or Armenian, for some coveted bit of Eastern 
 workmanship which has caught his fancy. The 
 Great Bazaar is a veritable fortress in itself, en- 
 closed by great stone walls and containing a per- 
 fect labyrinth of streets, vaulted over with stone 
 and lighted by innumerable small domes, which 
 shed a dim light throughout the whole interior, 
 which is crowded with little shops brilliant with 
 silks from Damascus, gorgeous hangings from 
 Persia, and multi-colored stuffs from Eastern 
 looms. In the centre is another stronghold of 
 walls within walls, the Bezestan, where the gold- 
 smiths and silversmiths, jewellers and dealers in 
 antiques, porcelains, curiosities, rare arms, silken 
 rugs, and Persian carpets have their stalls. 
 
 Outside the bazaars there are many attractive 
 
 i 5 6 
 
Constantinople 
 
 shops ; one in particular, to which every Ameri- 
 can traveller finds his way, is that where the fa- 
 mous Far-Away-Moses, immortalized by Mark 
 Twain, presides. It is on the Tarakdjilar Han, 
 
 Far-away-Moses at Home. 
 
 which, as Mr. Dan. Daly would say " Is a street ; 
 I don't know the name of it;" and there, if you 
 have the good fortune to know Moses, you may 
 sit for hours while his clerks display his wonder- 
 ful wares for your delectation, and should you be 
 
 J 57 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 there near the hour of noon, Moses may take you 
 to a wonderful Indian room in his establishment, 
 fitted with dark teak-wood and embroidered hang- 
 ings, where he will have you served with a genu- 
 ine Turkish repast, consisting of a pilaf of rice, 
 kebabs, or small squares of mutton roasted on 
 skewers, and mohalebi, a kind of blanc-mange. 
 Then, after tiny cups of fragrant Turkish coffee, 
 he may, as an especial favor, bring forth from their 
 place of safe-keeping in the great fire-proof vaults 
 in the cellar his greatest treasures, some magnifi- 
 cent rugs, valued at from five to ten thousand 
 dollars each, woven in pure silk of wonderful de- 
 sign and most harmonious coloring, and unfold 
 them before your enraptured eyes. 
 
 An hour before sunset the bazaars close and the 
 iron doors are locked and guarded by watchmen, 
 and the stranger within the gates of Stamboul 
 must find his way back to the Galata Bridge ; for 
 the old city, which welcomes him by day, shuns 
 him at night, and so he joins that wonderful stream 
 of picturesque humanity which pours over the 
 great bridge, second only to London Bridge in 
 all the world for its traffic, and climbs the hill of 
 Pera, past the tumble-down graveyard and the 
 municipal gardens, to his hotel. 
 
 Even Europeanized Pera has little to offer in 
 the way of amusement after dark. On the Grand 
 Rue de Pera there are several German beer-halls, 
 
 i=;8 
 
Constantinople 
 
 one of which has a carload of beer three times 
 each week sent direct from Munich, and there are 
 several so-called theatres, which usually mask 
 
 The Galata Bridge. 
 159 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 notoriously crooked roulette wheels. One of the 
 leading places of this description is the Theatre 
 Concordia, in which the greater part of the audi- 
 ence seems to assemble in the easily accessible 
 green-room, where the ladies who sing chanson- 
 ettes are waiting their turns. Bej^ond the green- 
 room is a dressing-room, hung with costumes, 
 where a mysterious panel in the wall slides back 
 and admits you to a room where red-fezzed Turks 
 and foreigners of every nationality tempt the 
 Goddess of Fortune at a wheel so delicately con- 
 stituted that you may see it shiver with delight 
 when a gold piece is placed on the red, and al- 
 most lose its equilibrium in its haste to deposit 
 the little ball safely in a black or double-zero com- 
 partment. So, with only these questionable pleas- 
 ures to choose from, the stranger as a rule keeps 
 to his hotel in the evening, and if he has been 
 under the care of an energetic dragoman, he is 
 generally content to do so, as the steep hills of 
 Pera and the noisy, ill-paved streets of the old 
 city make a day's sight-seeing a tiresome task. 
 
 How much longer this ancient capital, with its 
 wonderful vitality and its heterogeneous popula- 
 tion, composed of almost every nationality in the 
 world, the key of Europe and the bone of conten- 
 tion of the European powers, can remain under 
 the Ottoman rule is one of the questions of the 
 day. The Turks have a proverb, " Rather the 
 
 1 60 
 
Constantinople 
 
 gallows than exile ; " and although the boats 
 of the Sultan's navy, which lie rotting in the 
 Golden Horn, are little better than a lot of old 
 coal barges, there is no doubt that the Turk will 
 fight desperately and well to retain his European 
 possessions if put to the test, but a struggle against 
 the combined powers of Europe could only end 
 in one way, and then, sorrowfully and reluctantly, 
 as the Moors left Granada, would the Turk aban- 
 don the ancient capital which he wrested from 
 the Christians nearly five hundred years ago and 
 has guarded so zealously ever since, and take his 
 way to some new capital in Asia Minor, thus 
 withdrawing the last stronghold of Mohamme- 
 dan rule from Europe. 
 
 161 
 
VII 
 THE SWEET WATERS OF EUROPE 
 
 From the top windows of the Hotel Bristol, in 
 Pera, which overlook the municipal gardens, 
 a wonderful panorama is extended before you. 
 On your left is gray Stamboul, with the tower of 
 the old Seraglio and the rounded dome and slen- 
 der minarets of the Agia~ Sophia sharply outlined 
 against the blue waters of Marmora and the pur- 
 ple Islands of the Princes in the background. As 
 your eye follows the line of mosques, minarets, 
 fantastic houses and broken walls on the curve of 
 the Golden Horn toward Eyoub, the sacred city, 
 the background changes to low, rolling hills, at 
 the base of which the dark cypresses of the Turk- 
 ish cemeteries make a sombre shadow. Farther 
 on, at the very tip of the Horn, where it is fed by 
 the waters of the Kiat Khaneh, or paper-mill river, 
 you may catch a glimpse of a cool, shaded valley 
 surrounded by fresh green fields of clover and 
 the verdant slopes of the low hills. 
 
 " Truly I know of no fairer or sweeter resting- 
 place in life's journey than the Valley of the Sweet 
 
 162 
 
A Bend in the River. 
 
The Sweet Waters of Europe 
 
 Waters above the Golden Horn," writes a travel- 
 ler who has journeyed to many pleasant places, 
 and this fair recommendation makes the Sweet 
 Waters of Europe one of the objective points of 
 every tourist fortunate enough to be in Constan- 
 tinople during the warm spring days, when this 
 resort is the most frequented. 
 
 To be in the fashion you should drive out there 
 in a smart trap and join the fashionable cavalcade 
 which moves slowly along the wide shaded road at 
 the side of the river as solemnly and as seriously 
 as the long lines of stolid English men and women 
 who are exhibited by their coachmen each after- 
 noon during the season in Hyde Park for the 
 amusement and delectation of the humble pedes- 
 trian. However, the very fact that you can do 
 this in Rotten Row, or the Bois de Boulogne, or 
 the Prater, or Central Park may decide you to 
 try a more novel method of conveyance. Then 
 you may make the acquaintance of a Turkish kai'k. 
 
 Entering the mouth of a tunnel, a few minutes' 
 walk from the hotel, for one piastre you are 
 quickly slid down the hill to Galata, and, making 
 your w T ay to the boat station near the end of the 
 famous Galata Bridge, you will find an assort- 
 ment of ka'iks awaiting, and you may commence 
 your bargain for the trip, as this is not a country 
 of fixed prices, and you must bargain before you 
 buy or you will be imposed upon. 
 
 *6 5 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 The Turkish kaik is the lightest, swiftest, 
 strongest, most comfortable, and most beautiful 
 boat in the world, and you first attain the knowl- 
 edge of perfect motion on the water when you 
 lean back on the comfortable cushions and your 
 white-clad kai'kjis bend their backs to the light 
 and beautifully balanced oars. These oars have 
 long, slender blades, cut in the shape of a crescent 
 at the ends, while great rounded bulbs just below 
 the handles balance the weight of the blades. 
 There are no oar-locks, the oar being passed 
 through a thong of rawhide which is fastened to 
 a single pin driven in the gunwale, and a liberal 
 application of tallow at the point of contact ren- 
 ders the stroke absolutely noiseless and without a 
 jerk at the beginning or end, as the oar slides eas- 
 ily through the thong. 
 
 Comfortably settled among the cushions at the 
 bottom of the boat, you glide along through a 
 busy throng of puffing little steamers and innu- 
 merable small craft, past the inner bridge and the 
 great useless hulks which constitute the Turkish 
 navy, some of which are being reconstructed and 
 modernized, most of them, however, being inca- 
 pable of leaving their anchorages. 
 
 After passing the limits of old Stamboul, on 
 your left you see the vast cemetery and the 
 sacred mosque of Eyoub, which marks the spot 
 where thirty thousand Arabs fell outside the walls 
 
 166 
 
The Sweet Waters of Europe 
 
 of the old city in the first siege. None but Mos- 
 lems are allowed within this mosque, and the 
 sword of the Prophet, with which the Sultan is 
 invested on his accession to the throne, is kept 
 here. 
 
 Now the stream narrows and turns toward 
 the north, and you see before you green fields 
 flanked by the distant hills, while around you the 
 water is enlivened by numerous ka'iks filled with 
 Turkish women carrying bright-colored parasols 
 and attired in the most brilliant ferejeh, purple, 
 red, blue, pink, yellow — in short, every shade and 
 gradation of color known to the Oriental dye- 
 maker — presenting a perfect kaleidoscope of 
 changing color ; for this is Friday afternoon, the 
 Moslem Sunday, and all the world is out, hurry- 
 ing to the Sweet Waters, where they can see and 
 be seen. 
 
 As you go on the water constantly narrows 
 
 and broadens again ; now, where the banks are 
 
 close together and confined by masonry, you pass 
 
 between rows of Turkish women squatting along 
 
 the banks, with their yashmaks carefully drawn 
 
 over their faces, but apparently indifferent to a 
 
 considerable display of ankle ; then you shoot out 
 
 into a broad lagoon and engage in the universal 
 
 race to be first at the next of the narrow places 
 
 spanned by wooden bridges. Navigation ends 
 
 shortly before you come to the Imperial Kiosk, 
 
 167 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 of white marble, beside which you can see, gleam- 
 ing- through the trees, the single minaret and 
 dome of a small mosque. On the shore, lining 
 
 Turkish Woman wearing the Yashmak or Veil. 
 
 the banks of the stream for half a mile or more, 
 are gay pavilions, arbors, and tents, while moving 
 about among the crowd are pedlers of ices and 
 fruits — Turkish delight — queer tasteless wafers, 
 
The Sweet Waters of Europe 
 
 and roasted pistache nuts. As you stroll along 
 under the trees by the booths of the lemonade and 
 coffee sellers you encounter picturesque groups 
 
 The Sultan's Kiosk. 
 
 squatted in the shade and plying their various 
 trades. Dark-skinned gypsy women, clad in 
 blue and white, with flowers in their hair, are 
 singing, weaving romantic tales, or telling for- 
 tunes for curious pleasure- seekers. Turkish 
 
 169 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 musicians pound industriously on little tom- 
 toms and blow monotonously on pipes of reed 
 or draw plaintive notes from cracked violins. 
 Two old, turbaned Arabs are doing the familiar 
 juggling trick of the three metal cones and the 
 disappearing corks, meanwhile jabbering away 
 
 in a queer monotone to attract 
 attention to their skill. 
 
 A snake charmer evokes a 
 weird sound from the long pipe 
 w which he holds to his lips, while 
 
 Gypsy Women Singing. 
 170 
 
The Sweet Waters of Europe 
 
 a small hooded cobra raises his head in obedience 
 to the call, and an assistant near by pulls a tangle 
 of snakes from a bag by their tails to have them 
 
 The Turkish Arsenal- 
 
 ready for the next feat of the performer. Farther 
 down, where the crowd is not so great, a party 
 of young men, known as " Young Turkey," who 
 affect European costume and manners, are danc- 
 ing a quadrille with some Greek girls, and lor 
 
 i 7 i 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 lack of instrumental music are singing a Turkish 
 air as they dance. A little way back in the fields 
 is a picturesque arsenal, with the red flags and 
 crescents of the Ottoman Empire flying from its 
 
 Under the Trees. 
 
 towers, and close by is a government cavalry 
 school, where you may see some beautiful Arab 
 horses, and where every afternoon small boys 
 and cadets are drilled under the direction of 
 Turkish officers, who do not scruple to lay a 
 smart stroke of their heavy riding-whips over 
 the shoulders of inattentive pupils. Farther up, 
 beyond the white marble kiosk of the Sultan, 
 where brilliant peacocks strut about beneath the 
 
 trees and white swans sail silently about the lake, 
 
 172 
 
The Sweet Waters of Europe 
 
 commences the promenade, which extends along 
 the bank of the stream under an avenue of 
 magnificent trees as far as Kiat Khaneh Keni, or 
 paper-mill village. Here, on every Friday after- 
 noon, come the wealthy and fashionable Turkish 
 women in perfectly appointed closed carriages, 
 with dusky drivers and black eunuchs on every 
 box to drive and guard them. The division of 
 the sexes is complete ; a wife must not be seen 
 with her husband, a mother with her son, or a 
 sister with her brother, but men and women must 
 go in separate conveyances. Here it is that the 
 Turk has one of the few opportunities of re- 
 garding from afar the lady of his love. As the 
 carriages wheel slowly by batteries of eyes are 
 turned upon the fair occupants, who, denied the 
 privileges of speaking in public, have learned to 
 use their eyes so effectively as to render speech 
 entirely superfluous for purposes of flirtation. 
 Of course, these beauties of the harems are veiled, 
 but so artfully do they contrive the gossamer 
 coverings for their faces that the transparent 
 gauze enhances rather than conceals their charms, 
 and in the instances where complexion and 
 coloring is a work of art and not of nature the 
 softening influence of the veil imparts an ap- 
 pearance of bewildering and bewitching beauty 
 which possibly does not exist. For two hours 
 or more the promenaders move slowly up and 
 
 173 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 down, those on foot pressing up near the road- 
 way or loitering under the trees, where they 
 
 Araba or Turkish Wagon. 
 
 can command the best view of the occupants of 
 the carriages, the most inquisitive sometimes 
 incurring a frown from the black lala on the box ; 
 
 174 
 
The Sweet Waters of Europe 
 
 while on the farther side of the road the women 
 of the humbler classes squat like toads along the 
 low wall of masonry and enviously view their 
 wealthier sisters. Farther up, on a hill overlook- 
 ing the promenade, you may see one or two gen- 
 uine Turkish arabas or wagons of carved and 
 gilded wood, drawn by teams of bullocks, having 
 arches hung with various-sized bells over their 
 shoulders, and freighted with Turkish women 
 from the country, who have come to see the more 
 fashionable but less picturesque equipages of 
 their city cousins. 
 
 Toward sunset, when the carriages are hurrying 
 back to the city, you make your way back toward 
 the landing-place, stopping long enough for a cup 
 of the fragrant coffee which is bubbling over a 
 charcoal brazier beneath an arbor. Then when 
 you have found your kaik and your stalwart kaik- 
 jis have laid aside their short blue jackets em- 
 broidered with silver crescents, you may light a 
 Turkish cigarette and dispose yourself comfort- 
 ably among the cushions at the bottom of the 
 boat and glide swiftly along with the home-bound 
 kaiks filled with laughing people and rivalling the 
 sunset in their brilliant coloring. 
 
 Nowhere in the world is there a more entranc- 
 ing sight, and you will float home with a picture 
 in your mind of dark eyes and shy glances, of red 
 lips and sweet voices, of veils and yashmaks, of 
 
 175 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 rainbow colors of satins and silks, of marble pal- 
 aces and slender minarets, of cool waters and 
 green fields, of quaint music and soft laughter, 
 that you will remember all your days and that 
 will renew your faith in the stories of the "Ara- 
 bian Nights." 
 
 " Blessed shall he be who shall take Constanti- 
 nople," said the Prophet. More blessed is he, 
 you may echo, who in these peaceful times may 
 glide along the Sweet Waters of Europe, seeing 
 on either side the bronzed and frank-faced Turks 
 enjoying their simple amusements or smoking 
 their peaceful narghilis in dreamy content, watch- 
 ing the setting sun as it throws a rosy light over 
 the dancing waters of the Golden Horn and tips 
 the slender minarets with flame, and as the color 
 fades from the water you may catch the faint 
 echo of the muezzin's call to prayer, and dusky 
 figures along the shore turn toward Mecca and 
 prostrate themselves, thanking Allah that they 
 are one day nearer to the groves and cool waters 
 and everlasting gardens that the Prophet has 
 promised for the faithful. 
 
 176 
 
VIII 
 SMYRNA AND SALONICA 
 
 Smyrna, the great commercial centre of Asia 
 Minor, is one of the oldest ports of the world. 
 The steamers that call there turn from the 
 ^Egean Sea into the broad Gulf of Smyrna, and 
 churn slowly along toward the south until they 
 reach an old red light-ship, which marks a turn 
 where the gulf narrows ; then, passing between 
 some indifferent fortifications on either side until 
 they come to where, circling the end of the gulf, 
 are seen the white domes and slender minarets of 
 one of the most ancient cities in existence. Ris- 
 ing behind the city is a semicircle of dark cy- 
 press-covered hills, throwing the white houses 
 and rounded domes into sharp relief, while along 
 the shore stretches a great stone quay, curving 
 gracefully along the entire water-front in a way 
 somewhat reminiscent of Naples. 
 
 Smyrna shows surprisingly few traces of antiq- 
 uity. On the hills high above the town tower 
 the ruins of an old Roman citadel and the re- 
 mains of a great wall, but in the city itself there 
 
 177 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 is little or nothing in the way of architecture or 
 even fragments which would suggest that the 
 city was not entirely modern and common-place. 
 Of the two hundred thousand inhabitants there 
 are more Greeks than Turks, while about fifteen 
 
 Approaching Smyrna. 
 
 thousand are Levantines — a mixture of European, 
 Greek, and Jewish blood, which produces the 
 most beautiful women in the East. There are 
 European hotels along the quays, where every 
 
 one speaks English, and Turkish bazaars in the 
 
 178 
 
Smyrna and Salonica 
 
 narrow streets back from the water, where every 
 one speaks Turkish. The bazaars are not as in- 
 teresting as in most Oriental cities, as Smyrna 
 does not produce or manufacture anything, but is 
 simply a port of outlet for the produce and mer- 
 chandise of other places, and most of the things 
 that are shown in the dingy little shops on the 
 dirty, narrow streets are seen in greater variety 
 and to better advantage elsewhere. 
 
 Modern European carriages are to be had for 
 hire, and for a stipulated number of piastres you 
 can be driven about the town in a rickety vehicle, 
 over the worst-paved streets in the world, with 
 the windows rattling and the whole equipage 
 plunging about like a boat in a heavy sea, as the 
 wheels slip down into great ravines or jump over 
 the small bowlders with which the streets are 
 paved. The street scenes are the most interest- 
 ing feature of the city. Venders of figs, raisins, 
 and Turkish paste cry their wares in the narrow 
 alleys, and butchers go from house to house, 
 where the handsome, dark-eyed Levantine women 
 loiter in the doorways, and halt their peripatetic 
 meat-shops, which consist of small donkeys, 
 whose heads and tails barely show at either end 
 of great boards in the shape of an inverted V 
 which are strapped upon their backs, and upon 
 either side of which is hung the dealer's entire 
 
 stock in trade of spring lamb, shoulders of mut- 
 
 179 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 ton, and roasts of beef, enabling the housekeeper 
 to select any cut she may wish at her door. Tur- 
 baned Mohammedans from the country lead 
 grave, patient, and dignified-looking Asiatic 
 camels, laden with figs and spices, through the 
 streets to the warehouses, the vicinity of which 
 can be detected by a pungent odor, which recalls 
 to your mind the fact that Smyrna is the centre 
 of the drug trade of the world ; and wherever the 
 eye turns it meets some unfamiliar spectacle or 
 bit of barbaric color to remind you that you are 
 in the Orient. 
 
 Probably every one who went to the Chicago 
 
 Upper Harbor, Smyrna. 
 
 Fair remembers Alfred Melloni, the Great Zei- 
 beck, who strutted about the Turkish village in 
 a wonderful costume, consisting principally of a 
 
Smyrna and Salonica 
 
 remarkable collection of yatagans and silver- 
 handled pistols and curved scimitars, which 
 covered his entire front, and gave him the appear- 
 
 Houses in the Turkish Quarter. 
 
 ance of a walking arsenal, an effect which was 
 somewhat softened, however, by the display of his 
 pudgy bare knees below. Alfred has given up 
 this martial raiment with which he dazzled the 
 unsophisticated inhabitants of the Western hemi- 
 sphere, and arrayed in a frock-coat and a square- 
 topped brown Derby, with his nether limbs 
 encased in the less spectacular trousers of civiliza- 
 tion, he boards each incoming steamer and offers 
 his services as a guide to Smyrna and Ephesus. 
 
 The best view of Smyrna is to be had from 
 the old Roman citadel at the crest of Mount 
 Pagus, a steep hill behind the town. Driving 
 out past the great Mohammedan cemetery, 
 where turbaned head -stones lean in all direc- 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 tions, or lie prostrate under the cypress-trees, 
 you pass little coffee -shops and cafes, where 
 drowsy Turks sit placidly drawing on their 
 narghilis, until you come to the foot of a hill, 
 so steep that the carriage can go no farther. 
 Here you mount sure-footed little donkeys, 
 which toil patiently up the sharp ascent, till you 
 stand upon the ruined walls, which overlook the 
 whole city and harbor, and enjoy a view well 
 worth the trouble of the climb, although your 
 enjoyment of the 
 jaunt may be some- 
 what abated on the 
 return trip, when 
 your donkey consti- 
 tutes himself into an 
 animate toboggan 
 and slides most of 
 
 Turkish Graveyard and Mosque. 
 182 
 
Q- 
 
Smyrna and Salonica 
 
 the way down the hill in an alarmingly reckless 
 fashion. 
 
 An hour and a quarter from Smyrna by ex- 
 press train on the Aidin Railway is the little 
 
 The Cave of the Seven Sleepers. 
 
 village of Ayasalouk, the station for Ephesus, a 
 pleasant ride in a most comfortable modern rail- 
 way carriage, over a route leading through fer- 
 tile fields and pastures, where many flocks of 
 sheep and herds of goats are tended by pictur- 
 esque shepherds in long robes. Near the station 
 
 185 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 passes the line of a great Roman aqueduct which 
 carried water from the mountains across the 
 plains to Ephesus. Many of the arches are de- 
 stroyed, but a long line of columns remain, upon 
 
 How Brigands are treated. 
 
 which a great colony of storks have built their 
 nests, and gravely stand upon one leg, on the 
 tops of the high columns, in silent and motionless 
 contemplation of the ruins of the great city, as 
 though the souls of some of the ancient philoso- 
 phers had entered their bodies, and returned to 
 gaze in solemn meditation on the desolate scene 
 of their earthly greatness, where once the great 
 Temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the 
 world, reared its proud walls. Here, in this val- 
 ley, were the fabled haunts of Pan and Bacchus ; 
 here Hercules wrought his wonderful deeds ; 
 here were born Apollo and Diana; and here you 
 
Smyrna and Salonica 
 
 may see to-day the Cave of the Seven Sleepers. 
 Now, the great temple is little more than a hole 
 in the ground, with broken slabs and columns of 
 discolored marble, and here and there a frag- 
 ment of a beautifully carved capital, lying about 
 to testify to its former magnificence. 
 
 In the mountains about Smyrna lurk a number 
 of brigands, whose depredations have been ren- 
 dered less frequent in late years, owing to the 
 summary punishment dealt them by the Turkish 
 
 A Warning to Malefactors. 
 
 authorities, who do not stop to try them for 
 their offences, but cut off their heads, and exhibit 
 them to the public in the prison-yard at Smyrna, 
 as a warning to all lawlessly inclined citizens, 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 or stick them high up on the points of the iron 
 railing, as a caution to their fellows in the hills 
 behind the town, whose keen eyes may easily dis- 
 cern this ghastly exhibition of Turkish justice. 
 
 The steamers that leave Smyrna carry a curi- 
 ous lot of passengers on the forward deck, as 
 it is the great port of embarkation for all the 
 picturesque inhabitants of Asia Minor. Here, 
 huddled together in picturesque groups, are 
 Eastern merchants with bales of silks and rugs 
 for the bazaars in Constantinople ; green and 
 white-turbaned Moslems ; Egyptian officers and 
 soldiers ; Ethiopian maids in feridjees of plum- 
 colored silk ; negroes from the Soudan ; venders 
 of lemonade, with huge glass bottles, or tankards 
 of copper and brass strapped over their should- 
 ers, and brass trays at their waists with four 
 glasses and a place for money ; sellers of curious 
 rolls, pastry and figs ; men in Turkish trousers ; 
 and men in long silk robes ; Mohammedans at 
 prayer; men in jackets of brocade gay with 
 roses; all surrounded by bundles of bedding, 
 multi-colored rugs, and gaily painted tin trunks, 
 and all bound on their various errands to that 
 wonderful city, the Turks' great European capi- 
 tal, Constantinople. 
 
 The steamers of the Messageries Maritimes, 
 which call at all the important ports on the Med- 
 iterranean from Marseilles to Beyrout, take from 
 
 190 
 
Smyrna and Salonica 
 
 eighteen to twent) T hours on the run from Smyrna 
 to Salonica, which, after Constantinople, is the 
 most important city of European Turkey. As 
 you enter the beautiful harbor at the end of the 
 great gulf, shut in on all sides by the shadowy 
 forms of great mountains in the distance, the city 
 rises before you, built tier upon tier on the slope 
 of the hills, like a huge amphitheatre, with its 
 boundaries defined by the line of an ancient wall 
 which springs from the sides of a ruined citadel 
 perched high on the hill behind, and makes its 
 way gradually down to the water-front on either 
 side of the old town. 
 
 At one extremity of the great stone quay, 
 which stretches along the entire water-front, is 
 an old white battlemented tower, surrounded by 
 strong walls, known as the Genoese Tower and 
 called by the Turks Kauli-Kule, or Tower of 
 Blood. Behind the quay the modern tramway, 
 with busy cars running to and fro, does much to 
 destroy the Eastern atmosphere of the place, 
 forcing you to close your eyes to this feature of 
 the foreground and look only at the tapering 
 minarets of the mosques and the domes of the an- 
 cient Christian churches beyond, before you can 
 belieye that you are really in an Oriental port. 
 To the student of ecclesiastical architecture these 
 old churches, now conyerted into Mohammedan 
 
 mosques, are most interesting. The old basilica 
 
 191 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 of St. Demetrius, where the saint, who was mur- 
 dered in his cell, is entombed, has some fine col- 
 umns and wonderfully carved marble capitals, 
 the beauty of which however has been destroyed 
 by the Mohammedans, who have painted them a 
 light terra-cotta color. In this church is also the 
 tomb of the daughter of one of the Greek emper- 
 ors, and a small round hole at the head of the 
 great stone sarcophagus is pointed out, which, 
 according to a grewsome tradition, was made by 
 a serpent who crawled in and ate away her eyes. 
 The mosque of St. George, another of the early 
 Christian churches, which is probably over fif- 
 teen hundred years old, contains some beautiful 
 mosaics in the dome and chapel ceilings, which, 
 have been ruthlessly and wretchedly restored by 
 an Italian who has painted his name prominently 
 in several places, and added the date 1889 to bear 
 witness to his vulgar modern handiwork. 
 
 Beyond the old churches there is little of inter- 
 est in modern Thessalonica. There is a dilapi- 
 dated arch of Constantine, and there is an old 
 stone pulpit from which St. Paul is said to have 
 preached, although there is every reason to sup- 
 pose that it was not built until hundreds of years 
 after his death. After having seen all these 
 things, it will repay the incredulous traveller to 
 climb the hill to the citadel above the town, and 
 
 enjoy the grand view of the city and harbor, with 
 
 192 
 
CD 
 
Smyrna and Salonica 
 
 the snow-capped summit of grand old Mount Olym- 
 pus, the throne of Jove and abiding-place of all 
 the gods, looming up majestically in the distance ; 
 or, if you wish to spend an hour or two in the 
 bazaars, you may iind vour way to the queer 
 little shop of Osman, the dealer in antiquities, 
 in the " Tellal Tcharchoussi," and bargain with 
 him for his rare bits of embroidery and quaint 
 silver-handled pistols and cartridge-boxes. What- 
 ever is choice and rare in his collection the 
 shrewd old Turk will permit you to glance at for 
 a moment, and then he will jealously cover it up 
 and put it out of the way, as though nothing in 
 the world would tempt him to sell it ; and should 
 you ask to see it again he will shake his head 
 and sav " too — much— money," as though he him- 
 self were reluctant to name the exorbitant figure 
 which alone would induce him to part with it ; 
 and then the wily old merchant will proceed to 
 show you all the cheap trash in his shop until 
 you resolve that you must have the " too-much- 
 money " articles at any price, and when once you 
 begin to bargain for them on that basis, you mav 
 be sure that it will not be Osman who will get 
 the worst of the transaction, no matter what con- 
 cessions he mav grant in the matter of price on 
 the treasures of Oriental workmanship which you 
 carry back to vour steamer with vou. 
 
 195 
 
IX 
 
 BEYROUT AND DAMASCUS 
 
 AT twilight, one day in April, a rickety little 
 four-wheeled yellow omnibus, drawn by a 
 spike team of two horses and a mule, drew up in 
 front of a cheery looking little stone inn at Shtora, 
 and two hungry and weary travellers stretched 
 their legs with a sigh of relief, and proceeded at 
 once to ascertain the earliest possible moment at 
 which they could be served with dinner. 
 
 All the early part of the day w r e had been toil- 
 ing slowly up the Lebanon Mountains, leaving 
 behind us the vineyards and great plantations of 
 fig, olive, pomegranate and mulberry trees in the 
 beautiful valley behind Beyrout, where the apri- 
 cots were in full bloom and scarlet poppies lined 
 the roadside. As we wound upward on the tor- 
 tuous road, Beyrout spread itself below us, a glit- 
 tering little white city projecting into the Med- 
 iterranean. From time to time we passed pictur- 
 esque little stone villas, almost hidden in foliage, 
 where some of the richer people of Beyrout find 
 
 a cool resort for the hot summer months. Finally 
 
 196 
 
Beyrout and Damascus 
 
 we reach a turn in the road which brings us to 
 where the mountain makes a sheer descent to the 
 wild valley beneath, a great, cold, gray cloud en- 
 velopes us, the picture below is obscured, and 
 nothing can be seen but the shadowy form of an 
 eagle wheeling silently above us in the chill, 
 misty atmosphere. Then we pull our great coats 
 about us and make our way through a foot of 
 snow toward the descent on the other side of the 
 mountain. As we emerge from the mist we hear 
 a jangling of bells and see the lead mule of a 
 small caravan corning slowly up the slope, with 
 an American flag flying from a staff stuck in the 
 pack - saddle ; behind follow other mules and 
 rough little pack-horses laden with rugs, bundles 
 of silks, Arab spears and curiously inlaid guns, 
 the spoils of a tourist who rides behind with his 
 dragoman. In front of us is Mount Hermon, 
 streaked with white ravines where the snow lies 
 thick, called by the Arabs, Jebel esh-Shekh, 
 or mountain of the old man. As we approach 
 Shtora the wonderful valley of the Lebanon opens 
 out before us, as variegated and brilliant in color 
 as an oriental embroidery or a Bokhara carpet ; 
 beyond rises the long misty blue range of the 
 anti-Lebanons, while below the fertile valley 
 spreads before us like a map, with silver streams 
 of water running through the freshly turned, red 
 
 fields, irrigating the orchards of figs, olives, apri- 
 
 199 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 cots and pomegranates, and the great vineyards 
 which supply the famous Shtora wine. 
 
 At dinner we had the company of a Caucasian 
 engineer, Ibrahim Edhem, by name, employed in 
 the construction of the new railroad which was 
 being laid between Bevrout and Damascus, a 
 picturesque figure in a long black coat tightly 
 belted in at the waist, high Russian boots, and 
 tall astrachan cap, with a bright steel military axe 
 in his belt. 
 
 We had finished dinner and were smoking 
 our pipes in a cool balcony with pointed stone 
 arches which overlooked the road, when a train 
 of four large, wooden .covered wagons or cars, 
 each drawn by a team of six well-built mules and 
 escorted bv a company of Turkish soldiers, drew 
 up in front of the inn and made preparation for 
 their night's halt. It was the money-train sent 
 each vear by the Sultan, from Constantinople to 
 Mecca, and the wagons were loaded with silver 
 coin to be distributed among the needy pilgrims 
 who made the journey to the holv shrine. The 
 mules were quicklv led awav to the stables, little 
 fires were lighted near the baggage-wagons, and 
 soon the whole party, with the exception of three 
 or four of the soldiers who stood on guard, were 
 en]oying a savory stew of rice and chopped meat. 
 After dinner, one bv one thev climbed in turn to 
 the flat roofs of the money-wagons, their dark 
 
Beyrout and Damascus 
 
 figures silhouetted against the stables opposite, 
 and, spreading their rugs and turning their faces 
 in the direction of Mecca, silently performed the 
 genuflections of Mohammedan prayer. This was 
 our first glimpse of the great Syrian pilgrimage, 
 which leaves Damascus each year in the month 
 Shawwal, following the fast of Ramadan, and 
 makes its way painfully, slowly, and laboriously 
 over the more than nine hundred miles of desert 
 which lie between Damascus and Mecca. 
 
 The money-train departed the next morning at 
 daylight, but the morning diligence brought more 
 faithful Moslems who spread their rugs by the 
 roadside and prayed, while the tired horses were 
 being exchanged for fresh ones that would take 
 them another stage on the way to Damascus. 
 
 Leaving Shtora in the morning at daybreak for 
 Baalbek, we drove up the beautiful valley of the 
 Lebanons, gay with wild flowers and fresh spring 
 verdure, and set in the midst of a great arena of 
 unreal and unsubstantial looking blue mountains 
 with white summits, which somehow gave the 
 impression of being painted in on the background 
 for a sort of theatrical, scenic effect. At a sharp 
 turn in the road we came upon a gazelle which 
 ran before us for a mile or more scarcely seem- 
 ing to touch its feet to the ground as it went 
 springing along. A few miles to the north of 
 Shtora lies Kerak Nuh, where the tomb oi the 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 patriarch Noah is shown. The grave in which 
 the ancient mariner lies is more than one hun- 
 dred and thirty feet long, but even this extreme 
 
 The Great Columns. Baalbek. 
 
 longitude does not satisfy the Arab guides, who 
 evidently believe that there were great men in 
 those days, and maintain that if the patriarch had 
 
Beyrout and Damascus 
 
 not been buried with his knees bent and his feet 
 extending downwards, his grave would not have 
 been less than one hundred and fifty feet in 
 length. A five hours' drive brings us within sight 
 of the ruins of Baalbek the Magnificent — the 
 
 Illustrating the Diameter of a Fallen Column. 
 
 "City of the Sun" and the " God of the Valley," 
 where stands the massive masonry and wonder- 
 fully beautiful columns of the most glorious ruin 
 in the world. 
 
 High above the ruins of the great temple six- 
 huge columns raise their heads. The suns of 
 
 203 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 man}- centuries have ripened them to a mellow 
 golden color. Not in the whole world is there 
 anything more beautiful than these gigantic pil- 
 lars of stone springing from the plain grandly 
 defying the ravages of time which has laid low 
 fifty of their fellows that once stood beside them 
 forming the peristyle of the great temple. 
 
 In the enclosing wall, at a height of about 
 twenty feet above the ground, are three gigan- 
 tic blocks of stone — the largest ever used in 
 building. They measure respectively 64 feet, 
 63^ feet, and 62 feet in length, and are each 13 
 feet high and 13 feet thick. This part of the 
 structure is ascribed to the Phoenicians ; but 
 when and how these great stones were put in 
 place will probably always remain one of the 
 great mysteries of the world. 
 
 The Arabs have a tradition that it was built 
 by Cain as a refuge from the wrath of Jehovah, 
 and that after the flood, when Nimrod ruled over 
 Lebanon, he sent giants to rebuild it. It is also 
 referred to by Arab historians as the tower of Ba- 
 bel and the Temple of Solomon. 
 
 Whatever its origin, it stands to-day the most 
 beautiful and impressive ruin in the world, so sat- 
 isfying in its grandeur that even the traveller fresh 
 from Egypt and the Pyramids looks with awe and 
 amazement upon its cyclopean proportions. 
 
 From Baalbek we drove back to Shtora, where 
 
 204 
 
(3 
 
Beyrout and Damascus 
 
 Ave resumed our journey to Damascus. On leav- 
 ing Shtora after crossing the valley we climbed the 
 steep slopes of the anti-Lebanons, and rode along 
 for miles through a wild, rockv canon, finally de- 
 scending rapidly toward the Wady Barada, the 
 valley of that beautiful river, the Barada, or 
 Abana, the joy and pride of the Syrians, which 
 occupies in their affections to-day the same high 
 place that it did of old when Naaman, the leper, 
 cried to Elisha's messenger, " Are not Abana and 
 Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the 
 waters of Israel?" and, unless the character of 
 the streams has greatly changed since that time, 
 Elisha's messenger must have been constrained 
 to answer in the affirmative as he looked on the 
 fresh, sparkling stream of the Abana, shining 
 amongst the luxurious vegetation of the beau- 
 tiful valley, and compared it with the turbulent 
 and muddy waters of the Jordan, rushing along 
 on its way to the Dead Sea. 
 
 As we approach Damascus the waters of the 
 Barada are divided and led away through many 
 channels, and numerous conduits at different 
 levels convey the water to all parts of the city. 
 On the left, at the back of the village Es-Salahi- 
 yeh, rises the barren Jebel Kasiun, where Adam 
 is supposed to have lived, and where, according 
 to Arab tradition, the boclv of the murdered Abel 
 
 was hidden in a cavern. 
 
 207 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 Presently we pass an old mill on the right, and 
 then the road leads for a long distance between 
 pleasant gardens, where drowsy Arabs are con- 
 tentedly smoking their narghilis in the shade of 
 the citron and pomegranate trees near the banks 
 of the rushing stream, and then a turn in the road 
 reveals the distant minarets and the white-domed 
 khans of Damascus gleaming in the sunlight. As 
 we go on, we pass on our right the Merj, a large, 
 open field on the banks of the Abana, where Arab, 
 Bedouin, and Turkish riders are exhibiting their 
 wonderful horsemanship in the game of throwing 
 the djerid. Finally we pass the Tekkiyeh, an old 
 dervish monastery, and draw up in front of a 
 small hotel with stucco walls and a very uninvit- 
 ing looking exterior, and our journey for the day 
 is over. 
 
 Toward the close of Ramadan, the month of 
 fasting, Damascus begins to take on a holiday 
 appearance, and the bazaars are crowded with 
 strange people from the deserts, and pilgrims 
 who have come to join the caravan which starts 
 about a week after the three days' feast of Bei- 
 ram is over. 
 
 The principal bazaars are in the " Street called 
 
 Straight," spoken of in the Bible, a long, covered 
 
 roadway with an arched roof, leading from the 
 
 citadel to the old city wall, near to the house of 
 
 Ananias, and to the place where St. Paul is sup- 
 
 208 
 
Be} rout and Damascus 
 
 posed to have made his escape from Damascus. 
 From this street narrow arteries lead in every 
 direction, all peopled with picturesque humanity, 
 from the Shekh in silk kaftan, to the beggar in 
 
 Tomb of Saladin in Damascus. 
 
 sackcloth, or the tattooed, unveiled Bedouin 
 woman from the desert, all buying or begging 
 something to make merry with in the coming 
 
 three days' feast. Venders of merchandise of 
 
 209 
 
i he Edge of the Orient 
 
 every description are crying their wares in shrill 
 voices. A man selling- cresses cries, " Eat of my 
 cresses, oh ye old women, and become young 
 again," while a flower-seller points to his bouquets 
 and says, " salih hamatak," which means " appease 
 your mother-in-law." Little cooking-shops ex- 
 hale the savory odor of kebabs — little cubes of 
 mutton and fat — which are being roasted on 
 skewers over charcoal fires. Sellers of khushaf, a 
 drink prepared from raisins, oranges, and apricots, 
 and cooled with snow from the Lebanons, are 
 vaunting the superiority of their especial bever- 
 age, and calling attention to its coolness and 
 clearness as it stands in the gigantic glass bottles. 
 Tarboosh makers are ironing the red fezzes on 
 brass moulds, and copper and brass workers are 
 hammering away busily at their Avares. At the 
 corner of a narrow alley sits a scribe, with quill 
 in hand and ink-pot strapped about his waist, pre- 
 pared to turn his hand to anything from a love- 
 letter to a dragoman's contract ; while grav- 
 bearded book-sellers sit gravel v in their stalls 
 turning the leaves of old Korans or poring over 
 curious volumes of Arabic tales. 
 
 On the last day of Ramadan the street is filled 
 with green boughs of every variety, which are 
 eagerly bought bv the women, who go in great 
 numbers to the cemeteries and deck the graves 
 with them, it being customary at this season for 
 
Beyrout and Damascus 
 
 the relatives of the dead to visit their graves and 
 tombs, and to make their prayers for the souls of 
 the departed. People of wealth erect gay-colored 
 tents over the graves which they visit, to protect 
 
 : m IP 
 
 Tombs decorated during Feast of Beiram. 
 
 themselves from the hot sun, refreshments are 
 served, and the whole cemetery wears a gala look. 
 The children come in for their share of the gen- 
 eral festivities in Beiram, and, decked like their 
 elders in the gayest of new gowns, they gorge 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 themselves with ices and sweets in the bazaars, 
 drink sweetened and colored water from long- 
 necked bottles, and ride about the street in queer 
 little wagons bedecked with flags and streamers, 
 pushed by good-natured Syrians. 
 
 The gardens beside the Barada are rilled with 
 pleasure-seekers, who eat ices and sweets, drink 
 thick black coffee from tiny cups, and smoke their 
 narghilis, while story-tellers squat before them 
 on the ground, relating wonderful tales for their 
 amusement. Rich merchants keep open house 
 and vie with one another in the splendor of the 
 entertainments given in the open courtyards of 
 their marble palaces, and if you are fortunate 
 enough to secure an invitation from one of them 
 some night, you may sit on a luxurious divan in 
 the liwan, a lofty, open colonnade with pointed 
 arches, at the side of a marble-paved courtyard, 
 where the moonlight sifts through the rich green 
 foliage of the orange and citron trees, revealing 
 the yellow gleam of the ripening fruit, and the 
 air is fragrant with jasmine and apricot blossoms; 
 and while you smoke your peaceful narghili and 
 listen to the musical splash of the water in the 
 great fountain, you may see Salha dance in the 
 moonlit courtyard — Salha, the beautiful, tall Jew- 
 ess with the oval face and olive skin, and the 
 darkest hair and most brilliant eyes you have ever 
 seen, who moves with a freedom and grace you 
 
Beyrout and Damascus 
 
 have never before imagined, who is as straight 
 and slender as an arrow and as proud as a prin- 
 cess, and who dances like a demon when the fumes 
 of the raki have gone to her brain. 
 
 
 IM 
 
 f? 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Burned Omayyade Mosque. 
 
 The great Omayyade Mosque, in the building 
 of which the genii are said to have assisted the 
 twelve hundred artists who were summoned from 
 Constantinople for the huge task, and for which 
 antique columns and rarest marbles were brought 
 from all the ancient temples of Syria, was burned 
 
 215 
 
The Ed°e of the Orient 
 
 in the autumn of 1893, but the courtyard is still 
 intact, and during Ramadan and Beiram is 
 thronged with devout Moslems who come in 
 answer to the shrill cry of the muezzin, who, high 
 up in one of the graceful minarets, repeats his 
 " Allahu Akbar " — " Allah is great" — and testifies 
 to the glory of Mohammed. The minaret at the 
 
 11 
 
 **—*■; 
 
 „.•*» 
 
 f Mj 
 
 View of Damascus from the Garbtyeh Minaret of the Great Mosque. 
 
 southeast corner bears the name of Madinet 'Isa, 
 from the ancient tradition that, at the last judg- 
 ment day, Jesus will take his place on its summit 
 to judge the world. At the side of the mosque 
 are the ruins of the goldsmith's bazaar, which, with 
 its rich stores of curiously wrought silver and 
 gold, was entirely destroyed by the fire which 
 ruined the srreat Mohammedan temple. 
 
 Eumer Ruschdi Pacha, the Mushir, or Turkish 
 
 Military Governor of Damascus, holds a high 
 
 216 
 
u . 
 
 u 
 
Beyrout and Damascus 
 
 levee at the end of Ramadan and later, when the 
 pilgrims are ready to start to Mecca, he directs 
 the ceremonies and sees the rich embroidered 
 hangings for the Kaaba, together with a Koran 
 and the Green Flag of the Prophet, carefully dis- 
 posed in the .magnificently draped camel litter in 
 which they are to be conveyed to Beit Allah (the 
 house of God), the holy mosque at Mecca. 
 
 When the pilgrims start they go out of the 
 gate called Bawwabet Allah, or God's Gate, and 
 the long procession of thousands of devout Mos- 
 lems of all ranks moves slowly along the Meidan, 
 a long street which leads through the suburbs 
 of Damascus toward the route to Mecca. In 
 front are the Turkish officers and the military 
 band, then the richly caparisoned camel bearing 
 the litter containing the embroidered cloths, and 
 following after, thousands of pilgrims of all de- 
 grees — old men and young men, beggars on foot 
 and princes on horseback, all bound to the mother 
 of cities on the one common errand which has 
 been the duty of every faithful Mohammedan for 
 thirteen hundred years. 
 
 Bedouins from the desert, with their dark head- 
 shawls held in place by thick coils of camel's- 
 hair wound* twice round their heads, riding beau- 
 tiful Arab horses guided only by a rope-halter ; 
 Kurdish shepherds ; Arabs on dromedaries ; 
 
 Druses of high rank, wearing snow-white turbans, 
 
 219 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 and armed with 'long - lances, silver-handled pis- 
 tols, curved swords and long-barrelled guns with 
 
 Waiting for the Procession. 
 
 richly ornamented stocks ; wild-looking men 
 from the desert with unkempt locks and restless 
 eyes ; and grotesque camel litters covered with 
 
Beyrout and Damascus 
 
 colored cloths, carrying pilgrims too wealthy or 
 too weak to walk. Many go out of the gate 
 never to return, having put off their pilgrimage 
 until old age or disease has so weakened them 
 that they are unable to endure the hardships of 
 the desert trip, but succumb on the way, happy, 
 
 i 
 
 The Women on 'the Housetops 
 
 however, in the belief that he who dies on the 
 pilgrimage is immediately transported to that 
 Paradise where sparkling fountains flow in the 
 midst of green gardens filled with golden fruit, 
 and where beautiful houris, with eyes like sloes, 
 wait upon the faithful. 
 
 And so this great procession passes out of the 
 city, watched by the women from the housetops 
 until it becomes a mere cloud of dust in the des- 
 ert, and when the setting sun halts them for the 
 
 223 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 night, its last rays fall upon thousands of dark- 
 robed figures with faces turned toward Mecca, 
 bending their heads to the yellow sand, and 
 thanking Allah that one day of their pilgrimage 
 is accomplished, and that they are one day's 
 march nearer to the sacred shrine. 
 
 224 
 
X 
 
 THE PACHA'S LEVEE 
 
 ONE morning, after a night's rest broken many 
 times by the howling and barking of the 
 countless, snarling yellow curs which infest the 
 streets of Damascus, I was awakened by the sound 
 of a Turkish band marching down the dusty street 
 by the side of the Barada. The weird and monot- 
 onous droning of the clarinets grew louder as the 
 procession neared the hotel, but as it was not yet 
 seven o'clock and the pariah dogs had cheated 
 me out of the best part of my night's sleep, I did 
 not rise, preferring to lie comfortably in bed, 
 where I could look out at the golden fruit which 
 gleamed among the dark foliage of the orange- 
 trees in the courtyard, and listen to the cool 
 splash of the water as it fell into the marble basin 
 of the fountain. 
 
 The sound of passing feet died away, the music 
 was growing faint in the distance, and I was doz- 
 ing off comfortably into another little nap, when 
 there was a rap on my door, and a fellow-trav- 
 eller rushed in, exclaiming, excitedly : 
 
 225 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 " Well, you have missed it ! This is the first 
 day of the great Moslem feast of Beiram, and all 
 the dignitaries of Syria, in splendid robes and silk 
 kaftans, have just passed in procession on their 
 way to pay their respects to the Mushir, the 
 Turkish military governor, who is holding a 
 grand levee this morning." 
 
 Somewhat nettled at having missed this pictur- 
 esque parade I arose, and, while my fellow-trav- 
 eller was breakfasting, I made my way down the 
 narrow street toward the citadel. I had not 
 gone far when I was joined by the watchful Yo- 
 sef, a Syrian dragoman, who had guided me 
 through the intricacies of the bazaars on the pre- 
 ceding day. 
 
 " Yosef," I exclaimed, " what manner of drago- 
 man are you, that you did not inform me yester- 
 day of this spectacle ? " 
 
 " Ah, Excellency," returned the crafty Yosef, 
 who had evidently known no more of the celebra- 
 tion than myself until he was awakened by the 
 sound of the band, " I wished to make a surprise 
 for you. At six o'clock this morning I wait for 
 you by the hotel, but you not wake. Now you 
 like Turkish band, we go hear him play in the 
 serai." 
 
 We made our way through the narrow twist- 
 ing streets, stepping over the sleeping dogs which 
 lay stretched out in the middle of the roads, ex- 
 
 226 
 
The Pacha's Levee 
 
 hausted by their night's prowling- and yelping, 
 until we came to the military serai or square, on 
 one side of which stretched the barracks of the 
 Fifth Corps of the Turkish army, while opposite 
 was the palace of the Mushir, the commandant 
 and general of the division. 
 
 The square presented a brilliant sight. In a 
 small enclosed garden, at the right of the palace, 
 the band was playing lustily, and two pyramids 
 of bells of various sizes, arranged on staves, sur- 
 mounted by golden crescents, dazzled the eyes as 
 they were turned rapidly in the bright sunlight, 
 keeping time with the barbaric music. 
 
 To the left of the palace carriages were driving 
 up with dark-faced coachmen in silk robes and 
 red tarbooshes, and gorgeous cavasses in blue 
 jackets richly embroidered with gold, wearing 
 long curved swords with silver handles, and look- 
 ing very fierce and important, on the box-seat. 
 From the carriages a stream of grave-looking 
 Syrian dignitaries in silks and satins were alight- 
 ing at the foot of the marble steps. Black- 
 bearded Greek priests and bishops in purple and 
 black vestments, wearing tall black head-cover- 
 ings bearing a strong resemblance to a modern 
 silk hat worn upside down ; hadjis and descend- 
 ants of the Prophet with green turbans ; dervish 
 sheiks in long brown gowns, wearing on their 
 
 heads great brown cones nearly two feet high, 
 
 227 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 like inverted flower- pots; Turkish officers in 
 smart uniforms ; Bedouins from the desert with 
 their dark silk kaffiehs, held in place by thick coils 
 of camel's-hair wrapped around their heads, were 
 dismounting from their gaily caparisoned Arab 
 horses, whose saddles and bridles were decorated 
 with brilliant designs in beads and shells ; sheiks 
 from Palmyra and Baalbek ; rulers of the small 
 desert towns — all had come to pay their respects 
 to the Mushir. 
 
 I had stood for some time, elbowed by the 
 crowd and noting each fresh arrival, before my 
 curiosity led me to wonder what was going on 
 inside the palace, and how the Mushir would re- 
 ceive his guests ; but no sooner did the thought 
 occur to me than I determined if possible to go 
 in and see for myself ; so, turning to Yosef, I 
 said : 
 
 " Yosef, I will also pay my respects to the gov- 
 ernor." 
 
 " Oh," said Yosef, with visible signs of alarm in 
 his usually imperturbable face, " it ees not neces- 
 sairy." 
 
 I explained that even if it were not necessary 
 I intended to go, but Yosef demurred. 
 
 " You do not know heem. You cannot go." 
 
 I endeavored to explain to Yosef that possibly 
 if I did know the Mushir I might not wish to go ; 
 but, not having the pleasure of meeting him, I felt 
 
 228 
 
The Pacha's Levee 
 
 bound to give him the benefit of any doubt as to 
 the desirability of his acquaintance, and pay him 
 my respects. Yosef was in despair. 
 
 " It could not be — it was not necessairy." He 
 begged and implored, and threatened to desert 
 me; but I had determined to see the inside of the 
 palace, and his prayers did not move me. So, 
 drawing on my gloves and squaring my shoulders 
 I mustered up all the dignity at my command, 
 and, marching over to a conspicuous Turkish 
 official, literally smothered in gold lace, who was 
 standing at the foot of the marble steps, pulled 
 out my card-case and presented him with my card. 
 He held it upside down and looked curiously at 
 it, then turned it over and looked at the back to 
 see if there should be anything there which he 
 could decipher. The blank back afforded him no 
 clew, and so, with an utterly puzzled look, he 
 passed it on to another gold-laced guardian, who 
 stood a few steps above him, accompanying the 
 transfer with a remark in Turkish which ap- 
 peared to me to be entirely irrelevant. Mean- 
 while I stood calmly at the foot of the steps, 
 while my card was passed from hand to hand, 
 and finally disappeared through the doorway. 
 
 A moment afterward two of the commandant's 
 aides appeared at the top of the steps, a question 
 was asked, and I was pointed out to them, and 
 
 they saluted me gravely and escorted me to the 
 
 229 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 top of the marble steps, and then, through the hall 
 of the palace to the entrance of an immense long- 
 salon, at the end of which, seated on a divan, his 
 decorations on his breast and his sword at his 
 side, was the Mushir. 
 
 No one else was in the room ; and Yosef, who 
 had followed me quakingly up the steps^ had 
 stopped at the door. As I walked up the room I 
 commenced to wonder what I should say. I had 
 been for several months in Arab countries, and 
 had a small working vocabulary of Arabic, con- 
 sisting of the usual salutations, and such phrases 
 as " It is warm," " It is good," " It is bad," " Go 
 faster," and "How much is it?" but I did not see 
 how I was to carry on a very extended or intel- 
 ligible conversation with this small equipment. 
 But, mustering up my courage, I advanced toward 
 the end of the room, and, after making the grand 
 Oriental salute by bending my body, and touch- 
 ing my hand first to the floor and then to my 
 heart, mouth, and forehead, I opened the conver- 
 sation with the customary Oriental salutation, 
 " Salaam alekum ! " meaning, " Peace be with 
 you ! " 
 
 Now, there are two answers to this salutation — 
 
 you can either reverse it and say, " Alekum 
 
 salaam," which seems rather like saying, " You're 
 
 another," or you may place your right hand on 
 
 your breast, and afterward raise it to vour fore- 
 
 230 
 
The Interview with the Pacha. 
 
The Pacha's Levee 
 
 head and say, " Kahweh daiman ! " which means, 
 " May you never want coffee ! " 
 
 My distinguished host used neither, but bowed 
 gravely, and with a wave of his hand motioned 
 me to a seat on the divan at his side. Believing 
 that a cheerful flow of conversation would relieve 
 any embarrassment that he might feel in receiv- 
 ing a stranger from a distant part of the world, I 
 formulated almost my entire stock in trade of the 
 Arabic language into one long, disconnected sen- 
 tence, which indicated my anxiety for his welfare, 
 touched upon the state of the weather, and con- 
 cluded with a variety of shopping phrases and 
 donkey-talk, in the course of which I remember 
 saying " Bikam deh ? " (What does this cost ?) 
 and " U'a riglak " (take care of your foot). 
 
 My host sat calmly through this brilliant and 
 pyrotechnic conversational display, but when I 
 paused I could discover no sign of comprehension 
 upon his grave face. Looking down the room, I 
 saw the shrinking form of Yosef just without the 
 doors, and, after an abortive attempt to involve 
 the Pacha in a French dialogue, I called Yosef's 
 name and signalled him to come to my assistance. 
 
 Yosef cringingly and apologetically made his 
 way to where I sat, and commenced a series of 
 elaborate and conciliatory salaams to the Pacha, 
 evidently wishing to convey to that august 
 Oriental the fact that he was not personally re- 
 
 2 33 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 sponsible for my introduction to the palace, and 
 had done his best to restrain me." 
 
 " Yosef," I said, " the old gentleman does not 
 seem to fully grasp my Arabic ; suppose you try 
 him and find out what the trouble is." 
 
 Yosef then addressed himself to the Pacha, who 
 replied in Turkish, and Yosef then explained to 
 me that his excellency did not understand Arabic, 
 having only lately come here from Constantinople. 
 
 My knowledge of the Turkish language was 
 limited to the single word git, which conveys the 
 same forceful idea in Turkish as in English, and, 
 as I was momentarily expecting the Pacha to in- 
 troduce this expressive monosyllable in his speech, 
 I resolved to throw the burden of the conversa- 
 tion upon my dragoman. 
 
 ''Yosef," said I, "you shall interpret my Eng- 
 lish into the most flowery Turkish of which you 
 are capable ; " for experience had taught me that 
 a man who has been brought up in the land of the 
 Arabian Nights, requires that the conversation 
 addressed to him shall be exceedingly ornate 
 before he can detect a complimentary flavor in it. 
 
 " Tell his Excellency," I began, " that my eyes 
 have feasted upon the garden of the world, this 
 earthly paradise, the fair city of Damascus, and that 
 I could not take my way back to the New World 
 without paying my respects to the ruler of this 
 most ancient of cities, whose name and military 
 exploits are so well known even in far America." 
 
 234 
 
The Pacha's Levee 
 
 I did not know his name myself at the time, 
 and the sword by his side had suggested the mil- 
 itary heroism, but the exigencies of Oriental 
 politeness require the straining of a point or two 
 when a compliment is to be paid. 
 
 Yosef evidently rendered my remarks in satis- 
 factory Turkish, and a pleased smile gradually 
 took the place of the puzzled look on the Pacha's 
 face. Then it was his turn, and he gave me back 
 as good as I sent. " Never had he been so hon- 
 ored before. It was true that he had been visited 
 by many Europeans, but never before had he had 
 the happiness of entertaining a traveller from 
 America, that great land beyond the seas." 
 
 Yosef was kept busy bandying compliments, 
 until T had exhausted every superlative which my 
 ingenuity could apply to Damascus, its people, 
 its rulers, and its immediate surroundings, and 
 then the Pacha excused himself for a moment and 
 left the room. Presently he returned and handed 
 me three of his cards, which read as follows : 
 
 <J*e L/ene'ml i/.e dJit'i-.tion 
 Loninianda/it ctu 5' i-o-tas a \^Lime'e 
 
 235 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 Not to be outdone in generosity, I produced 
 my card-case, and added three more of my own 
 to the one which had disappeared up the steps, 
 and which the Pacha now held in his hand. He 
 received them with a becoming show of grati- 
 tude, and, placing them upon the divan, clapped 
 his hands smartly together. 
 
 Two Ethiopians immediately sprang from an 
 adjoining room in answer to this signal, and ad- 
 vanced bowing to take his orders, which done, 
 they retired to another room, almost immediately 
 reappearing bearing large trays covered with 
 richly embroidered gold cloths, upon which were 
 various sweets, fig-paste, Turkish-delight, grape- 
 jelly, and golden goblets filled with sweetened 
 water flavored with rose. 
 
 These were placed before me, and with a small 
 spoon I took a mouthful of the grape-jelly, the 
 Pacha did likewise, and then from another tray 
 we took tiny cups of thick coffee and delicious 
 cigarettes. When I had taken my coffee and 
 smoked my cigarette, I arose to take my leave ; 
 for conversation, even under Yosef's fostering 
 care, had languished, and I did not care for any 
 more grape-jelly and rose-water before breakfast ; 
 so, expressing my pleasure in having seen the 
 distinguished Pacha, I was about to withdraw. 
 But the Pacha intended a further honor for me. 
 
 Rising from the divan, he accompanied me to the 
 
 236 
 
The Pacha's Levee. 
 
The Pacha's Levee 
 
 end of the room, and then to the head of the 
 marble steps. 
 
 During my visit many carriages had arrived, 
 and the Church and State dignitaries had been 
 side-tracked into another room until my interview 
 with the Pacha should terminate. The conspicu- 
 ous honor which the Pacha was doing me, in ac- 
 companying me to the head of the steps, evidently 
 made a great impression upon the waiting crowd, 
 and, as I reached the top step, the Pacha raised his 
 hand, and the Turkish band burst forth into a 
 furious march. The soldiers presented arms, and 
 the crowd opened a passageway for me toward 
 the carriages. 
 
 With a parting salaam I marched down the 
 steps, Yosef behind me, no longer cringing and 
 trembling, but with his head in the air and a tri- 
 umphant smile upon his face. I had walked over 
 from the hotel, but it would never do for me to 
 take my departure in so humble a manner while 
 the eyes of the Pacha were upon me, so, without 
 turning my head, I spoke in English to my proud 
 retainer: 
 
 " Yosef, pick out the best-looking carriage, with 
 a gold-laced cavass on the box, that you can see, 
 and command the coachman to drive up to me at 
 once." 
 
 Yosef did as he was bid, a gorgeous equipage 
 
 appeared, and I stepped into it ; and, at a word 
 
 239 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 from Yosef, we whirled away out of the square. 
 When we were well out of sight I stopped the 
 carriage, bestowed a liberal backsheesh upon the 
 driver and the cavass, and sent them back to 
 wait for their master, while Yosef and I walked 
 back to the hotel. 
 
 As we walked along, Yosef, whose elation was 
 unbounded at having made his first appearance in 
 the Mushir's palace, could scarcely contain him- 
 self. 
 
 " Excellency," he suggested, " there is 'nother 
 levee after breakfast ; you like, we go to the 
 palace of the civil governor." 
 
 " No, Yosef," I replied. "'It ees not neces- 
 sairy.' I have had enough grape -jelly, rose- 
 water, and Turkish-delight for one da)*. After 
 breakfast we will go the bazaars." 
 
 240 
 
XI 
 
 ALEXANDRIA AND CAIRO 
 
 THE traveller who journeys to Egypt by means 
 of a P. & O. steamer has a foretaste of the 
 Orient on board ship. The crew is mostly com- 
 posed of Punjabis, and Lascars from Gogo, near 
 Bombay, in blue cotton shirts and white draw- 
 ers, whose shanty songs are composed of Mo- 
 hammedan creeds, the names of God and the 
 Prophets, and as they haul away on the ropes 
 they keep up an endless repetition of " Allah ! 
 El Mahdi ! Allah! Mohammed!" varied by an 
 occasional " Yallah ! Yallah ! " or " faster ! faster ! " 
 The firemen and stokers, who from time to time 
 come up from the depths of the ship to breathe, 
 are also Mohammedans, being mostly Zanzibaris 
 and Soudanese, while the rest of the motlev 
 ship's company is made up of Portuguese sailors, 
 Italian and Swiss stewards, and English officers. 
 
 The forward deck of the steamer is partitioned 
 off by a canvas screen, and there, surrounded by a 
 curious assortment of domestic animals, cows, 
 
 sheep, and pigs, and crates of pigeons, ducks, and 
 
 241 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 various barn-yard fowls, these dark-skinned Mo- 
 hammedans prepare their unappetizing looking 
 messes. 
 
 Egypt rises reluctantly from the sea, and the 
 first indication you have of nearing Alexandria is 
 when a smart-looking little open boat, with two 
 lateen sails, comes shooting out of the southeast 
 and brings up alongside to deposit a blue-robed, 
 white-turbaned pilot on board. Then, Tommy 
 Atkins, who has been pitching rings and playing 
 shuffle-board for the past few days in fatigue 
 uniform, goes below and presently reappears in 
 white cross-straps and pith helmet, with a de- 
 spatch-bag slung over his shoulder, and strains 
 his eyes to see the gleam of the Egyptian sands, 
 and wonders if there are orders in his bag which 
 will send him tramping hundreds of miles up into 
 the burning desert to fight with " Fuzzy- Wuzzy " 
 in the Soudan. 
 
 Presently you distinguish a tall pillar rising 
 
 from the sea, and a light-house, the oldest in the 
 
 world, which stands near the site where the great 
 
 tower of Pharos, one of the seven wonders of the 
 
 world, once reared its head; and then a long row 
 
 of windmills and the flat coast of Egypt come 
 
 into view, and a great harbor filled with the 
 
 masts, funnels, and smoke of its shipping, with 
 
 the long white line of the city behind, accented 
 
 by rounded domes and gleaming minarets. 
 
 242 
 
Alexandria and Cairo 
 
 First impressions of Alexandria are apt to be a 
 trifle confused, for even before you can let your 
 eye wander over the full extent of the city your 
 steamer is surrounded by small boats, and a blue- 
 gowned, red-turbaned, brown-legged swarm of 
 humanity tumbles over the side like a devastating 
 cloud of army-worms, and seizes your bags, your 
 trunks, your canes and umbrellas, and your per- 
 son, and endeavors to distribute you and your 
 belongings into a dozen different boats. 
 
 If after a display of stern purpose, backed with 
 a creditable exhibition of physical force, you 
 succeed in getting all of your impedimenta, in 
 the way of boxes and bags, safely in one boat, 
 you are rowed ashore to the custom-house, where 
 you are again pounced upon by an eager mob, 
 who distribute your property among them- 
 selves in the greatest number of separate pack- 
 ages which their ingenuity can devise, and start 
 on a run down the long wharf, an imposing array 
 of carriers, which somehow reminds you of the 
 pictures of Stanley crossing the Dark Continent; 
 and you struggle along after, conscious of your 
 utter inability to formulate an intelligible protest 
 in Arabic, and wondering if you will ever see any 
 of your luggage again. 
 
 Alexandria is so much less interesting than 
 Cairo that the traveller as a rule spends only 
 such time there as is unavoidable before taking 
 
 243 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 the first train for the Egyptian capital, for the 
 sights of the city and all its show places, such as 
 Pompey's Pillar and the Catacombs, can be com- 
 fortably managed in a few hours' sightseeing. 
 The city was rendered much more interesting to 
 me from the fact that I knew some Greek- 
 Egyptians who lived there, and was thus priv- 
 ileged to obtain an idea of Egyptian life in an 
 Egyptian city, rarely attainable to the traveller. 
 
 Their house was on one of the larger avenues 
 near the Place Mehemet Ali, and was entered by 
 a driveway closed by great iron gates. Behind 
 the house was a garden, where cool fountains 
 plaved, and Greek statues— relics of the splen- 
 dor of the ancient cit} T — were embowered in the 
 dense green of the tropical foliage. The first 
 story of the house was given over to a private 
 museum of Greek and Egyptian antiquities, and 
 for storage rooms and quarters for the servants. 
 The second floor contained the formal drawing- 
 room, reception, and music rooms, while the 
 dining-room and living rooms of the family were 
 up still another flight, an arrangement necessitat- 
 ing a considerable climbing of stairs, as eleva- 
 tors have not yet been introduced in the private 
 houses of Egypt. 
 
 We dined at a table which might have been 
 
 laid in Paris or London or New York, and the 
 
 elaborate dinner bespoke the offices of a French 
 
 244 
 
Alexandria and Cairo 
 
 chef in the kitchen. After dinner we listened to 
 selections from Grieg and Wagner on a Steinway 
 piano in the music-room, and even the conscious- 
 ness that there were a dozen mummies on the 
 first floor could hardly make me realize that I 
 was in Egypt. 
 
 A stroll through the streets of the city is inter- 
 esting chiefly because of the great number of dif- 
 ferent nationalities and varied costumes which 
 you see. Most of the principal buildings of the 
 town have been erected since the bombardment 
 of 1882, and are neither picturesque nor beauti- 
 ful. In the Turkish quarter a collection of board 
 shanties has been put up in place of the houses 
 destroyed by the British shells, giving that part 
 of the city the appearance of being a temporary 
 show, like the Turkish village at the World's 
 Fair, although not as interesting. 
 
 I saw a little incident in the Arab cemetery 
 which illustrated the Egyptian etiquette of the 
 complete division of the sexes, which does not 
 allow of men and women being seen together in 
 public, even if they be husband and wife, father 
 and daughter, or brother and sister. I was 
 seated near a marble headstone richly carved 
 with gilded Arabic inscriptions, and surmounted 
 by a red fez carved from stone, when a sad little 
 procession entered. At its head was a young 
 mother holding in her arms the dead body of her 
 
 245 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 little girl wrapped in an Eastern shawl. Follow- 
 ing her were a number of women moaning and 
 lamenting, and at some distance behind came the 
 father surrounded by a group of men. When the 
 mother had reached the appointed place she laid 
 the little body tenderly upon the ground, and 
 drawing back the shawl kissed and caressed the 
 face of her dead child, while the tears streamed 
 down her cheeks. Then with the other women 
 she withdrew to some little distance and the hus- 
 band approached and took the little dead child 
 in his arms, moaning and swaying back and forth 
 in his grief, while the men gathered about to 
 comfort him. 
 
 Then two of the men scraped a little shallow 
 trough in the ground and laid the tiny body in 
 the shawl at rest. Then all the men withdrew 
 and the mother once more approached, and after 
 one more despairing look, she was led away quiv- 
 ering with grief, the men going one way and the 
 women another, leaving the little grave to be 
 bricked up and cemented above ground, accord- 
 ing to the Arab custom. 
 
 One day we drove with two ladies of the fam- 
 ily — or rather after them — to their great private 
 garden on the Mahmudiyeh canal, about three 
 miles beyond the city. In the midst of a wonder- 
 fully beautiful enclosure brilliant with the bloom 
 
 of tropical plants, scarlet poinsettas and great 
 
 246 
 
Alexandria and Cairo 
 
 vines of purple bougainvillea, was the great 
 white stone house which they occasionally use as 
 a summer residence, from the flat roof of which 
 a view of the whole garden could be obtained, 
 with orchards of peaches, apricots, oranges, and 
 citrons, and fields of melons and sugar-cane ; and 
 beyond, the red roofs of the city outlined against 
 the blue Mediterranean. 
 
 On a night in 1882 they were giving a grand 
 ball here. The English fleet was lying in the 
 harbor of Alexandria, and many of the officers 
 had eagerly accepted this opportunity to dance 
 with the pretty Greek-Egyptian girls of Alexan- 
 dria in the beautiful gardens. 
 
 While the ball was at its height word came 
 from the town that Arabi Pacha had risen and 
 that the Europeans in the city were being massa- 
 cred. Then came messengers from the ships or- 
 dering all officers to report immediately on board 
 for duty, and before the rumor had reached the 
 musicians or the strains of the last waltz had died 
 away, they had strapped on their swords, jumped 
 on their horses, and were riding for their lives 
 toward the harbor. Then came fresh alarms 
 from the city; two servants pulled up their pant- 
 ing horses with the news that the city house was 
 being sacked and that a mob was on its way out 
 to attack the gardens. Gardeners and workmen 
 
 about the place came and threw themselves at 
 
 247 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 the feet of their master, promising to protect him 
 and his family with their lives ; the men were 
 armed and posted about the great stone walls of 
 the garden, and preparations were made to bar- 
 ricade the doors and windows of the house, that 
 they might sell their lives as dearly as possible. 
 Then the whole company flocked to the housetop, 
 where they could hear the noise of firing in the 
 city and see the flames devour the houses about 
 the Place Mehemet Ali. There they could dis- 
 tinguish the outline of the city house as it burst 
 into flames, telling of the destruction of all their 
 treasures of art and antiquity. The suspense be- 
 came unbearable ; at any moment they expected 
 to hear the yells of the Arab fanatics outside the 
 garden walls. Some one told the musicians to 
 play another waltz, and although almost dis- 
 tracted by fear, they all joined in the dance, glad 
 to do anything to relieve the terrible strain ; and 
 so the night passed with dancing and praving, 
 with laughter and trembling ; first climbing to 
 the roof to see the city all ablaze with flames that 
 told of sickening massacre, then descending to 
 the ball-room in vain efforts to try and forget 
 their terror for a moment ; until at last the 
 morning came, and with it word that the imme- 
 diate danger was over. 
 
 This must have been a thrilling night, this 
 
 dancing with death and murder at the very door, 
 
 248 
 
Alexandria and Cairo 
 
 and as we sat beneath the orange-trees and heard 
 the story we found it difficult to realize that this 
 beautiful garden, where timid gazelles with great 
 brown eyes browsed about the edge of the foun- 
 tain, had so nearly been laid waste and its owners 
 had so narrowly escaped being massacred at the 
 hands of the Arab fanatics. 
 
 Arabi Pacha's career was short but brilliant. 
 A man of the people, he studied at El Azhar and 
 imbibed the fanatic spirit of the Moslem college. 
 He was the orator of the people, and his bat- 
 tle cry was "Egypt for the Egyptians;" but he 
 found himself utterly powerless to cope with 
 the strength of the great nation which he had 
 aroused, and as incapable of carrying on a pro- 
 tracted warfare against them as he would have 
 been of governing and improving the condition 
 of the Egyptian people had his dream of conquest 
 been realized. 
 
 From Alexandria to Cairo is a little over four 
 hours' ride in a modern English railway carriage 
 over a good road-bed ; to this time should be 
 added, however, an extra hour for the inevitable 
 skirmish with porters, baggage-weighers, and 
 ticket-sellers at the station, before you are fair- 
 ly on board with the door of your compartment 
 closed. 
 
 Traversing the border of Lake Mareotis you 
 
 travel for miles through the low marshes of the 
 
 249 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 delta, rich with a lusty growth of green, but 
 monotonous and uninteresting save for the long 
 strings of laden camels and donkeys which trav- 
 erse the narrow paths on the embankments of 
 the innumerable canals and water-ways. 
 
 From time to time you pass little collections 
 of mud huts, so small and insignificant as to be 
 scarcely distinguishable under the clumps of 
 palm-trees that shelter them. 
 
 A little more than half way to Cairo you obtain 
 a first view of the Nile as the train crosses the 
 Rosetta arm at Kafr ez-Zaiyat by a long iron 
 bridge, under which the father of rivers rolls 
 muddy, sullen, and brown, in open defiance of 
 the milliners and dressmakers, who have chosen a 
 light pale green as his proper garb and have given 
 it his name. An hour's ride farther on the train 
 stops for a few minutes at Tanta, which lies be- 
 tween the Rosetta and Damietta branches of the 
 Nile. Tanta is famous for its bazaars and fairs, 
 but its principal product, to judge from the dis- 
 play at the railway station, consists of boiled eggs. 
 As soon as the train slows up at the station baskets 
 of them appear at the door of every compartment, 
 and are pushed through the windows by the 
 brown-skinned venders. They are infinitesimal 
 in size and are sold at various prices, dropping to 
 almost nothing a moment before the train leaves. 
 The acute intelligence of these ragged merchants 
 
 250 
 
A Cairo Street. 
 
Alexandria and Cairo 
 
 is attested by their universal appreciation of 
 boiled eggs as the most salable article of food, 
 as the newly arrived traveller in Egypt could 
 hardly be persuaded to buy anything from such 
 a ragged, dirty, motley crew, unless it were pro- 
 tected from dirt and possible disease by an invul- 
 nerable shell. After a few weeks in Arab coun- 
 tries you eat almost anything, and are glad to get 
 it, but this hardened appetite comes gradually 
 as the cultivated prejudices of civilization wear 
 away. 
 
 Arrived in Cairo you go to Shepheard's Hotel. 
 It is true that there are other hotels where some 
 people choose to go, as some New York men 
 choose to live in Brooklyn or Hoboken ; but 
 Shepheard's is Cairo, and any departure from it 
 places you out of touch of the life of the city. All 
 the news is either made there or brought there, 
 and the bulletins of races and sham battles, of ten- 
 nis matches and private theatricals, and all the 
 divertisements and advertisements of the Eng- 
 lish army of occupation are first posted in its hall- 
 ways. 
 
 There the lieutenant on short pay betakes 
 himself in his oft-turned scarlet mess-jacket to 
 adorn the table and s:ive local color to the dinners 
 of the latest arrivals. There the officer returning 
 to England advertises that he will exchange his 
 polo pony for a silver-mounted travelling case. 
 
 253 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 There the brown-eyed dragomen gather at the 
 door in robes of silks, swinging their little canes 
 and beguiling travellers with stories of the won- 
 derful sights they can guide them to, as if there 
 was anything in the world better worth seeing 
 than the shifting panorama of the street in front 
 of the hotel piazza. Camels almost hidden under 
 great bales of green lodder plod by like animated 
 hay-stacks ; clean-shaven donkeys with gay trap- 
 pings scamper along, encouraged from behind by 
 the shrill cries and sharp proddings of the blue- 
 gowned donkey boys ; water-carriers with great 
 goat-skins bulging with w r ater from the Nile clink 
 their brass cups together ; closed carriages filled 
 with white-veiled women whirl by preceded by 
 gorgeously dressed runners ; English officers in 
 scarlet coats ride by on Arab horses, and between 
 the iron bars of the grill which divides the hotel 
 yard from the street peer the brown faces of beg- 
 gars, idlers, guides, and sidewalk merchants, sur- 
 mounted by multi-colored turbans and red fezzes, 
 while above the noise of the busy street rises the 
 incessant murmur of " bakshish — bakshish!" a 
 sound whose constant reiteration you will never 
 escape while you are in Arab countries. 
 
 When you have done the mosques and tombs 
 and shouting dervishes and other stock sights 
 of Cairo you w r ill drift inevitably back to the 
 Muski and the bazaars. The chief distinction 
 
 254 
 
Alexandria and Cairo 
 
 of the Muski is that it is a straight street leading 
 in a definite direction, and from it it is possible 
 to find your way back to your hotel. Into the 
 Muski empty the disordered streets, narrow lanes, 
 
 In the Muski. 
 
 tortuous alleys, and winding by-paths of the 
 bazaars, and in the bazaars you may wander for 
 hours not knowing where you are, except that 
 you are in the very heart of Eastern life and 
 color, and need no other diversion than that pro- 
 vided by the kaleidoscopic colors of the gay 
 
 255 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 bazaar and the picturesque crowds that throng 
 them. 
 
 Here are Copts in blue turbans, Jews in yellow, 
 Sherifs, or descendants of the prophets, and 
 Hadjis who have performed their pilgrimage to 
 Mecca, in green; and in the stalls grave-faced 
 merchants selling bright red and yellow morocco 
 shoes, weighing out gold and silver ornaments in 
 little scales, spreading wonderfully woven silk- 
 rugs before their customers, or beating curious 
 oriental designs into great brass trays. You can 
 revel in this wealth of color and watch these 
 Eastern artisans at their vocations for days to- 
 gether and never weary of it, so different is it 
 all from our Western standard of life and civil- 
 ization. 
 
 There is a mystery about Eastern life that 
 fascinates you. You feel that you have never 
 penetrated for an instant the inscrutable exterior 
 or divined the lightest thought of the grave mer- 
 chant who sells you a silver ring. There is a 
 mystery about the veiled women w T ho come to 
 bargain in the bazaars for days together for some 
 ornament on which they have set their hearts. 
 There is a mystery about the narrow streets over- 
 hung Avith carved latticed balconies, from behind 
 which brown eyes are staring at you. There is a 
 mystery about their religion and the curious de- 
 votions of the fanatics, and the mystery of the 
 
 256 
 
Alexandria and Cairo 
 
 Sphinx pales before the mystery of a people living 
 their lives as they lived them thousands of years 
 ago, uninfluenced and untouched by the great 
 stream of modern civilization and progress that 
 flows around them. 
 
 The camel, the Sphinx, and the Pyramids are 
 the great distinguishing signs of Egypt, and it is 
 the chief care of every traveller there to get them 
 all in conjunction, place himself carefully in focus, 
 and be photographed, as it were, " in their midst." 
 
 Travellers, as a rule, confess to some dis- 
 appointment when they are brought face to 
 face with the Sphinx. It serves fairly well as a 
 photographic background, and the New York 
 baseball nine have posed in uniform, with bats in 
 their hands, between its ample paws and obtained 
 satisfactory portraits. Napoleon stood before it 
 with folded arms, and had his picture painted so, 
 but in spite of such precedents to enhance its 
 pictorial possibilities, the expression of the aver- 
 age traveller betrays a shadow of disappointment 
 as he stands in silent contemplation before the 
 huge stone face. 
 
 This feeling may possibly be explained by the 
 
 fact that there are no facilities for climbing to the 
 
 top of the great image and standing on its head. 
 
 The habitual tourist is an educated climber. 
 
 Guide-books, guides, couriers, and dragomen all 
 
 encourage him in the practice of getting to the 
 
 257 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 top of things, until it becomes a fixed habit. Al- 
 though personally averse to the practice I have 
 
 The Sphinx as a Background. 
 
 in weak moments succumbed to the persuasive 
 eloquence of others, and, beginning modestly with 
 
 Trinity Church steeple, 1 have climbed laborious- 
 
 258 
 
Alexandria and Cairo 
 
 ly to the top of most of the large things in the 
 world ; I have been beguiled up the endless 
 stairways of the Washington monument and ar- 
 rived breathless at the top ; I have stood within 
 the torch of the Statue of Liberty ; I have gazed 
 at Paris from the top of the Arc de Triomphe ; I 
 have toiled up the interminable interior of the 
 Campanile at Venice ; I have been guided up the 
 dark steep steps of the loftiest minaret of the 
 great mosque at Damascus ; I have left pleasant 
 weather beneath me to stand in snow and fog on 
 the Rigi and Pilatus ; I have dragged my weary 
 feet to the tops of the Seraskerat and the Galata 
 Tower in Constantinople ; I have achieved the 
 dome of St. Paul's and the London Monument 
 on Fish Street Hill ; I have surmounted the 
 Eiffel Tower ; I have stood on the fiery cone of 
 Vesuvius and the snow-covered peaks of the 
 Lebanons ; I have clambered into the huge ear of 
 a half prostrate Rameses; I have been pushed, 
 pulled, and persuaded up the great pyramid, and 
 have sat in the lap of the Vocal Memnon, in fact 
 I have found my way to the top of many of the 
 largest objects in the world which are considered 
 worth climbing, and although I devoted consider- 
 able time to the Sphinx and kodaked it devout- 
 ly from different points of view I experienced a 
 shade of the same feeling of disappointment until 
 I realized that it sprung from the fact that I had 
 
 259 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 not climbed to the top of it, and consequently 
 could not feel that I had done it properly without 
 having stood upon its highest point. 
 
 If the Sphinx is expected to rival the great 
 pyramids as a star attraction for tourists, or re- 
 tain the favor of the conscientious traveller, some 
 method must be adopted by means of which one 
 could, after great effort, reach the top and stand 
 on it, as can be done with all well-regulated 
 sights the world over. A tunnel in the sand, 
 leading down to the commencement of a dark 
 and tortuous winding staircase in the interior 
 would be attractive, and why it has not been 
 done before I cannot imagine. Herein, to my 
 mind, lies one of the mysteries of the Sphinx. 
 
 There is some controversy as to which is the 
 most difficult of ascent, the pyramid or the camel. 
 Those who have tried both are 
 rather disposed to give the latter 
 the preference, as he is full of 
 unexpected surprises and 
 difficulties, and the 
 entire uncer- 
 tainty as to 
 his sub- i 
 sequent 
 move- 
 ments after he has unfolded a dozen or more 
 
 joints beneath you and pitched you in as many 
 
 260 
 
Alexandria and Cairo 
 
 directions in the air, is remarkably perplex- 
 
 ing. 
 
 How the misleading phrase of " the patient 
 camel " arose I cannot conceive, as the so-called 
 ship of the desert is the most peevish, irritable, 
 bad-tempered, and generally disagreeable brute 
 in creation. When you approach him as he 
 kneels upon the sand he turns a spiteful and 
 calculating eye upon you, as though he were 
 reflecting as to just how disagreeable he would 
 be able to make himself to a person of your size 
 and general make-up. When you clamber into 
 the uncomfortable saddle on his back he mutters 
 with suppressed rage. If, after he has risen, you 
 are still on his back he moans in his wrath and 
 twists viciously around to bite your feet. His 
 walk is annoying, his trot is torture, and his gal- 
 lop is anguish, and before you have been on him 
 five minutes you know that " the patient camel " 
 must once have read " the patient camel rider," 
 and that the last word has been shaken off some- 
 where in the desert. 
 
 The donkey, on the other hand, is a pleasant 
 
 disappointment, he is strong, docile, willing, and 
 
 sometimes fast, and contributes not a little to your 
 
 enjoyment of the Nile trip, when you spend whole 
 
 days upon his back. He is generally named 
 
 Rameses the Great, but answers as readily to any 
 
 other name, such as Hail Columbia, Mr. Glad- 
 
 261 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 stone, Loie Fuller, Yvette Guilbert, or Kaiser 
 Wilhelm, that the donkey-boy may diplomatically 
 christen him with for the day. 
 
 He is as tireless as the bronzed figures along the 
 Nile that toil ceaselessly from morning to night 
 at the shadoofs, the rude and entirely inadequate 
 
 Rameses the Great, an Egyptian Donkey. 
 
 appliances for irrigation, which for hundreds of 
 miles stretch along on either bank of the river, so 
 that you are never out of hearing of their con- 
 stant creak, as the weary backs of the fellaheen 
 bend from sunrise to sunset over the hard, monot- 
 onous task of sending a tiny little stream of 
 
 water trickling through the dry, parching fields, 
 
 262 
 
Alexandria and Cairo 
 
 on the product of which their very lives de- 
 pend. 
 
 Your donkey will take you on many pleasant 
 excursions on the Nile trip, and from the moment 
 
 Two Little Fellaheen Girls. 
 
 you leave your dahabiyeh until you return you 
 scarcely leave his back. He will stand for hours 
 in the bazaars, while you sit on his back and bar- 
 gain for silk head - shawls or curious weapons. 
 
 265 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 He will push his way through the most crowded 
 alleys. He will wait patiently and uncomplain- 
 ingly while you purchase a koorbash to acceler- 
 ate his speed, and your day ended he will scam- 
 per through the narrow lanes and mud huts to 
 the outskirts of the village, and back to the river 
 where your boat awaits you, pausing tentatively 
 on the way when the pretty little brown-eyed 
 children, with voices like birds, call to the How- 
 adji for bakshish ; and when you have dismount- 
 ed he goes off at a hand gallop with the don- 
 key boy on his back, both joyous in the pros- 
 pect of an immediate repast after their day's 
 work. 
 
 266 
 
A Nile Landing. 
 
XII 
 LUXOR AND ASSOUAN 
 
 FOUR hundred and fifty miles above Cairo, 
 on the east bank of the Nile, lies Luxor, 
 a small town with a few thousand inhabitants, 
 which owes its importance to the fact that it is 
 situated close to the ruins of the great temples 
 of ancient Thebes, that magnificent and stately 
 city of old, with its one hundred gates and twenty 
 thousand chariots of war. 
 
 As our dahabiyeh drew up to the landing- 
 place of this town one afternoon in the early 
 spring, we were greeted with the usual babel of 
 sound attendant on all Nile landings — donkey- 
 boys, dragomans, and venders of spurious an- 
 tiques vying with each other to attract the atten- 
 tion of the traveller, and, if possible, to divert his 
 bakshish. 
 
 Among those who boarded the dahabiyeh as 
 soon as the gang-plank was laid to the shore was 
 a man in a gay-striped kuftan and red tarboosh, 
 who distributed little slips of freshly printed pa- 
 per among the passengers, which read as follows : 
 
 269 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 Arabic Circus. 
 
 At g P.M. Every Night. 
 
 In consequence of the second performance which will be this 
 evening at nine o'clock p.m., We beg you kindly to give us a 
 call and you will be pleased of our play which is introducing of 
 maney novels and surprising scenes, consisting of amusing 
 Horses and Camels, etc., change daily. 
 
 In the Bazar. 
 
 Admission, Two Shillings. 
 
 To one unaccustomed to Eastern scenes all out- 
 of-door Egypt seems such a mammoth circus, 
 with camels, dromedaries, Arabian horses, don- 
 keys, buffaloes, jackals, hyenas, and ever}' thing- 
 complete, that I was anxious to see what the 
 " maney novels and surprising scenes " would be ; 
 so after dinner I hailed a liammar, as the donkey- 
 boys are called, and mounting a big white don- 
 key, rode through the narrow, hot, and dusty 
 streets toward the other side of the town to the 
 place of the gemel bazar. 
 
 It was the market-day, and the streets were filled 
 with merchants who had sold their stuffs and em- 
 broidered cloths, spices, dates, sugar-cane, camels, 
 donkeys, buffaloes, and sheep, and were investing 
 some of their profits in the merchandise of the 
 town or making their way toward the tent where 
 
 the circus was to take place, the direction of 
 
 270 
 
Luxor and Assouan 
 
 i< 
 
 which was indicated by a sound of monotonous 
 piping, and beating on small drums. Mahmoud, 
 my donkey-boy, ran along by my side, keeping 
 up a cheerful flow 
 of conversation in 
 broken English, and 
 expatiating upon the 
 merits of his donkey, 
 which, like all other 
 donkeys which had 
 been recommended 
 to me, was the best 
 in all Egypt, no other 
 being so fast, so will- 
 ing, so sure-footed, 
 so intelligent and so 
 beautiful withal. The 
 donkey, in the mean- 
 time, doubtless real- 
 izing the utter impos- 
 sibility of ever being 
 all that his master 
 claimed for him, was 
 far from living up to 
 the wonderful character so generously bestowed 
 on him by his enthusiastic proprietor, being slow 
 and stubborn, and stumbling over every loose 
 stone in the road. Mahmoud's cries of " Yallah 
 
 aigre ! " (go on faster), accompanied by a liberal 
 
 271 
 
 Mahmoud. 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 application of the koorbash, would not provoke 
 him to speed, nor would the frequent invocations 
 of " U'a riglak ! " (take care of your foot) prevent 
 him from stumbling. 
 
 As it was early for the circus, which Mahmoud 
 informed me commenced " among eight and 
 nine," I accepted an invitation to stop for a mo- 
 ment at his house and take a cup of black coffee, 
 which his wife would prepare ; so my donkey was 
 presently halted in front 6f a low stucco building, 
 and I dismounted and was ushered into a dark, 
 bare, whitewashed room, with a small divan at 
 the side and a bright-colored rug partly hiding 
 the dirt floor. After throwing open the shutters 
 of the small unglazed windows, set high in the 
 wall, Mahmoud disappeared, in order to prepare 
 his family and render them presentable as far as 
 possible. In a few minutes he reappeared with 
 his small brother, Moustapha, a little brown mid- 
 get about five years old, who was already learn- 
 ing to write, and had brought his slate with him 
 in order to exhibit his accomplishments. The slate 
 consisted of a rough sheet of ordinary roofing- 
 tin, upon which the little scholar, sitting cross- 
 legged on the floor, scrawled some Arabic char- 
 acters with a pointed stick, which he dipped from 
 time to time in a little pot of thick black ink. After 
 Moustapha had given this proof of his erudition 
 
 and skill, and had been rewarded with enough 
 
 272 
 
Luxor and Assouan 
 
 piastres to keep him in sugar-cane for a month, 
 the little wife appeared ; she was a tiny thing, not 
 more than thirteen years old, with a frightened 
 look in her dark eyes. Young as she was, this 
 little child-wife, in the European gown which 
 Mahmoud had brought her from Cairo, had a 
 baby of her own, which was presently brought in 
 for my inspection, and Amineh, for that was the 
 little mother's name, seemed for all the world like 
 a little girl with a new doll. 
 
 Through a crack in the half-closed door lead- 
 ing into a small court-yard at the rear I could 
 discern other members of the family, who were 
 evidently unprovided with company manners, 
 and so could not make their appearance in the 
 reception-room. Mahmoud pointed out to me 
 his widowed mother, saying, " He my mudder; 
 every day he cry. He no marry again. He 
 think it much shame for him if he forget my 
 father." 
 
 After a little cup of black coffee, thick with 
 grounds, we bade Amineh good-night, and pro- 
 ceeded to the tent where the circus was to be 
 given. As we approached the place we passed a 
 group of guileless-looking Bicharines from the 
 Soudan, who had come down with camels for 
 sale, and were now endeavoring to add to their 
 gains by singing to the accompaniment of rude 
 stringed instruments, and soliciting bakshish. 
 
 273 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 Two crreat torches flared at the entrance to the 
 circus tent, and Mahmoud and 1 placed ourselves 
 at the end of a line of blue-gowned, turbaned 
 Egyptians, and filed in and took seats at the side 
 of the rinsr, where we could obtain an uninter- 
 rupted view of the whole performance. Ali 
 Moorad Effendi, the United States consular agent 
 at Luxor, sat beside me and endeavored to eluci- 
 date the meaning of the performance for my ben- 
 efit. Numerous oil -lamps suspended about the 
 tent shed a rather feeble light over the rows of 
 cheap seats at the farther side of the tent, where 
 the greater part of the audience, in blue or 
 brown gowns, red tarbooshes, and green and 
 white turbans, were crowded together on the nar- 
 row boards. A little bright-faced bit of a girl 
 about four years old was playing on the ground 
 at the entrance of the dressing-tent, and my 
 friend, Ali Moorad, who is a liberal and regular 
 patron of art, and makes a point of attending 
 the circus every night during the brief season, 
 called my attention to the little tot, saying: 
 
 " He smart girl ; he make small dances; he know 
 all 'bout it." 
 
 Then there was a flourish of trumpets, and a 
 small Egyptian boy came out, clad in tights and 
 spangles, and walked and danced on the tight- 
 rope, while a native clown clumsily endeavored 
 
 to amuse the audience by going through the 
 
 274 
 
Luxor and Assouan 
 
 same motions on the ground. Then came the 
 snake charmers and jugglers, who handled 
 
 Va 
 
 m W- ■ ■ % la 
 
 Snake Charmers and Jugglers. 
 
 hooded cobras and charmed them into obedience 
 by weird notes on a long pipe. A trained horse 
 
 275 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 found a handkerchief which had been hidden in a 
 box, and restored it to its owner. A Japanese 
 juggler did some clever tricks, and then four 
 black men from the Soudan appeared, and while 
 two of them twanged away on curious harps of 
 rude construction the other pair went through 
 a queer pantomimic dance; they wore curious 
 black frowsy wigs, and had girdles about their 
 waists covered with shells and highly colored 
 beads. A weird and unmusical Europeanized 
 Egyptian band struggled with the " Marche Bou- 
 langer" during the intermission, and the audi- 
 ence, which consisted almost entirely of Egyp- 
 tian men — only two tourists being present in the 
 rude stranger's box at the side — lighted cigarettes 
 and waited patiently for the second part. This 
 consisted of a play acted by the two clowns. As 
 Ali Moorad explained it to me it was very amus- 
 ing, and the audience, to judge by their frequent 
 laughter, were highly delighted with its humor. 
 One of the clowns produced an old table-cloth, 
 which he tried to sell to the other, as he had 
 " finish money," and wished to get more that he 
 might go to the bazaar and buy food. The pros- 
 pective purchaser pointed out the holes and de- 
 fects in the cloth, whereupon the first declared 
 that it was all the more valuable for that reason, 
 as it was an "antika." 
 
 This provoked the laughter of the many vener- 
 
 276 
 
Luxor and Assouan 
 
 able gray-beards in the audience who liveth by 
 selling " genuine antiques,'* which are manufact- 
 ured by the ton in Luxor, to the guileless and 
 unsuspecting traveller. Failing to convince his 
 friend of the value of the table-cloth, the clown 
 proposed another scheme by which money might 
 be raised. Clown number one suggested that 
 clown number two should stretch himself on the 
 ground as though dead ; this done, number one 
 covered the body with the table-cloth, and com- 
 menced the wildest lamentations, which soon at- 
 tracted the attention of a kind-hearted passer-by. 
 The clown managed between the throes of his 
 grief to explain to the stranger that his brother 
 had just died, and that he was disconsolate, as he 
 had not the money to provide a proper burial 
 or a headstone for the grave. The kind-hearted 
 traveller sympathized with him in his sorrow, 
 and handed him a purse of gold. At this the 
 mourner burst out in a fresh storm of weeping, 
 wailing, and lamentations, which he kept up till 
 the traveller was out of sight, when he turned 
 handsprings of delight at the success of his ruse. 
 Meanwhile the other clown had risen, and re- 
 quested a division of the spoil, which was ob- 
 jected to by the first, who offered, however, to 
 change places with him, and to try the same ruse 
 a second time. This was done, and a second 
 
 charitable stranger was about to hand a purse to 
 
 2 79 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 the sorrowing brother, when the cupidity of the 
 corpse was aroused to such an extent that he rose 
 from his winding-sheet, seized the money, and 
 was out of sight in an instant, to the dismay of 
 his accomplice, the bewilderment of the benevo- 
 lent wayfarer, and the intense amusement of the 
 Moslem audience. 
 
 This ended the programme, and I mounted my 
 white donkey, and we rode back toward the Nile 
 in the bright moonlight, which was so brilliant 
 that you could distinguish color by it, the 
 oranges shining like globes of gold among the 
 green leaves of the trees as we passed the gar- 
 dens sweet with the smell of roses in the cool 
 night -air. The silence was unbroken save by 
 the occasional faint report of a gun, which 
 marked the death of some prowling jackal in 
 the desert beyond the town. 
 
 On reaching the dahabiyeh Mahmoud made a 
 parting salaam, and springing on the white don- 
 key, gave a shrill cry, which echoed along the 
 silent river, and then disappeared up the road in 
 a little cloud of yellow dust, which hung like a 
 vapor in the moonlight, while I stepped over the 
 sleeping Egyptian sailors who were coiled up on 
 the deck, and found my way to my bunk, to 
 dream of Egypt until the hot sun rose high again 
 over the yellow sand-hills. 
 
 Luxor is the centre of interest for the traveller 
 
 280 
 
Luxor and Assouan 
 
 in Upper Egypt, as all the wonders of ancient 
 Thebes lie scattered on the plains and in the 
 mountains about it. From Luxor you are ferried 
 across the river in small boats with your donkeys, 
 to cross the green plain overshadowed by the 
 great Colossi of Memnon, and to take the long, 
 
 Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. 
 
 hot ride in the burning sun through scorching 
 sands and desolate barren rocks to the valley of 
 the Tombs of the Kings. All day long, through 
 the insufferable heat, a little brown slip of a boy 
 seven or eight years old will run by your side as 
 your patient donkey jogs along, and hand you 
 from time to time the porous stone bottle or 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 kollcJi, with its mouth stopped by an orange, 
 which he carries on his head. You may at first 
 refuse it, thinking that water carried about in the 
 hot sun so long would be a mawkish drink, but 
 when you finally yield to his entreaties you find 
 it cool and refreshing as ice-water, owing to the 
 rapid evaporation from the porous clay in the 
 fierce sunlight. 
 
 Returning from the Tombs of the Kings you 
 come to Dayr-el-Bahree, that most wonderful 
 find of Ahmed the Tomb Robber, from which, in 
 July, 1881, Brugsch Bey led that majestic proces- 
 sion of thirty-six of the greatest kings, queens, 
 princes, and princesses of ancient Egypt, among 
 whom were Seti the First, Rameses the Great, 
 and the three Tutmes, who, after over three thou- 
 sand years of retirement, were once more to play 
 an important part in Egyptian life by being 
 placed on exhibition in the museum at Gizeh to at- 
 tract tourists, a strange commentary on the futility 
 of their herculean efforts in building huge tombs 
 and sinking mammoth shafts into the very heart 
 of the mountains, in order that they might lie at 
 peace and undisturbed until the judgment day, but, 
 on the other hand, a strong argument for the pro- 
 longed usefulness of mummied kings to a nation. 
 
 When this solemn procession of the great rulers 
 
 of their ancient land floated down the river to 
 
 Cairo, it was attended for miles on either bank 
 
 282 
 
Luxor and Assouan 
 
 by thousands of the fellaheen, the women with 
 their hair loosened, filling the air with their 
 lamentations and throwing dust over their heads, 
 and the men firing guns as at a funeral ; a curious 
 demonstration from the oppressed and down- 
 trodden race, which once, under the leadership 
 of these poor withered bodies which were now 
 floating down the river before their very eyes, 
 had formed the greatest and most powerful na- 
 tion in the world. 
 
 I know of nothing more impressive in the 
 whole realm of sight-seeing than to ride from 
 Luxor to Karnak on a moonlight night and stand 
 among the gigantic columns of the great temple. 
 As your donkey gallops along through the streets 
 of the town the silence is unbroken save by the 
 snarling and barking of the Arab dogs, the ever 
 watchful guardians of each little low mud hovel. 
 Leaving the houses of the town you follow a long 
 road on the top of an embankment which stretches 
 across the low ground ; and farther on, under a 
 group of palms, you come upon the low tents 
 of some of the desert people who have encamped 
 for the night, and finally you stand in a great 
 forest of gigantic columns, so huge that their 
 proportions awe you into silence. At the foot of 
 the columns, and in the heavy shadows, crouch 
 the dark figures of Arab guides and beggars 
 
 bundled up in their robes, and only revealed by 
 
 283 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 the gleam of the moonlight on their long gun- 
 barrels. On the morrow they will pester your 
 every step with supplications for bakshish, but 
 now they are taking their night's rest in the 
 corridors of this great out-of-door hotel and do 
 not intend to be disturbed, and so you may pass 
 unmolested among the majestic ruins and great 
 columns whose capitals are turned to silver by 
 the brilliant moonlight of Egypt, which comes 
 from a sky so clear that the very stars seem to 
 have left their places to come down to hang like 
 gigantic lanterns in the air above your head. 
 
 Above Luxor, the most interesting place on the 
 river is Assouan. It is nearly six hundred miles 
 above Cairo, and is the virtual terminus of navi- 
 gation for the Lower Nile, as large boats cannot 
 make their way past the first cataract, and small 
 boats are only hauled up along the edge of the 
 river by a most laborious process which involves 
 hiring a whole tribe of men with a chief, or cata- 
 ract reis, at their head, to pull and haul, and even 
 then there must be a liberal distribution of bak- 
 shish before it can be accomplished. Assouan has 
 many points of interest. Here is the beautiful 
 island of Philae with its magnificent temples, and 
 the ancient Elephantine with its Nilometer. Here 
 come caravans from the desert, from the Soudan 
 and Abyssinia, bringing ivory and ostrich feathers, 
 
 weapons, amulets, dates and tamarinds, beautiful- 
 
 284 
 
t 
 
 
 -. 
 
 j 
 
Luxor and Assouan 
 
 ly woven and colored basket work, small monkeys 
 and captive hyenas ; while the bazaars are filled 
 with curiously wrought anklets, ivory rings, silver 
 ornaments, and whips of hippopotamus hide. 
 
 Outside the town is one of the largest outposts 
 of the Egyptian army, and here in a huge burning 
 sand-plain the English officers drill the awkward 
 fellaheen recruits until they make good soldiers 
 of them, who shall one day, under the leadership 
 of the English, reconquer the Soudan and rein- 
 vest Khartoum. Wadi Haifa is only an arbitrary 
 line drawn across the desert, from which it is 
 difficult to protect the attenuated strip of habita- 
 ble land which stretches for two hundred miles 
 between it and Assouan, but above is a wide 
 expanse of green and fruitful country, watered 
 by the many branches of the Nile, which is much 
 easier to defend and much better worth defend- 
 ing, and it is only a question of time when Eng- 
 land will assert her power here, and once more 
 control the headwaters of the Nile, for to control 
 these is to control the very life and existence of 
 all Egypt. 
 
 The first cataract at Assouan is a most disap- 
 pointing spectacle as a cataract, and were it not 
 for the men and boys who make diversion for the 
 tourists by shooting and swimming it, it would 
 hardly be worth a visit. In a lonely waste of 
 
 rough, barren country, without a habitation in 
 
 287 
 
The Edge of the Orient 
 
 sight, the river is forced into a narrow gorge 
 between great rocks, rounded and polished by 
 ages of the river's flow. Here at your approach 
 spring, apparently from the ground, dozens of 
 lithe-limbed, dark-skinned Nubian divers, ready, 
 for the hope of a few piastres, to hurl themselves 
 from the rocks into the torrent beneath, or to 
 shoot the rapids on big logs of palm wood, on 
 which they balance themselves as they paddle 
 about in the still water above the falls, waiting 
 for the promise of bakshish before embarking 
 on their swift passage. Dozens of little brown 
 bodies plunge into the waters, with a chug like 
 frogs from a bank, and clamber out below, and 
 come up naked, dripping, and smiling for piastres, 
 which they stow away in their cheeks ; and there 
 is something so fine and so fearless about the 
 bright eyes and shining faces of these sturdy 
 little river gods with their sleek, shining, bronzed 
 bodies, that they often come to your mind long 
 after you have left Egypt and the Nile behind and 
 returned to a civilization of top hats and patent- 
 leather boots, of stiff collars and frock coats, of 
 manners, customs, and amusements so much less 
 free and wholesome and refreshing that you some- 
 times wish that you could be, if only for an hour, 
 an unencumbered little brown Nubian with the 
 sun shining on your body, and the splashing 
 
 waters of the Nile rolling at your feet. 
 
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